Let’s Talk Reunion: The Blessings of Bible Study with Friends

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Jackie Hill Perry
Okay, today is a very interesting day because usually next to me would be the person that I am one flesh with, Preston Perry. But he ain’t here and it ain’t because he went to glory. It’s because Jasmine Holmes is next to me. And Melissa Kruger is across from me. And we all used to be on this podcast called, We Need to Talk through TGC network. But now we all on We Need to Talk and With The Perrys. It’s a strange little thing. Hi, y’all, how you doing?

Jasmine Holmes
Good.

Jackie Hill Perry
You’re blessed? We have a project together coming out called What’s it called? Can someone put it up? Anybody? Ephesians, a study of faith and practice written by Melissa Krueger, Jasmine Holmes and Jackie Hill Perry. And it’s a Bible study on the book that is very difficult, very complicated, but very necessary and profitable and useful.

Melissa Kruger
Yep. Adopted by the father, united in Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

Jackie Hill Perry
Oh, that’s what the back says? It’s good stuff.

Melissa Kruger
Well, we forget we can always just read what we wrote.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yes.

Jasmine Holmes
Our podcast was called Let’s Talk.

Jackie Hill Perry
It ain’t We Need to Talk? That’s the tour Preston was on. I’m sorry. That’s all right. It’s the same thing. I need to talk let’s talk a little far removed. had been a bit of a fight. Yeah, that was a good time. It was fun. She was very pregnant.

Melissa Kruger
We’re actually together.

Jasmine Holmes
I know, when I was pregnant. I literally was having like war flashbacks on the way here, like the last few times when one or both of us was pregnant. I

Melissa Kruger
mean, how old are your youngest now to two. So it’s been two years.

Jackie Hill Perry
That’s crazy. Because you know, she was throwing up in between.

Melissa Kruger
She’d be like, Oh, hold on.

Jackie Hill Perry
Okay, preach the gospel. I said, this woman is suffering for Christ. Yeah, I don’t understand. She is out here. Which is nice eyebrows. Alright, so we wrote this Bible study together on Ephesians. I think the project was initially yours. Why Ephesians out of all 66 books,

Melissa Kruger
Lifeway came to us about or came to me about it. And I love the book of Ephesians. One because I like order. And it’s structured so nicely. Yeah, the first half of the book is all of these is imperative or indicative mutates teachers, it’s the you you’re the English person and take the indicative that lead us to the imperative. Yeah, that’s right. It’s imperative you do this. So the first half are all these indicative of what God has done for us in Christ, just like all the ways God’s blessed us, and then the whole second half is how we live in light of that what’s imperative that we do? Thank you, Jasmine for being here.

Speaker 2
Can you do the little bunny thing? The bear the bear?

Melissa Kruger
In the box,

Jasmine Holmes
the bear in the box? So I was an English teacher for a long time. Which, by the way, like, I’ve had so many people at my new job, they walk up to me, and they’re like, Oh, are you in? Are you in college around here? Are you in high school around here? And I’m like, Oh, my God. No, I was actually an education for 10 years. But as an English teacher, and the way that we taught prepositions was with a with a box is something that my teacher did did with me that I did with my students. But it was a little bear in a little box. And the way that you identify a preposition is any position the bear can be in with the box is a preposition. So like in the box, around the box, through the box, talking to the box, like all those prepositions. And it came up a lot in our study of Ephesians. Because it is basically a book that tells us how we are oriented to God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. There’s a lot of prepositions in Ephesians

Jackie Hill Perry
That’s right. Yeah, see, that’s the stuff. That’s the stuff I want to learn because I think I’ll be a better teacher, a better Bible teacher, because prepositions enacted I know what a noun is. I know what a verb is. I know what a period is. I know what the exclamation mark is. Semicolon. Yeah, not so

Melissa Kruger
not sure which time wins the dash. There are three dashes but with

Jasmine Holmes
a dash in anyone’s ever like girl, the

Melissa Kruger
hyphen is too much, many too many Matic it’s just like, yeah, we

Jackie Hill Perry
separated our teaching portions, which I think you’re talking about the orderly nature of Ephesians was helpful, because it’s six sessions. And so I think you had chapter one through two, you had chapter three and four, I had chapters five and six. Would you say that you enjoyed working through your particular chapters? Because I felt like our chapters fit even our approach to Bible study. You know,

Melissa Kruger
yeah, I loved working there, man. I mean, it’s just all the like goodness, but to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You As bas us in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in Christ, oh, I should have got another chapter one,

Jackie Hill Perry
verse three, bless it be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And he goes on for a really long sense. It’s

Melissa Kruger
the longest sentence of Paul in the scriptures. It’s like this one long run on sentence about everything God’s done for us in Christ by the Spirit. And so it’s just really beautiful to get into all those words. And so I did love I did love that section and just digging in because I think so often we spend our life on the here’s what you’re supposed to do, here’s how you’re supposed to be here’s what you walk in a manner where the the gospel which is all that’s great, but sometimes we don’t spend enough time just sitting in Remember, all of that’s an outflow of what’s been done and by God for you. So you’re just living in light of that. And that’s what it means. When God’s done that you had the bridge I

Jasmine Holmes
did I really enjoyed it. I liked having the connective part. I liked being able to talk about the Indicative name the imperative so to pick up in three

Melissa Kruger
just rolled those words I’ve used

Jasmine Holmes
it so now now I have it so much so yeah, I liked having the transition it really fit as Jackie said, like the way that I approach Bible study that very, I felt like I was just explaining a lot of very basic things in my section, which I really enjoyed. Yeah, I feel like you had Jackie had harder jobs than I had, especially with because Jackie had this the slavery

Melissa Kruger
good stuff you hate. Jackie at the

Jackie Hill Perry
beginning of Chapter Five is all fine. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love cool, we could do that. And then we get down Wives submit to your own husband’s acid to the Lord do we over here taught myself slaves submit to His my Oh, Lord. Now I got to explain slit slavery and New

Melissa Kruger
Testament it was all Jackie. So if you don’t like what we said it was all

Unknown Speaker
I just every last thing that I

Jackie Hill Perry
will say, I’m put the ball to court because that should have been your chapter. Actually. Jasmine is a historian. Okay. So if anybody should have been dealing with slavery in Ephesus, it should have

Melissa Kruger
been you. Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes
No. And here’s the household goals. Here’s why. Because I am a historian of antebellum reconstruction, America, which is very different from household colds, and slavery in the New Testament, when we think about slavery, as Americans in general, when you approach the Bible, as Americans, we approach it in a very self centered fashion, we think about it in terms that we can understand we think about it as though it was written in English, as was written in the 21st century. And so it was written about the American context, and it wasn’t. So I will say less about what slavery was in the New Testament context. And I will say that it wasn’t race based perpetual chattel slavery that we know of today. That is not to say that it wasn’t a difficult institution. That is not to say that it wasn’t an inherently cruel institution. That is not to say that it was all flowers and roses, and it was amazing. But they’re just two fundamentally different things, even though they both fall under the umbrella of slavery. So I think oftentimes, when I would describe myself as a historian of slavery, but that’s very different than from the slavery that we’re talking about in the Bible. And a lot of it is because we don’t know a lot about the slavery that took place in Rome. Yes. A lot of it is, you know, when I when I talk about slavery in American history, I have a lot of primary sources to look back on. I have I have eyewitness accounts. I have accounts from the enslaved in there and slavers. I have I have legislative accounts. I have all you know, I have Yeah, I have all kinds of cases and all kinds of things to look at. When it comes to this slavery that takes place in the New Testament. We don’t have as much information, I think there are still piecing it together, like

Melissa Kruger
written accounts from someone who was a slave in the first century. I mean, I mean, I’m sure there are Yeah, yeah, that’s, yeah. We just got

Jackie Hill Perry
interesting got to do the work. Yeah. And discovering it and making sense of it. Yeah. Have you like even because what school do you go to?

Unknown Speaker
Oh, what college? Jackson State?

Jackie Hill Perry
Have you? You probably have but if you have Have you ever had any conversations with people that don’t rock with the Bible because of what’s

Jasmine Holmes
in Ephesians? I haven’t had any conversations with people who don’t rock with the Bible because of what it says about slavery in Ephesians. But I have had conversations with people who don’t like the Bible because of what it says about slavery in Leviticus Yeah, what it says about women in the Old Testament, or what is it? Yeah, so it’s less Ephesians is probably the least controversial place that slavery comes up in the Bible, which is really interesting, because it felt very controversial when we were talking about who I

Jackie Hill Perry
knew, in broaching these texts that I needed to be sensitive to how they’ve been used, and therefore how they could be understood and applied. And I think knowing that made it just, it just made it complicated to a certain degree, where I wanted to communicate what Paul might be saying, but open it up enough to give us freedom to feel our emotions as we read, because I think that’s fair and legitimate to say that there are some passages in the Bible that make us feel a way, right. Like when I read about lat giving his daughters to these nasty people, I feel a way about it. When I read about Abraham, giving, like making somebody his concubine and making them make her pregnant without her consent. I feel a way, right. And I feel like sometimes we make it as if we’re supposed to read the Bible like robots, and not feel our feelings. But like, what if that’s actually a part of our interpretive process? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I know, people are like, Yeah, but explain, explain these texts, get the Bible study,

Jasmine Holmes
get the Bible. Because you know, Jackie did a great job. And again, if you don’t like it, those were dragging chapters. So

Jackie Hill Perry
I gave you resource I gave you probably what you got primary sources. I gave I gave resources. And in my study of these passages that weren’t from one stream, or one tradition, right. And so let me consider the scholar scholarly work of a egalitarian and complementarians. Let me consider the scholarship of people who are not primarily reformed and European, right, like, because the way their worldview will affect the way they interpret these texts. And so

Melissa Kruger
well, I think she highlights, people pull one verse out, and then they make a whole system out of it. Or they justify maybe a system out of it, whatever it might be, like, like, Ephesians? Five, yes. Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah. So husband could say I have every right to beat my wife, because she was an obedient crazy. One. That’s not what the text says. Yeah, by any means. That’s not what he’s telling husbands. Do he’s ever telling husbands make your wife submit? Yeah, that’s, that’s not what the text says. But you see how if it’s pulled out, if you forget one through three, we’re never going to interpret four through six. That’s good correctly. That’s good. You know, and so and it’s just fascinating, too, because when you read those passages, even about children, and their parents, and men and women and all of these things, and then he gets to the very end, and he says your your struggle is not with flesh and blood, you know, it’s actually this spiritual power that’s going on. So it’s like, it starts in the heavenly realms, and ends in the heavenly realms. So we have to read the whole thing. Yeah. Or we’re going to misinterpret those little parts and take them out of context and use them wrongly Yes, and all of that.

Jasmine Holmes
I also think it’s interesting to note that it doesn’t start with interpretation. 99% of the time, it starts with, I want to do this thing. And I need justification for it. So then I’m gonna find justification for it. It’s very rarely, oh, I was reading the Bible. And I was trying to think of like, I want a country. Let’s call it America. And let’s make it a Christian nation. And let me look and see up slaves obey your masters. Well, kind of go to Africa. Like, that’s not what happened. Yeah. So I think, I think a lot of times people blame the Bible for being used by people who are have already decided what they’re going to do. And then retroactively, or like, and also the Bible says this,

Melissa Kruger
which it actually says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And that’s normally and so they’ll, they’ll use the Bible, they’ll take something that’s good. And use it for evil normally to achieve. Let’s just say a lot of times monetary ends, it worked. Right? I mean, this is the bad news about a lot of things, we’ll use something that’s good to perpetuate evil. Because we have an evil design behind it. Yeah. And that’s, that’s what you see. So it’s like you have to actually read again, not just even Ephesians But the whole storyline of Scripture to even understand all of those Old Testament stories. All of these messy lives are pointing us to our complete need of Christ to come in and remedy the situation. So they’re not like we shouldn’t be like that, but someone could try to make it like that. Yeah. Oh, why did this so I got David had all these wives. Yeah, so why cannot have All these wise, and yeah, we have to we have to actually learn how to study scripture. So one question for for you all, as you were writing, what are some of the tools you use to study the Bible? Well, like how do you go about starting the process of working on a Bible study? Like what what do you do? What helps you study? Like? Yeah, because we’re not you don’t have to be a Bible teacher where to study the Bible on your own.

Jackie Hill Perry
So what about you, Jasmine Holmes?

Jasmine Holmes
Let’s see. What did I do? I read Ephesians over and over again, that was the first thing that I did. I read, I read it all through in one city. And then I read one chapter every day. And then I went back and I read one chapter every week. And then I went back and like, I just really spent a lot of time in it, a friend of mine, and I, which is kind of getting ahead of where we’re going in this conversation. But we read it together. So then we kind of bounced off of each other like ideas, you know, this is what I got from him today. This is what I understood from it today. Not all of us are seminarians who are trained to study the Bible, with the level of excellence that Jackie has been trained to study the Bible passages time you here to just kind of show people like, hey, the everyman can do this to listen,

Jackie Hill Perry
I took one hermeneutics class yet, I didn’t learn from sitting on a good purchase. So

Jasmine Holmes
yeah, that’s what I did. And then of course, you know, I mean, you look at commentaries. And again, I had a very, I had a very easy job in the writing of this Bible study. And so I feel like I have less of a less of a research need than say, Jackie, and then less of a what’s the word that I’m looking for? Study of Trinity? Christ,

Jackie Hill Perry
God, union? Macross? Yeah, yes.

Jasmine Holmes
I knew that that groundwork was something that you had already laid in your first two chapters. So really, I was like, Okay, I have a really simple job of I just want to understand exactly where we are. And I want to make sure that I’m tying the orthodoxy of the first three chapters to the orthopraxy of the second three chapters. And so I saw myself as kind of like, linking that I did a lot of reading over and over again, that’s actually

Jackie Hill Perry
kind of hard. I know. Because you would need to get a sense of all of it, to know how to like, do it. Well, yeah. But

Jasmine Holmes
it was nice. Because when I would read all of it, and I’d be like, Oh, that’s confusing, or oh, that’s something that kind of made me hesitate a little bit. I’d be like, well, that’s not my problem. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
but you have, I think one thing that I always appreciate about you, Jasmine is you have years of growing up in a home where the Bible was taught, and it’s really been. Yeah, I can just see how it impacts your study what you think is easy. Someone else might not think that is easy. So yeah, just as easy. So I do think it’s just, it always gives me a lot of hope, of like, as we’re raising this kids, they really are picking up on things, we think they’re not picking up on anything some days. But like the Bible stories that we teach them along the way, are setting the foundation for them to be able to study the Bible, just by reading it to them over and over and over again. One day, they’re gonna get to Ephesians and be like, oh, yeah, well, I know about that dividing wall. And you know, because I’ve studied the Old Testament, right? And you have all that, whereas somebody who’s maybe new to the text would come in and be like, What are they talking about? What’s this dividing wall of hostility? What does it mean that Jews and Gentiles are now like, what? They wouldn’t get the significance of that? But I just think it’s really beautiful how, all those years of just having the Bible in your home? Yeah, they really do impact our Bible reading as adults. That’s

Unknown Speaker
actually very encouraging, very disoriented,

Jasmine Holmes
because normally people are disappointed with how it turned out. Thank you. Thank you.

Jackie Hill Perry
I think my approach is similar. I read and listened to Ephesians a lot to just get a sense of the rhythm of the tone, all the things I also eventually started to listen to a series that Alistair Begg had on Ephesians, which I’m slow to do or even advocate for. Because I think sometimes another person’s thought process or framework or perspective can influence your ability to just come to a text objectively. But his I think I know enough now to not be so bound by someone else’s view, if anything, he would say things I was like, I don’t think we should frame slaves obeying masters like, you know, workers obeying bosses. I don’t necessarily think that that’s fair to Ephesians right. So I read it, listen to series and then I just did a lot of work, finding Scarlet scholarly academic resources that were outside of the typical camp that talks the most about Ephesians five and six. Even when it comes to Ephesians six. It’s like Now we need to dig in. We need to learn from our charismatic and Pentecostal brothers and sisters when it comes to spiritual warfare, right? Because the way they will approach this passage, I think gives justice to the reality that there is a real devil and demons that hate us. That’s it. So why why you? I

Melissa Kruger
printed it out? I like to print it out. Just totally clean. Yeah, I don’t want anything around it. And I do like and I printed it out in multiple versions. Yeah, each person says,

Jackie Hill Perry
Thank you are wealthy? No.

Melissa Kruger
I know, but my password is worth it.

Jackie Hill Perry
Hey, you ascribe.

Melissa Kruger
I’ve purchased it out because I like, I like to just have it clean and just read through it again and again and again and again. But I will say this, it’s funny, you read through it all this times. And I can say, without a doubt when the three of us got together. So this study is a little different than what Lifeway normally does. So normally, it’s gonna be a teaching time or whatever. With that, since the three of us talking, and I was so glad when library agreed to that, because it was one of the things that was helpful for I think there’s something that happens when brothers and sisters get together and just talk about the word together. So I had studied on my own for weeks, yeah, and just studied and studied and even read other people and all of that. But I still remember things, especially in chapters five and six that I took away that I learned from YouTube, I just had I thought about it differently, because we studied it together and community. Yeah. And so one thing we’ve talked about a lot is the power of the spirits really at work while we study together, that the word does the work as God’s people meet, and kind of feast on it together. So has there been a time in your all’s lives where you really experienced that we’re studying the Bible, together with other people made it come alive for you in new ways. If you felt that experienced it

Jackie Hill Perry
all the time, I think on a, like a micro level, he would just be impressive. You know, like me reading something and sharing that with him. And then him adding a perspective on it that I didn’t think about, or me and friends or me in a small group. I think that’s harder now because I’m in a church context, that doesn’t have that kind. Well, I’m not a part of that kind of community yet. But when I was in Chicago, we were in a house church, you know, so that was our life is opened up opening up the Bible and talking about it to the point that I got rebuked a couple of times. And that trained me because we had a Bible study Long story short, and I realized that I’m not safe if I’m rushing a teaching. So I had to rush I just kind of did this, like studying commentary across Canada. And I taught during the Bible study, and I taught some stuff that wasn’t true. But they checked me in front of everybody. It was like, wow, I don’t think that’s the and I like it. But it trained me to pause and do due diligence with the text before I ever opened my mouth. So even like doing what, like studying the scriptures and community also trained you how to handle it correctly, you know, and I always appreciate that. Yeah, puke?

Melissa Kruger
What’s also good. I remember years of doing a Bible study with people. And I learned what a bad question was. Because when you ask a question, and it’s like crickets in the room, you’re like, Well, that was a stupid question. There’s nothing better than by failing. I think okay, I think it’s not like a bad question, but maybe not the best question. What a yes or no answer in a small group. Okay. I think that’s a bad question. If Jesus is the answer, I’ll be honest, I think Jesus raised from the dead. Yes, yes. Yeah. Rather than, Hey, what are the implications that Jesus raised for the dead? Why does that matter in our life? Now we can have a conversation, right? But you know, when you ask yes or no, I even think, look, I think observation questions in a Bible study when you’re doing it on your own at home. I think that’s great. I think in a small group, you know, to ask the observation, question, who did Jesus talk to who did? Yeah, you’re like, the disciples, okay. It’s a little rather than let’s go ahead and say, okay, so Jesus was talking to his disciples, how did he talk to his disciples different than he talked to the Pharisees? That’s an interesting question. It is, you know, and so but ask why are you good at that is one of the bad questions because I asked a lot bad questions for a lot years, ya

Jackie Hill Perry
know, I feel like people like y’all, who got that teaching spirit, like in school teaching spirit. Like, I feel like teachers who teach in institutions, y’all. It’s a practical approach that y’all have to stuff that when you didn’t put that like into some Bible stuff, I like it

Melissa Kruger
when we talked high school and middle school. So you know, they are going to look at you like you’re crazy. If you ask a question that they can’t answer sometimes even if you ask, yeah, a good question, you’re not gonna be nice to you like, You’re crazy. Yeah, they’re not gonna

Jackie Hill Perry
question. Do you think there’s a difference between? I know that there is? So let me rephrase the question. What would be the difference between teaching the Bible to a group of teens versus teaching the Bible to a group of women in their 20s 30s 40s? Like, what is the approach? Different? If so, how? Is the I tried to leave it open? Thank you. Good.

Jasmine Holmes
That’s good. Um, my approach is always different teaching adults versus teaching children or teenagers, I do feel that with women, often we can get very, I want to be so careful. I’m

Jackie Hill Perry
sentimental, not

Jasmine Holmes
sentimental. I think that we can get very into how is this practically gonna apply to my life? So I’m trying to get in, I’m trying to get the practical application and I’m trying to get out. And we’re like, how is it gonna apply to me finding a husband? Or how is this gonna apply to me? Being able to get married or having a part of me having children? Or how’s it going to pay me and my relationship with my husband? Like, it’s very, getting into the trying to contextualize it into life immediately? I think with when I’m with younger people, they’re a lot more interested in going off on all of the rabbit trails and like, what does this mean? And how come and it’s also before they’ve gotten to the age where, as Christians, I do think that we learn really bad habits sometimes. And one of them is to shut down the questioning, to just be like, Oh, no, don’t like the way that made me feel. So I’m gonna bypass it. And so teaching teenagers, they haven’t got that that bad skill down yet until they’re not bypassing the question that you’re not supposed to ask. And I really enjoy that.

Jackie Hill Perry
Let’s go. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
they’re so curious. Yeah. I like that, like approaching it with curiosity. I’ll say this. When is younger teens like 12 or 13? I think there’s some differences. But as they get older, the one thing you’re my daughter will tell me, she’s 17 now, and she’s like, Oh, I don’t like the questions. And those team Bible studies. They always dumb it down for us. So they really what I would say they don’t like they like what you’re doing. You’re taking them like on a journey. Let’s see, what’s the text really saying? You’re? You’re expecting more of them. What they hate is when you dumb it down for them? Yeah, yeah. So in that sense, like, I think they just don’t like it when it’s, you know, I mean, she hates it when it’s pink, and it’s got big lettering, and it’s a girl’s Bible says she wants it to be like, make her think. And so I think both should it shouldn’t just be how’s it gonna impact how I live? It should be how do I think about God differently? How’s that gonna, you know, how do I come to this? I don’t understand what the Bible saying differently. How do I understand the whole universe differently? Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s a bigger question. And I do think sometimes, in our Bible studies, we don’t want to go there. And go ahead and ask the hard question. Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes
And take the time and take the Yeah. Also, I am I am women. And so I to just be like, I’m here, but I’m my mind is all these other places. So how does this relate to all the other places? Yes, it is. And not necessarily let me put all the other places to the side and then approach. Just the word.

Melissa Kruger
Yes. Yes.

Jackie Hill Perry
So you both are communicators, mothers, teachers, Christians, women, drinkers of coffee and tea. And you also just our recently has your yonder comme de been released? No, September, September, and parenting with hope,

Melissa Kruger
just like two weeks ago. Okay.

Jackie Hill Perry
So tell tell us about the books with let us know. You go first. Okay, would they be so

Melissa Kruger
parenting with hope is parenting with her raising teens for Christ in a secular age? So it’s kind of on the journey of being the parent of a teenager. What it is not is how to get your teens to do what you want. That’s not what it is. It’s it’s much more

Jackie Hill Perry
it’s not a book for like narcissistic parents. Yeah. To help people not be that yeah,

Melissa Kruger
I feel like I kind of hit every idol like I didn’t like me as I wrote it at certain points because I really tried to attack our idols as parents. And so I was like, oh, yeah, when you start talking about sports culture and parenting, you know, it’s gonna get AND or OR college and All these things that we kind of obsess about when kids get to the teen years, I really wanted to address what I was seeing in my own heart on those areas and what it can do to our kid. Because if I’m viewing my teenager, as a curated version of myself, that is just never gonna go well for them. It’s not gonna go well for a relationship. Basically, I’m trying to make them and I’m the god and I’m trying to make them into my image, rather than saying, who did God make you to be? That’s good. And let’s like, let’s, I get to be part of that I get to walk through that with you, rather than kind of trying to put you in my box. That’s the me box.

Unknown Speaker
It’s called investment. Oh,

Melissa Kruger
oh. Okay. So we don’t want to do that. No, no. Instead, we get to, you know, I just I loved I have loved parenting teens, I will say that. I have loved watching them, my three kids could not be more different. And I am amazed, you know, how the Lord grows them in ways that we can’t control? I think I’ve come more into some of it is there going to be who they’re going to be? So I can’t control what they do, necessarily, but maybe we have some impact on how they approach the world, like the love, we give them the kindness, the fruit of the Spirit in our homes, impacts how they will view the world. So it’s not about like, what, you know, will they will they do this job or that job or whatever, so much, but maybe they will look at it a little differently, because they were in this incubator of love for 18 years. And I think it changes how they go out into the world. I hope it does. Absolutely. Anyway, what about you?

Jasmine Holmes
Um, my book is called yonder comme de and it is actually had I had an editor bail on a proofreader bailed on reading it recently, because it is about American chattel slavery, and they were like, I just wasn’t expecting it to be this intense.

Jackie Hill Perry
Well, I mean, it sorry.

Jasmine Holmes
But it’s also hopeful. So it centers around this group of narratives, called the WPA narratives that were acquired in the 1930s. As part of the New Deal, a bunch of interviewers went to 17 Different states, and they interviewed 2500 formerly enslaved people in the 17 different states, and they got their life stories from them. And some of them are really detailed, and some of them are less detailed. Some of them you can tell the interviewer was really just like riffing. And some of them you can tell that the interviewer was actually like listening to the interviewee. And, and some, you know, it just it depends if the interviewer is a woman, or if it’s a man, or if it’s a black person, or if it’s a white person. And so there’s all of that kind of like push and pull in, in the narratives. And so my book kind of brings together a lot of the stories in the narratives into a composite story of a main character who just experiences slavery from childhood and enslavement to eventual emancipation to being an elderly person being interviewed for the web narrative. Wow.

Jackie Hill Perry
That’s clever.

Melissa Kruger
I can’t wait. So I can’t wait to read

Jackie Hill Perry
it accomplished. No, yeah. We’re like making disciples through history through parents and stuff. I was just so honored. It’s a blessing. Thank you guys.

Melissa Kruger
And well, I mean, not you but the person who’s roaming on the couch, do you want to talk about him? So

Jackie Hill Perry
Preston has a book Yeah. called How To tell the truth how the Lord. The Lord saved me to win hearts and not arguments. And you know, Preston, ever since I’ve known Preston, that man has been an evangelist is just that’s just what he does. That’s what he how he breathes. But I think one of the things that sets his resource apart from a lot of other apologetic resources is that it’s not all intellectual, or even around the subject of reasoning, but being like, how can you be Christian as you engage non Christian belief systems? So I

Melissa Kruger
told my Uber driver about him on the way over here, did you she was her nephew has just become a Christian. We got talking because I was saying when we were doing this podcast, and I was like, what you’re doing the podcast about I was like visions. And she said, Yeah, my nephew just became a Christian and basically, he’s trying to share with all of his friends and they’re all rejecting them. And she’s like, so I need the name of your podcast so you can listen and I she said, Well, he needs listened to with the Perry’s he needs to hear from Preston. That’s funny, because he’s so good. Yeah. I just love watching. I love watching you watch him.

Jackie Hill Perry
Because we were so different. Yeah. Similar, because I do I remember I came to the realization that I’m I do apologetic work to it just isn’t his kind, you know? And so it felt like oh, the Lord put us both together. Yeah, you love him. Anyway, bye. Thank y’all for joining us for Western wasn’t easy because everything’s Oh, I’m sorry go ahead because she made me. She made she made me blush she made the anxiety flare up a little bit.

Melissa Kruger
Okay, last favorite thing, since it’s sort of a Let’s talk. It’s a hybrid episode. Favorite thing? You’re looking forward to the summer?

Jackie Hill Perry
Check Jackie’s birthday, June 21. I’m turning 35. That feels like significant. I feel like is that middle age? Less 45

Melissa Kruger
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker
what’s the Middle Ages

Melissa Kruger
way older.

Jackie Hill Perry
Older, I’m just gonna wait. 35 is like Oh, I’m finna be one and people get the lung knick fan. You know when they in church because the hot flashes

Unknown Speaker
comes really good though.

Jackie Hill Perry
It’s practical. Yeah, I love that. But that’s what I’m looking for. 35

Melissa Kruger
is my birthday. I can do anything fun.

Jackie Hill Perry
I’m in between because I can sometimes live and this is honestly live in a place of self self exaltation or self loathing. And so I’m like, oh, no, I really cares. So I don’t know what I’m doing. So I will see you here. Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye, you.

Jasmine Holmes
I don’t know. I am looking forward to Oh, to being done with my classes. Yeah, I might take one over the summer because I don’t have any self control. But I will take three over this. I

Speaker 2
want you to rest the summer. Three is crazy. Every night. I go to bed. No you don’t. Yeah, you

Jackie Hill Perry
close out it’s

Melissa Kruger
summer is my least favorite season is actually yeah, hot.

Jackie Hill Perry
So hot. Yeah, like the free. Well, I feel like Christians will have freedom in any season. Like when you work in ministry this summer is still a little busy.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. Yeah. It’s still busy. Yeah, but I am like unfortunate. My My daughter is getting married this summer, which is crazy. And we love the guy she’s marrying. So that is really fun. So it’s gonna be a real hot wedding. But

Jackie Hill Perry
I’m looking forward to you measure you make sure you get you some good setting spray. So good primer. So you will start

Unknown Speaker
and one of those neck bands

Unknown Speaker
come with a neck. Sounds good.

Melissa Kruger
That’s what you should have got me for

Jasmine Holmes
your birthday. Also, my birthday was two weeks ago. On April 7,

Jackie Hill Perry
happy birthday, Jasmine. I’m so sorry.

Jasmine Holmes
I have no problem letting you know it’s fine. She

Jackie Hill Perry
Oh, you’re like we care about your birthday mean. Wow. I didn’t know. Yeah.

Melissa Kruger
Truffle honey.

Unknown Speaker
How did you turn

Unknown Speaker
3434 34 What did you do? At a party? birthday party?

Jackie Hill Perry
Oh, yeah, put this on Instagram.

Jasmine Holmes
I had friends come over. I have pictures of the food because I cooked for my party.

Melissa Kruger
Of course she did.

Jasmine Holmes
It wasn’t cooking. It was charcuterie that’s not clicking but I did look at your bread. And it was really nice. The doorbell kept ringing and I was like I have friends!

Jackie Hill Perry
Well, it was it was it was special to create this resource with you guys and to do what did we do three seasons of let’s talk and you know, have all the laughs and the high highs but also the way in the the depth of communicating truth through the lens of Jesus. So thanks for being on my couch and all the stuff.

Jasmine Holmes
Not you being sentimental again.

Jackie Hill Perry
Cut it out. We love you too. Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.