124. Identity before Roles: Learning to Trust God

At the time this episode is airing, it’s December 26. Wherever this Christmas season found you—full of joy, quiet reflection, grief, complexity, or somewhere in between—I hope you were able to encounter God’s presence in a meaningful way.

Today’s episode is a little different.

I’m replaying the most listened-to episode of Curious for Christ of all time:
“Struggling to Trust God in Gender Roles,” a thoughtful and grace-filled conversation with author and evangelist Gordon Ferguson.

This conversation continues to resonate deeply because beneath questions about roles—whether in marriage, family, work, or ministry—there is something even more foundational:

identity.

Identity Before Roles

One of the clearest things God revealed to me this past year is this:

Before He builds anything through us, He builds something within us.

Identity is the foundation of everything.

When our sense of worth is rooted in productivity, performance, approval, guilt, or even “doing the right thing,” exhaustion eventually follows. Even good and godly goals can wear us down if they’re built on the wrong foundation.

Scripture reminds us in Psalm 127:1:

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”

If God isn’t the one building, sustaining, and leading—no amount of effort will ever feel like enough.

A Year of Shedding and Surrender

This past year was a season of shedding for me—unlearning patterns, expectations, and beliefs that had quietly placed distance between me and God. While that process wasn’t easy, I’m deeply grateful for it.

God gently reminded me of something simple and freeing:

I am first His child.
Not a role.
Not a result.
Not a résumé.

Jesus is enough.
God is enough.

As a woman, I’ve spent many years wrestling with who I thought I needed to be, how I thought I needed to show up, and what I thought faithfulness required of me. What God has patiently shown me is this:

Before anything else, I am His daughter—and I am deeply loved.

And whatever He places on my heart, even if no one around me sees it or understands it, I can walk in peace knowing that He does.

Why This Conversation Still Matters

That’s why I wanted to replay this episode.

Because when identity is rooted in God, roles stop being a burden—and trust begins to grow.

This conversation with Gordon Ferguson explores Scripture with depth, humility, and compassion, inviting us to step away from fear-based striving and into trust rooted in who God says we are.

I invite you to listen again—or perhaps for the first time—with fresh ears and an open heart.

Thank you so much for listening.

My prayer is that this conversation reminds you that God is far more interested in your faith than simply in what you do. As we move toward a new year, may your identity be deeply rooted in Him—and may everything else flow from that place of peace, knowing you are deeply loved.

Thanks for listening! Your support means the world. Join our Curious for Christ Facebook Group and become an Insider for weekly inspiration and encouragement on your faith journey.

Want to go deeper? Let's connect—set up a FREE Discovery Call today. See you next time!

Transcript

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Hi, friend. Thank you again for joining me on Curious for Christ at the time. This episode is airing, it's December 26th, and I hope you had a meaningful Christmas, whatever that looked like for you. Today's episode is a little different. I'm replaying the most listened to episode of Curious for Christ of All Time. Struggling to trust God in gender roles. A conversation with author and evangelist Gordon Ferguson. This episode continues to resonate so deeply because at the heart of questions about roles, whether in marriage, family, work or ministry is something even more foundational identity. Something God made very clear to me this year is this, before he builds anything through us, he builds within us. I'm gonna say it again. Before he builds anything through us, he builds within us. Identity is the foundation of everything. When our identity is rooted in anything other than God. Whether it's our productivity, our role as a provider, guilt, performance, or approval, we will eventually burn out. Even good goals can exhaust us if they're built on the wrong foundation. Scripture says it's so clearly in Psalm 1 27, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. In other words, if God is under one building, sustaining and leading, no amount of effort will ever be enough. This past year was a process for me of shedding, unlearning patterns, deepening expectations, understanding beliefs that were sitting between me and God. And while that process wasn't easy, I'm really deeply grateful for it. It was a lot of work. But then god reminded me that I'm first his child. I'm not a role. I'm not a result, nor a resume. Jesus is enough. God is. And as a woman, I've spent many years wrestling with what I thought I needed to do, what I thought I needed to be, and how I thought I needed to show up in order to be faithful. But what God has really shown me is that before anything else, I am his daughter and he loves me. And that's simple. And that's enough. And whatever he places on my heart, whatever he places on your heart, even if no one around you sees it or understands it, we can walk in peace knowing that he does. And that's why I wanted to replay this conversation because when identity is rooted in God, roles stop being a burden, and trust begins to grow. So I invite you to listen again or perhaps for the first time with fresh ears and an open heart. So here is our most listened to episode, struggling to trust God in gender roles. Gordon Ferguson is a graduate of Northwestern State University and the Harding School of Theology. With more than 50 years of experience, he has served as an evangelist, elder, and teacher. Gordon has written 18 books and produced many audio video teaching series. He and his wife Theresa, make their home in McKinney, Texas. For additional information about his work and ministry, you can go to his website, www.gordonferguson.org. Take a listen, Welcome to Curious for Christ. Do you ever find yourself lying, awake at night wondering about God's plan for your life? Maybe you wake up with big dreams, but feel unsure where to start or what your next step should be. If you're curious about exploring your faith and finding purpose, then you've come to the right place. Hi, I'm Alexandra. I too felt lost and sure of the direction my life was taking. I yearned to understand my purpose and have someone guide me, but I kept telling myself I was too busy. The timing wasn't right, and my lack of clarity prevented me from being consistent until I found Christ. He brought peace into my life and revealed the way to find purpose by anchoring myself. In him. In this podcast, we'll journey together exploring the Bible to gain a deeper understanding of him and cultivate your own personal relationship with Christ. So open up your Bible, put in those earbuds and listen up because God is speaking to you. He's making everything new and you don't wanna miss it. Let's get started. Gordon, it's so nice to have you. And thank you for taking some time of your Saturday morning to be with me. I read your book, the Bible in Women. How did I miss so much? And it was really revealing. It was incredible because my identity is Christ as the Bible says, but if we misunderstand, then our whole identity is shifted as well. And so we don't connect with our creator the same way. And so I really appreciate you diving deep into the scriptures, having this open heart and never ceasing to being a disciple learning and learning of God's will and being led by the Spirit. So thank you so much for that. Let me dive in into one pressing question that I have. You mentioned in your book that men and women were created to be the image bearer of God, right? And they were created in the midst of the spiritual battle. You say it's a conjecture that you have that perhaps that's why we were created. Can you explain a little bit more about that? The image of God is a very huge and broad subject. Basically we're made in the image of God because he wanted a relationship with us, and so be made in His image means that we're intelligent beings who have the power of choice and God wanted us to choose to love him and to have a personal relationship with him. And that is our very construction. If that be true, then we are to be as image bearers once we know him, because if we reflect him to other people, then they will be drawn to him as well. And so once I have a relationship with God, then I need to demonstrate. His nature as best I can to everyone else. But as you look at that, Adam was incomplete in that, which I'll explain a little more, but Adam was incomplete and fully, at least as fully as a human can, fully representing the image of God. He needed someone else. And a part of that was the battle you spoke of. But it's broader than that because as you look. At God's creation of humans, the broader the spectrum gets, the more attractive actually we can become. For example, Eve's created and then you have Adam and Eve who have a better image bearing possibility. I know my wife and I have been married for 59 years. And so I worked that into every conversation I can. And people are shocked. You've been married 59 years, and the common question is, how in the world did you do that? And so I get God into the conversation by saying that when we first got married, I was running from God, but he was faster than I was and he caught up with me. And so once my wife and I got together on the God thing, it changed everything. I get a chance to witness that way and the very fact that the two of us demonstrate something that's unusual, being married that long and still being madly in love to demonstrate that carries the image of God to a further extreme, it seems to me. And then you look in the Colossians and Ephesians in particular, and it says in Colossians that Jesus is the fullness of God in the flesh. Just looking at the Old Testament, you had a limited view of God, but when he became flesh, then we could identify with God and really understand him tons better and in the same way, just as Christ was the fullness of God. We are described in Ephesians as, and cautions as being as a church, the fullness of Christ. And so just as people couldn't fully understand God without seeing him in flesh and blood, people can't really understand Jesus until they see him in our flesh and blood. And the church is called the Fullness of Christ. So as you go from one person to a couple. That just gives us a better opportunity to demonstrate the image of God the Imago day. And then you look back at the original beginning in Genesis one and two, and I would say that Adam alone certainly could not represent the image of God in the way that he and Eve could together for one thing. God, by definition is Trinity. And so you have built into the nature of God relationship. And so Adam Malone didn't have relationships, so Eve completed that, and that gave a better representation of the image of God. And then also, God is not male. I know that the male pronouns are used because of the setting of the patriarchal system, but God is neither male nor female. He has all the qualities of both. And so we needed male and female to demonstrate the image of God. Both the male and female qualities that we normally associate with male and female. And God had that, Jesus had that. They both described themselves in the feminine and in the masculine and their characteristics. And so you had to have Adam and Eve to give a fuller picture of the image of God. Now, to your question, more specifically though, I think all of that's important. Very important actually. But then you get down to the battle. When you actually look at some of the passages that I included in the book there's a fierce battle going on way beyond what we typically conceive of. And so together Adam and Eve were much able, much more able to fight that battle. And as a married person, I know that I need my wife. There are battles I cannot fight alone. There are things that she helps me with that I'm unable to cope with, without her, and vice versa. And so the whole battle situation, when you look in all the passages that I referenced, there is a spiritual battle behind the scenes going on all the time. And I think God, in creating male and female as his image, the Imago de I believe in that he enables us to deal with Satan and to demonstrate something that this galactic battle is intended to demonstrate. And we're fully equipped when we work together, we're more equipped Exactly. Very nice. Thank you. You also mentioned in your book that to understand God's plan for women in the New Testament, it is best understood in the context of family, and you refer to Ephesians five, you do mention about the church, and so there's always this idea of God's family. Can you explain a little bit how, because that passage highlights more. The Roman code for the order of how things were at the time. So how can we understand God's intent and role of women within this context? If you have the Roman codes, it is very male centric. The males have all the authority over everything. Their wives, their slaves, their children, everything. And Paul, because that was such a popular thing and Paul was trying to redefine relationships spiritually, Paul took the household codes and turned them upside down. And so they're very different now. A lot of people go to Ephesians five and look at the wives being submitted to their husbands and everything, and they focus on that and talk about, see, the man is the leader and he's the boss, and all of that. And that just means we look at it without looking at the entire context. And so in the book, I just started at the end. He ends in chapter six of Ephesians. He ends with the slave and master relationship, and so of course he says that the slaves are to obey their masters, but he says you obey as you are obeying Christ. You do it from the heart, not because you're forced to do it. You have the opportunity to submit in a way that can influence your master if they're not a Christian. And so he talks about the slave obeying as he would obey Christ. It's a whole different perspective. And then in this same passage. He talks about the masters and he says Masters in the same way. Well, a master was never in the Roman codes addressed and telling him to do anything with a slave because a slave was property. They could be treated any way you wanted to treat them. And yet he says here. You do the same thing and recognize that God is your master as well as the slave's master. Both of you are servants. And so that's the real focus of the New Testament and of Jesus teaching is to be a servant. He said, the greatest of all is the slave of all, are the servant of all in Matthew 20. And so that's undergirding every relationship with God. Every relationship in Christ is undergirded with the idea that we are, first of all, and last of all servants. And so he starts off with the slavery thing. And then he goes to the fathers and children. He says, children obey your parents, which is always going to be right. But then he says, fathers train your children basically to know God, train them spiritually. That turned the codes upside down because mothers were viewed as the ones that raised kids, not the fathers, and yet he puts that responsibility on the fathers. And he says, train your children. And he doesn't distinguish between male children or female children. And back in the Roman days, the males got trained, but not the girls got trained by mom to cook and all of that, but they didn't get trained in the way of the Lord. And of course that is something that again, is very different now when you get to the male female relationship, he begins the whole house code. Code section in verse 21 will submit to one another. And so everything that he says from there on, whether it's a husband's relationship with his wife or the wife with a husband, or the children with the parents, the father, with the children, the slaves with the master, and vice versa. All of that is under the heading of submit to each other out of Reverence for Christ. And so it talks about the woman being submissive to the husband, but then he describes the husband being submissive to the wife in a way that to me is overpowering. I'll look at that and think, okay I can focus on my wife if I want to and what she should be doing, but I'm overwhelmed with what he says about the husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle, or any other blemish. Who, and blameless in this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. So all of Ephesians five is about being servants. About putting others ahead of yourselves. And it's not ordering relationships as to who is over whom. It's ordering relationships in the sense that we all are under. Christ and his authority. And so it's a beautiful passage that puts us all under great responsibility to count others better themselves. Ephesians two, and to serve one another, right? Thank you. And so in my relationship with my wife, we are trying hard to OutServe each other. My wife is much more naturally a servant than I am, but I have genuinely tried to imitate her. She's phenomenal. She has a gift of servanthood that's off the charts. I've never seen anyone with a better gift of servanthood than my wife. And of course, I, and many others have been the beneficiary of that. But I try to imitate her. I don't have the same gift that she does, but I do have a gift to be a servant, a responsibility to be a servant. And so those with responsibilities that are not quite as strong as someone with a gift, they have the gift so that we can imitate them. And that's what I try hard to do with my serving wife. Thank you. Yes. You mentioned about spiritual gifts, in your book as well. And at some point you mentioned that there was a conversation between ff Bruce, professor Bruce and Scott McKnight and Dr. Professor Bruce's conclusion was for whatever God's Spirit grant women gifts to do basically, and so can you explain a little bit about that concept about. Being by the Holy Spirit and using our own gifts, as you mentioned, right? You imitate your wife's gifts. I mentioned in my book that today the foremost authority on Paul is generally considered to be I got his initials mixed up now ad right? I think it is. Anyway, I might have that wrong, but he's the foremost authority on Paul. He is written massive books. I have several of them and probably altogether they're that thick. On Paul. Back in my day when I first started training theologically, ff Bruce was the Pauline expert. And there were two things that he said at least as he was quoted by McKnight. There two things he said. One is that Paul would be shocked if we were looking at these difficult verses about women. Like one Timothy two or one Corinthians 13 or whatever, or 11 and 14, but he said Paul would be shocked if he thought we were turning the writings of Paul into Torah, making them law, rather than just addressing a specific situation at a given place. Because the Bible was not written to us. It was written for us, but it was written to the recipients of those days that were facing certain issues within certain locales. And so he was addressing what he said to those locales, whether it had application in another, I don't know unless he mentioned it in another, but he was addressing specific issues and for us to take that and to make it a universal law. McKnight said that Paul would be shocked if we took his writings and made them into Torah. The thing that you referenced is that Bruce also said that as far as women and ministry and what they were doing in the church, that whatever the gifts indicated, then who are we to hold them back. It's a gift oriented thing. Not a gender thing. And when you look for example, at the gifts in Romans chapter 12, there's no indication that the gifts are gender oriented at all. And for example, to say that a woman may have the gift of servanthood and encouragement, but not have the gift of teaching and leadership, you can say that, but it's actually not true. It's not true in the Bible, and it's certainly not true in our relationships with one another. Today I know and have relationships with extremely gifted women of great teachers, strong gifts of leadership, and so there's no indication in those passages that gifts are to be in any way gender delineated. They're simply there. And especially when you start off when the church was established in Acts two, and he quotes from Joel two and says twice that women would prophesy. That was a foregone conclusion that was going to happen, and it did in the early church. And how we can look at that and say, that was back then, but now women need to be silent in church. That to me is shockingly bad. Ex of Jesus. Yes. And I love that final test that you write at the end of your book where you mentioned the passage of Philippians four verses two and three, where you changed the name into man's name. But actually it refers to your ate and I myself actually. Thought that definitely when we put men, oh, he mentioned these men because they're lead evangelists. They're talking about important matters. And when we mention women, it's emotional problems that they're arguing about. And so they were women lead evangelist in the first century church. Yeah. And I know a number of them. We go through Romans 16 especially, and show that these women are described in a way. That they had to be leaders in the Roman Church, and even one of'em is called an apostle, and I dealt with that and the wording of it and so forth. But certainly there were women leaders in the flipping four thing that I did or. Four. Yeah. Four. Four. The Flippings four thing is that we would look at these two women having a problem and assume that they were having some kind of a fight among women over nothing. And yet if we put men's names in the same passage, we would assume it was a theological issue and somehow Paul was trying to straighten that out. It would be odd for him to address simply some kind of a personal issue. And so I enjoyed doing that. It popped into my mind as I was writing that place. Yes, it be very revealing for sure. Good illustration. I think so, yes. You mentioned in your book that men and women were created. Genesis one patriarchy came actually, Genesis. Two chapters later showing that patriarchy is not God's first intent and that there's many consequences beyond even consequences towards women that patriarchy has caused in the world and it's overwhelming when you mention here, page 68, where you say the first murder, first of all, key's, violent murder of evil, but then widespread oppression, endless wars, genocide. Ethnic cleansing, massacre, holocaust discrimination, slavery, caste in class, racism, profiling, abuse to mention just a few. Can you just maybe a little bit talk about that and how patriarchy benefits No one truly. Yeah. Sometimes we've looked at Genesis three where San entered and God gave the consequences for that. We have looked at that and it says that to the woman that your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. We've looked at that as actually God's ideal plan, but it was found in the midst of consequences of sin that was never God's. And the problem with it is that after man ruled over a woman in the very beginning with Adam and Eve, once you introduced that ruling over someone having control and power over them, it spread to everyone, not just men over women. That, that's not even close to being the ultimate problem. It is men over men. It's always fighting for control. And so I have in the book the Miriam Webster dictionary's Definition of Patriarchy. And it's calls it a social organization marked by the supremacy of the father and the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line broadly. And here's the broad definition, controlled by men of a disproportionately large share of power. And so I went through the wars that we have had, and all the calamities and men are at the head of the line in leading all of that and causing all of that. And right now we've got two wars going on. But who's leading the wars? Who's started the wars? Who's in charge of the wars being in effect? And as men, and I think men and women were created equal, but once man. And he was larger. He was built to be on the battlefield and in the cornfield farming and all of that. So he's built larger and he can physically overpower someone smaller, whether it be a female or a male. But once that got started. The whole world has been saturated in it from then on, and millions of people have died in wars and just so much under the heading of patriarchy. Yeah. So we can, we have a choice to make and we can be part of the solution knowing the prompting of the spirit or just go with our. That system again. Thank you so much. And then you mentioned also egalitarians versus Complementarians, which was the middle ground. But then you really highlight that truly it is about servanthood. And you mentioned that earlier following Jesus is definitely that notion of being a servant and submit to one another. I don't know if you had anything more that you wanted to share about that. Two years ago, right now, actually today, on this date, I was in the hospital fighting for my life. I had cancer. I had a reaction to the chemotherapy, and so I was in the hospital and I thought I was going to die. Called the family in, got them, tried to prepare them for me dying, but lots of prayers and I didn't die. But one of the thoughts that hit me during the night was actually something a friend of mine said many years ago. He and I both were in schools, training ministers to different schools, but we became friends. But he said, you need to keep in mind that Jesus did not become a servant when he became a man. He became a man precisely because he is a servant. And so it hit me then that not only is God. The God of Gods. The Lord of Lords, the king of kings, but he is the servant of servants. And if in fact, the greatest of all is a servant of all Jesus, God has to be a servant through and through. And I really believe that he is. And so in Philippians, sometimes we talk about the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. But I think the higher calling is what I call the platinum rule, and that is to count others better than self. And that's Ephesians two. And he illustrates the principle by going on and talking about Jesus leaving heaven, coming down and being born as a man, and in fact, born in a very poor family and a very tough part of the world, and in a place that was generally looked down on Nazareth. And Jesus emptied himself and then went all the way up to dying on a cross as a criminal in our place. And so when you understand the servanthood of Jesus and that we're called to imitate him, then everything that I do. Whether it's in marriage or parenting or in a church or any other relationship, it has to have its very foundation. The idea of being a servant to everyone, counting them better than self and serving them, and so interesting. A lot of these thoughts hit me a little over a year ago. When I was asked to speak in a Western Elders Conference in Denver, and so one of the lessons was about evangelists and elders working together, and so many times we have different leadership roles, struggling a bit to really work together. It gets to be the patriarchy problem and poo's in charge here. And so I was doing this lesson and I came up with these quotes. Actually. Tom Jones is a very good friend of mine and we've both written a lot of books. We've been friends for years. He, at one time was the editor of DPI, where all of my early books were published. So he sent me two quotes during this conference I was speaking and the night before I was speaking, he said he had this thought and wrote it down and I said, this is destined to become a classic. The first one though, it was from a poet, a contemporary poet, Kalin Dion. But it says, power is not controlling other people. Power is controlling yourself. Trying to control other people is the first sign that you are entirely out of control. Controlling others is what weak people think power looks like. So Tom sent me that quote, but then he had one of his own, it popped into his mind, he said, but he wrote a book on humility one time. And I think this fits in well with the concept of what he wrote about in the book, but here's his quote. If humility is the key to the kingdom and no one enters without humility, patriarchy which is more associated with pride and control may bring to mind another camel. They cannot go through the eye of a needle. Wow. That's helpful. I said, Tom, I'll use that one. And what I ended up quoting then, in the same seminar when I was speaking, because we were talking about elders and evangelists working together, but I wrote this down and I later found it in the book by McKnight. The one that you quoted was Blue Parakeet, but his other book is called To the Church of to TOV. But anyway, the quote that I had was Team leadership. Cannot be successful long term unless we truly embrace what Jesus taught in Matthew 20 and refuse to fit it into the world's view of leadership. Talking about servitude, I personally think that these issues cannot be fixed without fixing what I believe is a distorted unbiblical view of women in both our physical and spiritual families. So that was the quote I made in that elders and Wives conference. And it did seem to resonate, especially with the women. That's great. Thank you so much for sharing all this, and I'm glad that you're well, definitely. I was one of the one praying I saw your, what you were going through and I will put in the show notes, your website. Could you tell us where to find you and when you speak or when you have a book coming out, I'll definitely put the link to this book about the Bible and women. What is your website and where can we find your attention? My, my basic teaching website is, gordon ferguson.org. It's very simple. And there are tons of articles on there, most of them by me. But now, and then I put one on by someone else that I think fits a particular need that I'm interested in. I had two Facebook pages. One is just Look Me Up, Gordon Ferguson. I am maxed out on that one at 5,000 friends, so I can't usually add anyone but here. Now someone drops out and so I can add somebody else. But then I have a another teaching webpage or a rather a Facebook page, and it's just Gordon Ferguson teaching ministry. So that one's open to everyone. It's a public domain. And so I, I do have a lot of things on that as well. So those are my main ones I think that people would be interested in tuning into. Very good. I will put the link in the show notes again, and thank you so much for your time. What a very invaluable time and insight. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thank you for having me on. It's been a privilege to be with you today. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. My prayer is that this conversation reminded you that God is far more interested in who you are becoming than simply what you do, and more importantly, that your faith grows. As we move toward a new year, may your identity be deeply rooted in him and may everything else flow from that place of peace and love. Next time we will see each other. It'll be January 2nd, 2026. I can't wait. Bye for now. Hi, I hope you enjoy today's episode. If so, would you like to take 30 seconds and share it with a friend who may also struggle with knowing God and his purpose for their life? Also, leave a review on Apple. Podcast and let me know what topics you'd like to hear about in the future. Your voice matters. I'll meet you back next Friday for another episode.