Sacred Friendships Video Book Trailer 

Sacred Friendships: Celebrating the Legacy of Women Heroes of the Faith narrates the amazing stories of the lives and ministries of over fifty women in church history.

Learn more about Sacred Friendships as you enjoy the video book trailer where I share about:

• Co-authoring Sacred Friendships with Susan Ellis

• Why we need to learn about and from women in church history

• Who is the target audience for Sacred Friendships (Hint—women and men!)

• My favorite story from Sacred Friendships

Watch the video on our RPM Ministries YouTube Channel.

Visit our Sacred Friendships page to read a free sample chapter and learn how you can order an autographed copy of Sacred Friendships at 40% off.

Under the Power of Melting Grief: Margaret Baxter—Part 3

The Big Idea: By celebrating the legacy of women heroes of the faith, we learn how to speak Gospel truth in love. To learn life lessons from 52 women heroes of the faith, read Sacred Friendships, which is the source for today’s blog post. To read Part 1 of this mini-series, click here. To read Part 2, click here.

A Puritan Love Story

We learn not only from Margaret’s life, but also from her death. Most of what we know of her we glean from her husband’s memorial to her, written one month after her death. Baxter published it as A Breviate of the Life of Margaret, The Daughter of Francis Charlton, and Wife of Richard Baxter. Later, John T. Wilkinson reprinted it with the beautiful title Richard Baxter and Margaret Charlton: A Puritan Love Story.

Baxter prefaces his memorializing with the candid admission that it was, “. . . written, I confess, under the power of melting grief.” Knowing the likely criticism for such openness, Baxter continues, “. . . and therefore perhaps with the less prudent judgment; but not with the less, but the more truth; for passionate weakness poureth out all, which greater prudence may conceal.” According to Baxter, Christians, of all people, should be the most honest about pain. In our grieving, we should not conceal the truth of tears this side of heaven.

It was not simply the shock and nearness of Margaret’s death that left her husband so frank. Years later in his autobiography, Baxter expresses how his wife’s death left him “in depth of grief.” Interestingly, the original editor of Baxter’s autobiography suppressed this phrase. Fortunately, truer historians have uncovered it—for the benefit of all who dare speak the truth about sorrow.

Richard Baxter understood the truth that it’s normal to hurt—even for “full-time Christian workers.” His entire biography of dear Margaret is a tear-stained tribute to the affection they shared and the sadness he endured.

Mingled Hurt and Hope

Of course, Baxter also understood the truth that it’s possible to hope—for all Christians. Listen to his mingled hurt and hope.

“She is gone after many of my choice friends, who within this one year are gone to Christ, and I am following even at the door. Had I been to enjoy them only here, it would have been but a short comfort, mixed with the many troubles which all our failings and sins, and some degree of unsuitableness between the nearest and dearest, cause. But I am going after them to that blessed society where life, light, and love, and therefore, harmony, concord, and joy, are perfect and everlasting.”

Perhaps one reason why we practice denial is our fear that entering our grief might so consume us that we will be overwhelmed with worldly sorrow. Baxter’s Christian experience reminds us that this doesn’t have to be the case. We can look fallen life squarely in the eyes, admit the truth that it is a quagmire of pain and problems, and still live hopefully now if we also look toward life in our heavenly world to come.

In the last paragraph of his tribute to Margaret, Baxter succinctly combines these two realities. “Therefore in our greatest straits and sufferings, let us comfort one another with these words: That we shall for ever be with the Lord.” Shakespeare’s Romeo said, “He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.” Baxter might have added, “He fears facing scars who never embraces the truth that by Christ’s wounds we are healed.”

Join the Conversation

Like Richard Baxter, are you courageous enough and do you trust Christ enough to grieve greatly?

Margaret Baxter: Part 2—The Freshness of God’s Goodness and Grace

The Big Idea: By celebrating the legacy of women heroes of the faith, we learn how to speak Gospel truth in love. To learn life lessons from 52 women heroes of the faith, read Sacred Friendships, which is the source for today’s blog post. To read Part 1 of this mini-series, click here.

The Freshness of God’s Goodness and Grace

Having received God’s healing physically, Margaret cooperates with God’s Spirit in finding ongoing spiritual healing (forgiveness) and growth. Consider this covenant with God that she wrote upon her healing.

“. . . I here now renew my covenant with almighty God and resolve by his grace to endeavor to get and keep a fresh sense of his mercy on my soul, and a greater sense yet of my sin; I resolve to set myself against my sin with all my might, and not to take its part or extenuate it or keep the devil’s counsel, as I have done, to the wronging of God and the wounding of my own soul.”

Margaret perceives the horrors of her sins—they wrong God and wound her soul. She also recognizes the wonders of God’s grace—it is her fresh sense of goodness that motivates her to eschew evil.

Margaret is a master in the art of “devil craft” (using biblical principles to defeat the devil). “Though the tempter be busy to make me think diminutively of this great mercy, yet I must not, but must acknowledge the greatness of it” What a concise, precise account of the Devil’s grand scheme—to con us into thinking diminutively of God’s colossal grace.

Fixed on Christ

To her self-reconciling, Margaret adds self-guiding. She applies her theological understanding of her personal relationship to the Trinity to the issue of progressive sanctification. “. . . I am already engaged by the baptismal covenant to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to the Father as my God and chief good and only happiness; and to the Son as my Redeemer, Head, and Husband; and to the Holy Ghost as my Sanctifier and Comforter . . .”

What difference does this intimate relationship with the Trinity make as she battles besetting sins?

“All creatures . . . had nothing that could satisfy my soul . . . which should teach me to keep my heart loose from the creature and not over-love anything on this side heaven. Why should my heart be fixed where my home is not? Heaven is my home, God in Christ is all my happiness, and where my treasure is, there my heart should be. Come away, O my heart, from vanity; mount heavenward, and be not dead or dull if you would be free from trouble, and taste of real joy and pleasure. . . . O my carnal heart! Retire to God, the only satisfying object. There may you love without all danger of excess!”

Here we see a sample of the enduring Puritan tradition of avoiding over-much-love of the creature by passionately pursuing ever-increasing-love for the Creator, our only Satisfier, and the Lover of our soul.

An Artful Soul Physician

No wonder the master pastor, Richard Baxter, praised his wife as an artful soul physician.

“Yes, I will say that . . . she was better at resolving a case of conscience than most divines that ever I knew in all my life. I often put cases to her which she suddenly resolved as to convince me of some degree of oversight in my own resolution. Insomuch that of late years, I confess, that I was used to put all, save secret cases, to her and hear what she could say. Abundance of difficulties were brought me, some about restitution, some about injuries, some about references, some about vows, some about marriage promises, and many such like; and she would lay all the circumstances presently together, compare them, and give me a more exact resolution than I could do”

The Rest of the Story

Return tomorrow to learn from Richard Baxter about the death of his beloved wife Margaret: Under the Power of Melting Grief.

Join the Conversation

In facing sin in your life, what can you learn and apply from Margaret Baxter’s life?

Women of the Reformation, Part 2: Katherine Zell—Speaking Truth to Power

The Big Idea: By celebrating the legacy of women heroes of the Reformation, we learn how to speak Gospel truth in love.

More Faith Stories: Read Part 1 Don’t Bury Your Talent. To learn life lessons from 52 women heroes of the faith, read Sacred Friendships, which is the source for today’s blog post.

Katherine Zell: Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted

Katherine Zell (1497-1562) defended her right to minister in Christ’s name, though always doing so in a spirit of humility. Speaking of her relationship to her husband, she describes herself as “a splinter from the rib of that blessed man Matthew Zell.”

Matthew Zell was a celibate Catholic priest turned married Lutheran pastor. Marrying Katherine Schult, he found a life partner with courage and conviction. As she portrays herself, “Ever since I was ten years old I have been a student and sort of church mother, much given to attending sermons. I have loved and frequented the company of learned men, and I conversed much with them, not about dancing, masquerades, and worldly pleasures but about the kingdom of God.”

Protestant leaders concurred with her self-assessment. Church historian Philip Schaff noted that the well-known Reformers of her day who frequented her home said that she “conversed with them on theology so intelligently that they ranked her above many doctors.” The admiration and the ministry were mutual. “I honored, cherished and sheltered many great, learned men, with care, work and expense. . . . I listened to their conversations and preaching, I read their books and their letters and they were glad to receive mine.”

Speaking the Truth in Love

To her ministry in her home, Katherine added a public ministry—often in defense of her husband and their ministry. When Matthew was excommunicated for marrying her, opponents of the Reformation circulated the tale that she had caught him with their maid and that, when she protested, he had thrashed her. She published a refutation, saying, “I have never had a maid. . . . And as for thrashing me, my husband and I have never had an unpleasant 15 minutes. We could have no greater honor than to die rejected of men and from two crosses to speak to each other words of comfort.” Katherine exemplifies a rare and worthy-to-be-followed balance of confronting enemies while comforting loved ones.

In the same tract, she not only refutes this particular slander, but provides a vigorous defense of her ministry. “You remind me that the Apostle Paul told women to be silent in the church. I would remind you of the word of this same apostle that in Christ there is no longer male nor female and of the prophecy of Joel: ‘I will pour my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.’ I do not pretend to be John the Baptist rebuking the Pharisees. I do not claim to be Nathan upbraiding David. I aspire only to be Balaam’s ass, castigating his master.” Thus with wit and wisdom she offers shrewd biblical confrontation based upon the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers—male and female.

At her husband’s funeral, Katherine assures her listeners that she did not seek to become “Doctor Katrina” as rumor had it. “I am not usurping the office of preacher or apostle. I am like the dear Mary Magdalene, who with no thought of being an apostle, came to tell the disciples that she had encountered the risen Lord.”

It’s Normal to Hurt

Such courageous boldness might mistakenly cause us to think that Katherine was above suffering and grieving. However, the ceaseless criticism along with her overwhelming grief after Matthew’s death exposed her human neediness. Friends arranged for her to stay in the home of a pastor in Switzerland, and the renowned Reformer Martin Bucer sent a letter of introduction. “The widow of our Zell, a godly and saintly woman, comes to you that perchance she may find some solace for her grief. She is human. How does the heavenly Father humble those endowed with great gifts!” It truly is normal, human to hurt.

Even in her ongoing grief, Katherine ministers to others. In less than a year she was back in the parsonage in Strasbourg. To one of the displaced Protestant leaders she wrote, “I have been allowed to keep the parsonage which belongs to the parish. I take any one who comes. It is always full.”

Yet she was able to candidly admit that she still struggled. In a letter to two Protestant Reformers, whom she helped to hide from authorities, she apologizes for what she perceived as a lack of hospitality. “I wish I could have done better for you but my Matthew has taken all my gaiety with him.”

Out of Katherine’s grief, she was able to comfort other grieving wives, offering them both sustaining empathy and healing encouragement. At Kensingen in Breisgau, the minister was forced to leave by those enforcing the Edict of Worms against Luther and his followers. They evicted one-hundred-fifty men of the parish along with the pastor. One man was executed. The rest fled to Strasbourg where Katherine housed eighty in the parsonage and fed sixty for three weeks, while finding shelter and provisions for the rest.

Katherine pens a letter of scriptural exploration to the wives left behind. “To my fellow sisters in Christ, day and night I pray God that he may increase your faith that you forget not his invincible Word. ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord’ (Isa. 55:8). ‘Whom I make alive I kill’ (Deut. 32:39). The Lord would wean you from the world that you may rely only on him. Has he not told us that we must ‘forsake father and mother, wife and child’? (Luke 14:26). ‘He who denies me him will I deny in the presence of my father,’ (Matt. 10:33). ‘Those who would reign with me must also suffer with me’ (2 Tim. 2:12).

Katherine continues with healing words of spiritual conversation. “Had I been chosen to suffer as you women I would account myself happier than all the magistrates of Strasbourg at the fair with their necklaces and golden chains. Remember the word of the Lord in the prophet Isaiah (54:8) ‘In overflowing love I will have compassion on you.’ ‘Can a woman forget her suckling child? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you’ (Isa. 49:15). Are not these golden words? Faith is not faith which is not tried. ‘Blessed are those that mourn.’ Pray, then, for those who persecute you that you ‘may be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’ (Matt. 5:4, 44, 48).”

Katherine did not limit her soul care ministry to other women. In 1558, though ill herself, she ministers to Felix Ambrosiaster, the chief magistrate of Strasbourg who had been diagnosed with leprosy and quarantined. Her letter to Felix depicts a sensitive awareness of his level one external suffering. “My dear Lord Felix, since we have known each other for a full 30 years I am moved to visit you in your long and frightful illness. . . . We have often talked of how you have been stricken, cut off from rank, office, from your wife and friends, from all dealings with the world which recoils from your loathsome disease and leaves you in utter loneliness.”

Not stopping there, Katherine’s words also represent brilliant insight into his level two internal suffering—and how to face it with faith. “At first you were bitter and utterly cast down till God gave you strength and patience, and now you are able to thank him that out of love he has taught you to bear the cross. Because I know that your illness weighs upon you daily and may easily cause you again to fall into despair and rebelliousness, I have gathered some passages which may make your yoke light in the spirit, though not in the flesh. I have written mediations on the 51st Psalm: ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness,’ and the 130th: ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord,” and then on the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed.”

Bold to the End

One would hope that such ministry to others would always lead to ministry from others. However, Katherine’s last days were filled with strife and betrayal. Ludwig Rabus, a former resident in her home and indebted to her for spiritual counsel, preached against her, calling her a “disturber of the church.”

Bold to the end, Katherine responds with the light of truth. “A disturber of the peace am I? Yes indeed, of my own peace. Do you call this disturbing the peace that instead of spending my time in frivolous amusements I have visited the plague infested and carried out the dead? I have visited those in prison and under sentence of death. Often for three days and three nights I have neither eaten nor slept. I have never mounted the pulpit, but I have done more than any minister in visiting those in misery. Is this disturbing the peace of the church?” Like the Apostle Paul throughout 2 Corinthians, false accusations forced her to “the foolishness of self-defense,” but always for the purpose of defending a woman’s right to biblical ministry.

Her own words best summarize the nature of her lifelong ministry. In 1534, she issued a collection of hymns that she had compiled, publishing them in four pamphlets that sold for a penny each. Her ministry goal was to inspire lay people of all ages, all walks of life, and both genders toward greater spirituality. “When I read these hymns I felt that the writer had the whole Bible in his heart. This is not just a hymn book but a lesson book of prayer and praise. When so many filthy songs are on the lips of men and women and even children I think it well that folk should with lusty zeal and clear voice sing the songs of their salvation. God is glad when the craftsman at his bench, the maid at the sink, the farmer at the plough, the dresser at the vines, the mother at the cradle break forth in hymns of prayer, praise and instruction.” In all her ministry endeavors, spiritual equality in Christ motivated Katherine Zell.

The Rest of the Story

Return tomorrow to learn from Idelette Calvin how to live as a daughter of the King.

Join the Conversation

What does Katherine Zell’s life and ministry say about the role of women in the church today? 

Not Your Father’s Church History

Note: The following post originally appeared in Sacred Friendships: Celebrating the Legacy of Women Heroes of the Faith which tells the story of over fifty remarkable Christian women.

Listening to the Silenced Voices

For far too long, church history has been told as HIS-story. The strong, empowering voices of women have been silenced. It’s a sad pattern that we can trace back all the way to Hagar.

Fortunately, a fair and balanced narrative of church history shows that women have always spoken God’s truth in love to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth. For two-thousand years women have engaged in gospel conversations to minister to hurting and hardened people. It’s time for church history once again also to be Her-story.

Giving Voice to the Voiceless

When we think of the early church, our minds focus on the Church Fathers. Sadly, we normally fail even to consider the Church Mothers. Yet, these godly women heroically waged spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Their loses and their victories, their pain and their joy, their walk with Christ and their journey with one another are all an inheritance from which each of us are eligible to draw. There is a mighty company of gallant women believers from whom we can learn.

Vibia Perpetua: From Victim to Victor

Vibia Perpetua (181-203) heads that company. The early Church preserved her manuscript, The Martyrdom of Perpetua, as a martyr’s relic because it is one of the oldest and most descriptive accounts of death for Christ. It is also the earliest known document written by a Christian woman. Anyone who has ever suffered for the faith or has been oppressed by the powerful can carry on a conversation and feel a bond with Perpetua. In fact, in the introduction to her story, we read that she wrote it “expressly for God’s honor and humans’ encouragement” to testify to the grace of God and to edify God’s grace-bought people.

Of course, even reading the word “martyr” likely causes us to imagine that Perpetua was a spiritual “super woman” whose life and ministry we could not possibly emulate. The story of her life, however, demonstrates just the opposite.

The Story of Her Life

Perpetua lived in Carthage in North Africa during the persecution of Christians under Septimius Severus. At the time of her arrest in 202 AD, she was a twenty-one-year-old mother of an infant son. Born into a wealthy, prominent, but unbelieving family, she was a recent convert with a father who continually attempted to weaken her faith and a husband who was, for reasons unknown to us, out of the picture. Nothing in Perpetua’s situation or background prepared her for the titanic spiritual struggle God called her to face.

Perpetua, her brother, her servant (Felicitas), and two other new converts were discipled by Saturus. We learn from Perpetua of the arrest of all these faithful followers of Christ.

“At this time we were baptized and the Spirit instructed me not to request anything from the baptismal waters except endurance of physical suffering. A few days later we were imprisoned.”

A Light in the Darkness: Experiencing the Pain of Others

Perpetua candidly faces her fears and expresses her internal and external suffering.

“I was terrified because never before had I experienced such darkness. What a terrible day! Because of crowded conditions and rough treatment by the soldiers the heat was unbearable. My condition was aggravated by my anxiety for my baby.”

This very human woman exudes superhuman strength. In the midst of her agony, she empathizes with and consoles others. Her father, completely exhausted from his anxiety, came from the city to beg Perpetua to recant and offer sacrifice to the emperor.

“I was very upset because of my father’s condition. He was the only member of my family who would find no reason for joy in my suffering. I tried to comfort him saying, ‘Whatever God wants at this tribunal will happen, for remember that our power comes not from ourselves but from God.’ But utterly dejected, my father left me.”

The Rest of the Story

To learn what happens to Perpetua and her friends, read part two of Perpetua’s life in my next blog post: The Road to Hope.

Join the Conversation

Why do you think we have silenced the voices of godly women in church history?

The Martyrdom of Perpetua

A Compelling Ride: A Review of Sacred Friendships

Reviewer: Aaron D. Taylor

Sacred Friendships is truly a unique book. On the one hand, the book serves as a celebration of little-known women heroes throughout church history. On the other hand, the book reads like an instruction manual for pastors, lay people, and Christian counselors.

The intersection of the two themes makes for an interesting read, although as an individual outside of the Christian counseling world, I found myself more interested in the lives of the women themselves than the lessons that they provide for counseling. Having said that . . . I think that the themes of soul care (which is comforting the suffering) and spiritual direction (which is confronting sin and leading people to a relationship with Christ) is applicable to all Christians—and the women profiled in this book are certainly instructive in this manner.

The authors did an excellent job of combating the notion that women should be silent and bury their talent. Amazingly, they did it without delving into the theological controversy surrounding the role of women in the Church. Rather, they chose to let the women’s stories speak for themselves.

Some of the women profiled in the book were wives of famous men (like Katherine Von Bora Luther, Idelette Calvin, Sarah Edwards, and Susannah Spurgeon) and fulfilled their ministries by being a strong support to their husbands. Other women were known for courageously speaking out against social evils (like Octavia Rogers and Laura Haviland). Still others had very strong evangelism and discipleship ministries in their own right—including teaching men. The examples of Susannah Wesley, Perpetua, and Argula Von Grumbrach come to mind.

This wasn’t a conscious theme of the book, but one of the things that struck me while reading the stories of the women profiled in Sacred Friendships was something that many of them had in common. Many of the women profiled were from prominent families and willfully renounced a lifestyle of privilege in order to identify with and serve the poor. I think that anyone reading Sacred Friendships should take some time to reflect on what these women might teach us today about living a Kingdom lifestyle.

Another positive aspect of Sacred Friendships is that the authors took great care not to just make it about celebrating the legacy of white Christian women. I was very pleased to see African American women, Hispanic women, and a Native American woman profiled. As a missionary, I was also delighted to see a profile on Ann Judson (a famous pioneer missionary to Burma).

The . . . book made for a compelling ride. I highly recommend this book to anybody and everybody.

To read a sample chapter please click here.