Join Cohosts April Fruchey & Estie Woodard as we bring the Biblical perspective to the growing trend of the Homestead Lifestyle. Shining a light on ideals in the movement that are Biblical as well as some cautions for motives that may deter from the Scriptures.
We discuss the importance of being 'salt and light' in our communities, as Matthew 5 encourages, and the delicate balance of safeguarding our families while engaging with the world around us. Together, we dissect the dangers of fear-based decision-making and the impact of social media on our Christian testimony, reminding us to align our actions with our faith and God's purpose.
Join Cohosts April Fruchey & Estie Woodard as we bring the Biblical perspective to the growing trend of the Homestead Lifestyle. Shining a light on ideals in the movement that are Biblical as well as some cautions for motives that may deter from the Scriptures.
We discuss the importance of being 'salt and light' in our communities, as Matthew 5 encourages, and the delicate balance of safeguarding our families while engaging with the world around us. Together, we dissect the dangers of fear-based decision-making and the impact of social media on our Christian testimony, reminding us to align our actions with our faith and God's purpose.
Hello and welcome to Simpliadify's podcast. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through biblical studies, personal stories and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily. Thank you for joining us in our episode today. Hello all, we are starting our new series on current topics in our Christian realm. The first one that we're going to address is this homestead movement that is very popular in Christian circles and even non-Christian circles really, and we're going to just talk about pros and cons biblical, not biblical kind of address it from that perspective. What about it is biblical? What do we think is not biblical? What could be potential issues with it?
Speaker 2:Now, if you are a stay-at-home sourdough baking woman of Jesus, don't tune us out, because you're not attacking you, I promise.
Speaker 1:For sure. No, because I just made sourdough homemade bagels this morning. Oh man, that sounds really good. Oh yeah, I've been trying for the past month on Saturday mornings I'll make sourdough bagels and I'm trying to get the perfect recipe. Some of them are a little too dense and, yeah, today's were pretty good anyway.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I was actually thinking about trying to make bagels today, but gluten-free ones for my daughter. Oh yeah, that could be tricky, yeah, but I'm going to try it for her. We're going to try. Yes, we are very much for aspects of this whole movement and, truthfully, it's more of just a return to basics, right.
Speaker 1:Right, right. And so let's just dive right into the pros. We are pro-mama taking care of her family. That is biblical. We have some verses on that. I'll just read a few just to kind of let us know where this is coming from, right?
Speaker 1:So first, timothy 5.14,. I will, therefore, that the young women marry, bear children, guide the house, give it on occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. And then Titus 2.3-5,. The Asian women likewise. That they be in behaviors, become a holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things. That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chase keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands. That the word of God be not blaspheme.
Speaker 1:So, and I have, you know, a list of other ones that we were looking at in research. And so, yes, obviously we know that the biblical mandate for mothers is to care for their home, to care for their children, to care for their husbands. That is, for sure, biblical. And if you are not doing that, if you are slacking in those areas and kind of farming your responsibilities out, maybe a little bit of a heart check is in need. But I think most of us mothers want to do the right thing and take care of our families and our husbands and our house right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think that just because you have someone helping you with those things doesn't mean that you're necessarily wrong. It's not saying you're wrong. Are we choosing the easy way out? That's something that I have to heart. Check myself on often is am I doing the best where I'm at? And while you're talking, I'm going to be looking for a reference that really convicted me in this area, but please keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean when everybody goes back to the proverb 31 woman as this ideal woman which we've talked about and we've said, yes, she is the ideal woman because she was a mother's description of the perfect woman for her son, right? So was she a real person? Probably not, but the description of a virtuous woman is found in her right. And even in that this woman did. She had people under her managing aspects of her home, right? So it's not that you're doing it all, necessarily, but you are the manager of it all and it is your responsibility to make sure that your husband, your children are taken care of. Okay, so that's.
Speaker 2:I found the verse. It was Ephesians 4, 1 and 2,. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering for bearing one another in love and as wives and mothers. That is our vocation, that's our job, and am I doing it worthy with meekness and lowliness and long suffering and love? And I think that, as we get into this, obviously there's different ways that this plays out, but that was a huge heart attack for me.
Speaker 1:All of us, in different areas of our life, will at times fight eating the bread of idleness right. In different areas people struggle. Some people are great at being super organized and highly efficient, right, and some people I've heard of those people and that's wonderful, that's a great strength to have. But usually there's an opposite side of that personality that needs to be worked on right, sometimes to the detriment of family members who aren't so organized, and we get frustrated on all of those types of things.
Speaker 2:So, yes, and I think we need to go back to that definition of what we're talking about now. There's this huge movement right now of going back to almost like that little house on the prairie baking our own bread and Living off the grid, living off the grid, homeschooling, conspiracy theories and raw milk and all this stuff and honestly, I would love to be able to immerse myself that much and be that dedicated to just having no chemicals in my children's lives and all that stuff. So this is not like, this is bad, but that's who. This is what we're talking about now. If you get onto Instagram, you know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it is a, it is a movement, it is a, a shift, a culture shift. That's happening.
Speaker 2:And I just recently got called little house on the prairie. That someone said I had a. What do you say? I had a little house on the prairie vibe. That's what I was told Little house on the prairie. I laughed so hard. Um, I was. For me it was compliment, right, it wasn't. It wasn't said as an insult, but I, I was a little taken back by it and I just started laughing.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Personally I'm not really I know people who are so much more just like in it, you know, and so right and again.
Speaker 1:I just want to be very clear that these things are not bad enough themselves. Yeah, like we just said, the the Bible says that we're to be these to take care of our homes, take care of our families and all of these things.
Speaker 1:However, let's go into a little bit of the negative side. Okay, so our previous pastor would say there's a road and both sides of the road are ditches and, generally speaking, the right place to be is on the road. You don't want to be in the ditch on one side or the other. So let's say that one aspect that could lead us into the ditch of the home setting movement or, you know, homemaker movement, is a bit of fear. Okay, we want to be very careful in any of our decision making that it is not based on fear. I'm trying out of fear especially.
Speaker 2:I mean living in fear is a problem, but I have seen parenting in fear and what that looks like and what the end result can look like, and it's just something it seems in the moment. It seems like protection and you should absolutely protect your children. Sending your kids to the hospital it seems like protection and you should absolutely protect your children. Sending your kids to the wolves is an opposite side of this, the other side of the ditch right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But then we also cross over into having our kids in this bubble where nothing can get to them, and it can become this hyper fixation. That is unsafe too, it's problematic. So we can really really go too far on one side with that or the other. We can also be very lax and very lazy in our protection of our children, and that's something that if you work with children, you will see often, because there's no safeguards up for many, many children. So this movement of you know our kids are our responsibility and we need to take the best care of them that we can has its roots in some really true and good things, but the danger is sliding into that ditch of fear.
Speaker 1:Your motive for why is going to come into play, especially as your kids get older? Why do we do this stuff? Why don't we join in any sort of sports? Why don't we do any sort of you know, activities outside of our farm, in our home? So if you don't have those answers and those answers are just well, we don't like these other people and what they agree with you might find a little bit of pushback. I mean, that's, it's your motive, can't just be because we're afraid of what they're going to influence you with.
Speaker 1:I often think of the verse that says so as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Okay, children of the youth are arrows in the hand of a mighty man. An arrow is not meant to be kept in a quiver. Actually, an arrow takes, at that point in time in history, an arrow would have taken a lot of great care to make it a useful arrow. And then it is aimed at a target. And then later on in that chapter it says to speak with the enemy in the gate. So if we are not effectively teaching and training and putting our, our biblical reasons for why we do what we do into our children. They're not going to be any sort of an arrow that you can shoot at the enemy.
Speaker 1:If you're just putting them in a bubble to be safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're not. And then opposite of it is, if you are not intentionally raising them with so much purpose and with a plan like both of those things can be ineffective, Right.
Speaker 1:You're just, if you're just throwing them out into the wolves, so to speak. Still, you know that's not the goal either. So what is your motive? And if that is, if your motive is to raise, you know, godly, biblically sound children, are you doing that? Are you investing the Bible into them? Like heart check, right, either way, you, it's the heart check. And then also the motive of kind of just like I would say it's a selfish motive of I'm going to take care of me and mine, and kind of like let everyone else burn, type thing. You know what I mean. Like I just I want to take care of me and mine.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do. I do see a lot of. So there's that beautiful aesthetic right, you're scrolling through Instagram and you see these like sweet mamas and they're aprons and they're making their bread and it's beautiful. It is beautiful and I think it is way closer to the plan that God has for us than many other things that you're going to see on social media. But there is like a darker, like we are right and you are wrong, us against them. I'm going to gather my little chicks underneath me like a hen and protect them from everyone and we don't care about other people and we're not living out the Great Commission and we're not being the light in the world that we're supposed to be, because we're hiding our light under a bushel. There is a danger of that. There truly is, and this is all stuff I've had to like face personally, like really question myself on and do a lot of these heart checks, because, you know, we went from being a homeschool family to me working full time and having my kids in school, and I had to face that. Why am I doing this? Am I? Why was I homeschooling in the first place? Why am I sending my kids? Am I still? Am I still living out the life that I believe God has for you know, for me as a Christian and as a Christian mom and it's been hard.
Speaker 2:It's been two years of a lot of soul searching and still, the reason that I was able to go from homeschooling to working in a Christian school personally, even though I loved homeschooling so much was because I realized that I had goals for my kids and goals for my family and my calling wasn't necessarily homeschooling. Now, some people, truly, it is like that's their calling and I don't doubt that for them. But in my life I knew that's not necessarily what God had called me to do. God had called me to raise my kids set apart from the world differently. I know what I want for my children.
Speaker 2:I know what I want their education to look like and I was able to go into the school after sitting down with the administration and stuff, like talking to them, realizing that their goals were the same as my goals. So I was able to like. I was able to do that in good conscience and there's been times where it would be much easier to just be home with my kids and I've had to sit and be like but is that what God has for you. Like, are you my? All I want is just to have my kids home with me and, like you know, have that bubble around them, and that wouldn't be wrong, except for the fact that that's not where God's put me right now, and right now, like right now, I'm committed to being a light in the world. If I pulled back this year where I've you know, I've committed, I feel like that would be me hiding my light under a bushel.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Makes sense, right, and I think that it's a personal thing of looking at yourself and being seeing. Am I right, yeah, doing what God has called me to do, or am I doing what I want to do?
Speaker 1:Right. That, I think, is the biggest heart check in this movement that we need to do as believers Okay. So if you are a believer and your motive for the whole homestead thing is to kind of just draw away from the wickedness of the world, okay, like I get it, 100%, I get it. I don't want to expose my kids to the wickedness of the world either.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:However, that doesn't negate the command that we have as believers to share the gospel and to share the truth of God's word. The world isn't going to get any better if the Christians take and remove themselves from the world, and that's I mean obviously. We know, at the end times evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. Right, but that nowhere in that passage does that say because evil men and seducers are going to wax worse and worse, you can run and hide. You know, as a believer, you're going to have the commission of be the light. So we are called to be the salt and the light.
Speaker 1:And Matthew, chapter five, says year the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden down underfoot. Year the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle stick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let's so let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.
Speaker 1:And then I think another verse that's kind of relevant to this is Matthew 1029. It says and Jesus answered and said Verily, I say unto you, there is no man that had left house or brethren or sisters, or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my sake and the Gospels, but he shall receive in a hundred fold, now and this time, houses and brethren and sister and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions and the world to come, eternal life. Okay, so that that last section, you know, we're so afraid of losing. I think one of the big motives, like we were talking about. If your motive is fear, we're afraid of losing, afraid of losing our kids were afraid of losing our. You put it in there. What is your motive? We're afraid of losing. That went again. When your motive is fear, it doesn't produce good fruit.
Speaker 2:Well, there's no fear and love and perfect love passed out fear. So you're replacing good stuff from God. You're on your own agenda. When you are living in fear and man, it's the easiest thing to do. I remember when my kids are toddlers, babies, toddlers I had to stop watching the news completely. It was just so much fear and it would just consume me. And I think you know, as parent, you are there. You have to have like a there's a God given caution inside of a parent Right.
Speaker 1:We're not saying just throw caution to the wind and go out and the only thing you do is proclaim the gospel and, like we're not saying it again, the two sides of the ditch, we're just saying be careful, be careful of your motivation, and if you are so far removed from society, society that you are not being a light, and I do not count posting homemade bread recipes on Instagram as being a light, and I don't think Jesus does either.
Speaker 2:No, I think that we that's something that I've had to also heart check myself on, not so much now, but especially when I was like staying home with my kids and I wasn't out very much like most of my outings would be like the grocery store or church. I was like is my testimony, is my witness, limited to what I post on social media? That's problematic if it is, because that's not now. There are seasons moms of young children, there are seasons where you are not going to be out door to door witnessing when you have a baby and toddlers and stuff like that. I am not shaming anyone who's in that kind of a season, but at the same time, just be careful. Like, what are you resting on? That? That's what I had to stop myself. Am I just resting on? Oh, I posted a Bible verse today, so I don't need to like be sensitive to the Holy Spirit leading me to witness or to pray with someone or, to you know, share the gospel with someone, because I've done my duty right by having a good image on social media.
Speaker 2:I'm so odd because this whole movement is so like on social media. On social media which is like the opposite of what you would think, because, you know, old fashioned. And then there's all the social media stuff, yeah, and I love it, like it really is beautiful. And I had to check myself around Christmas break. I was doing a little bit too much scrolling and I was like I just want to be home with my children and there again, there's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:But I don't always make the best use of my time. To be honest, when I have no time to constraints on me, when I have an unlimited schedule, I struggle with doing things well at home when I have all day to do them and when I don't have any type of fire underneath of me from a schedule. So I really think that's one of the reasons that God put this work, this out in my life, because I have to be so much more intentional about the time that I do have at home, because it's less, and I have to be more careful that I am not just resting on you know, my children's teachers to be the one sharing teaching, because they do have Bible or in a Christian school they're learning the Bible. I have to be careful that I'm not just like all over learning at a school. They don't need me as mom to be, to be teaching them, because that's still my responsibility and still my duty, and just because I work which, again, if you are working mom, I would just.
Speaker 2:I mean, look at the women in the Bible. Many, many, many of them had vocations outside of the home and many of the women who were involved in Christ's ministry, I mean they were able to follow him around. They were sitting at home baking sourdough. They were following Christ. And so there's the place of the inside of the four walls of your house. Isn't necessarily your calling? Following Christ hard in whatever you have been called to do is your calling Right?
Speaker 1:I think the balance is found when we love God and love others, and how that plays out in our lives is going to be different. It's going to look different for each person because we're all in a different area that God has placed us for an intentional purpose, and that is the key. So you know, the greatest commandment isn't to take care of your family as a mom, it's to love God and then love others. Does that include your family? Absolutely it does, but it's not limited to your family and you don't have to be out in a farm to seclude yourself. I have just been convicted lately, like here, even on a military base where I'm surrounded by people, it can be me in my castle and, yeah, I see my neighbors, but do I interact with my neighbors? Like, yeah, there's little kids running all over, but do they see my home as a place that they can come to and find the love of Christ? You know, coming through my home To love people is to be active in their life and you cannot remove yourself entirely in order to put a hedge of protection, as some would say, like a hedge of protection around your family and try to keep them safe. It ultimately comes down to God. The protection is from God and it's a matter of faith and it's a matter of obedience to God and what he has for us.
Speaker 1:Our motive is key in all of this. Not necessarily that any of it is wrong or bad we have gone over this many times. We don't believe that. But your motive, what is your motive? And be careful in your motive.
Speaker 1:And also, it can just become a subject of idolatry Our families we can literally put them on a pedestal and worship our family. And the aesthetic and the idea of the peaceful, just separate living like it can literally become an idol in our life. And this separation I have seen where this holiness and separation literally becomes an idol that you worship. That's exactly what happened with the Pharisees. They took God's law and put it on a higher pedestal than God and worshiped the law above God. And we have to be careful. We cannot put traditions of man, even good ones, above the obedience of God. And I also think of Esther and Daniel and these young people who were in wicked heathen nation, working in the palace and being I mean, you can't get any more in the middle of the lions then than what Daniel was, but he was a young man when he was taken.
Speaker 2:It's really easy to live out your faith in a bubble.
Speaker 1:Right and that's just no good. That's not what we're here for, that's not what we're called to. It's just and it just really ends up backfiring. Because you know, I've seen this movement in my played out in my life and I have seen it backfire Multiple different families, multiple different reasons, multiple different ways, but I've seen the overall I want to protect me and mine backfire hardcore. So we have to be careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the word, you know, legalism gets thrown around kind of a kind of a little bit too loosely, I think. But for sure, we definitely can. We've definitely seen it play out and that that control of what you, how you look, how you act, how you present yourself the heart ends up rotting because we're just focusing on the outside and the aesthetic that we've talked about now.
Speaker 1:Listen, if you have a beautiful aesthetic and your news and you're like your Instagram feed is all beautiful, I'm jealous, I'm not hating again, I like take the spirit of what we were, what we were saying, and not don't like say, oh well, she's against what I'm doing, like that's not the point we're just gonna come to your house for dinner.
Speaker 1:Right, there's nothing wrong for making your home beautiful and making you know whatever beautiful things like. Obviously that's not what we're saying. We're just. We're just trying to be helpful reminder that you you have to take the command of God as a believer first right. Love God, do what God calls you, and we often forget that God calls us to be the light and to be the salt and to share the gospel, going into all the world and preach the gospel. That is our call, like first and foremost, and you can be a brand new believer. You can be a young mother, you can be a grandma, you can be a single woman, you can be anybody as a believer and share the gospel. That is our call, that is our purpose.
Speaker 2:And if you're not doing that, heart check I think everything that we can do, we can do for our glory or we can do for God's glory, whether they're for the eat or drink or make sourdough bread, we can. We can do it for our glory or we can do it for God's, and I think that you can, and maybe you're one of those people that wishes you could be. Maybe you look at that and you have this like envy of like I don't have land, I live in the city, I don't have my kids have to go to school because I have to work. You know, like there's so many times where we look at that and it's like it's not even attainable for who we are.
Speaker 2:Right now, I'm telling you, some of the moms, like as a teacher, some of the moms have been like the biggest blessing to me, work full-time, are so busy, but they will drop off a coffee in the morning and be like hey, I was thinking about you. Or they will send me notes of encouragement or no, or like send me a message saying they're praying for me, and often it's the women who are the busiest outside of their home, you know. So don't fall into the trap of thinking that you aren't doing enough if your late doesn't look like somebody else's highlights and just know that you can still live a life that is very biblical, very virtuous woman. You can be a virtuous woman even if baking isn't your thing, even if you just give your kids Tylenol when they have a headache. You know, and that's one herbal concoction which I do, a mixture of both, to be honest, like I. So, again, not knocking any that, just saying like you can.
Speaker 1:The aesthetic is not what pleases God right and so I like that what you said there. You know, we're either glorifying God or glorifying ourselves perfect way to sum it up and wrap it up, and we can just be reminded again. We're not hating on nobody, mm-hmm, we're just given a friendly reminder and we, honestly, I've needed it. I've been mulling over this concept for a little while and I've been praying, and maybe you can praise this prayer too. God, show me how, in my neighborhood, the people that I'm surrounded by now, if you secluded yourself so far that you don't have a neighborhood, maybe you, maybe you need to go a few miles, but that's not that hard to do, to be honest like my like where is my?
Speaker 1:would Judea, jerusalem and the uttermost parts of the earth right go like where is your home base and where do you need to be that like? God, show me how I can be the light, yeah, how I can share the gospel with my neighbors like legit and that might.
Speaker 2:That might look like taking that homemade bread to your neighbor, right? Use your sourdough yeah, I would be super excited if someone came up to my house. I've never been able to do sourdough right, so I, I would be all about that. And and if you are that working mom who's like man, I can't do all the things that these women are doing, that's what I would love to do. Look at where you are. Are you driving by Starbucks? Pick up a Starbucks or someone? Right, you know what I mean. Get some coffee for somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's, it's creating relationships with people so that you can intentionally share the gospel, not not not seeing the lost people around you and not seeing them as the enemy.
Speaker 2:That's a big thing and we can't and we can't expect our children to be servants of God and servants of others the way that we are called to. If they don't see it in our lives right, they need to see us living with that servant's heart. With that, I'm going to die to myself and live outside of myself instead of I'm going to live in my bubble. They need to see that played out because that's how they learn and that's how they become the next generation of followers of Christ, which is a servant. They're not going to see that if we're not purposely living that out. No matter what our homes look like, no matter what our, our lifestyle is, are we living out our faith in their bones? Looking at the heart of it, looking at the who? Are we giving glory to a god and loving our neighbors? Absolutely?
Speaker 1:so this is episode number one in sort of current trends in Christianity, and if you are listening and would like to give some thoughts or feedback or anything like that, you can always email us at at simply edify at gmailcom, or you can just message us on Instagram. If you follow us on Instagram, send us a message there. Any feedback, any comments or whatever welcome at any time. So thanks for listening, thanks for joining in today's podcast and we hope to hear from you. We are honored that you chose simply edified to be a part of your day, if this episode was a blessing to you. But you consider subscribing to our podcast as well as writing a review or giving us a rating. This would be such a help to our ministry. We would love for other people to find us and this is one of the ways that they can thank you.