Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast
Women Saints We Should Know
Dr. Kelley Mathews Sharifa Stevens If you, like most of us in this audience, are Protestant, be prepared for a treat as you listen to this conversation about women saints we should know. Dr. Kelley Mathews joins host Sharifa Stevens to discuss a number of women from the early church who were named saints because of their faith and actions. You'll come away excited and perhaps surprised as you hear about these godly women who played major roles in church history. They teach us great lessons from their love for the Lord, their tenacity and bold courage. Recommended resources BOW's resources on Studying and Teaching the Bible Hildegard: A playlist of her music and her biography The Passions of Perpetua and Felicity Augustine's sermon (#280) on Perpetua & Felicity Monica We learn most of our content about her in Augustine's Confessions. Clare: Biography Read her "Rule" Brigid article This episode is available on video as well. Timestamps: 00:21 Introductions 02:37 The difference between knowing and venerating the saints 03:40 Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs 12:10 Monica, Augustine's mother 19:29 Brigid of Kildare 27:35 Hildegard of Bingen 34:18 Clare of Assisi 41:32 Other resources TranscriptSharifa >> Welcome to Beyond Ordinary Women. I'll be your host for today, Sharifa Stevens. And today our topic is going to be about women, saints that we all should know about. I'm really excited to dig into this topic, and we're going to have our expert Dr. Kelley Mathews, explain more to us about these women whom we should know. And I want to tell you about Kelley. I bet most of you know Dr. Kelley already. But let me tell you a little bit more, just in case. Kelley Mathews, Dr. Kelley Mathews, has ministered to the church through writing and editing for over 25 years. She's a coauthor of eight books, including 40 Questions About Women in Ministry. And also she's a freelance writer and editor. A former women's ministry director and Bible study teacher. Kelley has been married to John, a school administrator, for almost 29 years. They are parents to four active, mostly grown children. Kelley earned her Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and earned a Doctor of Ministry in New Testament from Houston Theological Seminary just in 2025. Welcome. Now, I can't call you Dr. Kelley. Why? Kelley >> You kind of overdid it there. That's all. Sharifa >> That's my job. It's my job to overdo it. Kelley >> Okay. Okay. I'll take it from you. Not from anybody else, though. No, it's so new. It's still very strange to hear it. So that's all. Sharifa >> You earned it. So I'm using it. Kelley >> I had a lot of fun in that program, so if I could still go back to class, I would. You know, I shouldn't say that too loudly around here. Sharifa >> Tuition-free class? Yeah. Kelley >> Yeah. No, it was a great program over in Houston. So and that's a lot of what we're going to cover today is what I studied there. So yeah. Sharifa >> Excellent. Well let's dive in. We're discussing women saints who we should know. But before we get into the specific saints, I just wanted to know, is knowing the saints the same as venerating or worshiping them? Kelley >> No. Absolutely not. This is basically history. And I was a history major for my bachelor's degree. And so coming full circle with this theological study, I naturally went to the history of the church. So New Testament kind of morphed also into the early church, those first few centuries of what was the church getting up to? And so knowing the people. I mean I would assume that a lot of Christians would recognize names like Augustine or Aquinas or maybe Saint Francis or Luther. We're just giving you female equivalents, basically. So, yes, just as there were fathers of the church, there were mothers of the church. Sharifa >> I dig it. Thank you. Okay, so let's get into specifics.
