PROVERBS 9:10 MINISTRIES ~ Rose Spiller & Chris Paxson ~ Interview

It's What's New Wednesday here at Whispers in Purple. Please welcome friends and co-authors Rose Spiller and Chris Paxson of Proverbs 9:10 Ministries., who will be kicking off the month for us—and introducing their new book. These two gals have some interesting things to share with us today.

Hello, ladies, Welcome to Whispers in Purple blog. I’m so excited to have you here. We’ll be talking about the two of you, your ministry, and your new book, NO HALF-TRUTHS ALLOWED. Thank you for granting this interview. So, let’s get started.

I understand, based on your joint online bio, you both now currently reside in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, but that Rose hasn’t always lived there. So, how did you gals meet? What brought you together?

Rose: When my husband and I moved our family to Lancaster County we needed to find a new church. Finding a local one in the same denomination we were already part of, we went to the contemporary service one morning. When we walked in the door, Chris came over and introduced herself to us. We hit it off right away and spent the next week emailing each other back and forth. Our families have been close ever since, and we’ve served in ministry of some sort together ever since!

Aside from your online bio, tell us a little more about yourselves individually.

Chris: I grew up in Lancaster County, and my husband’s family is local to southeastern Pennsylvania too. We’ve been married for 31 years and have twin sons in the USAF. I enjoy working on the landscaping in our yard, playing golf, and traveling. We’ve had a number of cats and dogs over the years. I love reading. A good bit of my reading is Christian non-fiction, and when I’m not reading that, one of my favorite other non-fiction authors is Erik Larson. My favorite fiction genre is alternate history, which might surprise some people.

Rose: My husband, Ed, and I, have been married for over 33 years. Starting a few years ago, our kids started spreading out from us. We have a daughter in Mississippi and one in Georgia. Our two sons were both living in Pennsylvania a couple of hours apart, but our oldest is now moving to IN with his family. Besides missing our kids, an even bigger problem is that they insisted on taking our grandkids with them! So last fall, we sold our house and are living fulltime in an RV so we can travel between the four of them and spend a few months at a time with each. Its been a crazy experience, and one I wasn’t sure I was up for, but it has been amazing! God has stretched me and grown me through it, while bringing some pretty wonderful new people into my life! And, thanks to technology, I still get to work with Chris on a daily basis on our ministry, podcast, studies, and books; so I feel like God has given me the best of both worlds!

When–how–did you decide to create Proverbs 9:10 Ministries? Why that particular verse?

That verse is, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom; knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Getting others to know God and learn more and more about Him is what we’re all about! First, through proclaiming the Gospel; and further through understanding Scripture better and better through our writing and teaching. We created the ministry during a time when our families spent a couple of years in a church that did not put any priority on reading and understanding the Bible, nor on theology and doctrine. This was after we’d both spent decades in churches that highly valued all of those. Encountering that lack of Scriptural knowledge made us start writing and teaching Bible studies together, start the ministry, and eventually turn the No Half-Truths Allowed – Understanding the Complete Gospel Message Bible study into the book! And in October 2019 we started our podcast, “No Trash, Just Truth!” where we do weekly 20-minute teaching sessions, usually either expositing Scripture, like in our “Women in Scripture” series that starts by going through the books of Ruth and Esther – or we give truth from the Bible on topical subjects.

I admit I’m intrigued about this book. I’m always curious about book co-authors. I tried it once and I know it’s not easy. We each have our own style. Which one of you did most of the actual writing?

We split it in half. That’s how we’ve always done the writing in our studies, our books, our podcasts, and our conferences. We’re very much on the same page but if one of us is not sure we’re comfortable with wording on something we discuss it and work on it til we’re satisfied. God has been so good to us in so many ways, and that is one area in which He’s really blessed us. We do both have our strengths when it comes to the other things that go along with the ministry like editing podcasts, doing the artwork for advertising, and things like that. And the social media we both work constantly on!

Now let’s talk about the book. What qualifies you write it, and why did you?

From the start, we both had a solid knowledge of the Bible, theology, and doctrine. When we started the ministry we also decided to learn more. We committed to completing the “Dimensions of the Faith” course offered through Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. It took us 18 months of hard work, but we completed it and earned the certificate. Then we started online courses through Reformed Theological Seminary and Biblical Training’s Institute program. We’re always learning.

(Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/31vMFH7) 

Like we said earlier, we saw the need for deeper study and more knowledge of the Bible, and part of that was countering false ideas of what the Gospel is. The Gospel is the message every human being of every age needs, so you have to get it right. For instance, telling someone that God loves them and wants a relationship with them is true, but it’s not the Gospel. They need to know that they are sinners deserving of God’s wrath and that the only way to fix that relationship with Him is to accept that Jesus paid the penalty for them in their place and ask God for forgiveness based on what Jesus did for them on the cross. That’s what they need to have faith in and trust in. There are a lot of false gospels out there and they are used in Christian circles on a regular basis. We go through most of these false gospels in the book and point out why they’re not the Gospel. The book also gives a knowledge of basic Christianity. We have chapters on each of the three Persons of the Trinity and explain the rest of the basics too.

Finally, what’s in the future for both your ministry and your writing?

Our plan is to keep writing, doing podcasts and hopefully get back to doing conferences in the near future when the country opens back up. We have another book coming in early 2021 also through Ambassador International publishing called “The Bible in Six”. It’s an overview of the whole Bible – all 66 books – divided into 6 parts. It’s not to take the place of the Bible, but to help give an understanding of what each book is about and give some highlights to wet the appetite of the reader for studying their Bible. We plan on doing weekend conferences to go along with the book and maybe some other teaching formats for it too.

Thank you Rose and Chris for being my guests this week, and may God bless you and your ministry richly.