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Why Biblical “Goodness” Makes People Uncomfortable · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table today might
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  add some spice to your life welcome back to another episode of relish i'm your
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  host roan miller and this is pastor don patterson don how are you doing i'm
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  all right yeah that's good about the first of the year.
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  Yeah. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. Everybody gets to put a different date on their check, you know?
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  Well, of course we don't write checks much anymore, but I remember that used
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  to be the big thing is to remember to put the next year on a check.
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  I struggle enough with the months, the year.
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  Well, when you get my age, they go a little, yeah. It's a little different story.
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  And my, the years go fast.
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  All right. We do that one.
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  Oh, here we, which book of the Bible would you like to learn more about and why?
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  I think, I think this one's fairly easy. I think I would say revelation.
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  Oh man. I don't, I don't think.
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  Let's shoot high. Yes. Let's shoot high.
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  I think the books I've probably spent the most time in are the Gospels,
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  which probably makes sense.
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  I've spent a decent amount of time in Old Testament. I spent a class on it at Hillcrest. Good.
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  But I haven't spent much time at all in Revelation.
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  I've read through it, but— Very fascinating. Yeah. It is a very fascinating book. Right.
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  I'm not sure anybody can spend enough time in Revelation to get the full meaning.
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  That's kind of what I've heard, but it's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
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  Yeah. You can spend quite a bit of time in the letters of Paul, too.
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  Charlene and I were in our devotions, and you'll get this.
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  So she said, and this is a book you don't know very well.
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  And oh yeah Colossians I haven't
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  studied Colossians very well so yeah that came right out of our discussion that's
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  funny yeah all right well today we have another fruit of the spirit there we
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  go we can do a fruit of the spirit you want to do a fruit of the spirit we can
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  do it and what's interesting is we started talking about these these that come come together uh.
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  In our English language, the meanings are very close to each other.
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  So after we get done with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
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  then we get to goodness and gentleness.
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  And those words in our English language start to get a little fuzzy.
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  So what's the difference between goodness and gentleness? Because if you're
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  good, you'd be gentle, right?
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  Yeah. Maybe. Well, and so we
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  talked a little bit about how these start to roll together a little bit.
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  And then also that the NIV seems to have them in a different order than the Greek does.
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  Yeah. And so I think we landed on today doing goodness, which agathosene is
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  the word that is behind this.
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  Um, up in the rightness of heart, life, goodness, and kindness.
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  Uh, the root is virtue, virtue or benevolence, beneficence, beneficence.
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  And I am not sure in our English or our American culture, we have,
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  uh, a really good anchor for those things because that word would say that there is a moral absolute.
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  And we don't believe in moral absolutes, right? That's not really prevalent in our society today.
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  But that word would carry the meaning that there is something virtuous and there
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  is something of beneficence that we do for someone else.
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  And that is built into who we are as Christians.
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  And Paul is saying, that's going to be a fruit of the Spirit because that's
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  not something comes naturally.
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  And that idea of having virtue in a lot of conversations, a moral compass,
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  This is good, this is bad, and we're going to do the good.
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  We have made that so fuzzy in our culture that it's hard then to say,
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  I know I've got it, or I don't know I've got it.
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  That being said, that is a fruit of the Spirit that we are going to know what
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  is good, what good things are good, and what are not good.
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  By the beneficence, the way it benefits others.
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  That goodness is an outward thing. It's as if the Holy Spirit gives us this
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  gift, and instead of turning it inward, this gift is essentially outward.
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  So it's benefiting others over ourselves. Yeah, I think that virtue means I
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  am going to see you worth as much as I am. or more.
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  Jesus would put it in the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Matthew 7.
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  That being said, I'm going to make sure that my actions don't hurt you.
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  That's goodness, right? And you don't end up bleeding from an encounter with each other.
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  Uh i'm going to make sure that somehow our time together is beneficial mutually beneficial.
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  Uh then also to the other out there on the street i'm going to,
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  the fruit of the spirit that goodness is going to flow through me out to the
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  world around us so that means uh the isolation of the church isn't going to
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  happen the isolation of the Christian isn't going to happen because it's a fruit
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  of the Spirit. We've got to be good to someone else.
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  It's got to benefit someone else. My faith and the Holy Spirit in my life should
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  benefit somebody else, not just me.
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  And that takes away the fire insurance thing, salvation. It's not just about
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  getting out of hell and getting into heaven.
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  This fruit of the Spirit is, I am who I am, and because of Jesus in me, I'm going to benefit.
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  Because I live, I'm going to help somebody else. And bring them with you.
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  And even if they don't want to come, I'm going to at least benefit their lives. Right.
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  Even if you disagree with me. I think this is one I add to it. Yeah.
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  Even if I don't always agree with you, you still are worthy of my attention.
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  Uh, you're a human being. Uh, uh, you're no less because you disagree with me. Right. Yeah.
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  And so that anchors it in such a way that it's, it's not, uh,
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  it's a virtue. It's, uh, it's benefits.
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  I like that word beneficence. It benefits others.
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  Yeah. That's goodness. Yeah.
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  I forget what the exact quote was, but somebody said, um, God only saves bad people or something.
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  Uh, or people who know they're like, we're like, we're all sinners.
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  So like in that idea, then we're all, I don't think bad was the word,
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  but idea was we're no better than others. We're no better than others.
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  Right. Yeah. Yeah.
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  And that idea of goodness, then we ought to be almost like a virus.
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  Can you imagine the church becoming a virus of goodness? You know, we become catching.
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  And even people who don't know Jesus will know that we have represented his
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  values, and we represent them to everybody around us.
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  It's not only for us. Yeah.
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  Nice. Yeah, we weren't just saved for us. Right. Yeah. Christ had a reason for our salvation.
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  Yeah, good stuff. Yeah. And so that with the meekness and those are so close
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  together in our English language that unless we parse them a little bit more,
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  they're going to all end up mushy.
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  Yeah. So I put that into the gentleness part, that that word agathose,
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  thosine, is the translated goodness, but I would say virtue or beneficence is
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  probably a good way to remember that it's more than,
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  I'm so good. I'm just so good.
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  Right. Because that's personal. I'm good. But this is a gift of the Spirit to be invested in others.
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  Yeah. Nice. Does that have to be strictly spiritual or biblical things,
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  or can that be like earthly actions or what else in there?
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  I would hope that our biblical, spiritual things influence our words and actions.
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  Yeah. And so, yeah, this goodness would need to manifest in how it benefits another.
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  It would need to manifest in how we treat others.
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  I think that's why Jesus said it the way he did. I mean, basically the Sermon
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  on the Mount, if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, while it is measuring
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  things out, you know, the...
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  Uh beatitudes blessed are
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  blessed are and then it said well
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  don't hate that's really much better for other people we shouldn't hate but
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  uh hate probably is more caustic to us than it is to the other person anyway
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  because the other person may not know you hate them you know it's just sort of one of those things.
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  So that's internal, but that turning the other cheek is external.
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  That's in Matthew 5, 43, 35 to 43 in that.
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  So we're not whooping on each other. That's usually beneficial, right?
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  If I don't whoop you, you don't whoop me, right? And you probably could.
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  And so then we talk about lust.
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  Well, that is something that is sort of internal, but it's also external.
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  We sort of belittle the other person in our lust.
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  It makes them an object rather than a real person.
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  So you go through those and realize that our goodness invests in the other person.
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  Our goodness is for the other person's benefit.
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  And we raise them up.
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  It's a, it is a gift of the spirit, fruit of the spirit, but it has tangible
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  consequences in the here and now.
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  Yeah. There's almost an aspect of humility in there. There is an aspect of humility.
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  Yeah. Because we've emptied us a bit.
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  Right. To raise somebody else up. Yeah. Yeah.
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  That's true. All right. Very good, Don.
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  You got anything else to add to that or no? No, I'm pretty well empty on that one.
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  Yeah. Now, now we can lift you guys up. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.
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  We do hope you have a blessed holiday that if we could do anything to bless
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  your holiday, that'd be great.
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  Yeah. And to remember that Christ is at the center of it. It's what it's all
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  about. It's why we're here. It's why he came.
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  We hope that somehow or another, This has struck you in your season in a way
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  that's beneficial. Oh, goodness.
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  Yeah. Oh, goodness. Yes.
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  Would you look at that? Look at it a little differently.
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  All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
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  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and is calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.