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[WW] Words Matter:Half Truths and Other Things Christians Say. Part 3 · The Wesley Word

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley World.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: We're in week three of a series, and if you haven't been here the last couple weeks, that's okay.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: We'll catch you up on it.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: We began talking about this idea that words matter, and that oftentimes we say things as people of faith meaning to be helpful.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: And on the surface, they're not too bad.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, we talked about what happens when we say those things, and then we get to the second, third, fourth, twentieth, fiftieth domino down the line, and what words we could be saying where that could lead possibly to some bad theology.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you've agreed with everything I've said.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you left been like, that dude's crazy.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's okay too, right?
0:46
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to believe and agree on everything.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: We looked at the first week, uh, just real quick, we looked at um when we say everything happens for a reason, not for cause and effect, but we said oftentimes in the midst of suffering, we want to be helpful, we'll say everything happens for a reason.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: But the problem with that is that means God does all the bad stuff as well.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Then last week we talked about the saying, again, you're just being overwhelmed, um, you're having relationship problems, roommate drama, your classes are crazy, you just got fired from your job, your car broke down, all this kind of stuff, and someone politely says, It's okay, hang in there.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: God won't give you more than you can handle.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And we said part of the problem with that, right?
1:24
SPEAKER_01: It's like as if God just continues to stack more and more and more, and right when you get to your breaking point, he's like, uh, stop.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:29
SPEAKER_01: And then he he stops, right?
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Instead, we said maybe we should say that God will help us handle whatever it is that life throws at us.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: Tonight's topic, um, a little bit a little bit different than where we where we've been, um, looking at some half-truths tonight.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: This idea, some people might say, you might have heard this said on whatever particular issue.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Or, well, it's in the Bible, so it must be true, right?
1:58
SPEAKER_01: And so we're looking at some of that sort of on that.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: We said we're going with God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: But something along of looking at what is what is scripture, right?
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Now, I wanted to let you know that I love scripture, right?
2:09
SPEAKER_01: And so the goal tonight is to talk about how we might approach it in a way that is fruitful and life-giving.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: This, I don't think I'll show this with you guys.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: I've done it, I've shown other churches or congregations.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: This was my first Bible, the New American Bible, the St.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Joseph edition.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: I was baptized Catholic, so I had to get my good St.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Joseph one.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: And it was given to me in on Christmas of 1996.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, back in the 1900s, I know.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Um I got that.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: And it was pretty, it was beautiful.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: It stayed in the box and it sat in my room probably until 1998 before I decided to open it and to look at it.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I knew you shouldn't cover this with anything.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Like if someone put the remote on it, I was like, oh, you can't do that.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: That's like blasphemy, right?
2:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I never opened it.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I did not grow up in a household that read scripture.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: If you'd have told me to turn to John 1-1, I'd have been, uh what is that?
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Right?
3:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't until I got to late high school, uh junior, junior year, where I met some incredible folks at a youth group that invited me in and started opening my eyes and like, dude, you should read this stuff.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: There's some good stuff.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: And so I started reading it and I loved it.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: I turned to Luke.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Luke was the first gospel I read, and I was like, man, this Jesus guy's incredible.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, he's loving on these people, the other people aren't.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: This is awesome.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I started reading James right after that, and James is like, yo, watch what you say.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what do you mean I can't curse?
3:29
SPEAKER_01: He's like, watch what you say.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: It matters, right?
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Your tongue matters.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh dang, this is crazy.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And then I started dipping into the Old Testament, and I was like, oh, wait, what do you mean I'm not supposed to have barbecue?
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Right?
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what do you mean you can't have seafood boils?
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm from New Orleans.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, come on, Jesus, what are we talking about?
3:42
SPEAKER_01: This we never talked about this, right?
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you go on, right?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh man, you know, you disobey your parents too much, then we're gonna about to stone you, right?
3:50
SPEAKER_01: That's in there.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is getting kind of hard, right?
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, not to mention all the times they're like, ah, slavery's good, all this kind of stuff.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, um, like you can't tailgate on a Saturday if we take the Old Testament at its at its word, because that's really our Sabbath on Saturday, and we're not supposed to be doing anything.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, just kind of chilling there.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, this is crazy.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: It didn't scare me away, it just made me have more questions, right?
4:16
SPEAKER_01: The more I wanted to know about this, the more questions that came up.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to start tonight by just saying it's okay to have questions about this word, about this book and what it is that is in there.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And you may be saying, oh, Steve, the Old Testament isn't binding anymore.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of true, but also Jesus said in Matthew 5, uh we read, we're gonna read two scriptures, stuck with one tonight, right?
4:36
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 5 that he came to fulfill the law, right?
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And that everyone needs to um give you, I don't want to paraphrase wrong.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to word according to Steve, I want you to get the word according to the NRSV.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Do not think that I've come to abolish the law.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: I've not come to abolish it, but to fulfill.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished, right?
5:01
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: That's some pretty strong words, right?
5:09
SPEAKER_01: So even Jesus is like, yo, you still gotta listen to it, right?
5:13
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, Jesus was also doing some interpretations, right?
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Um we hear pretty strongly, like the Sabbath matters.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Keep it holy, right?
5:22
SPEAKER_01: All throughout the Old Testament.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, yo, uh, actually, you know, we're gonna do some healing on the Sabbath, we're gonna do some other stuff.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus begins to loosen up the Sabbath.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: But then if you look at his teachings on divorce, he gets a little bit stricter on that stuff, right?
5:34
SPEAKER_01: And so we begin to see, even from the early days, that there's some interpretation that can happen.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: If you read the book of Acts, I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: If we read the book of Acts in Acts 15, um, Peter and Paul, the other leaders are getting there and they're trying to decide.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: They're having to figure out, we know what what the what the law says about circumcision, but what do we do with these Gentiles, with these new converts?
5:55
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a hard thing to say, yeah, come love Jesus.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, we guess what?
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Do we have a surprise for you at 650, right?
6:00
SPEAKER_01: Like they're trying to figure that out.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, people aren't wanting to come to faith, and so they have to have this conversation and interpret what it is that the law might mean for folks here and today.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: Right?
6:11
SPEAKER_01: What I want us to be able to admit, or whether we admit it or not, is that we all interpret scripture.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: We all interpret scripture.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: You you almost have to, right?
6:20
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, right, we'd have to worry about head coverings, um, no braids, right?
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that has any kind of savings account ever, you're not following the law, right?
6:26
SPEAKER_01: If you are the strictest to the letter of the scripture, eventually you're gonna run into a place where, like, I can't can't do this, right?
6:35
SPEAKER_01: And so I want us to look at maybe a way, a reasonable way, a responsible way to looking at scripture um tonight.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
6:42
SPEAKER_01: Now, the first thing we say when God said it, right, and what um Amelia read for us tonight from the letter from from Paul in 2 Timothy, this is important because this is where we get our our stuff.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: He says, All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, right?
7:03
SPEAKER_01: All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: And I want to pause for a minute and talk about what Paul is saying there and what Paul isn't saying that, because that gets some some Christians hung up sometimes, right?
7:16
SPEAKER_01: First of all, when we think Paul talks about all scripture is inspired, remember, the New Testament was not written when Paul was writing this letter, right?
7:27
SPEAKER_01: So the scriptures that Paul is talking about here would have been the Hebrew Bible, right?
7:31
SPEAKER_01: What we call the Old Testament there, okay?
7:33
SPEAKER_01: They're inspired by God.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: And what the word they look in there is not every word is like, you know, written out God's moving your hand there, right?
7:42
SPEAKER_01: But that there has been inspiration.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: The word there is only used once in the in the New Testament.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, theonustos is the word that's there, right?
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Theo meaning God, nustos meaning breath, wind, spirit, right?
7:54
SPEAKER_01: Not that, not the doctrine of like inerrancy or like inspiration, that God again moves everybody's hands and writes it down, but that this word is God breathe.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: That God had something to do in the writing in this.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And when we come to this text, it's alive, it's living, and God can breathe in and on us and through us, that it's a useful book here.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of God.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: Don't hear me say that it is it is not.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: But if we're honest, if we're honest, we all interpret scripture.
8:20
unknown: Right?
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Today we're typically sort of split a lot of times on this conservative and liberal path, right?
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, I will say conservative folks definitely pick and choose stuff that they want to hold on to and sort of ignore the rest, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Liberal folks do a lot of the same.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: They find stuff and pick and choose that they want to hold on to and they want to ignore, right?
8:42
SPEAKER_01: But how do we go about and look at this in a in a faithful way?
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Why are we looking at this in a faithful way, right?
8:47
SPEAKER_01: Think about even the news today, right?
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, last couple of weeks.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, we want to know what it says so we can respond thoughtfully and critically.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think y'all know where a lot of stuff where I stand, but like immigration is a really big deal, to put it lightly, in our in our country, right?
9:01
SPEAKER_01: And whether where you stand on whether you know how much enforcement there should be or shouldn't be, there's a lot of folks, uh, Christian folks that are reposting stuff and doing things.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot in here that says stuff about immigration, right?
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Think about, I forget who it was, she also said something the other day about um Jesus would never walk into a church and protest, right?
9:20
SPEAKER_01: You remember like dude like like sit there and like braided a whip and was like, I'm about to come in here and tear something up, right?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: And then went in there and tore some stuff up, right?
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, but if we don't know the text, we're like, oh yeah, Jesus wouldn't do that, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Right?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Or what is what do we do with immigrants, right?
9:35
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot that's in here, right?
9:37
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to look at how do we faithfully look at this, how do we go about it, right?
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to start with what it's not real quick.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: What it's not, and which I wish it was, it's not an owner's manual, right?
9:51
SPEAKER_01: It's not an owner's manual.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: I would love to have it that way.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: I know sometimes when something breaks in my car, I try to look at that, figure out what the indicator light is, what can I fix, what can I do.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's not a step-by-step instruction that you can find here.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: I might be dating myself, but anybody have a magic eight ball growing up or know what I'm talking about?
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Please?
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: All right, sweet.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Right?
10:11
SPEAKER_01: The thing, if you don't know, like it's the little eight ball you shake, right?
10:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, uh, will she go out with me?
10:15
SPEAKER_01: No, dang it, right?
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, will I go to Clemson?
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Maybe get smarter.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, sweet, you know.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Um what what it's not is a magic eight ball.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: You don't just open it up.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: I've tried that so many times, right?
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's see.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Will we get to 10 wins next year?
10:29
SPEAKER_01: All soiled, defiled, oppressing city.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm in the okay.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Any other questions?
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Um give me a question.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Anybody?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: No, a question.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Random question.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: What you got?
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Putting you on the spot.
10:42
unknown: Uh slipping by speed of the.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's let's see.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Let me get out of the apocrypha here.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to random, let's go.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh, here we go, Numbers 28, 3.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And you shall say to them, this is the offering by fire that you shall offer to the Lord.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Two male lambs, a year old without blemish.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: All right, so maybe if you light the stuff on fire, hey, you know, God, thank you, answered.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you, right?
11:05
SPEAKER_01: But it's not that, right?
11:06
SPEAKER_01: It's not a systematic theology book, right?
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Go in there and try to find a definitive answer for the Holy Trinity in there.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be tough to see and to find, right?
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, to think about even baptism.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: We disagree on like how baptism is and what that means.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to even find definitive systematic theology in scripture about baptism.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: It's not a science book, it's not a history book, right?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: So we don't think it's a full of promises and we see in there different stuff, but sometimes life happens and we're like, God forgive me, what is going on?
11:37
SPEAKER_01: But what it is, what it is, is an inspired word.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: It's an inspired way that we most most best.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: That's not the right word, Steve.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: Um it's the way that we most clearly come to know the word, the capital W word.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: It's the way that we most quick most easily get to know God, most easily get to know Jesus.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm gonna offer uh three-ish ways, right, to approach it that I think will be helpful, right?
12:01
SPEAKER_01: This first one's gonna blow your mind.
12:04
unknown: Read it.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Read it, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, at a seminary professor early on first semester, he was like, Look, we're a people of the book.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: You gotta know the book.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: How are you gonna talk about the book if you don't read the book, right?
12:17
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you to read your scripture.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, come talk to me.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to buy you one, get you a study Bible, get you set up, right?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: But just spend some time looking at it.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: Know what's your favorite gospel?
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Read through the gospels and find the ways in which this Jesus that we come and worship and sing worship to each and every week, the ways in which he healed, did miracles, the people he talked to, the ways in which like he broke the chains of sin and death and like looked death in the face and was like, you think you're gonna have the last word?
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Watch this, right?
12:46
SPEAKER_01: And we see stories of what it meant to walk around as a resurrected person, and then the the movement that would happen from there, right?
12:53
SPEAKER_01: And when you read it, you begin to know and you begin to pick up these half-truths.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: When someone says something like God won't give you more than you can handle, you can be like, nah, that's not that's kind of right, but not really.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you this, right?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: When you're having a conversation about immigration, you can have some backup.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, because even Paul says, right, kind of be ready for stuff.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: When you're having these conversations, you might feel a little more prepared and don't feel overwhelmed and afraid to say something.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: You'll have something to stand on.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: You got to read it, friends, and I hope and pray that you will.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Then as you approach it, so number one way to approach scripture, I hope that you will read it.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: The second thing, and this is sort of a Wesleyan tradition, um, but it makes a lot of sense to me before I even became uh Methodist, uh, we use this thing called Wesleyan quadrilateral thing, four things, right?
13:34
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes United Methodists get a bad vibe and they're like, y'all a bunch of liberal crazies, right?
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Not true.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Maybe some of them, right?
13:40
SPEAKER_01: But we believe that scripture is primary, and we believe that we can find all things necessary for salvation through scripture.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: We do not give up this book.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: We believe that God has it's inspired, that it is living, that when we go to it, we have this experience where we can meet God there, we can be pushed, we can see new possibilities, we can see all these different things in it, right?
14:03
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes when we go to read it, I'll admit, I'm like, what the junk is going on here?
14:09
SPEAKER_01: What is this story about?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about anything about agriculture.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about these laws and stuff.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to sacrifice two lambs and burn them up so Noah can get through the ice without slipping, right?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: And so we we go through scripture, right?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: So that's the quadrilateral, we we we approach scripture as primary, but sometimes we know that we have to bring different lenses to try to interpret that, right?
14:28
SPEAKER_01: We bring our lens of tradition as one of those, one of the things of quadrilateral, right?
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Tradition, right?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: How has the church traditionally approached this text?
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the church gets it right, sometimes it doesn't, but we bring that too as part of our discussion, right?
14:43
SPEAKER_01: We also bring our experience, and this is where it's we gotta clarify here.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: When we say experience in the in the Westing quadrilateral, we're not saying like Joel's gonna do his thing, Ian's gonna do his thing, and I'm gonna do my thing, and you do you, and it's all it's all great, right?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: No, we mean experience that we bring our collective experience, right?
15:00
SPEAKER_01: What is all of us together?
15:02
SPEAKER_01: What how we've experienced this text?
15:04
SPEAKER_01: How has God shaped us, molded us, used us through that?
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And then the last thing that we do, so we approach scripture as primary, we bring tradition, we bring experience.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: The last thing, and I'm so excited to bring this to a college congregation, you can use your brain.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Faith and critical thinking are not mutually exclusive.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: In fact, to be a faithful person requires you to think critically, to bring your reason is the word that we use, right?
15:31
SPEAKER_01: To look at something and say, I don't know if that's quite right, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_01: But I read this here and I read that there, and I've experienced this here, and so you sort of connect the dots on what it is that God is calling us to be.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: So read it.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to think through it with the quadrilateral approach scripture with reason, tradition, and experience, right?
15:49
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing is you're thinking through some of these difficult topics, and I know I'm like spending like 18 minutes tonight, and that's a whole lot more on scripture, right?
15:56
SPEAKER_01: If you're thinking about um like how you might approach stuff, right?
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Um let Jesus be your guide.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Let Jesus be your guide, right?
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Um Jesus was the word.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, the word was with God.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: We hear that language in scripture, right?
16:13
SPEAKER_01: And the word became flesh.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did not become the book, but we worship the word, the capital W word.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: If you remember Jesus talked about, you know, the greatest commandment is to do what?
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Love God and love neighbor with all that you have and all that you are, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Um this is not my example.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: I've used it many years.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: I love the example, but think about Jesus as you're thinking through scripture, as you're trying to examine it, trying to figure out is this passage?
16:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to use the word whack or not, but is it whack or not, right?
16:40
SPEAKER_01: Use Jesus as your colander.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Use Jesus as a strainer.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is you're reading this hard text, maybe it's like, hey, we should go stone all these people, right?
16:51
SPEAKER_01: As we think about the the Jesus that we worship, Jesus of love, Jesus of compassion, as we pour that through that, right?
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Does what we're saying, what we're reading, what we're what we're believing about that particular text or saying about that text, does it lead to loving God?
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Does it lead to loving our neighbor?
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't, that might be something that you might want to look at and be like, uh I don't know.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: I need to spend some more time with this.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: I need to pray about this.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this was written for a particular time to a particular audience that doesn't really, I'm not sure about today, right?
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's a hard thing to do.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard thing to say, and especially today, we're getting so much, we're getting so much closer to being a very black and white faith.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: But we have to live in the gray and we have to be willing to strain our our our scriptures and our thoughts and our faith through that through that colander of Jesus.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm saying, is what I'm singing, is what I'm worshiping, is what I'm reading.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Does it pass the vibe test of Jesus?
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Does it allow me to love God more fully?
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Does it allow me to love my neighbor more fully?
17:53
SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't, I'm not saying pitch it out.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying pause, think about it, examine it, and figure it out what it is.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it does lead to loving your neighbor and loving God, just makes you uncomfortable, and that's okay too.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: But spend some time looking in there and doing that, right?
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Think about um, you know, example, Leviticus 20 talks about the penalty, penalty for adultery is death.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: That sucks, right?
18:17
SPEAKER_01: But it is what it is, right?
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Leviticus 20.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: But then you get Jesus, right?
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And they bring someone to Jesus about that, and he's like, hey, whoever has the first sin, or no sin, go ahead and cast the first stone, right?
18:26
SPEAKER_01: And so we see Jesus began to do this, right?
18:28
SPEAKER_01: But then Jesus also talks about how adultery is a big deal.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of stuff that's going on.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: All right, wrapping all this up.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm I'm talking about 18 minutes.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: You need I want you to spend a lifetime with the scripture.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna constantly be wrestling.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I know that I am, right?
18:41
SPEAKER_01: And for some of you may be sitting there, and I know that it makes some people uncomfortable, right?
18:45
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you say, well, if you start picking and choosing, then does anything matter, and where do we draw the line, and how do we do it?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's a lifetime of discernment, of interpretation, and we're not throwing it all out, right?
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Interpretation is not just picking and choosing everything, right?
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Um the truth is everybody picks and chooses.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to get at tonight, in all the words, is it's important to pick the right things and to look through that and to to sift and adjust.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's complicated, it's very complicated as we approach scripture, but it is indeed worth doing.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to know that when you go there and you question, you find something you're wrestling with, and it seems out of line with with history or science, we got a lot of STEM folks in here, and you're like, that doesn't match up what I'm doing in the lab, I don't get all this stuff, right?
19:30
SPEAKER_01: You're not dishonoring God by questioning.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: You're not dishonoring God by wrestling with the text or thinking through the text, right?
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Um God's not judging you by you questioning the text.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: And you're not questioning God when you question the scripture, you're questioning the authors who wrote that.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: We want to be influenced by scripture, we want to dig into it, right?
19:51
SPEAKER_01: And knowing that when we do that, we get to see the character of God, the God who redeems us, who created us, who sustained us for the journey.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't read that St.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Joseph edition too much.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: A lot of pictures.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely a little kid book, right?
20:06
SPEAKER_01: But this has gotten me through so much, and I've grown so much.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: And every time I read a passage, I'm like, dude, I didn't see that before.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: I prepare a sermon that I've preached the same scripture like 20 times, and every time I go to the text, I learn something new.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: This is indeed a guide-word, a God-breathed word, a living word.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And I want to invite you, if you have not done it yet, or maybe it's been a while and it's sat and you're like, I gotta go home and I find my Bible, right?
20:30
SPEAKER_01: And also we got this cool thing called a phone.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: You can find it on there.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Open this up.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Don't know where to start, start in a gospel.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: Pick Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Luke's my favorite, but they're all great, right?
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Pick one.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Read the words of Jesus, the ways in which he walked and talked.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: And when you get to the other part, reach out to a small group or Bella or myself, and let's talk about it and dig into it and see why.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: This is a gift that God has given us.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: But like any gift, it can be used for terrible, it can be used for good.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: I pray and hope that you will choose the challenging route of goodness as you dig into God's word.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: Holy and gracious God, thanks so much for this day, for this time, for this hour.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: We give you thanks for your word, O God.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: A word that's life-giving, but Lord, if we're honest, it can also be confusing and hard.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Lord, pray for discernment.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: We pray for reason.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: We give you thanks for our collective experience and tradition.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: But God, just pour a conviction on our hearts, oh God.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Give us the strength and the courage, Lord, just to spend a few minutes each day with you to start, O God.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And I pray, Lord, that as we open up the pages of this book, may it come alive to us.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: May we truly feel inspired by you as we seek to love and to know you more fully.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: We love you and praise you.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: We ask also in Christ's holy name.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.