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Preaching Faithful Sermons with Eric Attinger · Ministry Minded

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  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Ministry Minded Podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us in our messy ministries.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm, of course, your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
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  SPEAKER_00: I serve as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church right here in Pax Sinus, Pennsylvania.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited to share the first of a sort of mini series of episodes that I
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  SPEAKER_00: got to record with my fellow pastor and friend and brother in ministry,
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  SPEAKER_00: Eric Adinger.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eric serves as the assistant pastor here at Stony Creek Baptist Church.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we got together and recorded a few episodes on one of my favorite topics, which is
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  SPEAKER_00: preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: the theology of preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: the philosophy of preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of the ins and outs and particulars of,
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  SPEAKER_00: you could say,
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  SPEAKER_00: the preaching event is something that we're looking at through these next few
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  SPEAKER_00: episodes here on the Ministry Minded Podcast feed.
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  SPEAKER_00: In this particular installment, what we're doing is covering
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  SPEAKER_00: perhaps what we could say is the most fundamental subject to cover when we're
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  SPEAKER_00: talking about preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: when we're talking about a sermon,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is what is your hermeneutic?
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  SPEAKER_00: What is your driving way,
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  SPEAKER_00: the driving way in which you're interpreting scriptures in order to preach them or
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  SPEAKER_00: in order to
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  SPEAKER_00: And what we talk about a lot and quite extensively here is the Emmaus Road perspective.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you are a longtime listener or reader of Grace Upon Grace or Ministry Minded or whatever,
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  SPEAKER_00: you might be familiar with that terminology.
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  SPEAKER_00: It comes from Luke chapter 24,
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  SPEAKER_00: where Jesus appears to two disciples on the road to Emmaus,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he reveals to them through the course of their conversation that all of
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  SPEAKER_00: scripture concerns himself.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's all about Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it says there in verse 27,
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  SPEAKER_00: that beginning at Moses and through all of the prophets,
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  SPEAKER_00: he showed them the things concerning himself.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of the hermeneutic that we are taking.
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  SPEAKER_00: as the primary hermeneutic of faithful biblical preaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so,
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  SPEAKER_00: we talk a lot about that,
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  SPEAKER_00: we expand on that,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it was just a really fun,
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  SPEAKER_00: really enjoyable,
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  SPEAKER_00: really enriching conversation about preaching and ministry,
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  SPEAKER_00: what makes for good,
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  SPEAKER_00: faithful preaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a really helpful thing to consider,
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  SPEAKER_00: not even if you're a preacher or pastor,
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  SPEAKER_00: but if you are someone who sits under preaching on a weekly basis,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think this will be a really helpful
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  SPEAKER_00: conversation to sort of listen in on.
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  SPEAKER_00: So sit back, relax.
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoy this conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hope you're blessed by it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we'll get right to it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming on here, Eric.
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  SPEAKER_00: And really happy that we can spend some time talking about preaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: The thing that we should be able to talk about a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
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  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I wanted to kind of get in,
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  SPEAKER_00: get your insight on is just kind of like talk through perhaps some of your
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  SPEAKER_00: philosophy of preaching and both from like
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  SPEAKER_00: like a grand,
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  SPEAKER_00: like philosophical context,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also like we can get into like the granular,
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  SPEAKER_00: like the practical,
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  SPEAKER_00: the pragmatic ways in which you like break down a text.
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  SPEAKER_00: So like just to start then though,
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  SPEAKER_00: like when you're approaching a text of scripture,
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  SPEAKER_00: like what's like some of the first things that you're looking for or what's the
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  SPEAKER_00: ways in which like you're approaching that text in order to preach from it?
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  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question.
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  SPEAKER_01: So obviously,
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  SPEAKER_01: in the beginning,
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  SPEAKER_01: I always try to find Christ and the message of the gospel somewhere in there
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  SPEAKER_01: because it always has to be a part of,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think,
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  SPEAKER_01: a good sermon,
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  SPEAKER_01: some kind of reference to Christ or whatever that may be.
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  SPEAKER_01: Then,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: wherever you're at in the scripture,
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  SPEAKER_01: they all have their own,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: unique stories and storylines to them.
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  SPEAKER_01: So one of the first things I do is like to look at the context.
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  SPEAKER_01: The historical context of what's going on with depending on what scripture I'm doing.
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  SPEAKER_01: So,
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  SPEAKER_01: for example,
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  SPEAKER_01: if we were in the Old Testament,
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  SPEAKER_01: say we were in,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the book of Numbers,
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  SPEAKER_01: I would obviously go back.
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  SPEAKER_01: I want to get my head around what was going on at that time.
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  SPEAKER_01: Again, I always like to do the backup and go forward a little bit.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's usually really helpful because a lot of times the passages have to do with
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  SPEAKER_01: the context of what's going on and not knowing that.
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  SPEAKER_01: For example, I'm thinking of when I just did James about a month ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: I remember it was really important to know.
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  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about faith without works is dead.
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  SPEAKER_01: uh, in the second chapter there.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's,
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  SPEAKER_01: and you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: that's a good statement and all,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it's so much more powerful when you understand the context that he was talking
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  SPEAKER_01: to Jewish people who for the first time,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: had heard about this thing that the law wasn't going to save them.
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  SPEAKER_01: So knowing that really,
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  SPEAKER_01: and knowing the background of who obviously the audience,
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  SPEAKER_01: uh,
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  SPEAKER_01: who they're talking to in the context,
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  SPEAKER_01: um,
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  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the first things, obviously, I go to with what the passage is talking about.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then after that,
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  SPEAKER_01: I always like to go and find other reference texts throughout the scriptures and
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  SPEAKER_01: any of the 66 books that could relate in some way.
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  SPEAKER_01: Depending on what I'm preaching on, sometimes there's hundreds of them and you have to weed them out.
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  SPEAKER_01: And others, there's just a few spots.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it's always good.
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  SPEAKER_01: I like to tie in...
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, different areas of scripture because the Bible, you know, authenticates itself, I say.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there's other places to go there.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of, I guess, my jumping off point.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much I got into or answered yet or so.
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  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's excellent.
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  SPEAKER_00: But also what you mentioned at the beginning,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think is really pertinent,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is you're looking for the ways in which scripture reveals Christ,
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  SPEAKER_00: which
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  SPEAKER_00: of course, comes from Christ himself, the Emmaus Road, and all that kind of stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think there's some misconceptions,
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  SPEAKER_00: and perhaps we can dive into this a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's some,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: misconceptions about the idea of,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote-unquote,
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  SPEAKER_00: finding Christ in the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes people think that there's, like, this
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that you're like Sherlock Holmes and you have to like find clues for like,
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  SPEAKER_00: so when you say you're finding Christ,
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  SPEAKER_00: what does that,
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  SPEAKER_00: what does that mean?
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  SPEAKER_00: And what, how would you describe that?
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  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
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  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it's literal, of course.
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  SPEAKER_01: So like,
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  SPEAKER_01: obviously if you're in the old Testament and actually if it's funny,
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  SPEAKER_01: cause I'm just going over the angel of the Lord,
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm covering it this Sunday.
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  SPEAKER_01: So obviously you can find them literally there.
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  SPEAKER_01: Um,
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  SPEAKER_01: But obviously his main message,
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  SPEAKER_01: because everything in Scripture points to Christ and how we need a Savior and how
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  SPEAKER_01: he is that Savior.
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  SPEAKER_01: A good example I can think of is—I know you've covered this at some point in the past,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I know my Bible study in 1 Samuel—
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  SPEAKER_01: this is just fresh in my mind, is the story of Nabal and Abigail.
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  SPEAKER_01: So Abigail obviously is not Christ by any means herself,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the fact that when she comes in in chapter 25,
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  SPEAKER_01: when she comes in and pleads on behalf of Nabal,
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  SPEAKER_01: who is just like us,
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  SPEAKER_01: a foolish sinner who is destined for death,
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  SPEAKER_01: And she comes in and intercedes for him and puts it on her account.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right there is just one example of billions probably,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the Bible will never get to the bottom of how I could say Christ is in that story.
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  SPEAKER_01: And at first glance,
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  SPEAKER_01: you're going to look and say,
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  SPEAKER_01: well,
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  SPEAKER_01: this is about Nabal and David,
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  SPEAKER_01: and Christ hasn't even been born for a thousand years yet.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: When you look at it,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's just more evidence that Christ was always the plan,
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  SPEAKER_01: even in these stories here.
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  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come out and say,
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  SPEAKER_01: repent and believe in Christ and be saved,
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  SPEAKER_01: but you can see how it was always DNA.
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  SPEAKER_01: I always think of holograms like in a picture.
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  SPEAKER_01: When you rub a picture in half, you'll lose the other half of the picture, but in a hologram,
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  SPEAKER_01: If you have just a piece of a hologram,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can replicate the entire thing,
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  SPEAKER_01: which the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_01: I say,
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  SPEAKER_01: is very similar to a hologram in the essence that you could throw the entire Bible
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  SPEAKER_01: away and still have 1 Samuel 25 and have a glimpse of the gospel even right in there.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that's my take on finding Christ in the scriptures there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's such a great example, just because of all the details you laid out, how Nabal is a fool.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's a sinner who definitely deserves what's coming for him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in order to kind of like forestall any sort of judgment or bloodshed,
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  SPEAKER_00: or I think the term there in chapter 25 is blood guilt on David's behalf,
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  SPEAKER_00: on David's part.
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  SPEAKER_00: You have this Abigail who essentially becomes this Christ figure where she's
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  SPEAKER_00: basically like,
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  SPEAKER_00: hey,
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  SPEAKER_00: forgive my husband and put all of his blame on me,
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  SPEAKER_00: which sounds eerily similar to Christ on the cross saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: Father,
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  SPEAKER_00: forgive them for they know not what they do.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which again, it's like echoes.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's like echoes of Christ.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not always like, you know, Sherlock Holmes finding clues.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're like digging.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I think this also comes...
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  SPEAKER_00: Um,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pick on our boy Spurgeon too much,
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  SPEAKER_00: but like,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: he has that famous quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he's going to like go down every highway or byway to get to the cross or something.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the quote, something like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, we don't have to ham fist Christ.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: into passages.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the point you're alluding to, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't have to, like, force him in there like a square peg in a round hole.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's there.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just that,
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  SPEAKER_00: and maybe,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
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  SPEAKER_00: how would you say,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's an obvious example in chapter 25 of 1 Samuel,
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  SPEAKER_00: but,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
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  SPEAKER_00: in some less obvious examples,
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  SPEAKER_00: how would you suggest to disciples,
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  SPEAKER_00: students of the Word,
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  SPEAKER_00: or even aspiring preachers,
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  SPEAKER_00: uh how would they quote-unquote stumble into that like is there a pro i'm not
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  SPEAKER_00: saying there's a process or a formula but how is that just a matter of prayer is
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  SPEAKER_00: that just a matter of time it's a great question yeah so it's actually interesting
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  SPEAKER_01: because when i started uh first ever preaching which is
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  SPEAKER_01: like technically publicly like seven years ago I wasn't as deep as I am now in
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  SPEAKER_01: seeing Christ in the Scriptures I think it's even a process like I I first saw you
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  SPEAKER_01: know I first saw Christ in there but then the more you get to realize the more
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  SPEAKER_01: deeper it is the more deeper you go on and you know that's what it went from you
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  SPEAKER_01: know it's not just the angel Lord show up the Old Testament not just Jesus in the
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  SPEAKER_01: New Testament
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  SPEAKER_01: on the road to Damascus or anything like that.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is in every book, and every book points to him.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I started to go deeper and deeper,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then you get to these points now where,
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  SPEAKER_01: like,
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  SPEAKER_01: Abigail,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're able to take a female and have a Christ figure,
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  SPEAKER_01: so now we're getting really outside the box there.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it goes even beyond, I think, that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's not a figure
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it would probably just, you know, God's insight.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm not all the way there yet,
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  SPEAKER_01: but God's insight to show you that sometimes it's not even,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: somebody pleading for a forgiveness of somebody.
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  SPEAKER_01: It can be any kind of nuance, any kind of sacrificial love.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think anything that has to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ and who he is and
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  SPEAKER_01: what he came for,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can find principles all throughout the Bible there.
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  SPEAKER_01: And again, I don't think any human will ever find the bottom there.
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  SPEAKER_01: of it, I think is deeper than the oceans that we'll never find the bottom.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I think you can just,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the deeper you go,
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  SPEAKER_01: the more you'll be able to see outside of people will start to become,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: like I said,
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  SPEAKER_01: these principles all over the place spread throughout the scriptures there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's all these traces.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like another good example,
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  SPEAKER_00: and not just to keep it on David,
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  SPEAKER_00: but is what David does to Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9,
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  SPEAKER_00: and just the way that he shows him mercy,
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  SPEAKER_00: shows him grace,
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  SPEAKER_00: even though he really doesn't deserve any of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in that similar way in which Christ himself,
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  SPEAKER_00: of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: shows us mercy and grace when we don't deserve it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so there's these traces that are always there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe this kind of speaks to the way in which we read the Bible in a
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  SPEAKER_00: way that is wrong,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is the fact that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: we read it from just like left to right,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we're just proceeding through it like narratively,
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  SPEAKER_00: when really we should read it,
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  SPEAKER_00: maybe we should read it from like Luke 24 and go out.
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  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
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  SPEAKER_00: And go like, oh, wait, he just said that everything is about himself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay, how does that make sense?
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  SPEAKER_00: And then you're going backwards and then forwards from that juncture to be like,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of this is tending towards this one particular moment,
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  SPEAKER_00: this one particular person.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's a really neat idea, actually.
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  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you should start, maybe do a study or something on starting with Luke 24.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know people always say take them to the Gospel of John and Romans to give you,
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  SPEAKER_01: but to study the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's actually not a bad idea to have somewhere where obviously nobody's going to
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  SPEAKER_01: really start reading the Bible in Luke 24 without being suggested to go there,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it is a really good thing because
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  SPEAKER_01: even as a kid,
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  SPEAKER_01: and obviously you can't tell,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of like sometimes when you start teaching,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can teach the basics of the gospel,
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  SPEAKER_01: but all these complex nuances,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can kind of,
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  SPEAKER_01: obviously it's hard to hammer on these kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I just lost my train of thought there for a second.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
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  SPEAKER_01: where I was going with this,
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  SPEAKER_01: oh,
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  SPEAKER_01: is that when I read the scriptures and the stories,
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  SPEAKER_01: I guess as a kid,
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  SPEAKER_01: when you do David and Goliath,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I think you just brought this up on Sunday before,
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  SPEAKER_01: you think of yourself,
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  SPEAKER_01: because we're very self-centered,
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  SPEAKER_01: and that's actually part of our sin problem.
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  SPEAKER_01: So,
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  SPEAKER_01: of course,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's just a more reflection of who we are and pride,
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  SPEAKER_01: and we don't do it in,
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't think,
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  SPEAKER_01: a prideful,
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  SPEAKER_01: we don't try to anyway,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: but it comes out as we're very self-centered people.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, who am I in this story?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at first as a kid, you start out as being David and you're always the good guy.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you get older, you start to realize, oh, maybe I'm sometimes like these other characters.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have to step away and say,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: wait a minute,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: this isn't about me being David or me being Goliath.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Although there's so multiple,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: there's many layers to scripture,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: so it's not inaccurate to say that sometimes you're David,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes you're Goliath.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing is that story again is Christ, that David is a replica of Christ.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's the great shepherd that will defend his flock.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how he learned to kill Goliath.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was training in the fields with his sling.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's when you start to realize that these lessons are not so much for me,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: although they can feel good,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: but I think we talked about this before.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you start putting yourself at the center,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: it's a self-help book,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: and you're going to miss the gospel,
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: and you're most likely going to start going down this works-based gospel,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: which is still prevalent today,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: which is mind-blowing,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: of having to earn things yourself.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see how somebody would slip into that when they make themselves the center of every story.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of speaks to the idea that
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: maybe I should say it this way,
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: that when you think about the Bible without Christ at the center of it,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: then you're actually making the Bible so shallow.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're leaving all of what Scripture contains behind.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: just in the shallow waters of either philosophy or ethics or some sort of manual
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: for spiritual self-help.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But when you add the layer,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: this hermeneutical layer,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: of,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: everything is revealing or tending towards or showcasing who Christ is and what
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: he's come to accomplish.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: then you're adding this infinite depth of richness,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: but also this infinite depth of what actually is going on.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've alluded to this too, but we can talk about it.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's this idea that whenever you're reading the Bible,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: and this does,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: come from Luke 24 and the Emmaus Road,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: but whenever you're reading the Old Testament,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: then you're seeing two strands of...
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: of purpose or meaning or truth happening at the same time.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there's multiple truths, but you're reading a historical truth, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're reading,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you want to call it,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: like redemptive truth or Christological truth or whatever,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: which then helps us really grasp like,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: especially in those passages that you tend to stay in,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: which are those Old Testament passages.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love them.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I love going to these Old Testament passages is because that's the last time,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: like when a new believer,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: the last place they look for Jesus is the Old Testament because they're like,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: he wasn't born yet.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And which defies,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: which is hard to understand at first because,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: especially as a new believer,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: you find out that Jesus was born as a baby.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: But then at the same time, you read Colossians and he's preeminent.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to kind of rectify the situation.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he says before Abraham was, I am.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: He must be in the Old Testament.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And my thing to get new believers excited,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I always say,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: if you guys are really good at Where's Waldo,
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to have a lot of fun playing Where's Jesus in the Old Testament.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's cooler because even deeper,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: like I said,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: once you find the literal Christ,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: like I said,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: the angel of the Lord,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: and you've got Manoah and his wife,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: those are fun and stuff.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then they think they're done and say, well, I went through all of them and I found it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, no, now you have to find his story in everything.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And like,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: like I go,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: we're saying there's so many layers and like you,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: somebody could think they've accomplished something by peeling off that top layer,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: but there's a second layer.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And once you peel off that, there's so much more.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: that's why I always say we'll never get to the bottom of it because it's a
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: hyperdimensional message from the Lord.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's incomprehensible to our minds.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: First off that he has to dumb down into human language for us, but there's just so much in there that,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's cool because the more you study it and the more you want to preach on it,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: the more you continue to learn.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, it's like that old adage, the more I learn, the less I know.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a weird thing.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: You realize there's so much more to learn about it,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: which is daunting,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: but also exciting because then in my experience,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure yours too,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's ever going to be a time anybody who takes scripture seriously
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: wants to preach people ever get bored.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think there's ever going to be a time where we run out of things that we find.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if we do, it's because we got lazy or something, because there's so many things to find.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And just like slowing down,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes you read a verse and you can find something that you read the verse a
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: hundred times.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I just love the fact that it's this really cool spiritual treasure hunt if you
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: want to make it exciting.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: But really the bottom line, kind of what we say is it's Christ all throughout scriptures.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And to keep it centered,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: you have to keep Christ at the center because otherwise that's why things get so
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: out of balance,
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: so tilted.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's why you have Christians saying some unchristian things around,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: because they focus on themselves and being good enough and not being good enough
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: and beating people over the head when it's really about,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: forgiveness in Christ and repenting and turning to him.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you made a good point, too, that our...
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: our Bible reading,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: our Bible studying,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: the way in which we approach scriptures,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: either just from as a student or as a preacher,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: should never lead us to be bored.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And not to sound too cynical, but I think the way in which...
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: modern prosperity gospel preachers present the word.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you just take it from like this, like a bird's eye view, it's actually really boring.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like just like, no, no, it's not.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like, Hey, you have to better yourself.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's essentially just the law just in a different way.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: tone or like a different garb.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like spruced up a little bit.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's spruced up law.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: But law is pretty boring, actually, because it makes you the center of everything.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one that has to bear the burden of either finding forgiveness or finding
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: reconciliation or finding righteousness on your own in the ways in which you have
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: to work on yourself and all that kind of stuff,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: which...
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, it's actually a rather boring message.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not a fun one either.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think why people get so scared of Christianity,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: and people will run from the book of Leviticus because it's just like you said,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: the law,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: and it's like,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: thou shalt not do this,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: you can't do that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a list of you can't, you can't, and stuff like that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do with all the weird laws?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't wear denim now.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Fabric and all this stuff.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: that's where people get into really like,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: you can really get down to the nitty gritty.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there are people out here that are still trying to not wear mixed fabrics and more power to them.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like if they're trying to follow all the 613 laws,
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: but you know,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: as you start to learn the grace of the Lord and that none of like,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: even if you don't wear mixed fabric,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: there's one of those that you're going to break.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And, and it's, and that's what I love about Christ is like,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: People think it's so funny because,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: especially non-believers,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: younger believers think that Christ made things easy.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like the easy peasy guy and just makes it, he's going to fluff things up.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people have the wrong idea of Christ because he really actually makes it harder.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: He boils it down to two lulls from Christ.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: 613, but at the same time he's saying like, oh, it's not even based on action.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on your mind and your thoughts.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think things, you might as well have acted it out.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what it is.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So he makes it more difficult.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So love God and love your neighbor is not as easy as it sounds because it makes
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: people think,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: and that's where people get off on this like workspace.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can, I love God and I'm, I'm a very good loving person.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: the Bible says you're not good at all and anything good you can do is because of Christ.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's this whole big, you know, ball of wax when you really get into it.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it is interesting how like
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: that's one thing I love too,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: to point out the true Christ figure from the Bible versus what the culture says,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: because they make them so laid back and so easygoing.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to see a different Christ when he comes back,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: but he definitely made it a lot harder because,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: from one thing to acting on like the one,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think of,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: acting,
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: people think that adultery is acting with woman,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: but if you think about it,
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: you've already done it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a powerful statement to show us like how impossible it is to follow,
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: not only action wise,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: but,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: but thought-wise,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: according to this law,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: just as humans were broken and cursed and we'll never do it without Christ.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: what a great point that is too,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: because we definitely have this wrong impression that Jesus comes to alleviate the
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: law to make it easier to follow.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what grace is.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Grace becomes this plaster material to fill in all of the ways in which we've fallen short.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it's way...
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's way deeper than that.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot harder.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He enhances the law.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: He actually showcases the true,
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: we could say,
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: nature of the law,
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is not just good effort,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: but perfection,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: which culminates in Matthew 5.48.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, which then leads to that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that moment with the rich young ruler in Mark 10.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world can anyone do this?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world can anyone live up to this law?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: that's what leads to Jesus's explanation,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: which is the fact that,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: with man,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: it's impossible.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: With God, all things are possible, which is kind of the point of the gospel.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the point of grace, which is to be the...
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: The possible impossibility,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is the fact that now we who can never save ourselves are given salvation scot-free.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Which is,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think a really helpful,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: like as you've explained,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: it is a helpful way to preach the gospels to start from.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: The impossibility of finding freedom or meaning or purpose,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: you can insert any of those things in there,
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: finding any of that on your own,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: as opposed to being given it as a gift,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: which again,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: brings us back to Christ.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why it's so important.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: for somebody like yourself and others to preach from a Christ standpoint because
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: you hit on the prosperity gospel,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: and that's nothing new.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's very old,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: but it's very prevalent,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: and obviously not all televangelists are evil or sinful by any means,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: but it's very prevalent there where you can see this prosperity,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: and it is kind of like—
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of reminds me of the hamster wheel in the cage.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: To get their snack, they've got to do these tricks.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or a rat in a maze.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because they almost act like, if you want this, you must do this.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And again, very self-centered.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times, too, it's almost an escape from the reality for people.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So they would much rather be able to sow $1,000 to reap all these benefits than to
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: actually follow Christ.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what it is.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's how can I do this the easy way?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the easy way is no good way at all, because that's the way that leads to hell.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you go back to this workspace thing,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: and then you're going back to...
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: It still blows my mind that so many people can fall for the prosperity gospel after
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: reading Jesus,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: but I think it goes to show how many people that read the Bible...
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: just have a tough time differentiating some of these things and how,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: and also how some people you can,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: you can be manipulative.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can take scriptures out of context.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And with this person,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: if people aren't really reading their Bible very well,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: you can take some of these things out and really,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: really twist them.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: They can say, Hey, look at Solomon, you know,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: in his day, silver were like rocks.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So Israel was the richest it's ever been, maybe the richest country of all time.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so how could that be bad?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're a child of God, so you should inherit, you have the right to inherit.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it gets so convoluted and twisted into the self-help.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: it's just,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: a sales tactic,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: really,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: because a lot of times what they're doing is,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: raising money for themselves and they're in trouble.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then all the people, you know, they're talking people into more trouble.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the reason I think it's so nice going back to my point that, you know,
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: to have preachers actually focusing on Christ is to have some of these people who
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: maybe have only ever heard,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: televangelists,
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes they'll,
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: they'll get introduced by a book by Joel Osteen or somebody,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: and they'll end up watching them online.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: but you know,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: to have a good local church teaching the truth,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: it might be the first time somebody actually hears that not everything is about
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: them in the Bible.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's more about,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: and of course it's important for them to know,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: but it's really about Christ and what he's done for them,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: not what they have to do for themselves.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: we could kind of like condense all that and just saying like to give a like a heads
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: up for any preacher you i guess you would say start with a hermeneutic of christ is
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: everywhere in scripture absolutely yeah that would be that would be the best
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: approach because you might as well get there first rather than later right
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: otherwise you're just going to waste your time getting there and you might preach a
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: couple sermons that you want to delete from your youtube page later on
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because you end up doing one of these things that, and I do think people do it innocently.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do think there are some preachers out there that,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: they'll preach Jesus when you're in the New Testament or when you're talking about,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: an altar call or something like that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that people can slip into these things.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it sometimes.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had a pastor one time tell me,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Eric, I had an idea for a sermon I was going to do on a Sunday.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very truthful sermon and not the most fluffiest sermon you'd want to hear,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: but I thought it was a very important message.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: The one guy actually told me, he said, hey, you might want to save that for a Wednesday night.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really a Sunday morning thing because what you want to do on Sunday
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: morning is get people to feel really positive and really good about their week.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually literally told that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I get why people you don't want,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: to beat people over the head and make them feel awful.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, we are guilty.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: We are guilty of everything.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it is supposed to be sharp and piercing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's no avoiding that.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when I had comments like that, like, hey, save that one.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: But save that for a Wednesday.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: It just goes to show.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why can people feel bad on Wednesdays?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: they're halfway through the week and they only have halfway to go so make them feel
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: bad then that is such a good point I should have actually countered with that but
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: it's funny it was almost like hey this is the feel good almost like hey this is the
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: self help time you can do the really hard and the true stuff but right now and I
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: couldn't help but you know I'm not certain on it but I couldn't help but think
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: That the more you tell these truths that I wanted to tell and really get to these
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: things about Christ and who we are and who he is,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: really,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: that the more you'd tell the truth,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: the more you'd push people away.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're really worried about attendance and numbers,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: the last thing you'd want to do is tell people probably the truth of the Bible
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: because it is very offensive.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And for people who can't handle that,
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: they might go to another church and you'd have to be okay with that.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where this preacher might have been coming from.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can't lock that in for sure.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it definitely seemed like, don't spook my people.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you come in here, I'd like to have you come in on a Wednesday and spook my people here.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I do know there are some topics like,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: every once in a while I'll go on rants about,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: aliens and these weird things in culture.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And even then, that's really to tie back to Christ when I talk about that stuff.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Those topics I wouldn't say are always for Sunday mornings.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're preaching straight out of the Bible,
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: you're not taking any social or anything context in there,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's anything wrong.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: I do understand it would be—some stories can be really tough for a sermon,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: but everything's approachable if you really want it to.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if God laid it on your heart,
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: obviously don't force yourself to go teach about Eglon being stabbed or something
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: like that on a Sunday morning if you don't have to,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: or Moses burying somebody in the sand.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: The ten-peg, yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the ten-peg JL of a head.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: You don't do that for the children's lesson or anything, but I think there's a lot to it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I really felt like I was tiptoeing this past Sunday,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: talking about Jacob fathering all these kids with all these different women.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: How does that point to Christ?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was a tough one.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just, hey, we're pretty screwed up people.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: We really need the God.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: We really need Christ.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, man.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's... I want to move... Let's just stay on that really quick, which is the fact that
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: there seems to be this notion that if you're always preaching about Christ Sunday
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: after Sunday,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: that you're actually the boring one,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: which is what we were talking about.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, actually, I think it's the opposite.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But why do you think that?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just like a straw man,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: this thing that people have in their minds when they're not always confronted with it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: But why do you think this idea of always preaching Christ is sometimes resisted or
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes not always accepted or received as it should be?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just, that's a great question.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: I literally just a few days ago,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to mention this yet,
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: had somebody say like how like preachers need to make sure that they don't preach
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: too heavy on G.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: it just sounds insane to me when people say this,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: like just not too heavy because people want to hear other stuff too.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, what other stuff do you want to hear?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like what, what else is good about this?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I, I do think it comes down to maybe I'll probably, this is probably multi-layered too.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: One is we live in the age of entertainment, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is a big problem.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I know churches are suffering probably across the country knowing this.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to compete, there's even some churches that put on some more flashier shows than others.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's all because of this entertainment.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have Netflix at our fingers, all these things, and people want to be entertained.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And people want something exciting, and they're sick of us saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they want something more interesting and something they didn't know before.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it also goes back also to this other thing that probably even a little kid
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: might say to you,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: like harmlessly,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: just say,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: I already know that.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: You already told me.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: I already know.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is already in my heart.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I already know that part.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get to the next thing.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's a lot of that.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they think,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saved,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: which sometimes they're not even,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: which is kind of interesting because they'll come later on in life and realize it was.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think it's good to preach on Christ constantly,
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: because somebody could walk into your church,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: think they're saved.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they hear this and say, well, I didn't know any of that.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then then it becomes a big ordeal.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the entertainment thing has to do with.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think people always want to hear new things.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they think for some reason, like even when I take I have to like say this a lot to people.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Especially when you get to the common ones.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: For example,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: when I did 1 Samuel earlier on,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: when I did David fighting Goliath,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: that one was a hard one to walk people into.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: listen,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're going to have heard this story before,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: and you're going to think there's nothing new for you here.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you might even go into danger.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: You might even check your phone.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I can guarantee you there is something in here that you've never, ever seen before.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always trying to encourage people to get to the bottom of it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I always talk about the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Reading the Bible is like jet skiing right on the top of the water.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And studying the Bible is like doing a deep dive, scuba dive to the bottom.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I always want people to get.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Plus because when you hear something over and over,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: it makes more sense to you and you glean more things where hearing things once
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: doesn't help anybody.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: You raised two really good points.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the second one that you raised I think is worth noting on, but we'll go back to the first one.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the second one,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: this idea that we've heard all these things before,
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: and it makes me think of where the writer of the Hebrews talks about the milk
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: versus the meat thing.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's this horrible misconception that –
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: the gospel or Jesus himself is the milk that the writer was talking about.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like, oh man, you're just, you're still in the milk of the word.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're still on this easy stuff.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get to the meat.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we have this idea that like,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: we need to move on from the gospel in order to get to the proverbial meat of the word,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: which is actually entirely opposite.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's entirely opposite of what the writer of Hebrews was trying to do because his
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: whole premise is Christ is better than this and this and this and this.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And his whole premise was actually showcasing like the meat of the word,
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: if you will,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: is I would argue is exactly what Jesus was talking about in Luke 24,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: which is,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: it's all about Christ and he's the fulfillment.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: So like, if you really want the meat and,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's to see everything from Emmaus' perspective.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the meat of the word.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, we've got to get away from it.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, we've got to get deeper into it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Especially at that point,
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: the road to Emmaus,
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: when Jesus says everything is about him,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: you have to take him,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's being quite literal there.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: because he even talks about,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: there's other stories and things that Jesus did that weren't put in the Bible,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: and people will ask me,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: why didn't they put the other things in the Bible?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: I said, well,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: God had a direct message he wanted to deliver.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And although it might've been true,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: everything Jesus did,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: it didn't fit that story because the whole story is to point you to Jesus and
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: everything has a specific reason.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's always revealing something about Jesus.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's safe to say,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: if he said that it's true,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: so you're never going to,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: you can look all you want,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: but you're never going to find a story that was like,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: this is just,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: we also add,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: God also added this in.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't really about Jesus,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: this one,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: but this one just kind of ties in because it's kind of related,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: so we thought we'd include it.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to do that,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: you can go read the Apocrypha,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: and that has a little bit to do with it,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's not in the Bible for a reason, too, for a whole other reason.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's another aspect of it, too.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a really great point.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's because again, it's all about revelation.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is a book of revelation.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: when Jesus,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: when the,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: when the glorified Christ meets with John at Patmos and he's,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: like this is a revelation of me,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: essentially he says to him,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: it's not just that book.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like that can work backwards too.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like the whole thing is a revelation of Jesus.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because you could actually like,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: if you had to come up with a name of the Bible,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: it might be the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great point, yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 66 book.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: He recaps the whole thing.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's what we were getting to the whole time.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: The whole time, this was the answer.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: In case you didn't get it in the first 65 books, we got you.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the meat and milk analogy, I think, persists because...
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: we like to be the ones that effect change either on others or ourselves.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: we come up with all of these schemes and systems by which sanctification becomes
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: this process that we are the ones that are doing all the work and all the effort
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: and all that kind of stuff.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then that naturally leads to this idea that
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can preach messages in which you're the center.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then that becomes the proverbial meat of sermons.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you're doing all the work and you got to do better at it.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Which maybe we could say then like the reason why Christ is resisted is because it
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: kind of takes that out of our hands.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're losing control at that point, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's the best part.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: People always rip on that whole concept,
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus take the wheel,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: and they think it's cliche,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: but it's actually kind of true.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not how they meant it when they sang that song or whatever it is,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: but it's basically a relief to me.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I relate this to almost...
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not so much preaching,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: but when I was a teenager and I believed in Christ,
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to tell other people about Jesus.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: I tell people about this all the time,
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: and I think a lot of younger people deal with this,
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: and maybe even adults today,
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: that you feel like you have the burden to convince this person with logic and
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: reasoning and Scripture,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: and if they walk away not believing you,
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: you were somehow a failure,
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: and you didn't deliver the message true.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: When really the Bible says,
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: complete opposite, really.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Acts 17 is always a huge one.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: When Paul goes to Athens, for me, it's the best example.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's others in the Bible, but Paul, we consider Paul is one of the greatest evangelists of all time.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he gets those three different responses when he gives that speech.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some say yes right away, some say no right away, and some say, let me think about it.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I always tell people,
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: if you understand that you will get only these three responses,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: and that none of those responses are based on you,
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: because Paul gave the same message to all three of those groups of people,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: and they all have three different responses.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: there's only three really real responses you're going to get,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: and none of it matters about what you do.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about the Holy Spirit opening their eyes.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then I honestly think it's like a burden off your shoulders.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: But so many preachers have that,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: going back to that one that told me,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: keep that sermon for a different day,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: because Sunday...
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he may have been worried that I'd scare some people out of the church
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: by being a little too graphic or whatever it may have been.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think it goes back to that thing like,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: we have to...
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's that whole thought is,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: we have to make sure we keep these people here.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And let's not make any mistakes when we preach the gospel of Christ.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure not to offend them or make sure not to bore them or whatever it is.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to this whole thing.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: They might not even make their messages self-centered and they might be put in
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Christ in the middle,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: but then...
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: When they're acting like this and they have these thoughts of,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: I need to keep people in the seats because that's what keeps the lights on and all
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: these things,
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: now it becomes self-centered as far as the preacher has to be the savior of this church.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes why things go so sideways in churches is because the preacher is the
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: savior of the church and is the person of the church.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then it gets so convoluted and why we see so many issues on this.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's because...
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: I get it.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Preachers know it's their livelihood.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Some people really worry about it and they don't want to offend people.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: if it's anything,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: if you've been a preacher for any amount of time,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: the gospel is offensive.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you just have to get over the fact that somebody might be upset with what you said or something.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: But as long as you stuck to scripture and the truth, you shouldn't feel bad about it.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And don't think you turned anybody away from the gospel because Paul had the same issue in Athens.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's such a great point, because when we start to
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: focus on the results of sermon writing and sermon delivery,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: then that's when we start to compromise on that initial hermeneutic,
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: that initial framework,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: because then we're being like,
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: what's really going to retain
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: interest or visitors or what's going to and maybe maybe this is hopefully this is
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: not anyone's mind but but what's going to return the best investment what's going
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: to bring in the most dollars into the offering plate or whatever and then you're
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: already you're already so far gone at that point
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're really out of balance at that point.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it happens more than we know.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's people that don't even realize they're doing it.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Good people, too.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying these are all prosperity gospel people.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And any pastor would know this who's been preaching for a while or working in a
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: church for a while is that all the emails are not good ones.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And all the comments are not good ones.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: You could actually preach the best sermon you ever did, and you might get an offensive thing.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't help but be human.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And none of us want those sharp responses and those angry responses,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: or you should have said this,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: or I can't believe you mentioned this.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants those.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I go back to scripture.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: The only time
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: I try my best to worry about what other people think is if I miss something
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: hermeneutically about Christ or some context.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like my big thing is like,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure I get this thing exactly in the context of when it was written.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want all the facts.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have any of my own opinions in here.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want to strip all my opinions out if I can.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other thing that gets really wrapped up.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: into preaching is people's opinions on usually secondary matters, not about who Jesus is God.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually these secondary things about eschatology and the spirit world and how
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: much it interacts with us today or doesn't and gifts and all these things.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it can just get so convoluted.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the most important thing when I think about it is
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I really worry about,
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: not so much who I'm going to offend,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: but make sure I get this all right.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if the last one thing I want somebody to come and have to correct me like,
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: you took this way out of context.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the thing that I always think is the important part.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: But to worry less about how people are going to be offended and know that you're
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: going to get a response like,
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sick of hearing Jesus.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a friend that's going to come to church and they already know Jesus.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: They're never going to stay if you keep talking about the cross.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we have to just kind of take those on the chin because we're going to get some of those.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to get a stronger jaw, basically, to take those ones.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I do see that a lot.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think there's a lot of younger preachers, or maybe not even younger ones, but just...
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who are nervous about things and they can't help but be a human and worry about it.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it does take – I think it takes God to get you past some of those fears because
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: they're natural human fears.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't blame them for those things.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Man, as you were talking, I was thinking about –
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: This article I wrote, because it applies so well to what you were just talking about.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll link to it in the notes.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: So one time I was listening to this podcast.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Bill Simmons podcast.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he had on this comedian, which is really interesting.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of...
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: preaching techniques that you can get from modern day standup comedians.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, he was talking to the comedian, Mike Birbiglia.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, uh, Birbiglia had a comedy show on Broadway.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now like,
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: the thing about Birbiglia's show is that his comedy routines aren't,
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: like the standard,
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: like riffing and like,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: they're not always spontaneous,
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: like a standard standup comedian would be.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: His shows are really planned,
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: they're really organized,
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: really calculated,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: and they're really,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: like you could say,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: scripted.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he had this section, and I should try and bring it up, because there's this awesome section in...
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: in that part of it,
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: hold on,
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: let me see if I can bring it up,
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: where he's talking about how the fact that he has to,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: he has to deliver the good,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: he has to deliver the good,
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: every time,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: or he won't really be giving people,
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: the bang for their buck,
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: He won't be actually delivering on what people are expecting.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said this, like, because Bill Simmons is basically, like, asking him,
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: hey, do you feel restricted?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like you're being confined,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: like your creativity is being ruined by the constraints of having a script,
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then Birbiglia says this, he says, quote, no, because I ultimately have to deliver.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about that in terms of the gospel.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Which is like, every preacher should use this as their framework.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: You have to deliver the thing.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: And like you were just saying,
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would not want to be there and not deliver the gospel on a random Sunday or whatever,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: and that be the Sunday where you kind of don't deliver the gospel in the same exact way.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Every single time, you're delivering that same message to those people that have gathered there.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the framework that...
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: pastors, I think, should approach their sermons.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: and I think what people are doing is they would take a quote like that,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: because the preachers that need some work on the gospel would take something like
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: that and take it the complete opposite way of what you did,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: which I think you took it the appropriate way,
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: because we do have goods to deliver,
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: and that is the gospel.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole calling, which Spurgeon is always alluding to.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you have some of these people,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: and I won't list names of churches or pastors and stuff,
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: but for example,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I saw in the past year some churches doing Toy Story themes,
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: some doing Lion King,
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: where they literally had Simba on a cross,
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: really bizarre stuff.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my gosh.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's crazy just to kind of get like this Hollywood thing.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what they're doing is saying, I got to deliver the goods, and their goods is entertainment again.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like I got to deliver the goods,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: and they might even say,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give them the gospel message,
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: but I have to give it in a way they understand.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to talk about the Lion King,
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: or I got to talk about Barbie,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: and I got to come out here with my wife and be dressed in an outfit,
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: which is true.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: People really do these things around here and throughout America, and it's really –
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: like, you know, devastating, honestly.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what they're doing is taking that same kind of concept and saying,
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: for them to come back,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: the reason he wants people there is because he's out of a job if he doesn't deliver
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: the goods,
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: is what he's saying.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll take his entertainment approach and saying,
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: if I don't entertain these people,
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: if I don't make them feel good about themselves than they did when they walked in here,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to lose my money.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to lose my people.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: When, in essence, they should be saying what you just did.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't present the gospel and somebody walks out of here,
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: they could potentially be lost in a different way than money.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: A soul is lost.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not so worried about money being lost as much as souls being lost.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's two different aspects to that take, and I think you took the correct one.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other people are taking it the complete opposite way, whether they know it or not.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: and I think it helps us because it's a message that,
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: unlike,
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: the biglia thing,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: it's not a message we've come up with,
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: but it's a message that we've received.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we haven't come up with the gospel.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't,
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: come up,
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: and like,
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: this is the thing that I think makes the most sense in terms of,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: reading the scripture.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the scripture is not a man-made book.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: No one could have ever put in all of these echoes and traces of who Christ is and
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: what he was going to come and accomplish in the ways in which like you've talked about.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's like all these like under the surface themes and nuances and like echoes
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: that are within the Old Testament that portray Christ either really vividly or
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps even in the shadows.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: But either way, he's there.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: We could have never come up with that.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we've been given it.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, as preachers, we have the responsibility to convey it.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we can't mess with it.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can't tinker with it.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: And like, when you're talking about, you know, I can't even, I didn't see that story.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Crucifying Simba, like, that's tinkering with the message a little bit.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll tell you, well, no, we're... It's almost like how they talk to kids.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, no, we're telling them the truth, but through this really fun way.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: if that's your reason to bring people in and you're giving them popcorn to do this,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: you're just going about it the wrong way.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because like you said...
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is a message from God,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: the book,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: and you'll have so many people,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: we'll have people forever telling us,
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: that's a man-made book,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm not going to believe anything man wrote,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is hilarious,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: because then they'll tell you they believe in science,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: which are also books man wrote,
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: which I love to point out,
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: every book's written by a man,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: which one,
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: do you not believe any of them?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it gets ridiculous,
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: but first off,
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: then you go back,
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: and of course,
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: we can cross-reference and all the different authors and things like that,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I think you hit on a really big thing.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a man's book.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're not out here trying to get Paul's ideas out or Peter's ideas or Samuel's
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: ideas that he had,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: although it might have their names on these scriptures at times.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: They'll even tell you in the scripture it's not their ideas and no prophecy comes from man.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from the Lord.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: It hits on that.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: So then you've got to think of, you know, in angelology, I'm thinking Malak and messengers.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like if we would essentially be messengers of God,
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: and that's really what a preacher is,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: is carrying that message from God to other people.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think of that,
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: like who would want,
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: if I sent you a letter,
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: who would want the UPS guy or the mail guy to open it up and say,
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: here,
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put my own spin on what he was going to say.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, keep the letter in the envelope and give it to the next person.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really, I think, the approach we need to take.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, here's what it says, right?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I can't even tell you why God says this, but all I know is he's the boss.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is his message.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'd like to socially change it for you,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's not going to help either of us because it's just not the truth.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not the truth.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: It just brings me back again to seeing Christ as the fulcrum upon which Scripture
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: turns is,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: the most important thing.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it should drive...
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not only our sermon study, but our sermon writing.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we can get into that a little bit.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, go back to the very beginning.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're approaching a text,
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: and you've spent some time in the text to the point where now you have a firm grasp
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: on Christ's presence.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: presence within that text.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you're approaching a sermon,
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: and there's different styles,
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: people have different ways in which they approach a sermon and how they write it
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: and stuff,
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: but how are you approaching conveying that to others?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: a gathered audience to a congregation or to a classroom or whatever.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the venue would determine a lot of that,
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: but,
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: like let's,
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: let's say it's like a classroom of,
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: of students,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: like in a Sunday school or like a Bible study,
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: can you kind of talk about your approach on how you would convey that message of
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Christ within the text,
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, that's a really great question.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are,
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: like you even alluded to,
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: many different approaches,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: and mine might not be the 100% right one for everybody else.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a bunch of ways you can come at it as long as you're conveying the message.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just like for a couple of my recent past experiences,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: what I can think about is usually what I do is kind of like what I said,
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: is I'll go to the scripture that the Lord leads me to preach on,
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: And my first thing will be, where's Christ at in this?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we kind of lay the foundation, almost mapping out our minds, so to speak.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing that I find effective in my approach and the way I do things is kind
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: of laying out the text,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: which might not always be about Christ.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, we'll just use the first statement because we're talking about it.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like to at first really, again, cover the context, really get them in.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a blind side, but almost in a way it's like, hey, we walk through the scripture.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: You understand this text really well.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: You understand Abigail, what's going on with David, what's going on here.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: All right, boom.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now look at this.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's look at this.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what I do is I almost like to take the camera and then switch to camera two,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: which is the angle of Christ.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: And now all of a sudden it's like, all right, now we're going to look at this story, but now look at it.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times I think,
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes people can see it,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: but a lot of times it's almost like a camera angle change.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, wow, I didn't even see it from that angle.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the approach I love to do is to almost like walk them in,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: not a trap,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: but walk them into the gospel,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like a movie where like you get everything from one perspective and
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: then you learn a piece of information and then you go back and watch those same events.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like your mind on a rewind.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that movie at the end, the montage of the first scene all the way through and like the whole time.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now everything is different.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now everything has changed.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now everything makes more sense.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: the one I can think of the best that I actually just did two sermons ago that I preach,
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: and it's probably one of the best examples I've ever used,
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: is when you have Joseph in prison.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just talking about it,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: and you're learning,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: these prisoners,
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: one was...
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you can say,
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: one was good,
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: one was bad,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: one dies,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: one is hung,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: and you learn the story,
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: and you say,
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: now what was the baker doing?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's making bread.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: What was the cupbearer doing?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's pouring wine.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: The bread and the wine and communion and remember me, and it's like...
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: You could almost see heads spinning when I did.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: You could see some heads almost like,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: what was,
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: wait a minute,
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: even says remember me just like he does in communion.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one of those things that if you're not looking for it, you're not going to see it.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the first time I ever got pointed out,
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: it knocked me upside the head where it stunned me for almost days.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's been in there the whole time?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I love to approach it because that one's more subtle even though it's there.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost like, I love it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you said, like the end of a movie.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Once you see, for example, The Sixth Sense.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, wait a minute, Bruce was dead.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then spoiler.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't watched it, you're 25 years behind, which there are some out there.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's been dead the whole time,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: but I remember,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: and it's funny cause I like,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: it's a silly example,
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: but the first thing I want to do at the end of that movie is go rewatch it again.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: because I wanted to look.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did, I saw the red handle and I saw that she never talked to him.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw these things like, wow, it really was there.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it is,
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: it is like almost the same effect when you read something like Joseph in the prison
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: is like,
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: wow,
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: the whole time.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, let's go back to the beginning.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Was there something else I missed that back there?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, it's really fascinating.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think it's like, if you want entertainment, that's a real entertainment to me.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's like finding Christ.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all, you know, it's, it's almost a game, a fun little like game you're playing at the same time.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would totally agree.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that really just gets my theological juices flowing than doing that
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: type of process,
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: than going through this.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then when either it's revealed or you're just in communion with the Spirit and
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: you understand a text finally,
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: then it's like,
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: oh man, I can't wait to go back.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then part of preaching is then conveying that same sort of like journey,
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: if you will,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: with a text on like,
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: here's how it is,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: but like,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: here's the key to understanding the whole thing.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like another approach that I often strive to take is to kind of like lay out all of
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: the bare facts of a story and facts that
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not only let us get a sense and a grasp of the reality of it,
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: the humanness of it,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: but also the wretchedness of it.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: To the point where it's like, man, this is horrible.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: We need Christ.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like showing people, bringing them to that tension of...
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: this is really awful without Christ's presence,
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: absolute presence,
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: or absolute fulfillment of either justice or grace or any of those things.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Without that, this would be a wretched, wretched story.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: But yet...
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: There he is.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is always revealed as the author and finisher of everything,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: the fulfillment of all of these stories.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: They find fulfillment only in him.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think, yeah, that's a fantastic approach.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I like your approach even there, like when you said fulfillment.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: like break down the facts and then show how awful it is.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point is like, there's a lot of awful things in the Bible.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just kind of like you're,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: what you were alluding to when you're in Genesis 29,
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: going into Genesis 30 there.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, wow, they're having like multiple women having babies to Jacob.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to find the gospel here.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is an ugly man.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: This family is really dysfunctional.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Their sisters fight.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is crazy.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: How can I encourage me?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, the encouragement is there's Jesus, right?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the encouraging thing.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: And like anybody tells you, well, you know, the Bible's full of despair and all this evil and stuff.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, have you looked at the world?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it's trying to convey to you is that this world is just as evil.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as what you read here, there's a lot of murder.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: I get a lot of it.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not pleasant.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what it's showing you is like everything you see out here, the Bible, it happened back then.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you said, an echo.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this thing is never going to end until Christ returns.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: But that's our hope.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's our blessed hope of his appearing again, him returning.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I like what you said there, because there is despair.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like what the preachers I was alluding to earlier are afraid of touching to scare people.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the antidote, when you deliver the antidote, but we have Christ, it's not so scary anymore.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to make you feel, it's going to make you feel good.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is a feel good story if you really want to think about it for yourself,
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: of learning what Christ is the solution to all this evil.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: that's a great point,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: because the other way of approaching passages like that,
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: and the ways that we've alluded to,
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: would almost be like avoidance.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like ostriches putting their heads in sand.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, I'm not going to talk about this.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: But really,
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: all that does is perhaps delay the inevitable,
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: but it actually doesn't prepare anyone to face...
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: heartache or difficulty or any kind of adversity if you're just always denying it
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: if you're always trying to like hey if you want to avoid it just do these x do this
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: xyz thing but actually a better way is to say like no sometimes life is hard
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes life sucks
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there's hardship that comes our way.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: despite it all,
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes even despite our own choices,
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: our own culpability in that,
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: there is grace to be had in droves.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just like, you know, what I preached about and what you alluded to, Genesis 29 and 30, there's grace.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's horrible,
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: it's wretched,
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: it's wicked,
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: and yet,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: the irony is,
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: is that the line of promise is still being carried forward within Jacob's family anyways,
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: despite him,
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: despite his,
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: how awful he is,
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: what a cheater he is,
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: what a trickster he is,
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: God still moves forward.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: And what's cool is because you can tie these kind of stories to,
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: honestly,
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of people have a lot of dysfunctional families.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: So in a crazy way,
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: if you skip Jacob,
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: you're skipping the one thing they might actually be able to kind of attach to,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know my brother hates me too,
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: like one of these things.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on is,
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: depending on what church they're going to,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: depending on what preachers they're listening to,
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: if they listen to somebody like we talked about earlier,
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: the self-help people,
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: whether they're trying to or not,
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: or the prosperity gospel,
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: they're basically going to a doctor and getting bad medicine that treats something
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: that they don't have.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they have a heart issue, and they're not getting medication for their heart.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: When you deliver Jesus, that's why I think there's so many different outcomes.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: Of course,
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: if I didn't have Jesus to give them,
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: and I wasn't giving them the right medication,
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: for their heart...
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: there.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: I would want to avoid those kids because how am I going to make this a good, you know, sermon?
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: How am I going to relate it to anything?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: But when you have Christ,
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: it's again,
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: you don't have to be afraid of anything because he's always the light in it.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's always whatever negative happened, whatever murder, whatever, you know,
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: cheating and, you know, whatever it may be, the dysfunction in the family.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like if you can relate to that, we're somewhere in the scripture.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: It might not,
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: maybe you have a really nice family,
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: but you're going to find some other issue that you say,
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: I struggle with that.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or I do that.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a way to almost say, tell people you're not alone.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: and that Christ is your answer.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's a positive way to do this because everybody's hurting,
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: and I think it's another reason why people don't tell people things,
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: because they think they're all weird.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: When you read the Bible, everybody's in there.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: All those people that cheat,
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: people that are dysfunctional,
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: that hate each other,
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: their parents favor one another.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing that's been going on since ancient times.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: When we pull these wicked things out of the Bible and say,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know this is how it is in the Bible,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: it's how it is out in the world,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: but Christ is the solution to this,
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: and that's what will end all this.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really helpful and a really positive way to
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: put it.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: What a good word.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the word that actually relieves us,
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: the word that actually gives us hope,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: hope even in the midst of all of those really wretched circumstances.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess at the end of the day, the key is keep Christ at the center of your study.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: Keep Christ at the center of your hermeneutic.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: And don't worry, don't fret about quote unquote finding Christ because he's there within every text.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Eric.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've been blessed by this episode.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't already,
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: please subscribe to the Ministry Minded Podcast on Apple Podcasts,
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: Spotify,
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: or on Substack,
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: wherever you get your podcasts.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and your support,
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: all of your notes,
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: all of your comments,
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: all of the ways in which you've connected with me through Grace Upon Grace and
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ministry Minded.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: That means so much to me.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you as always.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you've been blessed by this one.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: and I'll see you on the next episode, blessings.