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Holy Logistics: When Tolkien Translates Scripture - The Whole Church Podcast · Systematic Geekology

• 0:00
  Psalm 113, verses 5 through 8 in the New Jerusalem Bible, who is like Yahweh, our God, his throne is set on high, but he stoops to look down on heaven and earth.
• 0:10
  He raises the poor from the dust, he lifts the needy from the dunghill to give them a place among princes, among princes of his own people.
• 0:18
  In this psalm, the Psalter is singing of God's greatness among all the nations.
• 0:22
  Psalm 112, 113 kind of get paired together.
• 0:25
  It's song of humility of us and the greatness of God.
• 0:27
  But here the writer uses this example of how God treats the poor and the lowly of society to further attribute to God's greatness and how he treats them.
• 0:36
  Nick Polk why do you think the Psalter includes this example of how God treats the poor during this bricope?
• 0:44
  I think that similarly to the way that God is portrayed throughout most of the Christian Bible is that God is a ruler that looks different than every other ruler, whether they be political or private rulers.
• 1:01
  And, you know, most public and private rulers treat the poor very not well.
• 1:07
  And so when the God of the Bible comes along and treats the poor well and compares them to even God's self, you know, just kind of just says something about his character and says the way that says who
• 1:21
  the person God is and the people we're supposed to be and etc.
• 1:26
  Yeah, I do think.
• 1:27
  I'm not sure if this is a Western thing or not.
• 1:29
  I don't think it is.
• 1:30
  I'm always weary of that because of how C.S.
• 1:32
  Lewis does mere Christianity, but that's a whole nother conversation.
• 1:35
  There seems something that we intuit about goodness.
• 1:39
  You know, if you're at a restaurant and they give a free meal to the rich guy that everybody knows because he's famous, nobody's like, oh man, what a good person who we're giving that rich guy a meal.
• 1:49
  But when they do it for some, like, homeless guy and they're like, hey, let me help you, or lady in the Tramp, that's, you know, going behind the restaurant, we're like, oh man, that guy's great.
• 1:56
  I feel like we do it something about goodness based on how people treat the lowly.
• 2:02
  I like that.
• 2:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:03
  I like what Nick said.
• 2:04
  I just, you know, thought it was so good I had to talk about it.
• 2:06
  That's the problem.
• 2:13
  Hey, guys, welcome to Holy Logistics, where we discuss how great everything Nick says is.
• 2:20
  No, we've been on the whole Church podcast doing a series talking about Behind Scenes of church looking behind the pull pit, how sermons come to be, looking at how pews get made.
• 2:29
  We discussed the makings of church organs.
• 2:32
  We had a.
• 2:33
  We've had a fun few episodes here.
• 2:34
  It's been kind of spotty.
• 2:35
  We discussed why it's been spotty on why we're recording and what's going on in me and TJ's lives.
• 2:40
  Hopefully we get a little bit more regular eventually.
• 2:42
  Yeah.
• 2:43
  But we're here with the one and only Nick Polk.
• 2:45
  Me and him came up with an idea at beer camp because I was talking about how I like the New American Standard Bible, except for when I read Psalms and Job, I like to use the New Jerusalem Bible.
• 2:54
  And Nick does what Nick does.
• 2:56
  He says, oh yeah, Job in the New Jerusalem Bible was written by J.R.R.
• 3:00
  Tolkien.
• 3:01
  And then we talked about what so that discussion spin off today's episode.
• 3:07
  So hopefully you guys remember Nick.
• 3:09
  He's a wonderful return guest.
• 3:11
  Always happy to have Nick on the show.
• 3:13
  And yeah, that's what we're going to talk about.
• 3:14
  We're not about JRR Tolkien and his work with the New Jerusalem Bible and probably some other stuff.
• 3:19
  Probably some other stuff.
• 3:21
  But Nick Polk, if you're not aware, is the author of Tolkien Pop.
• 3:25
  Check him out on Substack.
• 3:26
  He's the host of the podcast Tolkien Pop.
• 3:29
  Check them out where podcasts are found.
• 3:31
  He's also the production editor for Malorgne.
• 3:34
  Big important guy over here.
• 3:36
  You can go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts.
• 3:38
  It helps promote the show, raise money for podcasting needs, and it lets others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church.
• 3:45
  You know, not trying to beg or anything, but a little bit.
• 3:50
  We're not a bottle begging either.
• 3:51
  Yeah, there's like a comfortable amount of begging that you have to be someone.
• 3:54
  Will intuit goodness if you pity us and buy a shirt.
• 3:57
  Yeah, be like God.
• 3:58
  Be like God in that way.
• 4:00
  Care for the poor.
• 4:01
  Be like God.
• 4:01
  God says you should buy the whole you should buy TJ quote on the back.
• 4:07
  It doesn't say anything on the back.
• 4:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 4:10
  Also you should check out other podcasts on the Amazon Podcast network.
• 4:14
  We've both on systematic ecology.
• 4:15
  Nick guest over there a lot.
• 4:17
  We theology on the rocks.
• 4:19
  Leah Robinson and Christy Wales.
• 4:22
  You matter matters with Will Rose and I do a lot of producing and stuff.
• 4:26
  And then there's Thomas Johnston is the other host of that show.
• 4:29
  Lots of stuff over there.
• 4:30
  Four or five of them have been at a theology beer camp.
• 4:32
  So if you missed 2026 in Kansas City.
• 4:35
  Be looking forward.
• 4:36
  As soon as there are announcements, we will make them on the podcast for 2027.
• 4:40
  It'll be the 10 year anniversary of the event and we would love to see each of you there.
• 4:44
  We gave away a couple T shirts at the event this year and I think we're gonna be a little bit more involved next year with maybe even doing a panel for whole church.
• 4:51
  So if you guys want to hear more of me and TJ in person, you can actually do that.
• 4:55
  Yeah.
• 4:56
  So be listening.
• 4:56
  We'll give you updates on that as it comes.
• 4:58
  For now though, we are gonna jump into our favorite form of unity, the holy sacrament of silliness.
• 5:05
  And I tried to make it relevant because I'm.
• 5:10
  I think there's a possibility that this comes out the week of Halloween, but I'm bad at figuring out when things are actually coming out, so.
• 5:18
  You know, today's silly question though.
• 5:21
  What would be the funniest Frankenstein animal other than a Datsun?
• 5:25
  So, you know, there's already Frankenweenie.
• 5:27
  Like, what would be a funnier one to do?
• 5:29
  You know, for some reason we could like, hey, Tim Burton, I want Franken Rhino.
• 5:35
  Which actually, that might be.
• 5:37
  That might be it.
• 5:38
  I'm going with the rhino.
• 5:40
  Frankenstein rhino still be terrifying and hilarious.
• 5:44
  Tj.
• 5:45
  See, I think the.
• 5:46
  Yeah, the problem with the question, I think the funniest animal to Frankenstein is a human.
• 5:53
  I think there is so much untapped comedic potential in the Frankenstein.
• 5:58
  Have you seen Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein?
• 6:00
  Yeah, pretty funny.
• 6:01
  Exactly.
• 6:02
  But like, there's not another animal that can change within its own species as drastically as humans.
• 6:09
  So you could just.
• 6:10
  Butterflies really mess up a dude.
• 6:12
  Franken Butterfly, you could just really mess a dude up.
• 6:16
  All right, all right, I hear you.
• 6:18
  I'm not sure, however, usually I agree,.
• 6:20
  However, I think a whale, Franken whale could be pretty, Pretty bad.
• 6:26
  Like how we're just taking all of the options away before Nick goes.
• 6:29
  Franken duck.
• 6:30
  Ducks are already aggressive and like hilarious because they're just make it a Frankenstein.
• 6:36
  Funny stuff.
• 6:36
  All right, Nick.
• 6:38
  No, I like all those.
• 6:39
  I like.
• 6:40
  I.
• 6:40
  I particularly like Franken Whale.
• 6:42
  Like, really funny.
• 6:44
  Yeah.
• 6:44
  You know, what about a blue whale?
• 6:46
  Like Moby Dick?
• 6:47
  Worse.
• 6:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:49
  Oh, a sperm whale would be terrifying.
• 6:52
  Yeah.
• 6:52
  Whatever it is, it's getting a horn.
• 6:54
  Yeah.
• 6:54
  Oh, a narwhal.
• 6:55
  Dude.
• 6:56
  Oh, snap.
• 6:57
  Yeah.
• 6:57
  Okay.
• 6:59
  I think I thought of this because I was like, what would be the most absurd, absurd Frankenstein animal?
• 7:05
  And I thought, what if.
• 7:07
  What did the logistics be behind doing a worm.
• 7:10
  Doing a Franken worm.
• 7:11
  Like, how does that.
• 7:12
  Because if you cut one in half, it's like already another worm.
• 7:15
  So how do you piecemeal a Franken worm?
• 7:17
  You know, I want a Franken worm.
• 7:20
  He's like getting scientific with the silliness.
• 7:22
  Which worm takes over?
• 7:25
  Yeah, exactly.
• 7:25
  Who's the dominant worm?
• 7:27
  Yeah.
• 7:27
  And what if you cut like a middle piece of the worm, but then cut another worm and another worm and put them together?
• 7:32
  Like, is it flat?
• 7:33
  Three separate worms that are alive in the one worm?
• 7:35
  Is it like human centipede but worm Frankenstein?
• 7:39
  I don't know.
• 7:40
  This is getting wild.
• 7:41
  You know what I really love about this is there were relevant answers because some of the backstory Nick's gonna say is going to make this make sense.
• 7:50
  Some of the information that Nick's about to give us about JR or Tolkien made me realize Tolkien knows an absurd amount about the word walrus.
• 7:59
  And when I told my friend that as I was talking about how, man, I, I might connect everything to Kingdom Hearts, but I can't do it as well as Nick does Tolkien, he goes, just wait till Nomura writes
• 8:09
  about the Norwal.
• 8:11
  And I'm like, true, true.
• 8:14
  Nomura does the entry on Norwal for the app for the Oxford Japanese Dictionary.
• 8:19
  For some reason, I'll be there.
• 8:21
  I'll be at that level of scholarship.
• 8:23
  Yeah, that's gonna happen.
• 8:24
  Yeah, probably right.
• 8:26
  I'm ready.
• 8:27
  Who else would do it?
• 8:28
  Not me.
• 8:29
  So I'm not doing.
• 8:32
  So let us know what you think the funniest Frankenstein animal would be.
• 8:37
  Until then, think about it for a little while.
• 8:39
  I'm going to ask Nick a bunch of questions.
• 8:41
  So, Nick, you are a self reported Tolkien scholar.
• 8:46
  I believe I've heard murmurings that, you.
• 8:50
  Know, I don't know if he's ever said the word scholar.
• 8:52
  Nick is so humble, he could sing the humble song by Lonely.
• 8:55
  I will say the first time one.
• 8:57
  Of my, one of my chapters that I co wrote with, with a friend, Cameron, was quoted in a recently published dissertation on Tolkien.
• 9:09
  So I'll let that speak for itself.
• 9:11
  Oh yeah.
• 9:13
  That's the closest I've heard you get to a brag.
• 9:15
  I like it.
• 9:15
  Thanks.
• 9:16
  So, but they tell us, well, more about your work.
• 9:19
  Tell us more about you and your experience, your expertise with Tolkien.
• 9:23
  How does that shake out?
• 9:24
  Ooh, we'll do the fan part, the experience, the brief experience, because that part's more fun because I am a younger millennial and like many young millennials, I came to Tolkien first through the Movies, the Peter Jackson movies.
• 9:39
  I had seen the little animated Hobbit Rankin Bass film, but I didn't know it was connected to anything larger.
• 9:45
  It was just a fun fantasy kids movie.
• 9:47
  I grew up watching and then saw all the trailers for Lord, and I was like, I got to play the video games, I got to watch the movies, read the books.
• 9:56
  In college, found out there was a Tolkien Society, found out there was a Silmarillion and just did not stop.
• 10:03
  Kind of just went into the deep end of the Tolkien fandom world, if you will.
• 10:10
  And I got pretty early involved in the Tolkien Society.
• 10:13
  I've been a member for 10 years now.
• 10:16
  And I submitted a paper to be published in Mallorn, which is our academic journal, and it got accepted and I got super stoked.
• 10:26
  I started engaging in more scholarship, doing some more reading, meeting people online.
• 10:31
  Covid helped sort of expedite networking with other scholars because everyone was on the Internet trying to do fun stuff to pass the time and cope with everything going on in the world.
• 10:43
  And now I have a few published papers, I have a couple chapters here and there, and most of my stuff is on theology, postmodernism, and pop culture related to Tolkien.
• 10:57
  And now, and like you mentioned, I do a substack and a podcast called Tolkien Pop, where I try to kind of bring my work there and other people who kind of meet those crossroads together.
• 11:14
  Just wait till I write my.
• 11:15
  Actually, I've already wrote.
• 11:17
  I was going to say a Tolkien connection to Kingdom Hearts.
• 11:19
  I already have that because I wrote a thing about comparing the Master of Masters to Sauron.
• 11:24
  And it's also very good.
• 11:25
  Yeah, thank you.
• 11:27
  That's so nice.
• 11:28
  So speaking of Mallorn, this is our behind the scenes series we're trying to see, like, how does the sausage get made, so to speak.
• 11:35
  Right.
• 11:36
  So how does one.
• 11:37
  If one was specifically writing to Mallorn or, you know, you publish Mallorn, what is the whole process like, as far as, like, going from, okay, I've decided I want to write something.
• 11:46
  Submitting it, someone editing.
• 11:47
  What's all the pieces look like?
• 11:49
  Like, if you were to put start to finish.
• 11:51
  Yeah, it's a great question.
• 11:53
  One of the cool things about the Tolkien community, both the academic and the fan community, for the most part, I mean, every fandom's got their.
• 11:59
  Their problems.
• 12:01
  But when it comes to bridging the gap between scholars of Tolkien and fans and recognizing the value and knowledge that each sort of approach brings to the Tolkien community, there is very little gatekeeping in the Tolkien circles that
• 12:19
  I've been a Part of.
• 12:21
  And so you don't have to be a professional academic to submit something scholarly or insightful to many Tolkien publications that are focused through a scholarly or academic lens.
• 12:38
  So Mallorn is a peer reviewed journal and it is.
• 12:43
  So I became the production editor, which means I just kind of make sure everything looks pretty, make sure everything's published correctly, the words look good, the format's right.
• 12:53
  And I've been doing that since 2021.
• 12:57
  I believe Covid kind of helped make that possible.
• 13:02
  And so the process for that is basically you just gotta submit.
• 13:06
  So write something, do your research.
• 13:10
  Become familiar with the literature that's out there.
• 13:13
  One, the primary literature, that's Tolkien's writings.
• 13:17
  That's the most important thing.
• 13:18
  You need to know what's going on.
• 13:20
  You need to know the difference between the or the dwarves of the Iron Hills and the Dwarves of Erebor and the Petty Dwarfs.
• 13:28
  Okay?
• 13:29
  Those are things that you should know, right?
• 13:31
  If you're writing Tolkien scholarship.
• 13:34
  And one of the things that's difficult, which you know, because we're in the church world and there's theology and Bible studies and things like that, there's so much stuff that people just keep on repeating that have been said
• 13:47
  over and over again.
• 13:49
  And if people would just read and realize that they didn't come to a sort of, you know, divinely inspired epiphany, they would be able to maybe enjoy and celebrate the writing that already exists and also come up with
• 14:07
  something original or something unique and insightful related to these things.
• 14:12
  And it's the same with Tolkien studies.
• 14:14
  So if you have a thought about Tolkien or something, my encouragement is to always research if anyone's ever written anything on it.
• 14:23
  It's very easy with Google Scholar these days.
• 14:26
  A lot of the stuff on Tolkien scholarship is open source on the Internet.
• 14:30
  Most Tolkien scholarship is open source.
• 14:34
  Or if you find a book that you can't afford or an article, reach out to a Tolkien scholar, Google their name.
• 14:39
  It's such a niche and small community that people are just like, oh, you want to read my article?
• 14:44
  Here's the PDF that's been my experience.
• 14:48
  So research it, write it, and for Mallorn, you submit it.
• 14:53
  You will get fantastic feedback from people that like, I've submitted a couple of things that have been rejected and it wasn't like a hey, you suck.
• 15:01
  Like it was, hey, this is a really great thing you got going.
• 15:05
  Here's some more research you need to do.
• 15:07
  Read, rewrite, come back and submit.
• 15:10
  Right?
• 15:11
  That's always been my experience in the Tolkien Community in various places that I've submitted.
• 15:16
  So if you want to write something about Tolkien and you want it to be.
• 15:20
  You want to get involved in the nerdy academic world of Tolkien studies, I would just say research, write it, submit it.
• 15:27
  Yep.
• 15:28
  Yeah.
• 15:29
  Mm.
• 15:29
  It's.
• 15:30
  It's kind.
• 15:31
  It's one of my favorite tweets.
• 15:33
  It's like, this has been discussed extensively.
• 15:35
  You're just 21 years old.
• 15:39
  Just literally, just make sure, you know, it's like.
• 15:41
  It's like.
• 15:42
  It's like planning a thesis.
• 15:43
  Just make sure no one else did it.
• 15:44
  Right.
• 15:45
  Yeah.
• 15:45
  Yeah.
• 15:45
  This is like, where it would be great to have Leah Robinson plug her, complaint about everybody talking about process theology and all that.
• 15:52
  And she's, you know, this is just like white guys trying to do something that's already been done.
• 15:58
  Yeah.
• 15:58
  I got to talk to Angela Parker, who is a womanist Bible scholar who was at theology beer camp this year, and she.
• 16:06
  She.
• 16:08
  She was talking about, like, you know, James Code talked about a God of becoming, you know, and all these other, you know, black theologians who talked about the God of becoming.
• 16:18
  And you're like, you know, can't argue with you.
• 16:20
  Can't argue with you.
• 16:22
  Yeah.
• 16:23
  So we have a special little thing that we like to do.
• 16:28
  We call it fact or fantasy.
• 16:30
  So normally this is a bit more directly connected because we'll talk about the church itself, but I don't think there is a church of Tolkien.
• 16:40
  There are actually two religious sects that actually have incorporated the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien into its religion.
• 16:47
  But anyway, continue.
• 16:49
  Yeah, you would know that if you were older.
• 16:51
  Which two?
• 16:52
  Who are they?
• 16:53
  So there's one that is, like, literally things that Tolkien was basically received a divine revelation from literal spiritual elves and wrote the Lord of the Rings.
• 17:05
  And it's sort of like a insight into the truth of reality into, like, the world of elves and fairies.
• 17:11
  Oh, 100%.
• 17:12
  And there's others who are like, hey, that's pretty cool.
• 17:15
  We like the spiritual practices behind what you've done and the community building you've built.
• 17:20
  But also, that sounds like a bunch of gobble goop that's made up and silly.
• 17:24
  So we're going to make it a religion.
• 17:26
  So it's basically, there's like a Tolkien church that's literal fundamentalist, and then there's like, the atheist, you know.
• 17:35
  Already?
• 17:35
  Yeah, already just, like, immediately, right off the bat.
• 17:38
  That's awesome.
• 17:38
  Yeah.
• 17:39
  Yeah.
• 17:40
  So we have a segment we call Fact or Fantasy.
• 17:43
  For this series.
• 17:44
  We're asking everyone a series of rapid Questions to start off get us a sense of what is fact and what is fantasy concerning the sausage of the church, as it were.
• 17:54
  So Nick, are you ready to answer a bunch of questions about the church?
• 17:59
  I'm so ready.
• 18:00
  You're so ready.
• 18:01
  What monthly expenses does a church have that many people may not think of?
• 18:04
  It's payroll is my number one.
• 18:06
  People think that people do stuff for free and they're like, give me money.
• 18:09
  The church just has lots of money.
• 18:11
  Payroll baby.
• 18:12
  See what they should do.
• 18:13
  Sorry, I'm breaking one of our rules.
• 18:16
  The offering should just get dumped in a big chest.
• 18:18
  Then everyone that needs to get paid by the church just take a handful.
• 18:25
  Now it's only gold to blooms also, which if you're wondering, I'm prepared for this church to start.
• 18:33
  We'll play you and everybody.
• 18:36
  So what is the struggle that church leadership faces regularly that may shock some people to think about?
• 18:43
  I think it's literally just coordinating volunteers.
• 18:47
  It's hard.
• 18:48
  It's hard.
• 18:49
  We struggle to coordinate two volunteers, he and I.
• 18:54
  So what's the most interesting room in your church and how does the layout of the room serve the functionality of that room?
• 19:01
  One of the cool rooms in the current.
• 19:02
  The church that I currently attend is the youth room, which has now become.
• 19:07
  The youth is kind of broken.
• 19:09
  It's just kind of grown bigger than that space.
• 19:12
  And so it has like this cool trendy barn door.
• 19:15
  There's a bunch of games in there, but it's kind of just become the, the room of acquirement basically for our church where literally every other obscure thing happens in that room and it's kind of cool.
• 19:25
  Yeah.
• 19:25
  Oh yeah.
• 19:26
  Just do it in youth room.
• 19:26
  Right?
• 19:27
  Just do it in the youth room.
• 19:29
  How important is the layout of the worship area in our church building?
• 19:33
  Yeah, I mean in our church building it's important because that's where a majority of attendees go.
• 19:40
  I think that in modern church places the majority of people who attend are usually just Sunday people or Wednesday night people, which that's not a dig, that's just real.
• 19:50
  And we're actually looking to expand our church building, our worship area because we've.
• 19:55
  I'm lucky enough to attend a church that is, is growing and I think is a positive community.
• 20:00
  So yeah, pretty important.
• 20:02
  That's pretty awesome.
• 20:04
  So in one or two word answers, could you explain who's responsible for each of the following roles at your local church?
• 20:12
  If you don't know, you can say that.
• 20:13
  And if that's not applicable, you can say that.
• 20:16
  Okay.
• 20:17
  Yeah, let's do it.
• 20:18
  Landscaping.
• 20:20
  I know who the dude is, but I don't know his actual name.
• 20:28
  Budgeting.
• 20:30
  We have.
• 20:31
  Actually, my wife does.
• 20:33
  Is on the finance team, so her and some volunteers and the executive pastor.
• 20:39
  Hospital visits, all the pastoral staff.
• 20:42
  Wedding and funeral arrangements, mostly.
• 20:48
  To my 2.
• 20:49
  1 lead.
• 20:50
  2 lead pastors.
• 20:51
  Yeah.
• 20:51
  Are the ones who usually do that theological correction.
• 20:56
  Nobody played a little fast and loose.
• 20:59
  Yeah.
• 21:01
  Building maintenance.
• 21:02
  The same guy who does the landscaping.
• 21:05
  And I think our landscaping is primarily done through a third party, actually.
• 21:09
  But the dude who does maintenance is a.
• 21:11
  He's a b.
• 21:12
  It's the same guy, but he's.
• 21:13
  He's a bald white man and I don't know his name.
• 21:17
  Many such cases.
• 21:18
  Josh is pointing at himself.
• 21:19
  It was Joshua.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:22
  Worship set lists.
• 21:24
  We have two.
• 21:25
  Wow, man.
• 21:25
  We have two, like, official worship pastors and we have other worship leaders.
• 21:30
  So I think it's a combination of a bunch of people.
• 21:33
  People teaching, I would say probably all of the pastoral staff as well as just regular church staff, I think.
• 21:42
  Parking lot traffic.
• 21:45
  One of our pastors, I think he's just an associate.
• 21:49
  Him and one of the other.
• 21:50
  We have a lay person who run.
• 21:52
  The parking, greeting and welcome people.
• 21:56
  We have a hospitality pastor and.
• 21:59
  And she is the one who coordinates all that.
• 22:01
  Awesome.
• 22:02
  All right.
• 22:03
  So that's the fact and the fantasy.
• 22:05
  I've been your host.
• 22:07
  Thank you.
• 22:07
  Good night.
• 22:08
  Yeah.
• 22:09
  Catch us next time.
• 22:10
  You know, we're so consistent for a.
• 22:13
  Little bit of context.
• 22:14
  Nick, what kind of church do you go to?
• 22:16
  So I go to a church that is part of what is called the Sanctification Network.
• 22:22
  It is a loose conglomerate of Wesleyan churches in the United States.
• 22:28
  I think there's one in Australia, too, or something.
• 22:31
  But anyway, yeah, that's what we're called.
• 22:33
  Very obscure.
• 22:34
  I knew it was going to be Wesleyan something.
• 22:37
  Yeah, I know you do stuff with that, too.
• 22:40
  So talking about, like I mentioned earlier, how we started this was I just talking about when I like to read the Bible, like the New American Standard Bible, except for two particular books, Job and Psalms, sometimes Proverbs, sometimes
• 22:51
  some of the prophecies.
• 22:52
  I'll go to the New Jerusalem Bible.
• 22:55
  I'm not going to attempt to give everybody a history lesson on it because I don't remember all the proper nouns.
• 22:59
  But just to give the gist here, the Jerusalem Bible was a translation of a French text of the Bible into English from the Catholic Church.
• 23:10
  And it was called Jerusalem Bible not because it has anything to do with Jerusalem other than just.
• 23:15
  That's where the French school was at that had this kind of translation and they were doing it in the spirit of that translation.
• 23:22
  So it was a French school of like theology and archeology that was founded in Jerusalem.
• 23:28
  So they wanted to use their technique, I guess would be the right word for translating.
• 23:33
  So they kind of named it after Jerusalem because that's where the French scholars were.
• 23:37
  They translated English.
• 23:38
  The New Jerusalem Bible is completely redoing it.
• 23:41
  Like it's not like just an updated version.
• 23:43
  They don't just like change some of the words.
• 23:45
  They start from the ground up, not translating the Jewish text, not translating the French text, but translating an older Hebrew text that was found thanks to archaeology, still using the same style and technique.
• 23:59
  For the nerdy bits in English, we typically refer to two different types of biblical translations, either word for word or thought for thought.
• 24:06
  So word for word are like your real literal translations.
• 24:09
  And they're supposed to try to every single word translate it to English and try to make it make sense, which is impossible.
• 24:15
  But they try to do that.
• 24:16
  And those are the ones that are typically seen as more like quote unquote accurate, especially in like Western mindsets.
• 24:22
  And that's what the new American Standard Bible is.
• 24:23
  It's what King James is, esv, CSV.
• 24:26
  A lot of the ones that Protestants like a lot your thought for thought usually are kind of looked down on from scholars or like the nlt, New Living Translation.
• 24:38
  Because a lot of the times in English, especially Americans, we do thought for thought because it's easier to read that not for any scholarly reason usually.
• 24:48
  Specifically though, the New Jerusalem Bible is thought for thought for a scholarly reason.
• 24:52
  So it's kind of categorized a little bit separately.
• 24:54
  Plus it's still a biblical translation of the Catholic Church.
• 24:58
  It's probably the most respected Catholic biblical translation outside of Catholicism and outside of America.
• 25:05
  And it's trying to not necessarily match, just oh, make it easier to read or match it word for word.
• 25:10
  It's trying to keep the type of literature as close as possible so that it still reads like the same kind of literature it originally was.
• 25:18
  So it's very much focused on what type of literature is it.
• 25:21
  And let's treat this like it's actual just literature and not has to be exact.
• 25:26
  And that's why I like it for like the Psalms and stuff, because it's not using dumbed down words so that I can read it because I'm a dummy, but it's trying to keep it, hey, let's make it rhyme
• 25:36
  when it's supposed to rhyme.
• 25:37
  Let's make it Fit the same type of literature, which is why I really like it for Psalms and Job.
• 25:41
  Yeah, it's like the anti literalist Bible.
• 25:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:46
  Unity and such.
• 25:48
  Heck, yeah.
• 25:49
  Yeah.
• 25:50
  So, Nick, I'm bringing this up to you, talking about how, like, oh, man, I like Job and Psalms in this particular version.
• 25:55
  And usually everybody's like, josh, what's that?
• 25:56
  Shut up, you dummy.
• 25:59
  Usually people just don't know what I'm talking about, and they don't care.
• 26:02
  And that's what I kind of thought was going to happen.
• 26:04
  Nick was going to be like, oh, I haven't heard of that.
• 26:05
  Or he'd be nice and be like, oh, what's that?
• 26:07
  And instead he comes back with JRR Tolkien wrote Job in that Bible.
• 26:12
  So they unpack us to us.
• 26:14
  Why was Tolkien a part of this, like, scholarly team?
• 26:20
  What am I trying to think here?
• 26:21
  Exercise this work?
• 26:23
  Why was he a part of this work?
• 26:24
  Why did he get Job?
• 26:26
  Why is it crazy how young he was?
• 26:29
  Just ramble a little bit.
• 26:30
  So there's a couple details that I got wrong.
• 26:33
  Joshua, when I told you at beer camp, there are two things that were incorrect that I told you.
• 26:39
  So Tolkien actually translated even need to.
• 26:41
  Tell anybody about this?
• 26:43
  Well, here's the thing.
• 26:44
  Tolkien people are diligent as hell, so they will come after me.
• 26:50
  But Tolkien translated Jonah, not Job.
• 26:55
  So Jo, not as old, not as exciting.
• 26:59
  I'm sorry to hurt your heart, Joshua.
• 27:01
  I don't like Jonah.
• 27:02
  I read it as little as possible.
• 27:04
  Really not a Jonah fan.
• 27:05
  All right, all right.
• 27:07
  I mean, you know, he really doesn't like whales.
• 27:10
  Oh.
• 27:10
  I mean, Franken whales.
• 27:11
  Oh, yeah.
• 27:11
  Franken whales.
• 27:12
  Relevant again.
• 27:13
  There we go.
• 27:13
  Yeah.
• 27:14
  No, I just think it's a bad story, and there's not a single likable character, including God in that story.
• 27:19
  But that's another time the whale is.
• 27:22
  I mean, he does get to.
• 27:23
  Yeah, this was both.
• 27:24
  The whale.
• 27:25
  He wanted a meal.
• 27:26
  You know, alleged whale.
• 27:28
  Jonah, though whiny little.
• 27:31
  And God was just throwing a little temper tantrum.
• 27:33
  None of y' all are very likable in this story.
• 27:36
  Specifically, I'm reading it as a story, not talking about it as, like, Bible or literal or anything like that.
• 27:40
  Just as a story I don't like.
• 27:42
  I like the little worm from Veggie Tales with the.
• 27:45
  Yeah, yeah, that guy's cool.
• 27:46
  Now, if Phil Vischer wrote Joma, it would have been better.
• 27:49
  God, yeah.
• 27:49
  Hired that guy.
• 27:50
  Yeah, no doubt.
• 27:52
  Why didn't you do it?
• 27:53
  God?
• 27:55
  But so he translated it, and Tolkien was actually A little bit older.
• 28:00
  So Tolkien was actually.
• 28:01
  It was in the 50s.
• 28:02
  Tolkien was.
• 28:04
  I think the project was around 1957 was when the French dude started putting it together, I think the dude leading the team.
• 28:12
  And so it might have been earlier or a little later.
• 28:15
  It was the.
• 28:16
  The Bible was published in 1966.
• 28:19
  So Tolkien was closer to around in his 50s or 60s when he started doing it.
• 28:26
  But the reason why Tolkien got involved with it was one, Tolkien's early career was done with the Oxford English Dictionary, and Joshua had hinted at it was that this is true.
• 28:39
  Tolkien was assigned the letter W in English, Old English.
• 28:45
  So Tolkien went and did the etymology of things like walrus and things like that.
• 28:50
  Yeah, yeah.
• 28:52
  So, you know, he graduated university.
• 28:56
  He was trying to become what was back then called a philologist.
• 29:00
  Now it's known as historical linguistics.
• 29:03
  And so he was a historical linguist.
• 29:06
  He wasn't.
• 29:06
  He was a philologist.
• 29:07
  There's a whole bunch of technical distinctions between that.
• 29:10
  But philology is not really a field anymore.
• 29:14
  But Tolkien was a young guy who was very talented with languages and got hired fast forward.
• 29:20
  He becomes this chair of a department at Oxford.
• 29:25
  Basically, him and CS Lewis and a couple other dudes remade the curriculum for all of Oxford English department.
• 29:36
  So.
• 29:36
  And then he wrote Lord of the Rings at this point.
• 29:38
  So the dude who was in charge of the Jerusalem Bible translation project knew that Tolkien was Catholic.
• 29:46
  One knew that Tolkien had a translation history.
• 29:49
  Tolkien had translated things from Old English.
• 29:53
  He did a ton of Old English translate.
• 29:54
  Translated some Beowulf, not officially, but he did officially translate Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the original text.
• 30:03
  He had also translated this Old English poem called Pearl and an old English rendering of the tale of the Exodus from the Bible.
• 30:16
  So Tolkien had done some biblical stuff.
• 30:18
  So the Exodus.
• 30:19
  So this French dude, who I think is a priest, biblical scholar, I think, who was in charge of the Jerusalem project was like, dude, I love Lord of the Rings.
• 30:28
  Tolkien's cool.
• 30:30
  Let me see if he's available to do some stuff.
• 30:33
  And reached out to Tolkien and was like, hey, help us translate.
• 30:37
  And Tolkien was like, I know, not a lot of Hebrew.
• 30:40
  And because Tolkien was just that good with languages, they vetted him and he was able to do the book of all, the entire book of Jonah.
• 30:50
  And then he did a couple verses of Isaiah as well.
• 30:56
  But in the new Jerusalem Bible, the one that came after, I guess, the first publication of Jerusalem Bible in 1966, they got a different translation of.
• 31:08
  They took away Tolkien's translations.
• 31:10
  But in the original 1966 version of the Jerusalem Bible.
• 31:15
  Tolkien's translation was the one for Jonah.
• 31:19
  That's still really cool.
• 31:20
  I mean, there's not a lot of fantasy authors that you can find in a Bible, so.
• 31:25
  Well, and the actual dudes who, like, were in charge of the project, like, in the 1966 Jerusalem Bible, they give a specific shout out to Tolkien and call him one of the chief translators.
• 31:38
  And he actually wrote a letter.
• 31:41
  You can find it in his.
• 31:42
  In the letters.
• 31:43
  You can buy Tolkien's letters online.
• 31:46
  And he writes a letter basically saying, this was way too nice, because I literally translated one of the shortest books in the entire Old Testament.
• 31:57
  But he was like, yeah, it's nice to be acknowledged, I guess.
• 32:00
  Yeah, he's done some translations in his time, basically.
• 32:07
  But what I've been reading has not been Tolkien, because I didn't read the old Jerusalem Bible, it turns out.
• 32:12
  Yeah, sorry, man.
• 32:14
  So many disappointments.
• 32:16
  I just have to go get a Jerusalem Bible, 1966 edition.
• 32:19
  You know, it's got to be somewhere.
• 32:21
  So you said not officially for Beowulf.
• 32:24
  My favorite translation of Beowulf says translated by JRR Tolkien at the top.
• 32:28
  Can you explain to me what's happening?
• 32:30
  Yeah.
• 32:31
  So Tolkien was a weirdo because he loved just translating stuff like Gothic.
• 32:37
  Right.
• 32:38
  The language of Gothic is a dead language and was for a long time.
• 32:42
  And Tolkien would just, like, write hymns and translate them into Gothic, or if he was like, we don't know what this word in Gothic is.
• 32:49
  Let me just do a deep dive into the vocabulary and basically invent a word that I think would be the word.
• 32:56
  And scholars are like, yeah, pretty close, you know, and he did that with a bunch of languages.
• 33:01
  But Beowulf, he translated on his own.
• 33:05
  And after he died, his son Christopher, who is.
• 33:09
  Who has also passed away in the past five years, went through all of Tolkien's notes and writings and basically published a bunch of stuff because he knew people would want it.
• 33:19
  And so the Beowulf translation that you have is officially Tolkien for sure, but it's not an official translation of Beowulf, if that makes sense, because it's not really a scholarly translation.
• 33:32
  It's basically Tolkien who was like, languages are cool.
• 33:35
  Let me just make some up and make this sound really cool.
• 33:39
  It does sound really good.
• 33:40
  I'm pretty sure mine is also talking.
• 33:42
  It's the most fun, in my opinion.
• 33:44
  So if.
• 33:45
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:46
  That cover is just absolutely fantastic.
• 33:49
  Yeah.
• 33:50
  Mine's split, though.
• 33:51
  Mine has old English on one page and then English on the other.
• 33:54
  Yeah.
• 33:55
  So.
• 33:55
  And this will you know, without.
• 33:56
  I want to go too.
• 33:58
  But Tolkien actually did the same thing with Old English, where there are words that Tolkien and related to Beowulf that Tolkien was like, okay, they didn't have a word for this.
• 34:09
  Let me just take what I know about Old English and invent a word.
• 34:13
  And Old English scholars have said like, this word doesn't exist, but if someone invented it, it's logically and linguistically sound as an actual word.
• 34:24
  If Tolkien didn't invent it, that's great.
• 34:27
  So I think one of the interesting things here, even outside of Catholics and Anglican, a lot of Christians do love CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien for various reasons.
• 34:41
  Neither of them were particularly like, they weren't priests.
• 34:43
  They weren't like technically Bible scholars.
• 34:47
  But they seem to contribute a ton to just regular church life.
• 34:50
  Like, I'd probably be pretty hard to find a pastor who hasn't either quoted.
• 34:54
  Hasn't quoted either of them in a sermon in America today.
• 34:57
  You know, it'd be kind of weird.
• 34:59
  So what's interesting though is like both of them have either helped with like translations or do literary work.
• 35:05
  Not an actual Bible commentary.
• 35:08
  But my favorite commentary in the Book of Psalms is probably the reflection of the Psalms by C.S.
• 35:12
  Lewis.
• 35:12
  And it's because he's not a Bible scholar, he's a literature scholar.
• 35:17
  And he's looking at it like, hey, this is literature.
• 35:19
  This is why it's written that way.
• 35:20
  So when I'm reading it, I'm like, I don't get that from anyone else.
• 35:24
  And it's actually like, it's incredible, incredibly beneficial.
• 35:26
  Even though he's not like a Bible scholar, he's not going, let me do an exegesis of this passage.
• 35:30
  He's going, I know books.
• 35:32
  I study books in all different kinds of languages.
• 35:35
  Here's why it was written that way.
• 35:37
  And I'm like, oh, that just, it's enlightening.
• 35:40
  I don't know where I'm going with that other than just like, hey, it's important to have scholars that aren't just Bible scholars behind the scenes of our Bibles and our sermons and stuff.
• 35:48
  Yeah.
• 35:48
  But speaking of Bibles, Josh mentioned he normally reads the nasb.
• 35:52
  I normally read the Christian Standard Bible.
• 35:54
  If you're a long term fan of the show, you may have noticed, if you're a long term fan of the show and also kind of a freak, you may have noticed that when Josh does the verse, it's New
• 36:04
  American Standard and when I do the verse, it's Christian standard.
• 36:07
  Unless one of us Missed a week for some reason.
• 36:09
  And then we don't bother changing it.
• 36:10
  Yeah.
• 36:11
  Which is.
• 36:11
  Which is kind of funny.
• 36:12
  It's pretty much the only time I've ever read the nasb unless I had two for school.
• 36:17
  But I think Josh has talked a lot about why he reads the nasb just over the past several years.
• 36:24
  I read the Christian Standard Bible because it.
• 36:28
  So the way they design.
• 36:30
  I don't know.
• 36:31
  Design's a weird word for a translation, but it seems right.
• 36:34
  The intent was optimal equivalence.
• 36:38
  So they're balancing the word for word and thought for thought.
• 36:42
  Philosophies.
• 36:44
  That was the goal.
• 36:46
  And between 100 different scholars and 17 denominations, I think that's a pretty good exercise in Christian unity, personally.
• 36:57
  Also, it's really easy to read.
• 36:59
  They stay away from elevated phrasing.
• 37:02
  I love a good elevated phrase every once in a while, but it can get in the way.
• 37:06
  They can be cumbersome.
• 37:09
  You know, all my.
• 37:09
  All my young readers out there, you know, growing up, you're like, hey, I recognize that word.
• 37:14
  I could use it in a sentence.
• 37:16
  I could not tell you what it actually means.
• 37:18
  Mm.
• 37:18
  That can happen with the Bible too.
• 37:20
  Yeah.
• 37:21
  That's like, even outside the Bible.
• 37:23
  I feel like we should have like, book.
• 37:25
  Group versions of books and then like regular ver.
• 37:28
  You know what I mean?
• 37:28
  Like, we're just gonna, like, revamp this.
• 37:30
  Here's the group version so that you can actually talk about this with normal people.
• 37:35
  Yeah.
• 37:35
  And maybe also video games.
• 37:36
  If Kingdom Hearts had that, my life would be so much easier because as is.
• 37:40
  There's like three souls on this planet that I could talk to Kingdom Hearts about, and they have any idea what's going on, you know?
• 37:45
  Yeah, I'm.
• 37:45
  And I'm not one of them.
• 37:47
  I'm a common English Bible guy.
• 37:49
  And I am a.
• 37:51
  I'm a.
• 37:51
  It's because I'm a punk rocker.
• 37:53
  I love doing academic work and saying big words and reading epic poetry by J.R.
• 37:57
  tolkien.
• 37:58
  But also I love, like, bands that just have one minute songs that have no almost poetic rhythm.
• 38:07
  And, you know, common English Bible kind of brings some of.
• 38:10
  It's.
• 38:10
  I think it's more thought for thought.
• 38:12
  It's more transliterative.
• 38:13
  But some of the things they say, I'm like, man, that was so freaking punk, dude.
• 38:17
  They just took that, you know, Hebrew and ancient Greek and just made it so freaking common English that I'm into it.
• 38:24
  Yeah.
• 38:25
  Yeah.
• 38:25
  Rules.
• 38:25
  Yeah.
• 38:26
  So we are.
• 38:28
  We're running short, so we must quicken our pace.
• 38:31
  If you had to put into one or two sentences.
• 38:34
  What studying Tolkien and writing about his work means to you?
• 38:36
  What would you say?
• 38:38
  Two senses.
• 38:40
  Tolkien's work means almost everything to me.
• 38:44
  And the reason is because the way that Tolkien writes and the life that he lived just cover so much.
• 38:53
  Right.
• 38:53
  We're talking about the Bible translation.
• 38:55
  So that literature, love, scholarship, big questions.
• 39:00
  That's why.
• 39:01
  Awesome.
• 39:02
  Almost everything is about as much as something can mean to something.
• 39:04
  Somebody.
• 39:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:08
  That's a.
• 39:09
  That's how I also feel about Kingdom Hearts.
• 39:11
  And if whoever is putting together that Oxford Japanese dictionary, get a hold of Nomura, I need him to do specifically Norwal.
• 39:20
  I don't care about the whole letter N, but Norwal.
• 39:23
  For now, though, we are gonna start wrapping up as TJ mentioned.
• 39:27
  But we always like to ask our guests for a single tangible action that would help engender Christian unity.
• 39:32
  Yeah, Nick, if you were today, just give our listeners something practical they could stop and go do at the end of this episode.
• 39:36
  What's something that would help engender unity in the church that you think they could do?
• 39:41
  I think I've probably said it on a whole church episode at some point, but I think, go be curious.
• 39:47
  Go search something.
• 39:48
  Ask somebody a question that maybe is something outside of your realm of thinking and just genuinely search it up without any other ulterior motive.
• 39:57
  Yeah.
• 39:57
  Translate something in from Japanese for fun.
• 40:00
  Yeah.
• 40:00
  Well, what would change in the world if we all did what Nick said?
• 40:03
  How about it, Nick?
• 40:04
  What would change?
• 40:04
  We all listen to you.
• 40:07
  Maybe, you know, that's a good question.
• 40:10
  Maybe it's.
• 40:13
  I think that we would learn in things that we consider scary sometimes with within Christianity and ecumenical as well as religious diversity that they wouldn't be so scary.
• 40:26
  And then maybe we could listen to each other and it wouldn't be all.
• 40:29
  Maybe church unity.
• 40:30
  Maybe some whole church things would be.
• 40:33
  Would be achieved.
• 40:34
  Yeah, that's the goal, right?
• 40:36
  That'd be cool.
• 40:38
  Before we wrap up, we do like everyone to share a moment where they saw God recently.
• 40:42
  Whether that is a blessing, a challenge, moment of worship, whatever it may be, wherever you saw God, that's what I want to hear about.
• 40:50
  I always make Josh go first to give the rest of us time to think.
• 40:54
  So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?
• 40:56
  Yeah, feel like I've had a few.
• 40:58
  I was going to go with a weirder one, but so that TJ can be proud of me.
• 41:03
  I pursued community, which you would think would be something I do a lot, doing a whole church podcast thing.
• 41:09
  But, like, I Don't I like staying to myself for the most part.
• 41:12
  But when I was at theology beer camp, one of the downtimes is like, I'm going to talk to someone I don't know.
• 41:17
  And I went up to talk to him and the whole time I'm sitting there in the back of my head going, be normal, be normal.
• 41:23
  I'm like, hey, weather's been pretty good.
• 41:24
  Where'd you come from?
• 41:25
  What brought you here?
• 41:25
  You know, he asked me the same questions.
• 41:27
  I'm like, on the video game panel tomorrow and he looks at me and goes, cool.
• 41:31
  Have you ever played a game called Kingdom Hearts?
• 41:33
  That's my God moment.
• 41:35
  One, because it was hilarious and two, because I, you know, I felt like God was like, good job, Josh, I'll bring you a friends that you tried.
• 41:42
  And also Ryan does turn around going, why?
• 41:46
  Perfect.
• 41:47
  It's pretty good.
• 41:48
  Yeah, I miss him.
• 41:50
  Yeah, me too.
• 41:51
  Tragic what happened.
• 41:54
  I didn't get to go.
• 41:55
  Is what happened legitimately tragic?
• 41:58
  It was like, wow.
• 42:00
  Yeah.
• 42:01
  For me, my God moment, it was going to be something different.
• 42:04
  But Josh has inspired me actually and would also be interested.
• 42:10
  One of my employees is this 17 year old kid with like a bad home life, just not good parents at all.
• 42:18
  But his dad is super, super into board games and we're hanging out, not hanging out.
• 42:24
  I'm doing work in my office and he's bothering me.
• 42:27
  That's usually what I call hanging out.
• 42:30
  Same thing.
• 42:31
  Yeah.
• 42:32
  Every, you know, couple of minutes I'm like, hey man, go do something.
• 42:34
  And he goes and does something and then comes back, just keep working, please, like I'm paying you.
• 42:41
  But that's beside the point.
• 42:43
  We're just talking about games and whatever and he's like, yeah, my dad really likes this game.
• 42:48
  He hates board games because his dad loves him so much.
• 42:52
  Because, you know, that's how that kind of works when you're abusive to a child.
• 42:55
  Yeah.
• 42:56
  And he goes, except for this one called Killer Bunnies.
• 43:00
  Yes.
• 43:02
  Hey, that's what we do with the ten year camp thing.
• 43:05
  Next year we're bringing it.
• 43:07
  Which was absolutely insane to hear from just some kid.
• 43:11
  Like some kid.
• 43:12
  To me, that's awesome.
• 43:14
  Yeah, but that was, that was wild.
• 43:16
  You really never know where the connection can come from with, with any given person.
• 43:19
  I, I have an issue where I tend to look at people under like 20 as not people, you know, until you get to like age 11, like 11 and under.
• 43:30
  Those are people in between 11 and 20.
• 43:33
  Those are not people.
• 43:35
  Not really.
• 43:36
  That's how I kind of view it.
• 43:37
  Hilarious because a majority of the time I've known you was when you were in that age frame.
• 43:43
  I think not now.
• 43:45
  I think it's about even, actually.
• 43:47
  Yeah.
• 43:49
  Yeah.
• 43:49
  Owned.
• 43:50
  So that's it for me.
• 43:51
  Nick, do you have a God moment to share with us?
• 43:54
  Yeah.
• 43:54
  This is kind of cool.
• 43:58
  I've shared on this show and then other places that I consider myself both a Christian and, like, a Buddhist, particularly in the Soto Zen tradition.
• 44:07
  And so I've never really pursued, like, the communal aspect of the Buddhist aspect.
• 44:13
  I've done a lot of reading, practicing a lot of zazen meditation.
• 44:18
  And so I actually am gonna go to my first Dharma center, which is local here, which is more of an ecumenical Buddhist community, But it's like a practice fan club.
• 44:32
  Yeah, exactly.
• 44:33
  Literally a lost fan club.
• 44:34
  Exactly.
• 44:35
  Yeah.
• 44:35
  That's cool.
• 44:36
  And so I'm gonna go and I think I'm gonna start exercising that part.
• 44:40
  And it felt like a cool connection, so.
• 44:43
  Yeah.
• 44:44
  That's awesome.
• 44:46
  So if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing with a friend.
• 44:49
  If you hated it, consider sharing with an enemy.
• 44:51
  Otherwise, share it with your cousins.
• 44:53
  Yeah.
• 44:54
  Especially your cousins.
• 44:55
  Mm.
• 44:56
  No consideration.
• 44:57
  Holiday.
• 44:57
  They have to listen.
• 44:58
  They literally have to listen.
• 44:59
  Closer we get to Thanksgiving, the better.
• 45:01
  Yeah, they have something to talk to you about on Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
• 45:06
  But once again, go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts to promote our show, help us raise money for podcasting needs, and let others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern
• 45:14
  church.
• 45:16
  My second favorite shirt is a church that I never, ever remember the name of.
• 45:22
  Divided Church.
• 45:23
  Divided Church.
• 45:24
  Thank you.
• 45:24
  For some reason, I always think filioquy.
• 45:27
  It's really cool.
• 45:28
  It's like, it's a word cloud in the shape of a church with, like, lines in it.
• 45:31
  It's awesome.
• 45:32
  If you played, like, spider web, shattered dimensions, you get.
• 45:35
  You get the vibe.
• 45:37
  Yeah.
• 45:37
  Yeah.
• 45:38
  I mean, I like that shirt a lot.
• 45:39
  Yeah.
• 45:39
  Check out some of the other shows on podcast network, too.
• 45:42
  I mentioned Systematic Ecology, Trying to think be Living Water.
• 45:46
  That's the other one I do that I'm actually working a little bit on.
• 45:49
  So there might be more episodes by the end of the year, so that'd be cool.
• 45:52
  That would be cool.
• 45:53
  Yeah.
• 45:53
  Yeah.
• 45:54
  But we do hope you enjoyed it.
• 45:55
  Coming up, we'll be talking with the Josh.
• 45:57
  The council of Josh is reuniting on our show.
• 46:00
  We'll have Josh Gilbert, Josh Patterson, Joshua Noel, and myself.
• 46:03
  We're gonna pretend the J stands for Josh about the behind y'.
• 46:06
  All.
• 46:06
  Know what actually stands for Juan, but.
• 46:08
  Yeah, behind the scenes of making a Christian podcast, which we know a little bit about.
• 46:13
  After that, we'll be talking with Dr.
• 46:15
  Thomas J.
• 46:15
  Ord, whose name is actually my name, which is insane about the publishing process of Christian books.
• 46:21
  Then we'll be talking with Jill, Elizabeth and Jonathan Foster about the behind the scenes of ordination.
• 46:26
  And finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on the show.
• 46:29
  Yeah, he doesn't know about it, though, so someone let him know, please, please.