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Babel, Power, and Purpose: Why God Scattered the People · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table today might
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  add some spice to your life ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another episode
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  of relish i'm rowan miller yeah another episode this is don patterson how are you doing don,
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  yeah i'm doing good yeah got a pulse and everything yeah a bit giddy this morning
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  maybe yeah it's probably something in my coffee it was jw's coffee it's good stuff yeah.
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  All right we'll just we'll get to the questions well you're more predictable
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  with the questions oh hey i've got one too oh yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll start
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  with yours what has given the most meaning and purpose to your life so far?
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  And you're 18, 17, 18, 17, 17, 17 today. Yeah. Okay.
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  So 17 years life. Wow.
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  That was a long time ago. I was 17.
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  So what purpose was it? Given the most meaning, most meaning and purpose to
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  your life so far, what has given the most meaning and purpose to your life so far?
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  I don't know. I've been, I guess I could say I've been gifted with athletic abilities.
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  So while I'm young and still able to play them, I guess being able to play them to glorify God and.
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  Like share that with my teammates that I've been playing with.
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  We, I am lucky to go to private Christian school.
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  So before every game we do devotion and which is usually brought by a player.
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  So yeah, that's usually long lines of like giving glory to God or some act of
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  motivation for us before we go out and play.
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  So I guess, cool. I guess that. Yeah.
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  I actually saw the most emotion on your face that I think I've ever seen in
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  my entire life. I wasn't there in person.
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  So the group went to state and qualified for state.
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  And in that last moment, after that last pitch, they took a picture of you for the paper.
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  Yeah, Dugout was giving me the same thing.
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  So I gave it right back to them. And I don't know if I should necessarily say
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  this, but the team we were playing was, they're not sportsman-like.
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  Oh, it was hard. Yeah, it was hard. They were saying stuff to us. So, I mean.
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  Ouch. So you were actually doing that Christian. I don't know if it should be,
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  but I don't know if I should be more proud of, I mean, not proud,
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  but more excited for winning against a not sportsmanlike team.
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  But that definitely like fueled a lot of our celebration there was,
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  it just, something about it just felt good to like knock off some.
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  Yeah, put them in a place.
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  Yeah, something like that. Okay. Yeah.
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  It was good. It was good. I, you know, I talking on a personal level,
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  it's just, you know, you are very cool, calm and collected 99.95% of the time.
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  And to see that much emotion. Wow.
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  Yes. Passion. Passion.
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  Yes. It's good stuff. Yeah. All right. Thank you. That was good.
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  That was a good answer to that. We'll get into your questions here.
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  Okay. Now I'm on the grill. We kind of have a series here.
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  So kind of explaining the Tower of Babel.
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  Oh, yeah. So like why did God want to disperse all these people across the earth?
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  And like why do you want to confuse them?
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  Is that where all like the languages that we have now, is that where we would believe they came from?
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  And is that when he dispersed them, is that when like the rest of the world
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  other than that region was populated?
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  Or how did that work? Well, there's actually two different events,
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  but yes. Okay. So in chapter 11 of Genesis, we have the story of the Tower of Babel.
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  And what's interesting is they point out right from the start that the world
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  had one common language, one speech.
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  And as they moved eastward, now, if you look at the geographics of that area
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  from Ur and then eastward, it meant that, yes, they were populating the earth.
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  They were moving around.
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  So, but there was an archaeologically, there were a lot of people in that area at that time.
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  So they come together and they build this and the motive behind it is said in
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  scripture, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches the
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  heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves.
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  And not be scattered. Evidently, their fear was of being scattered.
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  And so their intent on making the tower is unity, and that somehow they would
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  be unified as one government, maybe one entity.
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  And the problem that I think the Lord sees in that is that's not always good.
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  Because if you get in one group and somebody becomes the head of that group,
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  there's a great deal of power in that leadership.
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  And if there's that much power in that leadership, is it ever molded by anything else?
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  I mean, can, can anything speak into that power that would not be self-serving?
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  So we often see Kings get on the throne and then they, you know,
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  they get lots of money. Yeah.
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  We even see even in our country that you become a politician and all of a sudden
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  And you have all these streams of income that you didn't have before.
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  Worldwide, lots of corrupt governments. Yeah. Yeah.
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  More power corrupts. I mean, ultimate, without power being challenged, power can corrupt.
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  So you almost have to keep that going. And I wonder in the midst of this then,
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  when we get to chapter or verse five, but the Lord came down to see the city
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  and the tower that the men were building.
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  And the Lord said, if one people speaking in the same language,
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  they've begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
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  And I'm not, we look at that from the positive side. Oh, wouldn't that be nice,
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  you know, to have that kind of power?
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  God's looking at it from the other standpoint in that we don't tend to make the best plans.
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  We make plans that maybe serve our purposes, but, well, I make plans,
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  but do my plans always serve your purposes? Probably not.
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  And so when you start talking about somebody making plans, somebody who's behind
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  this making a tower, I don't think it was probably a committee.
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  Do you think it was a committee?
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  If it was a committee, they all had the same thing in mind.
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  But so he says in verse 7, come, let us go down, confuse their language so they
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  will not understand each other.
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  And I come from the standpoint, sensing the heart of God from the beginning
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  to the end, that God did this intentionally to preserve us.
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  Because that kind of behavior without any checks and balances,
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  because we are human and we sin and they sinned.
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  I'm afraid that the human species might have been extinct.
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  Like we would have put ourselves out of business. We would have put ourselves out of business. Yeah.
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  Now, then we go on and the second part of your question was,
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  so the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth and they stopped building
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  the city. And that's why it's called Babel because the Lord confused the language of the whole world.
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  And from there, the Lord scattered them over the face of the earth.
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  So what we realize is it was hard to be together because they couldn't understand each other.
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  And this was a language shift so that brothers couldn't understand each other.
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  Mothers and daughters couldn't understand each other. It was of that magnitude.
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  Well, being of that magnitude then, it made it hard.
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  So it really moved him around. The second piece of this is the fact that since
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  that happened in, I'm trying to remember where it's at, Peleg.
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  Okay, Peleg is in verse 18 of chapter 11.
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  And what we know is that during Peleg's life, there was a Teutonic shift.
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  Where is that recorded? I know I've got it here somewhere.
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  There was a Teutonic shift of the earth's continents.
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  It mentions that in the Bible? It does. It does mention that in the Bible.
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  And that's where I'm trying to find...
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  9.17. Here it is, just before that.
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  So, one was named Peleg because in his time, the earth was divided.
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  So, you have Teutonic plate theory right here in the Bible. Yeah. In chapter 10, verse 25.
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  And Peleg means by fire, so we know it has a volcanic aspect to it.
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  Well, that happens after the time of Babel, because that Peleg is actually mentioned in 1118.
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  So the chronology here is just a little bit skewed.
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  So then after the Tower of Babel, the Peleg was born, and in Peleg's lifetime, then Teutonic plates.
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  So all these languages then floated apart.
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  Isn't that interesting? So like we, you, I guess, I guess I haven't formed an
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  opinion because I didn't really know that, but you believe in like that the.
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  Like I could say all the land was in the same one continent,
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  in the same area, then when this happened, then it, okay, then it formed what it is now. Yeah.
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  Interesting. And there's a lot of evidence for Teutonic plate theory.
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  Yeah. But that, that's where it would be in the Bible.
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  So by these events coming right after, you know, the ark, and then they all
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  went to one area, and then they had this thing going on,
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  they got powerful, and they built this city and put this citadel in the middle
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  of it, and God realized what was happening.
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  I think he probably realized more than what's even in our text,
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  what was going on when that power was all in one spot.
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  He took care of that and broke it into groups so that we could be challenged
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  once in a while when we get off a skewed somewhere. Interesting.
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  Yep. Did you get more out of that? There was more answer to that question.
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  There was question. Yeah, there was.
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  I felt like I should have been in the audience for that.
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  Well, I get excited when I've got all those things in my mind and I want to
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  get them out. No, yeah. Anything else you want to say?
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  Well, I think that's enough for that. All right.
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  We'll move into the next one then. In case that question didn't interest anybody,
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  we go on to the next one to see if it does interest.
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  Yeah. So, yeah. I know there's many different ways for there to be leadership in a church.
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  So is there a way you think is right? Is there a wrong way to do church leadership?
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  Like, how should that work? Well, it's interesting because I'm a regional pastor,
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  so I see several different examples lived out in different congregations.
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  And yeah, I've been under several different constitutions. One was interesting
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  because it said, you know, the pastor was in charge of everything and in the
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  constitution, but when its bylaws came out, it wasn't that way.
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  And so you go, would somebody like clarify this one? How do we get stuff done?
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  How do we get stuff done? Exactly.
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  And that's the bottom line. How do we get stuff done well?
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  And some have been so paralyzed by committees that it takes an act of Congress to get anything done.
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  Because it has to go through three committees before it ever gets out.
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  I think what the Bible talks about is the presbyteros.
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  So you'd have somebody overseeing congregations, maybe a group of congregations.
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  And then each congregation would have a pastor or a couple pastors that would
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  help lead the congregation.
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  But they aren't by themselves.
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  So that you have a congregational group.
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  That are always working with the pastor. Okay.
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  Because just like we talked about here in chapter 11 of Genesis,
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  part of that happened because all the power was centralized.
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  And so they decided to build this thing and I don't think they had a committee.
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  I don't see any committee, you know?
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  Yeah. And so they could work with the pastor on things and make sure it doesn't go awry.
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  And if the pastor doesn't go awry, I mean, pastors aren't perfect,
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  although we like to think we are. Pastors aren't perfect.
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  Somebody can call them out on the things that they're skew on.
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  So then I think having oversight of congregations and that person,
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  like I'm a regional pastor. I'm not by myself.
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  I have 11 brothers and a couple of sisters that we actually oversee congregations.
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  And then we meet once a month to discuss how things are going.
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  And that way we can keep each other accountable as regional pastors.
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  And then we work with the pastors under us and the, like I meet with the elders
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  of those congregations on a regular basis.
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  So I can tell if the, you know, maybe the pastor needs some advice in a certain
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  area, we can work with that, make it happen.
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  And so I think this faith, our faith needs to be a conversation.
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  It needs to be a daily conversation with God, and it needs to be a conversation
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  among our brothers and sisters.
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  Because we need each other. And I think that was illustrated in the Bible several
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  times, especially in the New Testament, the body of believers.
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  We need each other. We also need direction and clear direction.
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  And so each and every one of us has a individual faith link with God.
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  In our prayer life, we come daily before the Lord.
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  In coming daily before the Lord individually, then when we come together as
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  a church, we bring that with us into the conversation we're having about,
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  okay, what are we going to do in this town where God's made us a mission station?
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  And how can we be the light of Christ in this spot better?
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  It's not about who's going to make coffee next week or who's going to bring the donuts.
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  It's going to be conversations about how can we be a better,
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  a light in our community of who Jesus is?
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  So what was the question again? Did I even get close to that one?
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  Correct church structure, church leadership structure. Just some way in which
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  there's like checks and balances, but kind of communication with each other and pastor. Yeah. Okay.
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  Yeah. And it works when you're doing that well.
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  At any point in that structure, though, if somebody is not a Christian,
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  is not a good disciple of Christ, is not listening to what the Lord has,
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  it can get really messy fast. Yeah.
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  Yeah. And people who are wanting their own agenda will be seen. Yeah.
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  Mm-hmm. So, like church conferences, they help with that too,
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  with kind of being what helps oversee churches. It does.
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  Because one of the things that a church conference will do is help us focus
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  on the essentials because we automatically move towards, well, I don't like it that way.
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  You know i don't like those worship songs i
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  want hymns or i i don't like the
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  cookies you're getting for the fellowship or the
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  coffee is too strong and so you can get on the inessentials rather quickly in
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  any committee kind of thing situation but what conference does for you is it
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  helps focus on the essentials okay okay that's all well and good you guys can
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  do it that way but let's remember that we're here for the cause of Christ. Yeah.
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  It's not. Cookies and coffee don't actually. Believe it. It's not about your
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  coffee. It's not about your cookies.
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  It's not about you. Yeah. All right. I'll just do one last one here. Where is heaven?
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  It is. Yeah. Where?
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  You're wanting coordinates, are you?
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  Anything you got. Latitude, longitude.
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  Everything in the Bible would say it's above. Yeah. By the nature of the word, it's above us.
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  And I, you know, we could say literally above or we could say,
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  you know, it's probably above our understanding where heaven is.
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  Because it is literally above us. Yeah.
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  I look forward to heaven. I think it's going to be wonderful. But it is above us.
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  Either physically above us or it's probably above my understanding as well.
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  Yeah, I'd agree with that.
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  The people of Babel were trying to build up.
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  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. They wanted to go up because that's where they thought heaven was. Mm-hmm.
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  And I'm wondering exactly how high they thought they were going to build.
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  Yeah. You know. I mean, they had to build like past what they could see,
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  right? Right. So. Exactly.
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  So they were going to, they had a lofty, lofty endeavor. Yeah.
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  You know, lofty. You know, trying to get lofty.
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  Yeah yeah we get it yeah okay i was wondering if you got it because i wasn't sorry about that one.
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  All right well thank you guys for joining us you tolerated it well,
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  hope you guys learned something yeah we did yeah i i did yeah i felt like i
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  should be in the audience on some of those but thank you guys for joining us
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  and we'll see you next time Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
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  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and is calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.