Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S6 249. Dr. Max Botner Ph.D. - Unveiling Ancient Mysteries: Jesus, the Order of Melchizedek & the Seat of David

Transcript

S6 249. Dr. Max Botner Ph.D. - Unveiling Ancient Mysteries: Jesus, the Order of Melchizedek & the Seat of David · Millennial Mustard Seed

• 0:00
  That's tough. We're in a very tough spot.
• 0:03
  I think that what we're doing right now is a great benefit and
• 0:07
  virtue because it's an end around between this whole
• 0:10
  corrupt informational system, media system.
• 0:15
  We claim to believe in a God who spoke the universe into
• 0:17
  existence and literally raised himself from the dead, and yet
• 0:22
  we're not going to believe that anything else exists in the
• 0:25
  spirit realm, even though His word tells us that they do.
• 0:30
  Bodies weren't permitted to go to sleep like humans do, and
• 0:34
  they weren't permitted to go to heaven, so they wander the
• 0:37
  earth. You know, I've seen the eyes
• 0:40
  turn black to unknown tongues being spoken.
• 0:44
  These giants would live way up in the highland.
• 0:47
  The young Braves, the young men would hide up in the trees.
• 0:50
  They'd wait for one of these 12 footers to come walking down the
• 0:53
  path and they would jump on them and kill them, drag them back to
• 0:56
  the village, and the village would feast on the body.
• 1:04
  Then people start to get weapons, they start to get
• 1:06
  armor, they start to build cities, they start to fortify
• 1:09
  their cities. Now God looks down and there's
• 1:11
  violence everywhere. The battle, this war that we are
• 1:15
  at, is not against each other. It's against these
• 1:18
  principalities and these rulers and these archons.
• 1:20
  In the high places. It's really worthwhile to read
• 1:23
  the Bible yourself. Fear is one of the primary
• 1:27
  drivers of mind control because we have to take every thought
• 1:31
  captive and resist fear. You're going to have a testimony
• 1:38
  that is a justice case against the Kingdom of darkness.
• 2:16
  Music Welcome back to the MMSI am your producer, creator, host
• 2:20
  Rod Smith and I got a banger for you guys.
• 2:23
  Doctor Max Botner is back with me for a official on air round
• 2:28
  two and we delve into the enigmatic figure of Melchizedek.
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  This is an interesting one for me, you guys.
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  I have questions that we cover in this episode.
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  I allude to certain things. We get some ground covered for
• 2:45
  sure with Doctor Max. But I was thinking and having
• 2:48
  private conversations in my life about the seat of David and the
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  order of Melchizedek and how the Christ comes and sits in the
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  seat of David and is the fulfillment of that even more
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  specifically in the millennial reign.
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  And the Bible does talk about the righteous inheriting and
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  occupying keyword the seed of David.
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  And the conversation seems to just get even deeper from there.
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  The significance of the order of Melchizedek and the intriguing
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  concept of Jesus as the pre Incarnate presence in the
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  ancient scriptures. Dr. Max allows us into that
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  ancient Near Eastern mindset that is in his mind and we start
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  to discover the layers of meaning in biblical text and how
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  these insights can bridge understandings across different
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  faith traditions. This episode promises to deepen
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  your appreciation for the interconnectivity of scripture,
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  or as I like to say, the multi layered effect and how that
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  endurance and the legacy of all of it of these ancient
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  traditions is alive and well today.
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  And I really do believe that you guys are going to enjoy this
• 4:04
  one. Let me move into the maintenance
• 4:06
  section of this intro. Like, share and subscribe
• 4:10
  details in the show notes. Want to plant a seed?
• 4:13
  You can find that information in the details.
• 4:16
  You can find a copy of my book in the details.
• 4:19
  You can also find my e-mail address.
• 4:21
  If you'd like to reach out to me.
• 4:23
  We're coming up on episode 250 and I do have a special message
• 4:29
  for episode 250. Wow, it's been a long time.
• 4:33
  A lot of production, wild roller coaster ride, which honestly, we
• 4:39
  all need in our faith walk. We need some highs and lows and
• 4:43
  we definitely need that Berean mindset.
• 4:46
  And I hope that you guys find that here on this episode and
• 4:50
  maybe all the other ones. I don't know.
• 4:53
  If you're a brand new listener, go back through the archives,
• 4:55
  start around episode 100 and move up from there.
• 4:59
  Like, share and subscribe. Regardless if you're a brand new
• 5:03
  listener or if you've been here since the beginning.
• 5:05
  Help me by sharing these episodes because there's plenty
• 5:09
  of other people left out there just like me and you who have
• 5:12
  not heard even half of this information yet.
• 5:15
  You can be the bridge by simply sharing this with friends,
• 5:18
  family members, Co workers and share it well at your own
• 5:22
  caution with your pastor. I think it's about time to jump
• 5:31
  into this episode. I'm ready.
• 5:34
  Are you guys ready? Let's go, let's go.
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  All right, welcome to the millennial Mustard Seed.
• 5:53
  My name is Doctor Max Botner and I'm happy to join you.
• 6:00
  Doctor Max, here we are again. Here we are again round.
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  Two, Yeah, man, I really enjoyed your your first appearance, and
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  it was really humbling because you had brought a couple things
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  to my attention that I didn't know prior.
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  You know, like Jesus passing by on the boat, for example.
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  It's like this nod, right? I mean, I just encourage people
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  to go back and listen to that episode.
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  I'll actually drop your original appearance in the details of the
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  show notes. But welcome back, man.
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  I'm excited for what we're going to talk about.
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  Yeah, me. Too.
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  Yeah, Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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  Yeah. So why don't you, you know, kind
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  of warm us up with, with this idea of Jesus in the Old
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  Testament, right? And this could be a miniseries.
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  This Oh yeah. I don't think 1 episode will do
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  justice, but I, but I do want to lean and depend on you to kind
• 6:46
  of build a foundation of Jesus in the Old Testament.
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  Like, is that even a thing? Let's start there and and
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  wherever you'd like to go from there.
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  Sure. Yeah.
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  I mean, the short answer to that is yes, it's it's definitely a
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  thing, right? If you're a follower of Christ,
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  you know, Christ is the one who teaches us how to read the
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  Scriptures and he shows us how the scriptures are about him.
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  So yeah, the short answer is yes.
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  I probably, it's probably helpful though, for conceptual
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  clarity to just think about. There's several ways in which
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  you could probably think about or address this question.
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  So let me just put these out there so people are aware of
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  them because I think that there there's some important
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  differences when you think about the what we call the Old
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  Testament as, as Christians, the Jews, Jewish people, they called
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  the Tanakh. And within academia, we refer to
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  it as the Hebrew Bible, which is supposed to be kind of a more
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  neutral way of doing it. There's no perfect way to
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  designate scriptural traditions that fits everybody's category.
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  But within the Hebrew Bible there are many texts that we
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  might label as Messianic. These could be texts that have
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  to do primarily probably with kings in the Old Testament in
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  the Davidic line, as well as some texts that have to do with
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  anointed high priests, and in a few cases may be prophetic
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  figures who are also anointed and their traditions that
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  develop about these texts. Within ancient Judaism and early
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  Christianity, the Jesus movement is one of the ways of navigating
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  and interpreting these different traditions.
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  So one of the questions when you say is Jesus in the Old
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  Testament, you could say, well, if Jesus is the Messiah, which
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  text in the Old Testament talk about the Messiah, right?
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  That's one way of thinking about it from a Christian theological
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  standpoint, though. I, I, I think it's also safe to
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  say that because Christians see Jesus as the pre Incarnate son
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  of God, it would also be natural then to think about how Jesus
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  might be present with the people of Israel in the Old Testament.
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  Does that make sense? So beyond simply texts that
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  speak of a royal figure or a king and one place I'd point to
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  here just to kind of like signal, right?
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  An early instance of this in the epistle of Jude, it's the second
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  to last book of the New Testament.
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  There is actually, maybe I'll just call it up real quick
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  because it's a really interesting statement that that
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  Jude makes here. Yes.
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  So this is Jude 15, where he is, he says, I want to remind you,
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  and I'm going to read this, this first version here, this is from
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  the NIV, and then I'll make some changes to it based on the
• 9:51
  newest edition of the Greek New Testament.
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  He says, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his
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  people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not
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  believe. So this is just part of a, we
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  call a paranitic section, kind of like moral exhortation,
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  looking back on the history of Israel to exhort the people now
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  in the present, right. So it's part of the writer's
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  rhetorical strategy. The word there in the Greek
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  curious Lord. That's one reading in the
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  manuscript tradition, another reading which is now now deemed
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  to be more likely. Others, you know, it's not 100%,
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  but deemed to be more likely. The original has not Lord, but
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  the name Jesus in there, right. So if that's in fact the the
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  original Greek, right, OK, it would, it would actually say, I
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  want to remind you that Jesus delivered the people out of
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  Egypt, right? So what?
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  In other words, the ambiguity of Lord, which could refer to
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  either the Father or the Son, is more specific in that Greek
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  reading Jesus. All that to say is that this
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  would be an instance where a writer in the New Testament is
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  saying Jesus is the one who delivered the people out of
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  Egypt, right? So it's directly placing the son
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  in the story of Deliverance. OK, my wheels are turning.
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  OK, my wheels are turning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So I mean, you could read if you read it as the Lord delivered
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  them, you could read Lord as Jesus.
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  But the the the version, which again, scholars think is more
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  likely to be original, though they both have good attestation,
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  is Jesus delivered the people out of Egypt.
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  So that's like a claim of saying Jesus is present with the
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  Israelites. He's the one delivering them out
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  of Egypt, you see. So this is a it's a
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  Christological claim about the pre Incarnate Christ.
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  I love that and and I think it, the interconnectivity goes, it
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  is very fascinating because what's triggering for me, as
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  you're saying that is he was the pillar of smoke by night and the
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  cloud by day, right? And and that is the leading of
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  the of the people out of Egypt into the wilderness.
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  And then we know Jesus goes up into the clouds.
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  The Angel proclaims he will return on the clouds just as you
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  have seen him go. We'll come back and I did a
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  micro episode with my buddy Pete.
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  Shout out to him over at the days of Noah podcast on clouds.
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  And just like right, they're right in front of our faces and
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  above our heads. I should say more particular,
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  but and you know, I think we've been systematically
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  desensitized, right? We're on our phones and we have
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  this, this technocracy, you know, going.
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  Around this, but tell me about it.
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  Yeah. So when you say that for me, I
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  multi layered, you know, I, I see Jesus in it because I know
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  that he is the author and the finisher of life.
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  All things were made by him, for him and through him.
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  But specifically I'm going you're you're saying that and
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  I'm like, dude, he's the cloud that leads him by day and the
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  pillar of smoke by night. To me, that's that's more, it's
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  more intimate. It's more like it connects
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  deeper, but it's fascinating. Now what?
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  What translation specifically with that verse that you brought
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  up that scholars are leaning into saying that Jesus or Iseus,
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  right? Sure.
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  So that would be that would be printed in the newest Greek
• 13:19
  editions. The critical Greek editions
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  would be the Nesley Allen 28 United Bible Society, 5th
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  edition. They made 3334 changes to the
• 13:32
  printed Greek texts right? Interesting and this was one of
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  them. So this is one of the more more
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  interesting changes that was made, you know, to get into the
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  finer point of text criticism. I can do that if you want, but
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  it's significant because most people work with the printed
• 13:48
  Greek text and most English translations lean towards that.
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  So I haven't, I actually have the, the revised edition of the
• 13:56
  NRSP here with me. I'll check real quick to see if
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  they made a change based on that or or if they didn't.
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  They don't. You know, English Bible
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  traditions. They don't have to necessarily
• 14:07
  follow the most recent precondition, but they typically
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  do. But it's good to be able to have
• 14:13
  that resource to lead. Into right so here here you go.
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  Let me read this for you 'cause this is this is the NRSV updated
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  edition which just came out a couple years ago.
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  I'll read this is verse 5. Now I desire to remind you
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  though you are fully informed once for all that Jesus who
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  saved the people out of Egypt. So there you go.
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  They made the change E Asus there.
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  That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing.
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  Yeah, there are a couple of other word differences in there,
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  but the big thing is that it's Jesus rather than Lord.
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  So as we kind of dig into the, the, the, because most people
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  correlate Jesus to the physical image of the everlasting God.
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  New Testament exclusive, right? And, and you know, I, I'm not
• 14:57
  here to argue, you know, eschatology or theology or
• 15:00
  hermeneutics, but you know, there's Trinitarians, there's
• 15:03
  Oneness, there's the Godhead. I'm more interested in, you
• 15:08
  know, having a pivot point and in a library of information,
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  where, when are Jewish brothers and sisters, people who are in
• 15:13
  Islam, the other monotheistic beliefs, we can say, have you
• 15:18
  heard of it this way? You know, have you considered to
• 15:21
  look through this lens or framework as to what the
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  Pentateuch, the Torah, the Kanak is talking about?
• 15:26
  And so where, where would you kind of like to go from there?
• 15:29
  Like, and, and I love the fact that even, you know, the
• 15:31
  scholarly work is starting to reflect Jesus's name belongs in
• 15:35
  here. He led the captives out of
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  Egypt. Yeah, I mean, I, I guess I'll
• 15:40
  give you another example that just comes off the top of my
• 15:43
  head. That's really fascinating.
• 15:45
  In 1st Corinthians 10, Paul's, again, he's talking about the
• 15:49
  wilderness and he says that the rock was following the people
• 15:53
  around in the wilderness, which is really interesting because if
• 15:56
  you look at the wilderness narrative, there's two scenes
• 15:59
  with a rock in it, but it never says in the text that the rock
• 16:03
  was following them around. But if you look at early Jewish
• 16:06
  midrash on that, on that, the assumption is that the same rock
• 16:12
  was actually with them from beginning to end through the
• 16:15
  wilderness journey. So Paul seems to be supposing
• 16:19
  that early Jewish tradition that there's a singular rock
• 16:22
  following the people around. The the twist that Paul gives to
• 16:26
  that tradition is that and Christ was the rock, Christ was
• 16:30
  in the rock, right? So, yeah, yeah.
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  So the rock was Christ. So the divine, basically, he
• 16:35
  takes the tradition of the divine presence of the Lord
• 16:40
  being in this rock, and he identifies it with Christ.
• 16:43
  That's amazing. Yeah, he says the rock was the
• 16:45
  Messiah. So, yeah, it's very, it's it's a
• 16:48
  very interesting, some really good articles on on that
• 16:53
  passage, one in particular by a scholar named Matthew Thiessen.
• 16:57
  I can send you the info after that if you'd like.
• 17:00
  People might be interested in that.
• 17:01
  But yeah, that's another one where when you talk about seeing
• 17:04
  Jesus in the Old Testament, that's another early example
• 17:08
  through Jewish exegesis of how early Christ followers are
• 17:10
  finding Christ in the Old Testament in a way that goes
• 17:13
  beyond simply, you know, this met Messianic texts here, you
• 17:19
  know, in Numbers 24 or whatever is about is about Jesus.
• 17:24
  You'd mentioned earlier, I'll just make one more connection
• 17:26
  and then you can ask, feel free to ask questions.
• 17:28
  You'd mentioned Jesus ascending on the clouds, the ascension and
• 17:33
  dissension. Yeah, there's several.
• 17:36
  There's obviously a number of traditions you could point to
• 17:38
  there. It's rooted in the, the divine
• 17:42
  theophanies of God in the clouds and stuff.
• 17:44
  But one tradition that's it particularly important for
• 17:47
  understanding that is Daniel chapter 713 and 14 when the Son
• 17:51
  of man comes on the cloud and approaches the Ancient of days.
• 17:54
  So you think about the, the, the, the early Christian image
• 17:58
  of the ascension, Jesus ascending on the cloud.
• 18:00
  That's the Son of man text. And then what you get throughout
• 18:03
  the New Testament is that he's going to return in the same way
• 18:06
  that he ascended. So he comes back on the clouds
• 18:10
  or in the clouds, depending on which Greek text you look at.
• 18:13
  But that's, that's that, that that tradition of the Son of
• 18:18
  man, one like a son of man in Daniel, Jesus calls himself the
• 18:22
  Son of man. That that text is particularly
• 18:26
  important as well for the cloud imagery that you had mentioned
• 18:29
  earlier. So Doctor Max, would you call it
• 18:32
  like archetypes or typology, right?
• 18:35
  Is that the kind of language that you guys use scholarly to
• 18:38
  talk about? Help me understand those terms
• 18:41
  and then maybe I'll morph into a better question.
• 18:43
  OK, sure, yes, there there's there's different terms.
• 18:48
  So theophanies are used to describe the manifestation of
• 18:54
  God. And if you want to be more
• 18:55
  specific about distinguishing between the first and second
• 18:59
  person, I suppose you could say like a Christophany or something
• 19:02
  like that or the Angel of the Lord.
• 19:05
  Theophanies are often the Angel Lord is often identified as
• 19:09
  being the pre Incarnate Christ for example in like early
• 19:12
  christologies. When you look at that in terms
• 19:15
  of like exegetical techniques, typology refers to making a
• 19:20
  connection from past salvation history to a future anti type in
• 19:26
  the New Testament, right? So like you can move from Moses
• 19:30
  to Jesus or Joseph to Jesus or whatever.
• 19:35
  That would be typology. There's yeah, a variety of other
• 19:40
  like, you know, interpretive techniques that early Jewish and
• 19:43
  Christian interpreters will use. Typology allegory, what's called
• 19:48
  sometimes Pescher interpretation, which is like
• 19:51
  you take a line of scripture and then you explain what it means
• 19:53
  in your you know, your current circumstances.
• 19:57
  Generally kind of just commenting on things.
• 20:00
  There's ways of linking verses together based on shared themes.
• 20:04
  Gezer al Shiva theme, same same theme word.
• 20:06
  So there's all this kind of different stuff, right?
• 20:09
  But the idea is these people were trained in a certain milieu
• 20:14
  of. You know, reading practices and
• 20:17
  interpretive practices, and they use those resources that they
• 20:20
  have to understand the text, you know, at a deeper level because
• 20:25
  the idea is like, you know, these texts are inspired,
• 20:30
  They're given as divine revelation.
• 20:32
  And so there's expectation that you're going to find all these
• 20:35
  kind of fresh connections in light of Christ especially.
• 20:41
  OK, so I'll start with with this question and then we'll see
• 20:44
  where we go. I do have a thread in mind,
• 20:47
  something I've personally been pondering, but I'll save that.
• 20:50
  So let's talk a little bit about specifically in the case where
• 20:55
  Abraham is die having the dialogue with Yahweh on earth
• 21:00
  and Yahweh in heaven, right? And he's like, if there's I'm
• 21:04
  going to paraphrase for my listeners out there.
• 21:06
  No, no rough emails in my direction.
• 21:08
  But he's saying something like, if there's 10 righteous, would
• 21:12
  you spare the city? Oh yeah, if there's. 5 righteous
• 21:15
  Would you spare the city then? And really, I, I think that he's
• 21:19
  arguing on behalf of Lot solely. And I think that's what he
• 21:23
  receives his lot being spared right and being LED out.
• 21:26
  But that kind of idea to my understanding through other
• 21:30
  people's research, other other great shoulders that I've kind
• 21:33
  of stood on and gleaned at some of these ideas that there was a,
• 21:37
  a really well formatted understanding of, of two
• 21:40
  Yahwehs, a physical manifestation of Yahweh.
• 21:43
  And then more of an ethereal or spiritual version of Yahweh in
• 21:47
  some credited understandings within, within Old Testament,
• 21:51
  you know, concepts or, or understandings as in like the
• 21:55
  ancient Near Eastern writer wouldn't have wrestled with that
• 21:59
  concept when he's reading Abraham's having dialogue with
• 22:02
  Yahweh on earth. And there's Yahweh in heaven.
• 22:04
  They're not like red flag. You know, the Lord our God is 1
• 22:08
  Shimin misrael, you know, like there's no like no bargain for
• 22:11
  that. But then like today, we have
• 22:13
  some like kind of disconnections, like we need a
• 22:16
  little bit of diligence to kind of go through and be like, well,
• 22:19
  how do we in light of that is, am I making sense, right?
• 22:24
  Yeah, what you say makes sense, and I think you're right that
• 22:30
  conceptions of the divine shifted, morph over time and
• 22:34
  history. So within ancient Israel there
• 22:39
  there is definitely a more of a sense and within that broader
• 22:44
  milieu, a a sense of the fluidity of God's presence and
• 22:48
  body in different places. A really great, it's a technical
• 22:52
  scholarly work, but a really great resource that I'd point
• 22:56
  people to hear if they want to understand the history of this
• 22:58
  is by a Jewish scholar, scholar Benjamin Sommer.
• 23:03
  Sommer called the divine. What is it called?
• 23:08
  God's divine bodies or something like that, or the the bodies of
• 23:11
  God. I have to look it up.
• 23:12
  Interesting. Yeah, it's a really great work.
• 23:17
  I mean, it's, it is technical, you know, technical scholarship.
• 23:20
  It's a Cambridge University Press.
• 23:22
  Yeah, the bot, it's called the Bodies of God and the World of
• 23:25
  Ancient Israel. So like, you know, what he what
• 23:28
  he does there is he kind of takes you through some of the
• 23:30
  history and helps you understand conceptually how it could be
• 23:33
  that Yahweh's body could be in different places, right?
• 23:37
  And so fascinating, yeah. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:39
  Right, right. Love it.
• 23:41
  And and that kind of stuff becomes harder for people to
• 23:44
  conceptualize when ideas of divinity or deity shift, right,
• 23:48
  historically speaking. But but that that's I think
• 23:53
  what's going on in a lot of these these these kind of Old
• 23:56
  Testament traditions that you mentioned all.
• 23:59
  Right, well, let me present like something that I've been
• 24:01
  personally kind of thinking about and and I was having a
• 24:04
  conversation this morning on one of my commutes and to to a
• 24:08
  brother in Christ. Shout out to BHB, who actually
• 24:10
  does not of this world a highly requested song here on the
• 24:14
  podcast. And we're having this
• 24:16
  conversation based on, and I'm going, you know, Melchizedek is
• 24:20
  important, but we get like one mention in the Old Testament and
• 24:23
  we get some head nods in the new 2 in the Old Testament.
• 24:27
  OK, two. Yeah, maybe we can go over
• 24:28
  those. Actually.
• 24:29
  That would be great. And then we get the head nods in
• 24:32
  the New Testament. You know, like they're saying,
• 24:33
  you know this about Melchizedek. And I'm like, well, this is
• 24:36
  fascinating because Mel, Mel in my understanding is king, right?
• 24:41
  Like like we have Molech, right? And that it's like the king of
• 24:44
  shame. Melek.
• 24:45
  Melek Melek. You can hear Melchizedek.
• 24:48
  It means King of righteousness. King of righteousness, yeah.
• 24:51
  Melchizedek. Melchizedek, yes, you're right.
• 24:54
  Righteous, Righteous. Yeah, mispronunciation there on
• 24:56
  my part. I'm the guy next door.
• 25:00
  And so I'm thinking about this in light of then even the seat
• 25:03
  of David, you know, like David is in this seat, right?
• 25:07
  And there's so much fascinating about him.
• 25:10
  We could do a whole episode just on David, right?
• 25:12
  But I mean, for the sake of, of gearing myself, so I don't
• 25:16
  digress into the wrong topic here.
• 25:20
  The Bible mentions that the seed of David will be inhabited by,
• 25:23
  by righteous seed, right? And then the, the millennial
• 25:26
  reign or, you know, this idea of what I don't need convinced of
• 25:31
  it, but Jesus taking that seat, a new Jerusalem coming down,
• 25:36
  right? And he's rolling in reigning.
• 25:38
  And so I'm like, interesting, you know, because we are the
• 25:42
  righteousness of Christ, right? We've been transferred the
• 25:45
  righteousness of Christ. He has taken as all of our sins.
• 25:49
  And I mean, you know, we have countless line upon line,
• 25:53
  precept upon preset, all these beautiful, poetic, prophetic
• 25:57
  language talking about how we're in Christ and, and Jesus is
• 26:01
  saying, I wish you were, you know, one with me, like I'm one
• 26:05
  with the Father. And, and, and there's just like
• 26:07
  beautiful stuff going on here that I'm trying to wrap my head
• 26:10
  around. But I started to think about
• 26:11
  like the line, the order of Melchizedek.
• 26:14
  And then I'm like the seed of David, this lineage now and then
• 26:18
  the final, if you will, you know, if your eschatology is
• 26:23
  lines up with we're not post millennial right now, which I
• 26:29
  don't think we are. I'm just like just saying that.
• 26:31
  Well, your your your podcast is the millennial mustard.
• 26:34
  That's not, that's not what I named it, dude.
• 26:36
  I actually, because I'm the millennial and I felt small and
• 26:39
  like I was going to church. And anyway, it was like I just
• 26:41
  had this little bit of faith. But now I'm starting to dive
• 26:44
  into these like meteor conversations with, with
• 26:47
  different people of all different, you know, backgrounds
• 26:49
  and skill sets that that have importance to bring to the
• 26:51
  table. And I'm starting to go, well,
• 26:54
  God gave me the name and, and I literally Doctor Max, I didn't
• 26:58
  want to name the podcast this because it's a mouthful.
• 27:01
  It sounded corny. Six years ago, everybody had
• 27:04
  like cool podcast names. And I'm like a millennial
• 27:07
  mustard seed. I'm like, people aren't going to
• 27:08
  take me serious. Now it's like, it's its own
• 27:11
  thing. And I'm like, OK, that's why I
• 27:12
  was supposed to listen. Lord.
• 27:14
  That's good. Well, I mean, I, I did, I did 0
• 27:17
  research and just name my podcast on the way and then I
• 27:19
  realized there's like 10 other on the ways.
• 27:23
  I think I'm the six the top. I think I'm in the top 6 on the
• 27:26
  way. That's.
• 27:28
  Awesome. But you gotta throw some humor
• 27:31
  in there. It's just.
• 27:32
  Yeah, that laugh. Yeah.
• 27:33
  OK, so the the order of Melchizedek, the seed of David,
• 27:37
  you know, like these kind of prophetic things.
• 27:39
  Do you think that there's something more it's kind of
• 27:41
  alluding to with like Christ's presence even like just like
• 27:46
  Christ isn't exclusive to just a man with a beard and sandals.
• 27:49
  Like to me, Christ is a realm of existence that the false reality
• 27:54
  overlay that most of us do live in.
• 27:56
  We can lift that and start and we can come into those heavenly
• 28:00
  places, current tents. And so I, I think about these
• 28:03
  things now. It's a little bit messy what I'm
• 28:05
  presenting because I'm, I'm literally sharing active
• 28:08
  thoughts from this very day with you.
• 28:11
  But does that do anything for you?
• 28:13
  Does that spark like interconnectivity or or interest
• 28:17
  of any sort? Yeah, yeah.
• 28:19
  I mean, I like, I think what I could do is explain kind of the
• 28:24
  Melchizedek traditions, if you like, in the kind of the
• 28:27
  connection, because I mean, I, I think that the so the
• 28:31
  Melchizedek and, and I can, you know, we could talk about how
• 28:34
  that maybe is connected then to royal monarchy, if you like.
• 28:37
  And, and you know, the seat, seat of David language, we can
• 28:41
  talk about that. And you know, even your thought
• 28:44
  about us reigning with Christ, you know, there's some really
• 28:48
  interesting examples where of that where messianic texts from
• 28:53
  the Old Testament are applied not just to Jesus, but to all
• 28:56
  who are in Christ. So it kind of has that idea of,
• 29:00
  you know, Co Co reigning with the king or whatever.
• 29:02
  So I I'm happy to talk about all of those if you like.
• 29:06
  Let's launch it off with the Melchizedek thing.
• 29:08
  And you did mention there's two places.
• 29:10
  Yeah, yeah. Do you want me to try to pull
• 29:12
  one up or do you have one maybe? Yeah.
• 29:13
  I can pull them up for you. Sure.
• 29:15
  So 1 is in Genesis 14, this is the narrative where Abraham's
• 29:19
  coming back from a battle and he's met by this priest
• 29:22
  Melchizedek, right? So there's there's only two
• 29:24
  places there, places where he's mentioned.
• 29:27
  And this is Genesis 1417. After his return from he, you
• 29:32
  know, he returns back, blah, blah, blah.
• 29:35
  And it says this is verse 18. And King Melchizedek of Salem
• 29:40
  brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most
• 29:44
  High. He blessed him and said, right.
• 29:46
  So then he goes on and blesses him.
• 29:48
  So that's one place you got this figure named Melchizedek.
• 29:52
  He's bread and wine. Brings out, Right?
• 29:55
  Yeah. And you can see an ancient
• 29:57
  Christian art mosaic, a picture of this very scene that's
• 30:01
  connected to the Eucharist, right?
• 30:05
  I mean, easy connection to make, right?
• 30:07
  Typologically, bread and wine, you know, this, this feast.
• 30:12
  So you have Melchizedek here. There's all kinds of speculation
• 30:15
  on the background of this tradition, but the, the, it's a
• 30:18
  great example of what like what Jewish exegesis does with with
• 30:23
  text like this is it tries to solve puzzles because this guy's
• 30:27
  coming out of nowhere, right? He's not mentioned.
• 30:30
  He's got no background. All we know is what the text
• 30:32
  tells us about him exactly. And and that's it right.
• 30:36
  And then the only other place Melchizedek shows up is in Psalm
• 30:39
  110, verse 4, which is a royal Psalm.
• 30:42
  The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your
• 30:45
  enemies your footstool. And then in verse 4, you are a
• 30:49
  priest forever. There's, there's different ways
• 30:52
  you can vocalize the Hebrew, which will change the meaning,
• 30:55
  but the the way it's pointed in the Masoretic text, you are a
• 30:59
  priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, right?
• 31:03
  So you have this mention again of the order of Melchizedek for
• 31:06
  a royal figure. So it's one way of like kind of
• 31:10
  connecting royal priests, you know, together.
• 31:13
  And again, there's tons of speculation of where to date
• 31:17
  Psalm 110, where it comes from, all that kind of stuff.
• 31:20
  My more of my expertise focus of study is how early Jews and
• 31:26
  Christians interpreted these traditions.
• 31:29
  And so one example, right, it's in the New Testament, the
• 31:34
  Epistle to the Hebrews cites both of these texts together,
• 31:38
  right? And that the writer of Hebrews
• 31:41
  makes the point that Melchizedek, Hebrews does not
• 31:45
  think that Melchizedek is Christ, but Hebrews thinks that
• 31:49
  Christ is like Melchizedek in this particular way.
• 31:54
  If you read Genesis 14, Melchizedek has no mention of
• 31:58
  father and mother. So it's kind of like a pre
• 32:02
  existent kind of right. And then Jewish writer Philo,
• 32:06
  who's a contemporary of Hebrews, makes similar kind of comments
• 32:09
  about Melchizedek. So it's not just out of the
• 32:12
  blue. It's part of a larger exegetical
• 32:14
  conversation. And then, yeah, so no father, no
• 32:16
  mother. And Hebrew says, and if you
• 32:19
  notice, he blesses Abraham. Abraham pays a tithe to
• 32:23
  Melchizedek. And.
• 32:24
  And so it's a way of sort of saying this Melchizedek
• 32:27
  priesthood actually is superior to the Levitical priesthood
• 32:31
  because Levi was still in Abraham's seed when Abraham paid
• 32:35
  the tithe to Melchizedek. So that's the point.
• 32:38
  So that's one point that that the writer is interested in
• 32:42
  Melchizedek for. And then the other is of course,
• 32:45
  the the heavenly priesthood. You know, you sit at my right
• 32:49
  hand and this this figure is a priest in the order of
• 32:51
  Melchizedek. So Hebrews sees this as
• 32:54
  indication of an alternative priesthood that's greater or
• 32:59
  superior to the Levitical priesthood that's not based on
• 33:02
  genealogy, because the Levitical priesthood you got to be a
• 33:05
  descendant of Aaron. Jesus wasn't a descendant of
• 33:07
  Aaron. He was a descendant of David of
• 33:10
  Judah. But this priesthood is based not
• 33:13
  on genealogy. It's based on being, just being,
• 33:16
  being able to remain forever. And because Jesus is.
• 33:19
  A1 who? Is raised from the dead.
• 33:21
  He is able to remain in God's presence forever.
• 33:25
  Ergo, he is an heir to this Melchizedek priesthood.
• 33:28
  So he sees, he sees This text is not identification of Jesus and
• 33:32
  Melchizedek, but rather as kind of a, a figure of a different
• 33:36
  kind of priesthood that he, he steps into.
• 33:40
  Now add another layer into this. There's a text from the Dead Sea
• 33:45
  Scrolls called 11 Q that's is found in the 11th cave. 11 Q
• 33:51
  Melchizedek, because there's the figure Melchizedek is, is
• 33:55
  mentioned in this text. And in that text, Melchizedek
• 33:58
  seems to be, he's called the Messiah and he seems to be an
• 34:02
  angelic messianic figure who comes and fights on behalf of
• 34:07
  God's people, kind of like in a celestial, you know, heavenly
• 34:11
  battle. And he seems he's coming at the
• 34:14
  the end, the last of the Jubilees kind of working with
• 34:17
  the Jubilee cycle that you get from Leviticus 25 and 26.
• 34:22
  So that's another tradition of like Melchizedek as a heavenly
• 34:26
  angelic figure. It has to be based on on Psalm
• 34:30
  110, verses 3 and four. I think it's a it's a reading of
• 34:33
  that as a heavenly scene. So that's that's the Melchizedek
• 34:38
  piece is biblically speaking, I don't think Jesus is
• 34:41
  Melchizedek. I'm sure you can find some some
• 34:44
  church father somewhere that says Jesus is Melchizedek.
• 34:48
  According to Hebrews, it's not quite the case.
• 34:50
  It's more that Melchizedek is a figure of a heavenly priesthood
• 34:55
  which Jesus is now operating as a result of his ascension to the
• 35:01
  right hand of God. It it does speak in the Bible
• 35:04
  about the word that is eternally settled in heaven.
• 35:08
  For some reason that rings a bell for me right out of some of
• 35:12
  the things I've hidden in my heart, right.
• 35:14
  We we hide the word in our heart that we may not sin against him.
• 35:17
  I love how David says that. It doesn't mean you won't like
• 35:20
  you're going to fail, like take it easy on yourself, guys.
• 35:24
  But you know, we don't practice sin, right?
• 35:26
  We practice righteousness and we, we hide that word in our
• 35:28
  heart. And that comes up for me.
• 35:31
  I don't know why, but we'll just leave that one there on the
• 35:34
  table. And I think that that's, that's
• 35:36
  fascinating, this idea that, you know, Melchizedek is
• 35:39
  representing this, you know, kind of spiritual priesthood
• 35:43
  that this eternal realm. I think I believe that the
• 35:47
  spirit realm is the crisp and clear and like really tangible
• 35:52
  world and were the fuzzy kind of flippantly changing, fading
• 35:56
  away, going, you know, everything's upside down, inside
• 36:00
  out. Sometimes it feels like, yeah, I
• 36:03
  didn't realize that one of Psalms 103, was it Psalm 1?
• 36:07
  100 Psalm 110, verse 4. 110 verse four, Yeah.
• 36:11
  OK. Yeah.
• 36:12
  And that's where it talks about the order of Melchizedek.
• 36:15
  Where is that David who wrote the Psalms that that we assume?
• 36:18
  Yeah, it doesn't say. Let me see, I don't know if it
• 36:23
  says the name David. I I think it's just a royal
• 36:26
  Psalm, but it's associated with David when Jesus cites it.
• 36:30
  Oh, no, it does say Psalm of David.
• 36:31
  My my mistake. Yeah, OK.
• 36:33
  It does say Psalm of David la David mismore, which is the
• 36:36
  typical, you know, designation. And so whenever you have that
• 36:41
  right, there's assumption in antiquity of Davidic authorship.
• 36:45
  The the preposition le could mean actually various things in
• 36:49
  Hebrew, maybe like it's actually a weird way to mark off
• 36:52
  authorship. So a lot of scholars think that
• 36:54
  it's it's not actually attributing necessarily
• 36:57
  authorship to David, but the ancient assumption was, was
• 37:00
  certainly that David wrote these texts.
• 37:03
  And if you, if you look at what Jesus says, right, this is the
• 37:06
  the clincher. Jesus says David speaking in the
• 37:11
  Holy Spirit said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right
• 37:17
  hand, right. So, so Jesus, yeah, it says
• 37:19
  David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my
• 37:23
  Lord. Could we kind of walk into from
• 37:25
  this point that order of David type language?
• 37:30
  Yeah, sure. So you can make the connection
• 37:32
  of Psalm 110 pretty easily, you know, to the Davidic, the
• 37:37
  Davidic monarch, the king, right.
• 37:39
  It's not like a necessary connection, but it's one that
• 37:43
  you know, you can. It's a royal text, Psalm of
• 37:45
  David. And so if this becomes a picture
• 37:49
  of the Messiah, it's a great way to make an argument that the
• 37:54
  Messiah is also the priest, which is what Hebrews does,
• 37:57
  right? And Hebrews, again, is taking
• 38:02
  very seriously what the law says.
• 38:04
  The Law of Moses, the Pentateuch stipulates very clearly who, who
• 38:09
  can and cannot be a priest in the earthly Tabernacle.
• 38:14
  You have to be of the seed of Levi and Jesus is not.
• 38:18
  And Hebrews takes that seriously and says you're and and
• 38:21
  therefore Jesus can't be a priest in that order, but he's
• 38:25
  the priest of a greater order as the seed of David.
• 38:28
  This is Hebrews 714. It's a, it's self-evident that
• 38:32
  our Lord descended from Judah, who is the, the, the patriarch
• 38:36
  of the Davidic line, right? So it's a claim like we all know
• 38:41
  he's a son of David, right? But the law doesn't say anything
• 38:45
  about the son of David being a priest.
• 38:47
  But we have this other priesthood, this order of
• 38:50
  Melchizedek. So that's how you get someone
• 38:53
  who's seed of David becoming a priest of a greater order.
• 38:59
  This is all based on Hebrews, of course, right?
• 39:01
  Like you don't find this explicitly laid out in any other
• 39:06
  New Testament text. This is Hebrews argument.
• 39:09
  In particular you find other indications of Jesus being the
• 39:12
  heavenly priest in the New Testament, but Hebrews is the
• 39:15
  one that really explicates the the logic of that.
• 39:21
  The other thing Hebrews does is he cites 2 verses together as
• 39:24
  being connect, interconnected to the same event, the event of
• 39:30
  Jesus enthronment in heaven. Hebrews cites the classic kind
• 39:33
  of Messianic text, Psalm 27. You're my son today.
• 39:37
  I've begotten you alongside Psalm 110.
• 39:40
  Four, you're a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
• 39:45
  So what Hebrews is doing there is marrying Jesus's enthronment
• 39:49
  as king. And you know, you could say like
• 39:53
  when he's enthroned and installed as king in heaven,
• 39:55
  he's also installed as high priest in heaven, you see.
• 40:00
  So he's bringing those two together as and we, we, we know
• 40:03
  that like we talk about Jesus having the office of king and
• 40:05
  priest, right? But Hebrews is bringing those
• 40:08
  two together neatly with both of the with the with those two
• 40:13
  verses side sided side by side. You know this beautiful.
• 40:18
  Right. You know, we kind of distinguish
• 40:21
  this fact that, you know, the order of the way that things
• 40:24
  were happening according to like the Pentateuch, right, that
• 40:28
  Jesus isn't of that order a priest, you know, because he
• 40:31
  doesn't come from son Levi. But the greater order overrides
• 40:36
  that. I think the lower order is the
• 40:38
  shadow of of the greater things, right.
• 40:40
  So, like, totally fascinating love that.
• 40:43
  I'm thinking at one point First Samuel David takes the ephod
• 40:50
  from one of the priests there. He does, yeah.
• 40:52
  Yeah. That's a really interesting
• 40:54
  story too, actually. Let's talk about that real
• 40:56
  quick. Yeah, I actually wrote an
• 40:57
  article about this passage because it was so interesting to
• 40:59
  me. Jesus mentions the the event
• 41:03
  that kind of kicks off the sequence in in in the Gospels.
• 41:07
  And so that's kind of got me thinking about it.
• 41:09
  But this is in First Samuel starting in 21.
• 41:12
  It's a really interesting scene. He comes as the leader of Saul's
• 41:16
  army, but he comes to the priest and he kind of like, you know,
• 41:21
  suggests like he's all alone, everybody like he, he needs some
• 41:24
  bread, you know. So the priest meets him and the
• 41:27
  priest there is then is slaughtered Himmelak and all of
• 41:33
  his family and everything. They're all killed by Saul
• 41:37
  because Doeg the Edomite was present when David, you know,
• 41:42
  received this bread. Whacks him out, right?
• 41:44
  Yes. No.
• 41:45
  And so all the priests get killed except for one Abiathar,
• 41:51
  and Abiathar takes the ephod and joins David.
• 41:55
  And yeah, for the rest of that, you know, scene all the way up
• 41:59
  through till the death of Saul, David is like this wandering
• 42:03
  bandit, like he's going from place to place.
• 42:05
  It's kind of a picture of a king in waiting, right?
• 42:09
  Which I think that the New Testament authors sort of pick
• 42:12
  up on in some places in the Gospels where Jesus is, he's the
• 42:16
  Messiah. He's been designated the Messiah
• 42:18
  by his baptism is anointing of the Holy Spirit, but he hasn't
• 42:22
  received the throne yet. His life is under threat.
• 42:24
  He's kind of a wandering Messiah figure.
• 42:28
  And yeah. So in this story then Ayathar
• 42:32
  has the priestly ephod. He's fault he's with David.
• 42:35
  And because he has that, they're able to avoid Saul, like the
• 42:39
  Lord communicates to them through the the the ephod.
• 42:42
  And he's able to at several points out maneuver Saul.
• 42:47
  So it's like David traveling around with his own private
• 42:50
  priest, right. Sort of thing.
• 42:53
  Yeah. That's that's kind of the
• 42:54
  tradition, right? That's so cool.
• 42:57
  Yeah, yeah. I, I had mentioned I think I was
• 43:00
  speaking with Ryan Peterson a few months back on air and I
• 43:04
  brought up the Ephod and we're kind of like talking about this
• 43:08
  through the lens of people touch the Ark of the covenant who
• 43:11
  aren't allowed to, they drop over dead.
• 43:13
  But like David is like, it's almost like he's working outside
• 43:18
  of the restrictions of the time slot of his experience.
• 43:23
  It's kind of like us today, like we're in the covenant of the
• 43:26
  blood of the Lamb, right? We overcome by the word of our
• 43:29
  testimony in the blood of the Lamb.
• 43:30
  And I'm like, there's tons of stuff that we have access to now
• 43:34
  that that the, the Saints, the prophets of old, right, desired
• 43:37
  to even know the heightened details of.
• 43:39
  And I'm like, but when I look at David, I kind of see him moving
• 43:43
  outside of the parameters of the, of the understanding and
• 43:46
  what was commanded. And I, and I think that that is
• 43:49
  fascinating leading back into that conversation of the seed of
• 43:52
  David, the seat of David. It might have sounded like I
• 43:55
  said the Seed of David, which I think really could probably say
• 43:59
  it either way. Yeah, you're right.
• 44:01
  No, both. Both are.
• 44:03
  Because Second Samuel 7, You know, Second Chronicles, what is
• 44:07
  it, 70? Gosh, I can't remember the
• 44:09
  parallel in Second Chronicles. First Chronicles, Yeah, you
• 44:13
  know, I'll raise up your seed, yes, your seed after you, yes.
• 44:18
  And and yeah, that what is what is David's seed inherit?
• 44:21
  He inherits the seat, like you said, or the throne, right.
• 44:24
  So and this of course, gets taken up in by by by early
• 44:29
  Christians. Well, who's the seed of David?
• 44:32
  The seed of David is Jesus the Messiah.
• 44:35
  And the, the verb for raise up in Greek honestami is the same
• 44:40
  verb for resurrection. So when you have, when you're
• 44:45
  reading the, the I'll raise up your seed after you.
• 44:48
  You can actually read this now in light of Christ as a not just
• 44:53
  like raise up in the sense of you're going to have a natural
• 44:57
  offspring, which is what it it it means in his natural sense,
• 45:00
  but but rather I'm going to resurrect your offspring.
• 45:07
  Why am I being struck with the remembrance of the dead in
• 45:11
  Christ will be raised first. Oh, that's what Paul says in
• 45:16
  yeah, in First Corinthians 15. Right, right, right.
• 45:19
  Well, he says that in First Corinthians.
• 45:21
  Does he say that exactly? It's also in First Thessalonians
• 45:24
  where he's talking about the Order.
• 45:26
  Yeah, I'm pretty. Sure, I'm pretty sure the dead
• 45:28
  in Christ will be raised first is the First Thessalonians
• 45:30
  reference. Just a weird thought, but no,
• 45:33
  that's fascinating. So literally Christ is saying
• 45:36
  not only will I raise up your seed, but but it's alluding to a
• 45:40
  resurrection of that seed. Yeah, yeah.
• 45:42
  So, and this is Abraham language, right?
• 45:45
  Like the seed that will be more numerous than the stars, right?
• 45:48
  Like that your inheritance. Correct.
• 45:50
  So there's that's another that's another connection that they
• 45:53
  that I think Paul makes is seed of David is seed of Abraham.
• 45:59
  So you have texts about seed of Abraham, seed of David, and if,
• 46:04
  and this is the connection for the Gentiles, then if you are in
• 46:08
  Messiah, that is the seed of David, who is the seed of
• 46:11
  Abraham, then you become Abraham's natural offspring, IE
• 46:16
  Gentiles, because they receive the Spirit of Christ or the
• 46:20
  panuma of Christ. Now they're in Christ, therefore
• 46:24
  they become descendants of Abraham.
• 46:27
  And that's really important for Paul because the blessing is for
• 46:31
  Abraham's seed, right? So now you and I and you know,
• 46:34
  whoever, I mean, I'm, I'm kind of a funny case because I've
• 46:37
  come from a Jewish family. But that's, so you, you're
• 46:40
  absolutely right to make that connection.
• 46:42
  The, the language. I mean, that's a very natural
• 46:46
  ancient Jewish way of thinking about it, right?
• 46:47
  You got a text about the seed of Abraham and the seed of David,
• 46:51
  right? Bring those, bring those
• 46:53
  together. It looks like Mike Hauser did
• 46:55
  did his work. Doctor Chuck Missler The late
• 46:57
  Doctor Chuck Missler and the late Mike Hauser both definitely
• 47:01
  did their work with me in the early days.
• 47:03
  Yeah. Did you work with with Heiser?
• 47:04
  He's he's. No, I talk about he.
• 47:07
  So before I started podcasting in 2018, he was my dream
• 47:11
  interview before I ever thought I would be a podcaster.
• 47:14
  Yeah, so I know. What well, it's fascinating is
• 47:18
  I, I was a late Comer to knowing about him and his work, but the
• 47:22
  whole Divine council world, anything which really caught on
• 47:25
  for people is it's like totally understood among people who
• 47:30
  study this stuff. Biblical studies.
• 47:31
  Yeah. Oh yeah, of course.
• 47:32
  Yeah. The first time I heard it, I'm
• 47:33
  like, yeah, that's totally normal.
• 47:36
  Yeah, I think what was most explosive about Mike Heiser's
• 47:39
  work, which I actually early on, what, 2021, I had him scheduled
• 47:43
  to come on and then he got sick and it just dropped off and.
• 47:49
  But he grew up like 40 minutes from where I live now.
• 47:52
  He grew up in Lebanon, PA. We actually had a revival there
• 47:55
  last year in June. In the streets.
• 47:58
  No, I just have a lot of respect for both of them because I was
• 48:01
  reading along and asking hard questions and I couldn't seem to
• 48:05
  get genuine answers from pastors.
• 48:08
  And I didn't grow up in the church.
• 48:09
  Like, you know, I had this near death encounter.
• 48:12
  I question everything. I go through the, you know, the
• 48:14
  PTSDI, look at the Bhagavad Gita.
• 48:16
  I'm looking at the Quran. I'm just looking at everything.
• 48:19
  And I'm like, what is what does it mean?
• 48:22
  Like when I really leave this vessel and move on when I land
• 48:25
  at Jesus, which I always had like a fear and reverence of
• 48:27
  God. But once I, I, the inner man,
• 48:30
  understood I'm like, this is home.
• 48:33
  Yeah, there's no, I don't need to seek the truth anymore.
• 48:36
  All's I'm doing is I'm I'm systematically de taking apart,
• 48:44
  disassembling the falsehoods around me in order for their to
• 48:48
  you know, for it to make sense as to the revelation of like
• 48:52
  just like the apostle Paul even would pray, let the mysteries of
• 48:55
  the gospel, you know, let my tongue be anointed to speak on
• 48:58
  behalf of these things. But anyway, so with with Heiser
• 49:03
  that that divine council worldview thing.
• 49:05
  What did it for me. Doctor Max was realizing that
• 49:09
  that was conversations having that that are being had like in
• 49:12
  the academic space, but the church pews the guy next door
• 49:16
  that has like really good questions and and has a reason
• 49:21
  to ask those questions based on experience, based on, you know,
• 49:24
  all types of things going on. But yet there's this like sacred
• 49:28
  secular divide. And I'm like, why that?
• 49:32
  Like, how do we take that complexity and, and, and make it
• 49:38
  a local cadence that could be understood among people that
• 49:42
  need to know it? And Mike Heiser did that in the
• 49:44
  best possible way you could. We're still.
• 49:46
  I don't think you felt the full effects of it yet.
• 49:49
  Yeah, no, no, I mean, people are still deeply affected by it.
• 49:53
  I saw, I was on YouTube the other day and I saw it was, I
• 49:59
  think it was like Sean McDowell was talking with an Old
• 50:02
  Testament professor at at Talbot about Mike Heiser's work.
• 50:06
  Just trying to unpack it. And I was like, wow, this is
• 50:08
  fascinating. Like this.
• 50:09
  Yeah. You know, and, and he was asking
• 50:12
  and it was funny because Sean, I mean, I don't know him.
• 50:16
  I don't know either of them very well, but, or really at all.
• 50:19
  I think I met one of them maybe once.
• 50:21
  But he was like asking the Old Testament professor these
• 50:23
  questions, like they were controversial or weird.
• 50:26
  And most of the time the Old Testament professor was like,
• 50:28
  no, no, that's, that's right. You know, So it's just funny.
• 50:32
  It's it's one of these things where it seems it is very
• 50:35
  unusual to people in the pews, but to people who've been
• 50:39
  studying this stuff, you know, historically, it's like, yeah,
• 50:42
  it makes a lot of sense. Well, and This is why I like, I
• 50:45
  just applaud, you know, you and everyone else like you who takes
• 50:48
  the time to, to come on and, and answer these, these shotgun
• 50:52
  questions and kind of walk through this because as, as the
• 50:58
  guy next door who is, is known for being relentless, right?
• 51:01
  Like I'm just going to keep studying, I'm going to keep
• 51:03
  asking, I'm going to keep pushing forward.
• 51:06
  That means a lot to me because every interview, every
• 51:09
  conversation. And so it's like you do this
• 51:13
  time and time again and you start to realize like there's a
• 51:16
  framework, you know, that I'm starting to develop and I'm
• 51:20
  going, this is the standard. And then podcasting comes along
• 51:23
  and you're like, Oh my God, this conversation is not just a
• 51:27
  private one. There's there's hundreds of
• 51:29
  thousands of people taking this journey with you.
• 51:31
  And then you start to realize we are literally inculcating a
• 51:33
  generation and we're coming closer to the truth.
• 51:37
  We're coming back to the heart posture of who is God to me in
• 51:41
  my everyday life. Does it fit in?
• 51:44
  And this is the heartthrob of the podcast of the calling.
• 51:48
  And so I applaud you and for taking this time to answer these
• 51:52
  questions and, and to say, Hey, that looks right or that sounds
• 51:55
  right or, oh, that's, that's a little bit skewed.
• 51:57
  I think it's important that we have that, that, that dialogue
• 52:01
  with the academic world so that we can digest this material.
• 52:05
  I feel like we're old friends, like just kind of talking about
• 52:08
  the timeline of events. And like I got out of my
• 52:11
  interview mode there, which is it's OK.
• 52:13
  I think that was actually refreshing.
• 52:16
  But do you just want to comment kind of on anything I said and
• 52:19
  what kind of walk into maybe a different part of this
• 52:22
  interview? Sure.
• 52:23
  Yeah, No, I mean, I think that's I think that's right.
• 52:26
  Like the at the end of the day, we're all searching for for
• 52:32
  truth. And you know, I'm a really a big
• 52:36
  believer that we all need one another community in that that
• 52:40
  quest. So academic work is not
• 52:44
  practiced alone. It's good academic work always
• 52:47
  involves deep dependence on others.
• 52:50
  And likewise, when it comes to conversations we have in the
• 52:54
  church or whatever it, we're always really learning from one
• 52:57
  another and growing and, and I think that's a really exciting
• 53:01
  thing. You know, I, I, I view it very
• 53:03
  much as just, we're all in on this journey together, right?
• 53:08
  So that's it's fun to have these conversations for sure.
• 53:12
  OK, So what about the lion like men?
• 53:15
  It's like what a shift, right? No, I'm not going to do that.
• 53:20
  That's those questions I have that that I think I'll get into
• 53:23
  at some point. But I know from me and you,
• 53:25
  we're sold out on Jesus being the author and finisher of our
• 53:28
  faith like he is. All things are made for by him,
• 53:31
  for him and through him. If you were to have a
• 53:34
  conversation with somebody who was maybe grew up in the Islamic
• 53:38
  belief system, right? They understand, you know, the
• 53:41
  whole 5 pillars, you know, they, they understand their
• 53:44
  grandfather took it seriously, their dad takes it serious, but
• 53:46
  they're a little malleable and they're like curious about
• 53:49
  Jesus. What would be a starting point?
• 53:51
  Like what are some tips as to like how we start to engage with
• 53:55
  with another monotheistic belief?
• 53:58
  Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know that I have any like, you know,
• 54:01
  perfect answer I can give, you know, kind of my thinking on
• 54:06
  this, but I assume that, you know, people I, I, I think that
• 54:10
  a, a big thing is that whenever we engage people from other
• 54:14
  faith traditions or no faith tradition like that they're
• 54:17
  agnostic, atheist or whatever as well, that we just do do so from
• 54:22
  a place of respect and attempting to understand where
• 54:25
  they're coming from. Right.
• 54:26
  So I don't know that like, I'm always nervous that if I give
• 54:30
  advice, it's going to come off as like, I'm, I'm saying like if
• 54:35
  you follow these steps, you're going to prove to this other
• 54:37
  person, you know, why Jesus is God.
• 54:41
  And if they don't follow the proof, they're idiots or worse,
• 54:45
  right? Because I feel like sometimes
• 54:47
  that that's kind of the approach that's given off.
• 54:50
  And I'm not suggesting that's where you're coming from, but I
• 54:53
  just want to put that out there is that that's something that
• 54:55
  I'm, you know, I'm sensitive to. I know how how passionate I was
• 55:01
  when I came to Christ to speak to my my Jewish family members,
• 55:04
  for example, And really for them that the barrier was just like
• 55:10
  coming to like identifying as a Christian was like the one thing
• 55:14
  you really shouldn't do. Like, you know, they, most of
• 55:18
  them don't even believe in God, but it was like, please just do
• 55:20
  anything with your life other than go become a Christian like
• 55:23
  in a so, you know, and I was trying to debate God with them
• 55:27
  and all this kind. So, you know, I have my own
• 55:29
  story and my own experiences that kind of shape that right.
• 55:35
  So with all that kind of said, I, I think that I always try to
• 55:41
  engage people where they're at. So try to ask good questions,
• 55:45
  right that that draw out for them, like what are their, where
• 55:49
  are they coming from? What is, what are the things
• 55:53
  that are maybe for them issues or barriers with exploring Jesus
• 56:00
  more deeply? And then I, I mean, I would just
• 56:04
  my, my number one suggestion would just be to jump into a
• 56:06
  gospel and consider maybe if they would read it, read through
• 56:09
  one of the Gospels with you, right?
• 56:12
  And just allow them to experience and encounter Jesus
• 56:16
  in the text and ask questions about be open to answering
• 56:20
  questions they may have about the text.
• 56:23
  If they have particular questions about an Old Testament
• 56:26
  passage or whatever, great, you know, be a willing conversation
• 56:30
  partner. Don't feel like you have to give
• 56:33
  perfect answers or know all the answers.
• 56:35
  I think just being open to having conversation and and then
• 56:39
  when you do get good questions, do do the research, do the best,
• 56:42
  you know, to the best of your ability, look for good sound
• 56:45
  information and scholarship, not necessarily just easy answers,
• 56:49
  but the best information you can find and present that.
• 56:53
  I mean, man, I think it's that simple like that simple or that
• 56:56
  complicated. Like, I think human beings are
• 56:59
  complicated. Like, you know, each one of us
• 57:02
  has our own story. We have, you know, different
• 57:05
  questions that we may have. So, but certainly if you're
• 57:08
  presenting it to me as like someone is coming from the, from
• 57:11
  a particular religious tradition like Islam, right?
• 57:15
  As for me, where I'm going to start is by showing interest in
• 57:19
  them as a person and getting to know their religious tradition,
• 57:23
  what that means to them, getting them to have them teach you
• 57:27
  about that tradition, right? And not in some sort of like
• 57:30
  weird bait and switch way, like genuinely show interest,
• 57:34
  genuinely be interested in learning more about that.
• 57:38
  It's not to say that you have to agree with everything, but you
• 57:40
  want to know this person, You want to know where they're
• 57:43
  coming from. And then look for good, you
• 57:46
  know, good resources on Christians who maybe have spent
• 57:50
  years engaging with this particular faith tradition and
• 57:54
  can help help shed light on that, right?
• 57:56
  Like. That's good.
• 57:57
  I think all of that can be really valuable, but for me, I
• 58:01
  mean, I think Scripture can be a really powerful way of engaging
• 58:05
  with people. And I think the gospels are kind
• 58:07
  of the heart of the heart, right?
• 58:08
  Let's just let's look at Jesus, Let's look at how he lived.
• 58:11
  Let's, let's look at what he said.
• 58:15
  Let's explore that together and, and, and be open to right,
• 58:19
  because we, we know you've talked about this already.
• 58:21
  We, we know that there's more going on in a conversation than
• 58:25
  just what meets the eye, right? There's the person, there's the
• 58:27
  whole story, there's the Holy Spirit who is there present and
• 58:31
  involved and engaged with, with, in, in and through that
• 58:34
  conversation in ways that we can't see necessarily.
• 58:37
  So yeah, I mean, I those are some initial thoughts, but feel
• 58:42
  free to add on to that or. The simplicity, planting,
• 58:46
  watering seeds. Yeah.
• 58:49
  And what you said directly like touches me.
• 58:53
  You know, I had quite a number of friends I grew up with that,
• 58:58
  that were Islamic beliefs, you know, and, and go over their
• 59:01
  house and like, I learned some of the, the things you, you
• 59:04
  don't do, you always take your shoes off.
• 59:05
  You know, they point with their middle finger.
• 59:09
  Typically, you know, they don't point with their pointer finger.
• 59:11
  Like there's just things like I was like, Oh, that's, that's
• 59:13
  interesting. But I, I remember at the time,
• 59:17
  you know, I came to Christ at like 24 and I'm still hanging
• 59:20
  out with kids, you know, I grew up with and went to school with.
• 59:23
  And I had a pastor that was offended by by realizing that I
• 59:27
  had friends that were Muslim, that I would wanted to spend
• 59:31
  more time like, Hey, you didn't come to a church event or like,
• 59:33
  where where are you on this? And I was like, oh, I was
• 59:35
  hanging out with, you know, so, so and it's like you were
• 59:38
  hanging out with a bunch of Muslims.
• 59:39
  So I'm like, yeah. So for me, that touched, that
• 59:42
  touched my heart because I talk with Muslims on a weekly basis.
• 59:46
  Right now. I'm working outside of New York
• 59:48
  City and there's a diverse, you know, population of people,
• 59:51
  different beliefs, different every color and language really.
• 59:54
  But and so something that I've thought about what you triggered
• 59:58
  for me, Doctor Max is like my experience was all these years
• 1:00:02
  later, I drop I fell off with a lot of these guys and I'll give
• 1:00:07
  Shay a shout out because I know that that he listens and but,
• 1:00:12
  but he was a practicing Muslim, grew up in that and he literally
• 1:00:15
  came to Christ last year, got baptized like is hungry.
• 1:00:21
  To know what's going on with, with this, this God we wish to
• 1:00:24
  worship. And so I look back and I'm like,
• 1:00:27
  there was a fence within the church.
• 1:00:30
  I was just organically in these relationships.
• 1:00:32
  And the fruit of it is there's a man who, who his family line
• 1:00:36
  walked that direction. And he said, I want freedom.
• 1:00:39
  I want to be free from these addictions, from the, you know,
• 1:00:42
  I want to be free from the chains and the bondages.
• 1:00:44
  And, and he found that in Jesus. I have a feeling we're going to
• 1:00:49
  see more of that on personal scale and on on a more, you
• 1:00:53
  know, towns, town square scale or global scale.
• 1:00:56
  I think that God is calling harvesters in my opinion, I
• 1:01:01
  don't think we've seen the harvest.
• 1:01:03
  I hold a unique opinion that there's harvesters that are
• 1:01:06
  being strategically set up that God wants to not that he doesn't
• 1:01:11
  work in and through us, he does through all of us.
• 1:01:13
  But I think there's a particular time slot we're coming up to
• 1:01:17
  Doctor Max where it's like it's it's all going to start busting
• 1:01:21
  out of the seams and we're going to start to see fruit coming in
• 1:01:23
  places that we might not have been looking for.
• 1:01:27
  So you answered that in a way that almost brought me to tears
• 1:01:30
  as I was reflecting like, that's a part of my story and you
• 1:01:34
  didn't even know it. There's and then there's the
• 1:01:38
  reality of like, my God, you really do have to take the time
• 1:01:42
  and slow down and, and learn about people and be be friends
• 1:01:45
  with people without that ulterior motive, because run
• 1:01:48
  around slapping people with the Bible.
• 1:01:50
  That's never worked. It hasn't like we have.
• 1:01:52
  The church has to be willing to be in the cutting edge and and
• 1:01:56
  be organic about it. So absolutely you took me to a
• 1:02:00
  place of significance. So I I want to thank you for the
• 1:02:02
  way you answered that. I agree.
• 1:02:05
  With you, yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think that there
• 1:02:07
  are some well meaning brothers and sisters who are just so
• 1:02:13
  fixated on, well, we know what truth is and we have to speak
• 1:02:16
  the truth. That, and I, I know, I mean, I,
• 1:02:21
  I appreciate that, but I also think that that sometimes that
• 1:02:25
  mentality actually keeps us from acting like Christ to, to other
• 1:02:29
  people. And, and that's why I, you know,
• 1:02:32
  I come back again to Jesus and the gospels, like, if we're, if
• 1:02:34
  he's the master of, you know, we're his followers, his
• 1:02:37
  servants, like we, we have to live like him.
• 1:02:41
  And that means going and being with people that we might not
• 1:02:45
  otherwise be with, even if sometimes it, it leads people in
• 1:02:49
  our own community to make assumptions about us.
• 1:02:53
  That's what happened to Jesus. It means spending time with
• 1:02:56
  people that other people might not think are worth the time.
• 1:03:00
  You know what I mean? Jesus spent a lot of time with a
• 1:03:03
  few people. That wouldn't be the natural way
• 1:03:06
  that someone might say, if you're going to start a
• 1:03:07
  revolution, you know, you got to get the crowds, the masses.
• 1:03:10
  The crowds and masses most of the time didn't seem to
• 1:03:12
  understand Jesus, but he spent a lot of time teaching a few
• 1:03:16
  people, you know, And so like, if he's our example, you know,
• 1:03:21
  then we, we're not wasting time or, or, you know, being
• 1:03:26
  inefficient or whatever by developing relationships because
• 1:03:31
  we generally genuinely care about other people and want to
• 1:03:35
  know them better and, and want to express God's love, you know,
• 1:03:39
  for them. It's really hard for someone to
• 1:03:41
  believe that God loves them and that you love them if you treat
• 1:03:44
  it, if you treat the relationship like a transaction,
• 1:03:47
  you know? Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  The The gospel is not the gospel is not a sales pitch.
• 1:03:53
  It's it's, it's the announcement that Jesus is the Lord and that
• 1:03:57
  there's life in him. And it's an invitation then to
• 1:04:00
  experience true life. But that's not that's not a
• 1:04:03
  sales pitch, right. Like you can't.
• 1:04:05
  Yeah, you know you can't you. Can't.
• 1:04:07
  Yeah, you can't trick somebody into that, right?
• 1:04:09
  Like. They're fast enough and I get
• 1:04:11
  enough words out to them. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:14
  It's, it's not a gimmick, it's not a sales pitch.
• 1:04:16
  It's it's the the greatest news we have to share.
• 1:04:19
  But it is OK. So Doctor Max, we kind of even
• 1:04:25
  looked at the apologetics end of things a little bit right and
• 1:04:29
  and took a real personal step into really evaluating ourselves
• 1:04:34
  in the midst of understanding. It's not a sales pitch.
• 1:04:37
  It has to be genuine. People do need to see this in
• 1:04:41
  us. But, but I mean, also like
• 1:04:43
  there's the hard truth of a righteous man follow 7 times and
• 1:04:47
  get back up. And it's like, what does that
• 1:04:50
  say in the New Testament? Our righteousness is as a filthy
• 1:04:53
  tampon, right? Zero use for that.
• 1:04:57
  Like throw it out, right? And so it's just really
• 1:05:00
  interesting place to, you know, kind of understand who we really
• 1:05:07
  are, what, what the price has been paid for us and, and what
• 1:05:12
  that should look like now that we're, we're growing and
• 1:05:15
  realizing that more and more. You know, I know the first time
• 1:05:19
  you were on, we talked a little bit about your testimony.
• 1:05:23
  And I do want to ask you, has it been hard to come from a Jewish
• 1:05:27
  background and to not only become a Christian, but to then
• 1:05:32
  go and be get a doctorate into like you're at Jessup University
• 1:05:36
  still, right? Like you're actively teaching
• 1:05:39
  and, and, and sending out a small army of, of Christians
• 1:05:44
  into the world. What did you go through?
• 1:05:47
  Some like some some difficult seasons with that.
• 1:05:49
  Different identity things over the years, like it wasn't
• 1:05:55
  particularly hard for, for me personally, one, because I lived
• 1:06:02
  pretty far from my family growing up.
• 1:06:04
  So it wasn't a, only during parts of the year where I would
• 1:06:08
  visit them like 4 times would it be even an issue or a topic.
• 1:06:13
  And as time went on, it became less and less of an issue to the
• 1:06:16
  point where it was a non issue because they it, it would only
• 1:06:22
  have been an issue had I tried to like proselytize or something
• 1:06:27
  like that, right? And I definitely did try it a
• 1:06:30
  few points, but I, I realized that that was not the approach,
• 1:06:38
  not an appropriate approach. So for me now it's been more it,
• 1:06:45
  it's honestly been more of a thing for me as an adult to ask
• 1:06:49
  the question of like, how do I steward MyHeritage?
• 1:06:52
  Well, we all have stories in here, like our own, you know,
• 1:06:56
  heritage in it. It's not to say that like anyone
• 1:06:59
  is better than another. They're just different.
• 1:07:02
  We're part of different stories. That's part of who we are.
• 1:07:06
  But, you know, taking seriously that that aspect is, is
• 1:07:10
  something that, you know, in my study, the New Testament and
• 1:07:13
  thinking about the Jewish Christian relations, it, it's
• 1:07:18
  something that I, I care about. And so actually it's been
• 1:07:23
  biblical studies, believe it or not, that's, that's really
• 1:07:26
  helped me to navigate that at a little bit of a deeper level.
• 1:07:33
  And I've, I've been able to find some communities that are Jewish
• 1:07:36
  Christ followers, you know, in the Academy.
• 1:07:39
  And so that's been, it's been, it's been interesting for me.
• 1:07:42
  I, I'm still not sure exactly if I'm going about it the right way
• 1:07:47
  or if there has to be one way to do it.
• 1:07:49
  I, I definitely am. You mentioned sending out armies
• 1:07:53
  of students or whatever. I went.
• 1:07:55
  One thing I am very sensitive towards is the amount of anti
• 1:07:59
  Judaism within Christian, within Christianity and within
• 1:08:03
  Christian theology within Christian preaching.
• 1:08:06
  So that's something that I definitely tried to sensitize my
• 1:08:09
  students towards. It's it's a priority I make in
• 1:08:12
  all of my classes. I don't tell them that's what
• 1:08:14
  I'm doing. But when I hear it come up in
• 1:08:17
  class, I use it as an opportunity to kind of teach a
• 1:08:20
  little bit. And when there are things that
• 1:08:22
  come up in the text of the New Testament, I kind of walk them
• 1:08:25
  through, you know, some of those implications.
• 1:08:29
  Because I think that again, ultimately, if, if it's about
• 1:08:33
  loving our neighbors, well, you know, I can't, I can't help but
• 1:08:37
  think to myself, like, how would my family, how would other Jews
• 1:08:41
  feel when they hear you say this, you know, this line or
• 1:08:47
  that line about the Jewish people or whatever, right?
• 1:08:51
  So, and actually again, doing learning more about ancient
• 1:08:56
  Judaism and Christianity, how Christianity emerges has
• 1:08:59
  actually helped me out a lot there because it's, it's quite a
• 1:09:02
  bit more complicated than just Christianity versus Judaism,
• 1:09:06
  right? It's Jesus didn't really come to
• 1:09:09
  found a new religion per SE, and his early followers didn't think
• 1:09:13
  they were following some kind of new religion.
• 1:09:15
  It was just a, a messianic movement, a continuation of
• 1:09:19
  that. And you know, things changed, of
• 1:09:21
  course, but it, it, it's understanding the history of
• 1:09:25
  that was has been helpful for me.
• 1:09:27
  It's like the New Testament and the Old Testament are concealed
• 1:09:30
  in each other and like if you start to really look at it and
• 1:09:34
  and you get that scholarly kind of nudge and help, and then you
• 1:09:38
  got the Holy Spirit there bringing in remembrance, right,
• 1:09:41
  All these things and highlighting things.
• 1:09:43
  It really they start to be kind of come one in the same.
• 1:09:47
  And there's not this like divide between the two of them.
• 1:09:50
  And I think the sensitivity to also your experience, the way
• 1:09:54
  you answered this question. Beautiful that even your study
• 1:09:58
  and pursuit of God is showing you relationally between
• 1:10:03
  Christians and Jews and like understanding these deeper
• 1:10:06
  concepts and how that's a part of your story now like you're
• 1:10:09
  you're building this heritage where you know you're starting
• 1:10:12
  to found that you have a career, you're making a mark changing
• 1:10:15
  people's lives and what that looks like because you're right.
• 1:10:18
  People really do look at the fabric of our life and less at
• 1:10:22
  what we say doing life together. You talked about from the
• 1:10:25
  academic standpoint the importance of having a
• 1:10:28
  community. It's not one trailblazer going
• 1:10:30
  in there like I'm Doctor Michael Heizer and I have of every
• 1:10:32
  answer like no, he sharpened himself and cut his teeth on on
• 1:10:37
  everything that was in his environment.
• 1:10:39
  And then like seeing your, your testimony start to bleed through
• 1:10:44
  at the end of this episode, like, Hey, the word of God, not
• 1:10:47
  only has it counseled me in those things which are eternal
• 1:10:50
  and of most importance, but like right now.
• 1:10:53
  And, and you know, with you being of Jewish, you know,
• 1:10:56
  heritage bloodline, how it's actually like morphed and helped
• 1:11:00
  and, and, and washed your mind with what, what mark are you
• 1:11:04
  going to leave? How is your relationship going
• 1:11:06
  to look? I think it's beautiful.
• 1:11:08
  I literally think it's not talked about nearly enough
• 1:11:10
  because we have some unfortunately dangerous
• 1:11:14
  ideologies and topics that arise from really all over the place
• 1:11:18
  at this point. And I've heard all sides of the
• 1:11:20
  argument. And, and there's times where I
• 1:11:22
  sat and just ate popcorn and was like, Lord, if they just loved
• 1:11:27
  each other, Like, Can you believe they're doing that?
• 1:11:29
  You know, And I've seen the good and the bad of it.
• 1:11:32
  And I think really you do have a lot to bring to the table just
• 1:11:36
  in regards to the comfort of like, listen, the word has been
• 1:11:40
  the staple. I've learned so much for it.
• 1:11:43
  Like, that's where I'm at in my life too.
• 1:11:45
  Doctor Max is like, I wrote it in my first publication of my
• 1:11:48
  book last year. I said the Bible is the only
• 1:11:50
  book that exposed how many years I wasted sitting in the dark
• 1:11:55
  before I picked it up. I was a mess.
• 1:11:59
  Yeah, Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think that
• 1:12:01
  that that also connects back with what you were asking
• 1:12:03
  earlier, that I think sometimes we get overly shy about our own
• 1:12:08
  testimonies, you know, like I know I do that sometimes, you
• 1:12:12
  know, it's been, it's, it's easy for me to kind of like look at
• 1:12:15
  my life and Oh, OK, I'm here, I'm going through the motions.
• 1:12:18
  But like, if I really stop and remind myself and not just
• 1:12:22
  remind myself, like I, in certain instances, maybe I even
• 1:12:25
  have a responsibility to share with the others.
• 1:12:29
  You know, this is what God did in my life, right?
• 1:12:31
  Like I was AI was an incredibly broken person and had turned my
• 1:12:37
  back on God and you know, and, and yet God met me with his
• 1:12:41
  grace and, and completely changed everything for me.
• 1:12:45
  Like I, I can go through that. And if I think, if it doesn't
• 1:12:49
  take that long of reflecting to just remember that feeling of
• 1:12:54
  what God of when I felt God working in my heart and changing
• 1:12:58
  me, how exciting that was and how alive I felt.
• 1:13:03
  So I think we all have kind of like, you know, inappropriate
• 1:13:07
  ways the responsibility to share what God has has done, has done
• 1:13:12
  in our lives like that. That's, that's another really
• 1:13:15
  practical, tangible way to speak, you know, to speak to
• 1:13:19
  others. You don't have to be dominating
• 1:13:23
  or, or over the top, but you can, you can actually just share
• 1:13:26
  like, hey, this is actually what God did in my life, right?
• 1:13:28
  It's not, I can't put it in a, a lab and test it for you, but I,
• 1:13:33
  I can tell testify. Like this is what I've seen God
• 1:13:35
  do. And I think there's a lot of
• 1:13:37
  power in our testimony. Yeah.
• 1:13:40
  The other thing that I would just say is when you're talking,
• 1:13:45
  it kind of made me think of something I've been thinking a
• 1:13:48
  lot about for the last, I don't know, several years at least,
• 1:13:53
  which is that I think that, you know, how we live, how we treat
• 1:13:59
  one another is I, I'm a big proponent in the life of the
• 1:14:05
  mind and doctrine and study and everything.
• 1:14:07
  But I, I really do think that like how we treat one another
• 1:14:11
  and how we love one another is the greatest reflection on what
• 1:14:15
  we really truly believe and what we stake our life on.
• 1:14:18
  And that's, that's the most important thing, right?
• 1:14:22
  Like someone could be super smart, someone could maybe have
• 1:14:27
  all the right answers. But if, if they don't have love,
• 1:14:30
  as Paul says, then what? What good is it to work right?
• 1:14:33
  And we need more love in the world today.
• 1:14:37
  We need more, more Christians living into their identity of
• 1:14:42
  love, including using various media to share that rather than
• 1:14:48
  just arguing all the time or, you know, demonizing or whatever
• 1:14:52
  else people do so. You know, one of the things
• 1:14:57
  Doctor Max, maybe I'm hoping you'll you'll come in the future
• 1:15:01
  and we can do some, some miniseries.
• 1:15:04
  We have a good bit of young listeners, right?
• 1:15:07
  I have twins that are 17 beautiful, beautiful kids, you
• 1:15:10
  know, and they're popular and they're like, my dad's a
• 1:15:13
  podcaster and you know, they're like, you know, get into these
• 1:15:16
  topics. My daughter will sometimes will
• 1:15:18
  send me like Tik Toks or Instagram reels like that.
• 1:15:21
  Look at this. And I'm like, oh, man, like we
• 1:15:23
  have to qualify so much on such a broad spectrum, the older
• 1:15:28
  generation, especially the younger generation and just be
• 1:15:31
  aware. And it's like the etymology,
• 1:15:33
  the, the, the word. Some people don't actually even
• 1:15:36
  know. They're like, oh, I love this
• 1:15:37
  new song. You know, I love these new shoes
• 1:15:40
  that just came out from, you know, Adidas or something like
• 1:15:43
  that. It's like I was that person six
• 1:15:47
  years ago where it's like, I, I didn't, I didn't even think.
• 1:15:50
  And now I'm like agape. And then there's Philadelphia's
• 1:15:53
  there's like brotherly love and I'm like, then there's like the
• 1:15:56
  romance version of love that's like just for you and your wife.
• 1:15:58
  And I'm like, Oh my God, that's like the Greeks were using 4
• 1:16:02
  words for that. And so I think even, you know,
• 1:16:05
  the attempt within media to, to not only, you know, the fun
• 1:16:10
  stuff we covered in the beginning, like Melchizedek and
• 1:16:13
  like, you know, Jesus in the Old Testament ended like that.
• 1:16:16
  Like I live in that space, but like it, it, it should always
• 1:16:19
  even morph into we know all that.
• 1:16:24
  And is the fabric of love gluing, gluing it together like,
• 1:16:28
  like so we know these things. And then can we define love?
• 1:16:34
  And if we did, could any of the people in our lives, if, if we
• 1:16:39
  weren't around, right and you go interview those people that are
• 1:16:41
  closest to me, would they be able to to testify and say,
• 1:16:45
  yeah, he's he's dangerous, but he's a loving guy, you know, and
• 1:16:50
  and he walks this thing out and he really cares and and he's
• 1:16:53
  messy and he doesn't cut it all figured out, but but he
• 1:16:55
  radically loved. And I, I think about that too.
• 1:16:59
  You know, you said you've been pondering on that for a couple
• 1:17:01
  years. And I think that that us
• 1:17:03
  vocalizing that you'd be surprised how many men out there
• 1:17:05
  that like look like tough guys, like I shaved my head, I got big
• 1:17:08
  muscles and tattoos. But like, I think about love.
• 1:17:11
  I'm like, do people really love me?
• 1:17:13
  So it's not we're not so different.
• 1:17:15
  You know, there's a whole population of people out there
• 1:17:17
  that probably are like, yeah, I mean, I don't even know that.
• 1:17:21
  Like, what is God's love for me? Like, let's define that.
• 1:17:26
  Like we go to church, we're just reading Scripture, stand up, sit
• 1:17:29
  down. Not every church, OK.
• 1:17:30
  I'm not discrediting every church.
• 1:17:32
  I'm just saying broad spectrum. That's typically what it looks
• 1:17:37
  like. And this is an important
• 1:17:39
  endeavor that that you're on, that I'm on.
• 1:17:41
  And there's many other of those like us who are going, we're
• 1:17:45
  going to take our time and we're going to do this together.
• 1:17:48
  And so I would love to, you know, have you back for multiple
• 1:17:52
  times and and even like many episodes, like maybe getting
• 1:17:55
  into some of the Greek and Hebrew.
• 1:17:57
  Sure. Happy.
• 1:17:58
  Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. Well, one of the things that I,
• 1:18:00
  I, I really, really resonate with and I always share it with
• 1:18:04
  all my students and I, I'm actually kind of using it to
• 1:18:08
  frame a book that I have coming out in the about maybe like half
• 1:18:13
  a year from now or something. Whenever it gets out of there,
• 1:18:15
  the publisher puts it out. But you know, it's from Saint
• 1:18:17
  Augustine's on Christian doctrine, which is actually the
• 1:18:20
  first like full length work on biblical interpretation.
• 1:18:25
  And in it in Book 1, he says it's fairly, fairly early on in
• 1:18:29
  Book 1, he says anyone who, who, who thinks they've understood
• 1:18:36
  the Scripture but does not build up the the double love of God
• 1:18:40
  and neighbor has failed to understand it.
• 1:18:43
  End of reading the Bible is to build up the double love of God
• 1:18:47
  and neighbor. And I think that's a really
• 1:18:51
  helpful reminder that if that's your end in mind, that's going
• 1:18:55
  to shape how you how you read, you know, how you think about
• 1:18:58
  text. And it's, it's, it's not
• 1:19:01
  something he came up with. He's basing it on Jesus's own
• 1:19:04
  words when he's asked about what's the greatest commandment.
• 1:19:07
  And he's basing it on what apostle, the apostle Paul says
• 1:19:10
  in First Corinthians 13. If I do any of these things, but
• 1:19:14
  I had, I'd have not love. I'm nothing, right.
• 1:19:16
  And of the great Christian virtues, faith, hope and love,
• 1:19:20
  the greatest of these is love. The only thing that will last
• 1:19:24
  into eternity, right, is slow. So that that that's got to be
• 1:19:28
  what we're orienting all this stuff around, right?
• 1:19:32
  That's so well said. That is such a comfort.
• 1:19:35
  You know, I'll ask you one last question and we'll kind of land
• 1:19:37
  this plane here. Sure.
• 1:19:39
  And I might have asked you this the first time you were on, but
• 1:19:42
  from where you sit and everything that you know, you
• 1:19:45
  know what what in your opinion is the most important message
• 1:19:49
  for the millennials today? Like, like, if you were just
• 1:19:51
  given 2 minutes, you got, you know, Trump, you're up on stage,
• 1:19:55
  the world's watching, right? And you have this like, crazy
• 1:19:57
  experience where it's like, tell the people what's the most
• 1:20:00
  important thing. Like, what would have you
• 1:20:02
  thought about that? Like, what would you deliver?
• 1:20:04
  Like I think sometimes I tend to.
• 1:20:08
  Over, maybe even over complicate things.
• 1:20:10
  I don't know that I would be the best to be the one to deliver
• 1:20:13
  some kind of message like that. But I think that the thing I'd
• 1:20:15
  want to emphasize is really is the love of God.
• 1:20:19
  You know that. I mean, again, I don't know.
• 1:20:22
  I think St. Agustin said it so well at the
• 1:20:24
  opening of Confessions. You, you've made us for
• 1:20:26
  yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in
• 1:20:29
  you. You know, I'd probably want to
• 1:20:30
  try to communicate some version of that, that God, the God who
• 1:20:35
  is love, who's created us in love, is calling us to respond
• 1:20:41
  in love so that we might flourish to the fullest and that
• 1:20:45
  all of creation might experience the glory of God.
• 1:20:47
  Like that would be. It'd be some version of that
• 1:20:51
  message, right? Yeah.
• 1:20:54
  Come taste and see that the Lord.
• 1:20:56
  Is good. Yeah.
• 1:20:57
  Amen. Amen.
• 1:20:58
  That's Doctor Max. Man, I really.
• 1:21:00
  Just want to honor you and thank you.
• 1:21:01
  For this, the second appearance, you know, I'm hoping that we're
• 1:21:04
  going to be able to do more stuff in the future.
• 1:21:07
  I want you to plug in where you can be found.
• 1:21:09
  If people would like to follow you, if you got a link, if you
• 1:21:11
  have any works, any books out, any articles that you've
• 1:21:15
  written, please plug that in. Write the episode notes.
• 1:21:18
  Yeah, that's kind of you. What?
• 1:21:21
  Would I say, well, in terms of like just popular content that I
• 1:21:25
  do and you can find my work on the, it's called the Center for
• 1:21:31
  Bible Study. It's a YouTube channel and I
• 1:21:34
  also have the podcast called On the way and there's several of
• 1:21:38
  them. So you can see it's on the way
• 1:21:40
  with Max Botner in, in terms of like written work.
• 1:21:44
  If you want to want my academic work, you can see my
• 1:21:48
  academia.edu page. And if you're interested in my
• 1:21:53
  books, which again, will fair warning, they're mostly academic
• 1:21:58
  at this point. My book I mentioned is going to
• 1:22:00
  be a more popular level that's coming out in next spring.
• 1:22:04
  I mean, you can Google me on Amazon or whatever.
• 1:22:05
  I just Google my name. You'll find enough of stuff or
• 1:22:08
  whatever. Yeah, it's been an honor for a
• 1:22:10
  Round 2 with you and. You know, I really highly
• 1:22:13
  encourage that people you know out there check out what Doctor
• 1:22:16
  Max Botner has has been working on in anticipation even for his
• 1:22:20
  book. It sounds like it might be a
• 1:22:24
  little less on the academic side and maybe a little bit more for
• 1:22:26
  the reader, right? And that's what I'm going for.
• 1:22:29
  We'll see if I hit. We'll see if I hit the the.
• 1:22:31
  Mark, I think you'll do fine. I think you'll do fine and and.
• 1:22:35
  And we can have you back on, you know, right before that gets
• 1:22:37
  ready to release also and build up that interest.
• 1:22:40
  And well, that's it. That's the show.
• 1:22:43
  You guys share this with your friends, family members, Co
• 1:22:45
  workers. Share this with your pastor
• 1:22:48
  coming to you from Southeastern Pennsylvania.
• 1:22:51
  God bless and goodbye. I came from the sun, straight
• 1:23:09
  from the heavens. He really owed me.
• 1:23:12
  All in my life I was beating up. All in my life I didn't handle.
• 1:23:17
  All in my life I was stuck in on track.
• 1:23:19
  All in my life I didn't handle. I didn't know why my life was so
• 1:23:23
  wet. I didn't know why my life was a
• 1:23:25
  rat. I didn't know why I couldn't get
• 1:23:28
  up. I was so stuck.
• 1:23:29
  And the monkey was stuck till I found out.
• 1:23:31
  And I broke everything. Till I fell down.
• 1:23:34
  And they took everything until I was hurting my heart.
• 1:23:36
  It was straight. Yeah, I was broken.
• 1:23:38
  I had all this pain. Held on home.
• 1:23:40
  It got harder than this hope. Then I went to the side.
• 1:23:43
  In this mode. I had no truth but to look to my
• 1:23:46
  guy. He gave me stomach up, open my
• 1:23:48
  eyes. He gave me earrings.
• 1:23:49
  And he told me a blessing. He told me he just believe in
• 1:23:52
  this sun. I told him I can't change all of
• 1:23:54
  my ways. He said I got you just look at
• 1:23:57
  this. I looked at him and he showed me
• 1:23:59
  his ways. Then he just told me how I am
• 1:24:01
  this sun. Then he just told me I'm not in
• 1:24:04
  this world. He told me I come from the
• 1:24:05
  heavens above. I'm a new creature.
• 1:24:08
  I come from the sun from the one and only, straight from the
• 1:24:11
  heavens. He really owe me.
• 1:24:12
  I came from the sun I was really with him.
• 1:24:14
  And heavenly places I'm ceiling. Y'all can't even go that way,
• 1:24:19
  y'all don't even know that way. Y'all want to play like Patty
• 1:24:23
  Kat but this ain't no game but it's that way.
• 1:24:27
  You wank this so fake when you walk under me and I know you're
• 1:24:30
  a snake. You think you can beat me but
• 1:24:33
  you got no power you want. In a way I take out that chopper
• 1:24:37
  I'll put on your top and I'll prank on your face.
• 1:24:41
  I see you laughing. You think that you got me but
• 1:24:43
  you got no way. The evil you say for my life is
• 1:24:47
  OK because it's made for my good my God that created he created
• 1:24:51
  you so you really is cooked. I said all these things because
• 1:24:55
  I know what is true and you know you win for, but like I did Cage
• 1:25:00
  when you're doing these. Games you can never win.
• 1:25:02
  I know the things that's going to happen to you when you die.
• 1:25:06
  You didn't say living your life because you know you can never
• 1:25:09
  go and get saved. You know his crazy, his mercy
• 1:25:12
  was took from you when you're my son in the plot.
• 1:25:14
  Thought you could take on my God spot now Bull, you can die hot.
• 1:25:19
  You was really twinking. I come from the sun, from the
• 1:25:21
  one and only straight from the heavens.
• 1:25:24
  You really owe me. I came from the sun.
• 1:25:26
  I was really with them. And heavenly places.
• 1:25:28
  I'm still living. Y'all can't even go thy way.
• 1:25:32
  Y'all don't even know thy way. Y'all want to play like Patty
• 1:25:35
  Cay? But this ain't no game but a
• 1:25:37
  stairway.