Latest / The Grove Church / The Context Behind Jesus’ Parables | QA Pt.1

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The Context Behind Jesus’ Parables | QA Pt.1 · The Grove Church

• 0:05
  Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Hey, everyone.
• 0:37
  Welcome to the Cultivate Podcast Through The Grove Church. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are here with
• 0:43
  Abigail Boone: Bagel Bagel Bagel Bagel Bagel Bagel. Bagel Boone.
• 0:48
  Charlie Loften: Has it caught on at all?
• 0:49
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. My mom has tried it out a couple times.
• 0:51
  Charlie Loften: Are you serious? Your mom's battle tested?
• 0:53
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Yeah.
• 0:54
  Charlie Loften: Love it. Love it.
• 0:55
  Abigail Boone: I don't feel confident that it'll stay with her, but that should show the reach.
• 0:59
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. So I love it. I love it. Creative director podcast producer. Yeah.
• 1:04
  Good friend. Question asker.
• 1:05
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 1:06
  Charlie Loften: Yep. So we are in the middle of a series, I guess. One, two, three.
• 1:11
  Abigail Boone: Yeah, we took off for the snow week. Apologies, everyone.
• 1:14
  Charlie Loften: Then we
• 1:15
  Abigail Boone: I think we've done three so far. Three?
• 1:17
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. I can know we had a
• 1:19
  Abigail Boone: three parables in the intro.
• 1:21
  Charlie Loften: In the intro, we've four weeks and into a series on parables. And just about every three or four weeks, Abigail gets up to here, full up with questions. And so we'll do a q and a. And so that's what we're doing here. So now I'm not in charge anymore, and I hand it off.
• 1:36
  Abigail Boone: That's part of the series, right?
• 1:37
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Minimal minimal prep for me anyway. Like, I do have one question for you, though.
• 1:43
  Abigail Boone: Do you? Is it impressive that I have a sheet of paper?
• 1:46
  Charlie Loften: Why do you have a sheet of paper? Okay.
• 1:49
  Abigail Boone: So I wrote it in an email initially, and then, like, I was just taking notes in an email, and I would respond to myself whenever I thought of new questions. And then it got way too chaotic. And then I was walking in here, I was like, I didn't ever organize those. So I just dumped them into a doc and asked Leslie to print it out for me.
• 2:05
  Charlie Loften: Oh, there you go.
• 2:06
  Abigail Boone: So it just seemed easier, but does feel like it's
• 2:10
  Charlie Loften: 1999.
• 2:11
  Abigail Boone: Really studious to have this. Impressive. But when I was actually putting these together, I was like, this probably would have been a helpful q and a to do before. So it might be interesting once we answer these questions to go back and listen to them again possibly because some of my questions are about like context of like how this is all coming in. First, can you just do like a deep dive of like, what is the setting that we're stepping into?
• 2:42
  Like, what's the point in time when Jesus steps on the scene? What's like the spiritual vibe at who's in charge? Is Jesus a cool person, or is he a lowly person that all the upper people are like, oh.
• 2:58
  Charlie Loften: Is Jesus is Jesus seen. Is Jesus cool? It's not very often somebody asks me a question that I've never been asked before or I probably have not ever even conceived of. Is Jesus cool?
• 3:10
  Abigail Boone: He's a pretty cool guy.
• 3:12
  Charlie Loften: Is Jesus a bro? I guess I've asked, is Jesus a bro?
• 3:15
  Abigail Boone: I feel like you would have
• 3:16
  Charlie Loften: Jesus is a bro. Yeah. Some people imagine Jesus says, like, your strict grandpa or something like
• 3:23
  Abigail Boone: I don't think of it now.
• 3:24
  Charlie Loften: School or whatever. Okay. So it is, you know, approximately 30 AD. So two thousand years ago. I won't get into the context of what sanitation or anything was like in the cities at that time.
• 3:39
  Abigail Boone: If you have questions, you can ask me later.
• 3:42
  Charlie Loften: We had a long, long conversation about what what periods of time could Abigail live based on sanitation.
• 3:49
  Abigail Boone: So sorry.
• 3:50
  Charlie Loften: Brought offline onto online here. Okay. Anyways, anyways, so Israel is an occupied nation by the Roman Empire. And so the Caesars, right? I mean, it's the Romans that are in charge.
• 4:04
  Abigail Boone: The Caesars are the rulers?
• 4:06
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. And so then underneath, you know, they would have regional governors that were all Romans that oversaw different areas, which is where we get, you know, the guy Pontius Pilate, that's what he was. But then there was also a guy named King Herod. Like, Oh, there's also a Jewish king. What's that about?
• 4:26
  But that's really kind of just more of a ceremonial puppet. Hey, look like, Hey, look, now you know, you still got one of your kings right here. It's King Herod, but he was
• 4:36
  Abigail Boone: insignificant. They're intermixed.
• 4:39
  Charlie Loften: He was insignificant. It was just it was just a token to kind of throw at
• 4:43
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 4:44
  Charlie Loften: Israel to make them feel like they had some measure of self govern... Governance. But, really, the Roman the Roman government was in charge.
• 4:51
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. But they were, like, intermixed in the same... They weren't, like, segregated out. They're, like, a part of the cities and stuff, but they're just occupied.
• 4:59
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. I I would say, I mean, if you're in Israel, most of the people that you're gonna meet are going to be Jewish people.
• 5:05
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 5:05
  Charlie Loften: Then Roman guards, government, enough to kind of keep the peace and to keep them within the empire. But it wasn't like, okay, well now we're all just one Roman empire and everybody's living everywhere. I mean, people would still live regionally according to their culture. And so now your religious power structure is kind of just, you know, what you think of is just Judaism. Right?
• 5:31
  So they still had their own religion. They had apparently had a decent amount of freedom of religion to be able to practice their religion and to even at times kind of enact, you know, enforce their religious laws as long, you know, as long as you're not rebelling upwards, we don't care that you're punishing people downwards. Punish people all day long. And so then the people that Jesus interacts with the most are kind of two different, you know, groups of religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who were just kind of two different, for our purposes, two denominations. Okay.
• 6:12
  Right? And the primary quote villain would be the Pharisees, and they were what we would call a much more legalistic approach to, I mean, you can follow the law, and if you follow not only the law, but our interpretations of how these laws will be, you can be perfect just like us and just a very strict religious sect, and those people provided a lot of the religious governance over Israel. I mean, there were other little pockets of people, there's one group that's called the Herodians, which were a group of Jewish religious people who were more like, and we should be... We can be bros with the the Romans. We don't have to be so, oh, no, we gotta get the Romans out of here, beat them aside, take them over.
• 6:58
  We can just we can just vibe out and do our religion with with the Romans, and it'll be totally cool. Yeah. And so so then Jesus enters in, and so there's gonna be varying degrees of desire and hope for some sort of political religious revolution in order to completely vanquish the Romans. And so there's going to be people that rise up from time to time to say, Hey, I'm the one and we're going to go do it. And, you know, when the Romans being well more equipped and wealthier would just put these rebellions down with ease.
• 7:31
  Yeah. And so then Jesus comes on the scene, and He comes from no... He's a nobody from nowhere. I mean, He is He is from, you know, born in Bethlehem, but raised in Nazareth, which is just an inconsequential Jewish town. And he emerges on the scene as just what appears, which would appear to be as just one more kind of nomadic religious teacher, and he's gathering a following of people.
• 8:03
  I am a rabbi, you should come follow me. I'll teach you. You can follow my ways. You can be one of my disciples. And he's just one of any number of people over the years who was doing this.
• 8:15
  Abigail Boone: So it's not unusual.
• 8:16
  Charlie Loften: What was unusual was the number of miracles he could do, and the degree of these miracles, and so then the amount of following that He could attract, and so therefore He's getting more attention, and then the fact that some of His teachings really are subversive to the mainstream of what it means to be a Jew religiously is starting to attract a lot of negative attention from the leaders. I mean, if you're a leader of the Jewish people religiously, and some hermit out in the woods with eight
• 9:00
  Abigail Boone: guys. No big deal.
• 9:02
  Charlie Loften: No big deal. But if all of sudden you're just minding your own business, hanging out with, you know, some friends and like, Man, I saw this Jesus the other day and He said this, I know somebody else. I mean, I know somebody else with Jesus. All of sudden, it's like, Okay, this guy is attracting a lot of attention. Let's go out and hear what He has to say, and then you'll see miracles, you'll see a lot of people following Him, and then you're hearing Him say things that are like, that does not go along with what we're saying.
• 9:33
  Now he's starting to imply that He's the Messiah, but He is not behaving or acting, and if He were the Messiah, He would agree with us a 100% on everything because we're right about everything. And so now He's getting a lot of positive attention because of his kindness. He's getting a lot of positive attention because of his miracles, and now he's getting a lot of negative attention because he is he is now become a threat to the religious power structure.
• 9:59
  Abigail Boone: All press is good press.
• 10:00
  Charlie Loften: Right? Is he a threat to the Roman government? Yeah. I would not imagine until he comes before Pontius Pilate on his crucifixion that Pontius Pilate had any idea. Why would he involve himself in a religious controversy amongst this insignificant people?
• 10:18
  Abigail Boone: See, I did one time read this quote. I think it was n t Wright that was saying there was a lot of people who claimed to be messiahs, and they're looking to go to war, like, had weaponry. They didn't really have a lot of access to it, but would try and, like, gain a following, and then there was Jesus walking through fields telling made up stories. So he really wouldn't have seemed like a threat to the Romans.
• 10:43
  Charlie Loften: Right. And then last time, we we think about Palm Sunday and, like, these huge crowds going, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. Like you imagine, like thousands of people lining the seats.
• 10:54
  Abigail Boone: As a kid, I did that in the church. I raid the palms.
• 11:00
  Charlie Loften: But in reality, it's probably just a few dozen people. Mean, wasn't like he had built this movement to the point where the entire city of Jerusalem is now following him and going to be aligned with thousands of, you know, of, of Jewish people and Roman citizens everywhere. Assuming, you know, it was a, I mean, you know, there were times when he could get, he was, he was gathering really, really large crowds, but it was not some
• 11:28
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 11:29
  Charlie Loften: Huge movement that
• 11:30
  Abigail Boone: was constantly on the radar. Yeah. Well, which is the other part of that quote was saying that he was most significant because every other movement gained following and then died out when that Messiah died, and this is the only one that stayed small and then grew when he died.
• 11:46
  Charlie Loften: Right. And so one of the things that I think we did talk about in some of the early parables, or maybe it was during some of our theological stuff, or maybe a little bit of both, is how kinda Jesus enters in what we'll just call a theological transition period, where you've got the Old Testament and following the law, and what does that mean, and how to be faithful, and you know, and the Israelite people were supposed to have an outward focused ministry to be blessings to other nations that they really didn't give a whole lot of attention to, but everything is centered around the law. And then you've got Paul's teachings where it's like, hey, you need to put your faith in Jesus' death, you know, what we we talk about in Grove Kids. Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Right?
• 12:33
  So now you've kind of got this weird in between time between the Old Testament and Jesus died on the cross for your sins of how is Jesus going to theologically and spiritually prepare you for what is about to become this brand new era in which the law is kind of coming to its completion, where it's like where Paul talks about, it is something that points you to your need for Jesus, and forgiveness is going to come through Jesus' death on the cross, and you think the kingdom is going to be a revolutionary, violent overthrow of the government, but the kingdom is going to be something very different than that. And so a lot of Jesus' teaching is around preparing the Jewish people from transitioning from what we would call Old Testament theology to what we would call like Paul's theology. And Jesus kind of is a bridge between those two things theologically, which, you know, I think I've said this, where people are like, man, we should Why are we always studying the book of Paul's letters and not studying the teachings of Jesus? And it's not that Jesus' teaching aren't insanely relevant, but a lot of his primary audience for the things that he was teaching was for helping people make a shift in their thinking and preparing for what was going to be this epic event beginning with the arrest of Jesus through the cross, the resurrection into Pentecost, and that final transition into this church age, and now we all live in a world of
• 14:07
  Abigail Boone: Post transition.
• 14:08
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. We're trying to reflect on what does it mean to follow God now that Jesus has died on the cross for our sins, and He is is getting them there. And so I think it's really good, it's kind of what we've tried to do with these parables, is to think about them in terms of where they were
• 14:24
  Abigail Boone: At the time.
• 14:25
  Charlie Loften: Theologically, mentally, spiritually, as opposed to trying to make sense of these things in a post resurrection world. Some of them like, oh, you see glimpses of what is about to come, and you can see how He's taking them, hey, here's how you're here's how you're thinking wrongly.
• 14:46
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 14:46
  Charlie Loften: And just like, but actually, it's going to be like this.
• 14:50
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. So I... This is probably a really American mindset. Maybe not everybody falls into this, but when I think of people today teaching, there's kind of always the assumption that they're talking to people who are spiritually interested and the people who are not who are atheists are just Right. Not really giving any mind to it.
• 15:10
  Jesus though is talking to all people that were religious.
• 15:15
  Charlie Loften: Right? I mean, the idea of there being a lot of first century Jews who were completely irreligious.
• 15:25
  Abigail Boone: Is not really a thing.
• 15:28
  Charlie Loften: I mean, that's not, mean, that was not a significant, that would not have been a significant number of people. I mean, you're going to have varying degrees of how into this am I? And, but yeah, I mean, every everybody, I mean, with very few exceptions, I mean, maybe there's some Roman guards who are having to overhear this or something, but by and large, there's going to be a measure of spiritual interest in what Jesus has to say. Again, a lot of it with like the Pharisees, is going to be negative. These are all religious people who are either interested in hearing a different approach to who God is and how I can know Him, or interested in hearing His falsehood so they can Him and get the masses back.
• 16:15
  You're drawing too much of a crowd here. We've got to come in here, point out your flaws, ask you enough, you know, trick questions to get you to stumble so that then we can get the people back and expose you for the fraud that you are.
• 16:29
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. I think that's probably... I'm taking a class right now, and the teachers talks about anytime we step into the Bible. We need to imagine going to x and a leave our passport and go into a new.
• 16:43
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, it's
• 16:43
  Abigail Boone: frame of mind that feels like one of the biggest changes of like we just live in a non spiritual country and it's just probably different to imagine. He's talking to a group. He's not like Paul going to these groups of people that worship idols and different stuff like that. He's talking to the Jewish nation and just a different context to what we would imagine now of people... Teachers talking to people that it could be people who have no religious context
• 17:11
  Charlie Loften: Right.
• 17:11
  Abigail Boone: Or atheist or people who are spiritual.
• 17:13
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Just about everybody that Jesus is talking to is going to be a pure monotheist who is looking for what is the best way to approach God.
• 17:26
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 17:27
  Charlie Loften: I mean, they they they have a spiritual interest, they have a monotheistic worldview, and are, you know, to one degree or another, are not satisfied with what the religious leaders are saying, Hey, here is the path to health. And so they're like, I understand that there's only one God. I believe in what we would call the Old Testament, but what you're saying doesn't really connect with me. What he's saying, though, does, maybe is starting to.
• 18:01
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 18:01
  Charlie Loften: Right? And so then with each particular parable, you have to say, so within that, again, all monotheists who generally believe in the Old Testament, you're gonna find three groups of people that Jesus may be primarily talking to in His parables. One would be His disciples. So it's just it's just, hey, hey, guys, it's it's actually like this. And so it's really kind of a the smaller group of people.
• 18:31
  Or it could be the larger crowd. Hey, I don't know why you guys came here today, but let me tell you a little bit about what God is like. So it's the broader crowd. And sometimes it will be specifically to His opponents.
• 18:44
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 18:45
  Charlie Loften: Let me, you know, let me let me... Like, like, like the good Samaritan is birthed out of somebody, somebody challenging. What do you think the most important law is? And he's like, love your, you know, love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Who's my neighbor?
• 19:00
  And then he tells a very, we'll get into this, a very pointed anti anti religious leader parable that has specifically them as his target. It's not that other people aren't listening, but you can tell sometimes at the end of some of these parables, like the Pharisees are kind of looking like, I talking think about us here. And then it is out of that that they start birthing some of these plans. Some of what Jesus says is so vague and subtle that people are like, no one knows what you're talking about, bro. And sometimes what he says makes the Pharisees think we need to be polishing our swords.
• 19:42
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Right. So we've discussed that there was the I guess misconception that may not be the best word for it, but thought that the Messiah that would come would be some military type of figure that would come in Boone. We've discussed so far with the past set of parables that we've studied has a lot to do with who God is under really understanding his nature and his personality if you will and kingdom. So what if you pre them hearing any of the parables?
• 20:18
  What would have been there like typical understanding of who God was? Because a lot of it seems like talking about the seeds and the farmer to me. I'm like, well, of course, God is a generous God. How would they not known that? Or like, of course, the kingdom is something that's gonna be slow.
• 20:35
  Like, not, of course, and like, I'm a master of it, but like, what would have their assumptions been going into it?
• 20:41
  Charlie Loften: Well, by and large, their relationship with with God would have been very transactional. Which what I mean by that is, if I do good, God will do good for me. If I do something wrong, God will make something bad happen to me. And so it is mostly about, okay, I really need my crops to go well this year, so I need to make sure that I am a devout follower of God, following all the rules, doing all the things that I'm supposed to do, because I need good crops. I want my life, this life right now, I want my kids to be healthy, and I want to be able to eat and provide.
• 21:22
  And so, this is what God does, and this is what... And there's plenty of Old Testament verses to kind of back that up. If you follow Me, it's going to go well with you in the land. If you don't follow Me, things are not going go well with you in the land. And so now we're in a post, they've been exiled, now they've come back from exile, but they're still occupied.
• 21:42
  They've seen a lot of different regimes come and go. They had a little bit of time where they were independent, but now they're being occupied again. And so
• 21:51
  Abigail Boone: they kind of feel like the little brother that keeps losing.
• 21:54
  Charlie Loften: Well, then, but then, and they would have a theological reason for that. This is because of a lack of our faithfulness. And so if we can faithful our way into obedience and doing right and being right, then God's blessing will come, and that is primarily going to come in a
• 22:11
  Abigail Boone: Savior. Right. Or a militant
• 22:13
  Charlie Loften: Some sort of... So that we can have full control and occupation of our land again and rid ourselves of these pagan outsiders.
• 22:22
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 22:23
  Charlie Loften: And so, yeah, so then, now I take the Old Testament law very, very seriously, and it's not that I don't think that God loves me, or that even that His love is conditional, but His blessing most certainly is conditional.
• 22:42
  Abigail Boone: Would have they thought of Him as relational, like someone they can...
• 22:46
  Charlie Loften: No. I mean, as far as having direct access to God, Like, I can just talk to God casually the way that we talk to God casually, is pretty rare. I mean, everything is mostly is kinda filtered through the priests. The idea of you can have a personal relationship with God. They had a corporate relationship with God, and if there's people that...
• 23:15
  There were certain people like Moses who seemed to have a unique relationship with God, and then there's the prophets, and now we've got the priests, and they have a measure of access. Me, just as a regular, I have very limited access to God. So God is really kind of more of an idea up here rather than a a personal reality to me. And so I could theoretically be faithful, and we're still being occupied because we aren't being faithful.
• 23:46
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. I just... There's so many parables that I'm excited for us to get to with that mindset and like the prodigal son probably felt crazy.
• 23:54
  Charlie Loften: Right. That we will... Product... The prodigal son will be two weeks.
• 23:58
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 23:59
  Charlie Loften: Well, depending on how many... We do another q and a. It it is it is the second parable. We're two parables away from
• 24:05
  Abigail Boone: now. Okay. Just the... And I know that's just a certain group that would maybe have, like, the Pharisees maybe felt more connected to God than just your average Joe that was listening to Jesus. But in the way that even probably Jesus was talking about his relationship to God sounded crazy to them.
• 24:24
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. The fact that he... When he, you know, they they referred to God as Father. Mhmm. But, you know, when Jesus says, you should pray, pray our Father.
• 24:34
  Abigail Boone: When
• 24:36
  Charlie Loften: Jesus talked about God as being my Father
• 24:41
  Abigail Boone: Made it personal.
• 24:42
  Charlie Loften: That that... I mean, again, get the torches ready, man. We gotta we gotta light this dude on fire. That is heretical. Heretical.
• 24:49
  You thinking that you have some sort of personal connection, they took that to mean you think that you are more than just a person. You think you have some sort of special relationship. Yeah. And so we'll we'll get into these, and I don't wanna I don't wanna, you know Spoilers. Spoilers.
• 25:10
  But like the parable of the prodigal son, the way that God describes, the way that Jesus describes the amount of sin that that dad tolerates from his son Right. And how quickly and easily he forgives him
• 25:25
  Abigail Boone: And gives blessing.
• 25:26
  Charlie Loften: Would have been like... Would have would have... That... Okay. Absolutely not.
• 25:30
  Or the parable of the unforgiving servant where dude runs up a a balance of a trillion dollars and he just forgives it. That's like, no. That that that is not that is not how any of this works.
• 25:46
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. It just feels like it would take forever for it to be like, That
• 25:53
  Charlie Loften: that that that is true. That is true. I mean, Jesus was with them for years. He died on the cross. He came back, tried to explain it to him, and even still, it took a supernatural overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit to kind of make things click.
• 26:07
  And then even still, couple of years later, Peter and Paul are fighting about, I mean, I think people do really need to follow the law. Paul's like, Are you even paying attention? And then all of Paul's letters are... It's still a controversy where it's like, No, it's rules. And Paul's like, If one more person says this to me,
• 26:30
  Abigail Boone: I'm gonna go crazy.
• 26:31
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, mean, so it a huge mindset shift that is gonna have to happen from where we've got the, where people are now spiritually to what we would call kind of a Pauline theology of grace and salvation and forgiveness. It was not like, Oh, it's just Jesus has come... Hey, you just looked at this one verse the wrong way. If you look at it this way, then it'll all make sense. I mean, not only...
• 27:02
  I mean, it was a deep cultural, cultural wide, generations wide kind of misunderstanding about the very nature of God, which honestly, two thousand years later, we still we still talk like this. I like the God of the New Testament better than the God of the Old Testament because what do I see in the God of the Old Testament? I see the things that it seems like the Jewish people thought, a very angry, rules based God, like, you're missing it. Everything that is true about Jesus is found in the God of the Old Testament. In fact, you see this all the time, which is a crazy thing to think about.
• 27:45
  I was talking about this with some guys at Bible study last week. Paul would go into, like, people talk about the Bereans, are you familiar with these people in Acts, that Paul would teach and they would go back and look at the scriptures to see if what Paul said... Paul's talking about Jesus. His death on the cross and the life that it brings, and they're like, I don't know, is this really what the Bible says? And they would go back to what we would call the Old Testament to verify that what Paul was teaching about Jesus was true.
• 28:13
  And apparently, they could find Jesus there. We can't.
• 28:18
  Abigail Boone: Yeah, But they're on the cross reference.
• 28:20
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. They know, oh, yeah. Okay. Yep. It's it's it's right here where Paul said, this passage in Isaiah, this passage here in Micah, and we put all the...
• 28:29
  Yep. It was it was here all along, and we were just
• 28:32
  Abigail Boone: Missing it.
• 28:33
  Charlie Loften: Missing it. And then we go to, you know, Tower Of Babel, the story of the flood, the conquest in Joshua, and be like, God's mean. Sodom and Gomorrah, mean, just mean. And we and we and we and we miss. That would be a that would be a really good podcast series.
• 28:53
  Abigail Boone: Study what the Bereans studied.
• 28:55
  Charlie Loften: Well, no, I was more thinking God, the God of the Old Testament is nicer than you think. And just kinda work our way through the most problematic stories and and and to see the glimpses of grace, and then we could do the counter one. Jesus is not as chill as you think.
• 29:12
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. I think we're already getting there. My niece literally the other night said, why do you think God created meanies? That is a great question. Did you know that sometimes you're a meanie?
• 29:24
  No.
• 29:25
  Charlie Loften: You did not say that to that precious baby.
• 29:27
  Abigail Boone: No, not the one that you're thinking of is Ellery.
• 29:30
  Charlie Loften: Oh, okay.
• 29:30
  Abigail Boone: She's got a tube sometimes. Well,
• 29:32
  Charlie Loften: all due respect. And then she's kinda...
• 29:35
  Abigail Boone: But I was like, that's a great question. Should talk to God about that. Okay.
• 29:39
  Charlie Loften: So, Abigail, I don't know what this means to your bevy of questions here or your prediction that it would only be one set of q and a, but it has in fact been thirty minutes.
• 29:47
  Abigail Boone: We only got through two.
• 29:49
  Charlie Loften: The people have made it now from Fayetteville all the way to the Walmart campus. They've done their two miles and it's time for us to pause to next time. So thank you for leading a really good discussion and thank you guys for joining us. And we'll talk a little bit more again, make sure that we're all in the same mindset and framework of kind of what we're talking about, where Jesus is, how He's teaching, who He's talking to, to make sure we really can understand these parables better as opposed to just... Was it telling weird stories in the...
• 30:21
  In the fields. Yeah. So join us back. I want to keep the keep the q and a going, and then we'll after that, we'll keep going through the parables. And we would love do do be do do that.
• 30:40
  To We'll online, any way that we can. You can send us questions there. Any way that we can help you, please let us know. And again, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast.
• 30:57
  Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions, and you're looking for answers. We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can podcasts, including YouTube. And, again, thank you so much for joining us.