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Why Every Generation Thinks the Church Is Dying · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Theology Made Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jordan.
• 0:08
  In today's episode,
• 0:09
  we're going to look at why every generation thinks the church
• 0:12
  is dying.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard anything like this?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Something is slipping.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Something is ending.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: The church used to matter and now it doesn't.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Attendance is down.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is fractured.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Young people are leaving.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Scandals dominate headlines.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels new.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like this time it's really happening.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: But every generation thinks this.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Every generation.
• 0:36
  When people say the church is dying,
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  normally they're referring to something very specific.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: They don't mean faith has disappeared entirely.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: They don't mean God has stopped acting.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: They mean the version of the church they recognize is fading.
• 0:49
  Their music,
• 0:50
  their institutions,
• 0:51
  their cultural position,
• 0:52
  their assumptions about influence.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that right there is the key.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: What we often mourn isn't the death of the church.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's the loss of familiarity.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's rewind to the second century.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are a tiny minority.
• 1:08
  They have no political power,
• 1:09
  no legal protection,
• 1:10
  no building that lasts.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're accused of atheism, of immorality, of undermining society.
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  SPEAKER_00: Roman critics openly predicted their extinction.
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  One philosopher mocks Christianity as a foolish superstition
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  destined to fade.
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  Another says it's a dangerous novelty that'll collapse once the
• 1:29
  stake gets serious.
• 1:30
  From the outside,
• 1:31
  Christianity looked fragile,
• 1:33
  and from the inside,
• 1:33
  it often felt that way too.
• 1:35
  And yet,
• 1:36
  this is the period many later Christians would call the
• 1:39
  church's purest age.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Persecuted, marginal, unimpressive.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, near death has always been part of the experience.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And fast forward to the early 5th century.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rome, the eternal city, the one that would never fall, it falls.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Civilization feels like it's unraveling.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pagans blame Christians.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You abandon the old gods, look what happened.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Christians might blame themselves.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're right, we part of this issue.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And into that moment steps Augustine.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Rome has fallen.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The church that once called itself eternal has been sacked.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Civil order feels fragile.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The future feels unrecognizable.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Many in the church are panicking.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: If Rome falls, what does that mean for Christianity?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: If the empire collapses, has God failed?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Augustine, he writes into that fear.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't give us a pamphlet or a creative sermon series.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: A massive work,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: what becomes City of God,
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  written over years aimed at setting a church that had confused
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  stability with
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  SPEAKER_00: faithfulness.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the church is not Rome.
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  SPEAKER_00: It never was.
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  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God is not propped up by political order.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't rise with empires or fall with them.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not guaranteed by peace, prosperity, or dominance.
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  And so Augustine redraws the line in the sand that Christians
• 2:49
  had blurred.
• 2:50
  There are two cities,
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  he says,
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  one built on love of God,
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  one built on love of self.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: They do overlap,
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  SPEAKER_00: they coexist,
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  SPEAKER_00: and they're tangled together in history,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they are not the same thing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you tie the fate of the church to the fate of an empire,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: any empire,
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  SPEAKER_00: you've already misunderstood Christianity.
• 3:06
  What feels like collapse,
• 3:08
  Augustine would suggest,
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  may actually be clarification.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what feels like loss may be disentanglement.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The church is being forced to remember what it is and what it never was.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Jump ahead again, the Middle Ages.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: From a distance, this looks like Christianity's golden age.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cathedrals rise over cities,
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  SPEAKER_00: universities are founded,
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  SPEAKER_00: the church shapes law,
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  SPEAKER_00: culture,
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  SPEAKER_00: education,
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  SPEAKER_00: and imagination.
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  SPEAKER_00: It looks strong.
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  SPEAKER_00: But from the inside, many believers are deeply uneasy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Corruption is visible,
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  SPEAKER_00: clergy live lavishly,
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  SPEAKER_00: positions are bought and sold,
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  SPEAKER_00: politics are seeped into theology.
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  SPEAKER_00: Faith begins to feel transactional.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not everyone is blind to this.
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  SPEAKER_00: Reform movements erupt constantly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some are small, some are sweeping.
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  There are voices rising,
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  calling for repentance back to simplicity and renewal.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And some Christians, they don't argue, they just leave.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Monks flee cities for deserts and monasteries,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it's not because they hate the church,
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  SPEAKER_00: but because they fear it's forgetting itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: They believe holiness requires distance from power,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: that faith needs silence to survive noise,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: that something precious is being buried under influence and excess.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, the refrain returns.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: This can't last.
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  SPEAKER_00: God will have to do something drastic.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they're right about the diagnosis.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: But they're wrong about the conclusion,
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  SPEAKER_00: because what follows is not extinction,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: it's just upheaval.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then comes the Reformation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this time, the anxiety is louder.
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  SPEAKER_00: Church unity shatters publicly,
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  SPEAKER_00: authority fractures,
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  SPEAKER_00: wars erupt,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes with theology on the banners.
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  SPEAKER_00: Families split,
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  SPEAKER_00: nations realign,
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  SPEAKER_00: Christians accuse one another of heresy,
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  SPEAKER_00: corruption,
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  SPEAKER_00: even being anti-Christ.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: For many believers, this feels like a freefall.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: How can the church survive when it can't even agree on the gospel?
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  SPEAKER_00: Both sides predict disaster.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some say truth itself is being lost.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Others say it's finally being recovered.
• 5:01
  And both are partly right because the Reformation is not a
• 5:05
  clean movement.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's violent.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's painful.
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  SPEAKER_00: It leaves wounds that last centuries.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, out of the fracture comes things no one fully anticipated.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture is translated into common languages.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Education expands beyond elites.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Theology is sharpened through disagreement.
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  SPEAKER_00: And global missions is accelerated.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, none of it without cost.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's never without cost.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not extinction either.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The church does not disappear.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It just changes shape.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the Enlightenment arrives.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this time the threat feels intellectual.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Reason rises.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Science advances.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tradition is questioned.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence shifts from revelation to progress.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thinkers speak with certainty.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Religion is a stage.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity will just outgrow.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Church attendance does drop in some regions.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Institutional authority erodes.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Doubt becomes not just acceptable, but it's admired.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, the conclusion feels obvious.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the end.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But history keeps refusing to cooperate,
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  SPEAKER_00: because while some forms of Christianity weaken,
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  SPEAKER_00: others emerge elsewhere.
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  SPEAKER_00: Faith doesn't vanish, it just migrates.
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  SPEAKER_00: It leaves old centers, it takes root in new soil.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that pattern, over and over again, reveals something crucial.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity doesn't tend to die when it loses power.
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  SPEAKER_00: It struggles when it confuses power with life.
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  Every generation feels the loss of something familiar and
• 6:29
  assumes it's final.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: History suggests something else is usually happening.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: The church isn't being erased.
• 6:36
  It's being refined,
• 6:38
  disentangled,
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  and stripped of supports it quietly came to rely on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that process always feels like death.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: right up until it doesn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sound familiar?
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  SPEAKER_00: This is when the phrase, the death of God, enters the conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
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  SPEAKER_00: this same period produced massive missionary movements,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: social reform,
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  SPEAKER_00: abolition efforts,
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  SPEAKER_00: and global Christianity spreading across Europe.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: While intellectuals predicted disappearance, Christianity was relocating.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now we arrive at us.
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  SPEAKER_00: The digital age,
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  SPEAKER_00: institutional distrust,
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  SPEAKER_00: scandals amplified by social media,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: deconstruction everywhere.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this time feels different because it's happening to us.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're watching familiar forms weaken in real time.
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  SPEAKER_00: But history suggests something different.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity rarely dies in the ways people expect.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It sheds, it migrates, it reforms, it surprises.
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  And what fades is often a particular expression normally tied
• 7:32
  to culture,
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  power,
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  or habit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what endures is that strange, stubborn center.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christianity looks strongest when it aligns with cultural power.
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  SPEAKER_00: It looks weakest when that alignment breaks.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that is an illusion.
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  SPEAKER_00: The early church had no power and changed the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: The medieval church had immense power and nearly lost its soul.
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  The modern church had cultural dominance and confused it with
• 7:55
  faithfulness.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the church loses status, it feels like death.
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  SPEAKER_00: But historically, I think it's what Jesus would call pruning.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even deconstruction isn't new.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Early Christians questioned the empire.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Medieval reformers questioned hierarchy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Protestants questioned authority.
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  SPEAKER_00: Modern believers questioned institutions.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now the questions, they change, but the ache's the same.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: People aren't asking, is Christianity useful?
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  SPEAKER_00: They're asking, is it true?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And can it survive?
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  SPEAKER_00: And history's answer is consistent.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: But not unchanged.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So is the church dying?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a version of it is, and perhaps it needs to.
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  SPEAKER_00: The real issue, though, is not decline.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's when we camp in confusion.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: When the church mistakes comfort for faith,
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  SPEAKER_00: when it equates numbers with faithfulness,
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  SPEAKER_00: and when it ties the gospel to nostalgia instead of hope,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: every generation faces the same temptation.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: To believe this moment is the final one.
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  And I think every generation is also invited to rediscover the
• 8:52
  same truth.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The church doesn't survive because it's protected.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: It survives because it's resilience.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe the question isn't, is the church dying?
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  Maybe a better question is,
• 9:05
  what is God stripping away so something truer can remain?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: History suggests this won't be the end, but it might be a new beginning.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Theology Made Podcast.
• 9:20
  If you want this encouraging,
• 9:21
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