Latest / Generation F Podcast / Episode 10: Wrestling With Trinity

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Episode 10: Wrestling With Trinity · Generation F Podcast

• Isaiah: Yeah, like I ⁓ I was it was so funny. I I couldn't hear my voice and then I actually called one of my friends to walk me through it and he was a younger kid and he's like maybe twenty twenty one, twenty two. ⁓ and he was He was kindly saying, Did you check if it was connected to the computer? phil: Hehehehehe Isaiah: And I thought to myself, Of course I did, you know. But then I started to follow the cables and it was connected to a wall charger. phil: Of course. ⁓ Swingin' this! ⁓ man. Isaiah: Yeah. So ne needless to say, we're we're both boomers with technology. I don't I don't know I don't know how to use a mic. Yeah. phil: Yes indeedy. Yes indeedy. I love it. Oh my busy day today. It was a good one, but it was busy for us, man. were hopping, this afternoon slowed down a little bit. Isaiah: Yeah. I've been thinking about this podcast all day. Yeah. It's ⁓ I mean, it's a difficult topic, so I've I've I've allocated a lot of I don't want to say a lot of research, 'cause I'm kind of like a last minute kind of guy, but the past two or three days I like really cramming it. phil: Have you really? I loved your document. I mean, that's awesome. Just stay the course with that. And hey, there's only one more thing I'd like to add. I don't know if Matty's on yet, but I was studying as well too, but a piece that I hadn't really thought about before, but it was John 14 when he's comforting his disciples, Jesus, his high priestly prayer, trying to explain to them, you know, I and the Father are one and they're not getting it. You know what I mean? So I don't think it's ever a topic that we're going to... Isaiah: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. S like bookmark that and I'll let you interject that at some point. There were so many scriptures that I could have picked. ⁓ so I I just tried to keep it very concise and and the thing that I realized we're not gonna we're not going to answer all the questions. You know, it's it's this is something that I feel it's not that it doesn't have an answer, but ⁓ it's not phil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Isaiah: A neat package, right? phil: It's not, it's not, no, no. And it's gonna be, it's gonna be, there's a lot left to be for us that we're just not gonna understand. You know what I mean? Isaiah: Y yeah, and Maddie I just wanna make sure I ⁓ center the right link. You Maddie sent me her questions. I ⁓ I thought I had the answers until I really looked at her questions and I was like, Okay, you know, maybe I've been explaining this wrong too, you know. So it it was a it was a growing opportunity for me too. phil: Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. Isaiah: There she is. phil: Hey, Matty. Maddie: Hey. Yes. Let me know if you have any issues with my audio because I don't have a ⁓ my ⁓ laptop it can't connect to the AirPods. Isaiah: Can you hear me? Okay. No, it sounds good. Yeah, the great thing about Riverside FM is it records everything to your device. So even if the connection is bad, it still extracts the audio file and makes it sound more professional. That's why I kinda upgraded to this. ⁓ you know, so it it's really cool technology. I've been nerding out on it, but there's a lot if you can kinda see I I now have my fill set up. I have I'm Maddie: Okay. phil: You are so pale, Isaiah. Like Stan. Check, check. Isaiah: I got my mic stand, I got my headphones. I'm I'm tripping over wires over here. I feel like a professional influencer. ⁓ let me just kind of go over the ⁓ the general idea here before we pray in and then kind of go like I was telling Phil, this is something that I've been not really stressing about, but phil: You are, you are a professional influencer, right? Maddie: You are. Isaiah: feel as if we start to grow what we start to say kind of has a little more weight. ⁓ so defining the Trinity, I kind of uploaded the notes. Maddie: I did look at those. Isaiah: Okay. Yeah, and and I wanna get into answering your question about the Holy Spirit. I just don't wanna squeeze it in there if it just doesn't seem like it's it's like ⁓ you know, with the same flow, but we w Maddie: You don't need to. Whatever whatever you feel works for the podcast and any random questions I ask you off camera, you can always get back to me at a later time. It is no problem. Isaiah: Yeah. I we i it it can simply be answered. I just also think it'd be good for the audience to hear too. And ⁓ I'm just not sure of when I'd fit. But with the three scriptures that I have, ⁓ again there's multiple scriptures that I could pick. So Phil, if you see a topic and you're like, ⁓ well, this seems better here, you by all means, you know, give your your your opinion. But I wanted like one scripture about the idea that there is only one God, right? Just this kind of monotheistic Old Testament outlook. That's why I picked Deuteronomy. Yeah, of course. phil: I did want to say one more thing. If we, if in the process of doing that, dude, if I say something that's off topic, feel free to cut it out, you know, just edit it out. Yes. You know, I'll share the scripture and then my piece, but whatever doesn't work, just get it out of there, man. Isaiah: Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, that's yeah, that's fine. and then the the Jesus is God fully or fully God. ⁓ I picked Colossians two. We'll go through that. And that's a good scripture that I've shared with you, Phil, especially, you know, if you read that first couple of verses, it has a lot of other applications too. But ⁓ you know, the Holy Spirit one I kind of went with like low hanging fruit with Acts. ⁓ Maddie: Maybe Isaiah: if you feel like there's something a little more definitive about the Holy Spirit, there were a couple that I was kinda mulling over, but the one in Acts kind of does kind of simply address Pentecost and how, you know, you know, the Holy Spirit will be kind of brought to, you know, do X, Y, and Z. So I kinda left it there just because of the simplicity of it. But, you know, to be honest, Phil, if you feel that there is something a little bit more pertinent, go for it. phil: Okay. But again, I'll say that again. Just X it out if it doesn't fit, Isaiah: ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then like the opening statement is kind of this idea that ⁓ when we're talking about the Trinity, one of the things that I really love that Maddie sent me was you know, she went over things to be careful not to say. In generality, you know, she's just talking about comparatives, you know, 'cause the biggest thing that I kind of realized and learned from myself res research is I was explaining things not incorrectly, but I wasn't doing it justice, you know. Especially with the idea of, you know, nature representing who God is in in a triune sense. It's not really true. He's he's kind of not found in nature. So I wanna kind of go over the idea that ⁓ you know, you know, God is a being and there's different persons to him, but they're not necessarily It's not necessarily like an easy package to compare it to you know, protons, electrons, neutrons, things like that, you know. Like there's things in in in nature that resemble the idea of God because you know, Romans chapter one it talks about the invisible qualities of God being seen throughout, you know, all of nature, but it doesn't necessarily mean it it describes the Trinity, right? So that's kind of my thought with that. ⁓ And I I didn't want to pick that Romans one 'cause that's another tangent. phil: That's a huge, huge tangent. Isaiah: ⁓ so like my my key takeaways that I wanna like refrain from is and make sure the audience understands that it's not three gods and it's not one God doing three things and it's not three pieces of God, right? We need to like carefully kind of paint a picture that this is something outside of nature. This is something where, you know, we don't have a comparison for it. And this is the objective of faith is to believe in something that isn't explainable, right? It's it's like talking about infinity or eternity, you know. We have very small ways of quantifying it, but we don't truly understand what it looks like, right? ⁓ Yeah, and I I did a lot of really interesting research on modelism and partialism, Trinitarianism. Yeah, yeah, so yeah. So I figured that would be an interesting thing to kinda talk about. ⁓ I didn't even know anything about that. phil: I saw that. I like that. That was good. I think it is. I think it is. Yeah. Isaiah: I went down I went down a rabbit hole. see here. And the the between two gens, the generational analysis, that's a big ⁓ topic that I wanna kinda talk about 'cause again, ⁓ the people that listen to this podcast, they're really liking that segment and I wanna just keep on hammering that. ⁓ I don't necessarily have like the right wording for the question, but the idea of of it as we start to kind of record is how did your generation understand the Trinity? phil: Mm-hmm. Isaiah: Or wrestle with the idea that God was three things. And a lot of the things that I've read in terms of generational analysis is they just took everything the Bible said literally and just preserved it and didn't really question it. ⁓ and in everything in the millennial Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they're questioning it, right? So I want to kind of go into this idea that, okay, what happens when we question it? What kind of phil: Mm-hmm. Isaiah: doctrines kind of come through, right? You know, like should we not question it, should we question it? Here's the things that kind of evolve from giving it too much of a an organic comparison. You have the New Age, you have Gnosticism, you have you know, all these different pagan applications. ⁓ so we're gonna kind of go through that and then I'll try and see if we can tie in the Holy Spirit part. Okay. phil: I like it. One question to your generational analysis, Isaiah, the boomers, ⁓ it's not a rabbit hole, but it gives a little bit of light onto why the boomers were so set on doctrine and preservation of truth. And we became ingrown. It's because there was this, I remember my dad talking about it, it was traveling revivals. It was people sweeping into town. Isaiah: Mm-hmm. Yeah. phil: bringing God's word and then leaving the next day and you felt like, you you just survived who knows what. So I think that it really was a cautious mindset of the local church to say, we can't listen to every wind and doctrine that comes down the pike. And it really caused this idea of being ingrown, you know, where you just shelter in place. It's almost a bunker mentality where you just, you know, we're not listening to anything but what we know firsthand. it's, it kind of explains that a little bit. Isaiah: Hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's like you don't want to touch it 'cause you're afraid of it breaking. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Save that, okay? right, I'm gonna press in and we're gonna get going, okay? phil: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I will. I will. Isaiah: You know, Lord Jesus, we just ask that you give us clarity. We ask that you give us the words to say and the words not to say. It's a very simple prayer that I always ask, but you know, sometimes we always want to offer our opinions that create confusion. And our job is to simplify, but to also just speak plainly and to continue to point to you. You know, even if it doesn't make sense to everyone, we can't we can't be the rolodex for every person out there. But we ask, Lord Jesus, that you use your spirit of truth, Lord God, your Holy Spirit, to take the words that we say and to speak to someone specifically. In your name we pray. Amen. Alright. And also, do you have that intro from your son? Okay. phil: No, he was away all weekend. He did say he would work on it. So I'm just, don't feel any worse than me. I mean, because I've asked him for a couple of things too, and he's just. Isaiah: Okay. That's fine. All right, so I'm gonna I'm gonna kinda start us out. Welcome to the Generation F podcast. This is a special episode, our tenth episode. I'm joined today with my co-hosts now, Maddie and Phil. You know, this is a podcast wrestling with faith and just ⁓ you know, kind of talking about generational ⁓ division and also ideas that kind of come with ⁓ you know, the faith of Jesus Christ and and kind of using this platform to s speak plainly and to kind of ask questions and not always have all the answers. You know, today is a very, you know, difficult topic for most people to kind of understand. And we want to do it, you know, carefully and you know effectively. But we're gonna talk about the Trinity. You know, the Trinity, if you're unfamiliar or if you are familiar, it's the it's the idea of God being three distinct persons, right? You know, God being ⁓ the being, you know, the all knowing creator. And then him having three distinct persons, sometimes used in the ⁓ you know, theological wording as a godhead, right? ⁓ the the Father, the Father God, the Son being Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Truth. You know, so there's a couple of things that we wanna kind of ask in terms of questions. And one of the things that I wanna have, you know, Phil and Maddie kind of go through with this topic is how do we properly define this? Is it possible? Is it something that, you know, we just have to leave without the complete understanding. I spent a lot of time researching on this topic and, you know, to be quite honest with you, I kinda left with ⁓ more questions than I had answers and I was really appreciative of Maddie having some ⁓ you know, note taking from some things that she was researching because it really kinda caused me to second guess how I perceive the Trinity. ⁓ you know, one of the things that we're gonna kind of start out with, ⁓ you know, Phil, if you can just kind of give us an idea maybe of your interpretation of the Trinity, ⁓ and then we'll go through Maddie, and then one of the things that I wanna break out into is, you know, giving a very specific definition and then using the scripture to help us get an understanding of who God the Father is, who the Son is, and who the Holy Spirit is. phil: Yeah, we feel like that Trinity or what we would call the Trinity is referenced a few times, Old and New Testament. And so for us growing up as youngsters, I remember not, you know, where do you put that? No explanation, no understanding there. The older I got ⁓ and began to research, like you said, Isaiah, research scriptures and try to work through that. place started to form for each one of those distinct personalities of God. ⁓ There was God the Father, definitely more relatable from an Old Testament perspective, more FaceTime per se in the Old Testament. The Son Jesus, who was talked a lot about in the Old Testament, and I believe made a few appearances as the Angel of the Lord. ⁓ And so started to understand a little bit about what that was all about, but we're still in the judgment phase. New Testament rolls over to a whole different leaf when ⁓ Jesus is on the scene and you really begin to see his personality and some of the things that brought him to tears. know, his compassion, his, wow, this is part of God. He's exhibiting compassion for us in a state that, you know, is just really, really tough at the time. But he also maintains that personhood of God, and he references that several times in the New Testament. ⁓ And then right before ⁓ he is taken up, ⁓ right before he's crucified, he's talking to his disciples ⁓ and acknowledges the difficult time that he's been through with them, but also says to them, hey, I'm leaving. ⁓ Where I go, you can't follow me. but I'm going to send you a helper." And I read that over and over again, and the understanding started to come along. It's like, okay, there's a person that's that we're not again, it's part of the Godhead, part of this ⁓ Trinity, Isaiah, that you talked about, but somebody that is newer on the scene. ⁓ But he's also referenced in the Old Testament as well, too. know, David says, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. So he's part of the process from the beginning. But this Holy Spirit now has a defined goal and a realm of identification with us. He's our helper. He's the one that ⁓ gets us through and helps us. Isaiah: Thank you. And Matty, just with like your upbringing of being in the Catholic Church or just things that you've heard growing up, you know, what are some things that you you know about the Trinity or or w how was that application used in your personal faith even if it was limited? Maddie: Well, growing up, I definitely I don't think that I was able to truly understand. And I think even now, you know, I don't fully understand. But growing up I definitely thought that the Holy Trinity, like, I know that in the textbooks we read and our teachers would tell us it's three in one God. But I like I couldn't grasp that as a kid, so I would always think to myself, Okay, so there's the Holy Spirit and there's Jesus and there's God, and there was just a lot of confusion around that. It was very difficult for me to understand how there could be three in one because our teachers would refer to them as three persons in one. So not until like this week when I did a little bit of my own research ⁓ and had the discussion with you, Isaiah, was I able to start to understand it on a deeper level. But now knowing that, I can see it helping me and my faith moving forward because I can understand a little bit more about the unique roles that God plays through these through these three persons, through this holy trinity. ⁓ yeah. Isaiah: No, I love that. There's this nature of God being, you know, this being, right? You know, he's he's this in generality a spiritual being, you know, but we have the three persons, and that's usually how things are kind of explained. ⁓ you know, one of the things that there's a lot of different camps, theological camps that ⁓ and you know, analyze the Trinity and Some of the biggest things that you kind of see is the idea that it's not three gods, right? ⁓ it's not one God doing three things, and it's not three pieces of God. And that's a very, very specific debate that happens over ⁓ you know these different ⁓ theological arguments that I wanna kind of highlight. But you know, interestingly enough, one of the reasons why I really want to do this episode is is even before a ⁓ Maddie like asked these questions is I you know, I was at work the one day and I got in a conversation with a coworker who's actually ⁓ of Persian descent and he practices Zo Zoroastrianism, right? Which is an old monotheistic ⁓ you know religion that stems from Mesopotamia. It's one of the oldest religions in recorded history that stem ⁓ i to their records, you know, twenty to thirty thousand years, right? And he had asked a very interesting question. You know, he was like, You claim to be a Christian, you say there's one God, but that yet you have, you know, three gods that you worship, right? And I thought I had a good answer for him. He seemed agreeable, you know. There wasn't ⁓ you know, I don't think I I ⁓ I dropped the ball too much or embarrassed myself, but You know, I left that conversation not feeling very confident in my understanding of how to convey this. ⁓ so when Maddie, you know, really kind of sent me these questions and expressed her interest in the topic, you know, I I took it very personally. I, you know, I was like, okay, Lord, like this is an opportunity for me to be challenged to figure out, you know, how to wrestle this idea, or, you know, maybe I don't have the best explanation to it, but You know, you're at least getting me closer to figuring out how to perceive this information, right? You know, so when we go down into some of my notes, there's these three categories of theological debate. You know, the first one is called modelism, right? ⁓ and modelism is essentially, you know, I'm not gonna go through the history of everything, ⁓ because we'll be here forever, but modelism is basically the idea that one person is appearing in different forms or modes, right? You know, like In quotation, God's wearing different masks. You know, he's one God, but then he can just transfigure to Father, Son, and Spirit, you know, sequentially. You know, the the problem with that is, you know, in scripture, whether you're looking at the old or New Testament, there's a lot of times where there's reference to simultaneous interaction with these parts where Jesus will talk about the Father, you know, or like Jesus will talk about the Holy Spirit, right? Or God will be ref referencing to his spirit, you know, like ⁓ or or someone being sent in the future, right? So there is a a lot of ⁓ contradiction w if we think of God being just these three phases of God, right? ⁓ and then we have what's called partialism, right? So partialism, there's essentially, you know, you know, the Father, the Son, Spirit as pieces of God. Right, very similar, but the analogy is kind of ⁓ like slices of a pie, right? You know, so he's one God, but then he has these different components to him that make him these things. ⁓ but the problem is again in scripture, you know, and one of the things I really want to kind of convey is that each person is, you know, fully God. They just exist independently with very specific responsibilities or ⁓ roles that we have to kind of wrestle with. And then that kind of brings us to the the I think it's called Trinitarianism. Trinitarianism. I don't know if I wrote that correctly. But that is the idea that, you know, you know, it's one being, you know, God the Father, you know, then there's three distinct, you know, eternal persons that make up that one being. You know, and and the unity without collapsing, these definitions, right? ⁓ one of the things that is really, really hard to wrestle with this idea of Trinitarianism is we don't really have anything in nature that resembles it. So when you have these theological arguments like modelism, you know, and partialism, it it becomes very ⁓ philosophically intriguing because we can compare it to things such as An atom, right? Where there's protons, electrons, neutrons, there's there's things in nature that have three distinct phases to it. You know, being a coach, you know, you have muscle contractions, you have like isometric, eccentric, concentric, right? There's things in nature that resemble this, you know, triune or this like three phased, you know, action. But if we were to oversimplify that that is what God is. we're completely missing the mark and completely understanding the actual nature of who the god is that we serve, right? You know, going into ⁓ hold on ⁓ this out. Yeah, so you know, with the idea of Trinitarianism, you know, we have the idea that, you know, this is a completely separate function, you know. So we have to almost go by faith with this idea that God is three different persons, but then also acting you know, as one being, right? You know, Phil, you know, what are some things that you ⁓ you know You know, what are some opinions that you have about these, you know, modelism, partialism, Trinitarianism, you know, debates? phil: Yeah, I was sitting here as I'm listening as you go through that and. The whole New Testament, when Jesus was talking to his disciples, there was this undercurrent of those 12 guys just not getting it. You know what mean? They really did not see, hear, understand this kingdom that he was talking about, the words that he's using, and the examples that he's using. We call them parables, the stories. ⁓ Most times, Jesus had to explain it to those to his disciples, right? Here's what I meant to say. And they were trying to infer like this kingdom principle and it's an unseen kingdom and it's something that we really at its base level, we can't understand. You know what I mean? And I think that's where for me, just keeps coming back to faith. And we either believe Jesus and God for who he is and what he says or we don't, you know? And... As we look at this Trinity, it just falls in that same pattern, where three and one is something that my mind, at least, I just can't understand it. But because of that, I need to have faith in believing who God says He is, who Jesus exhibited while He was on earth here, what He did, and then the Holy Spirit. And I think some of that gets wrapped up, the Holy Spirit at least does with emotionalisms, you're just going on feelings and you know, it's a whole other discussion itself. But what, exactly does the Holy Spirit make himself known to us? You know, what does it look like? And so the whole idea of three in one needs to be accepted by faith. And that's just one of things that I was thinking about when you're talking to her, Isaiah. Isaiah: Yeah, and put a pin in that Holy Spirit conversation 'cause I do want to return to that as being from another question. You know, but Matt you know, Matty, like you're one of the reasons why I went down this rabbit hole of ⁓ you know, modelism, you know, partialism and ⁓ Trinitarianism with those questions that you gave me. You know, so going over those kind of camps or those ideologies, if you will, you know, how how does that kind of fit with the research that you've phil: Got it. Isaiah: loosely done in being very careful on how we describe the Trinity. Maddie: I think ⁓ you know, the I guess was it mod modal modelism? Is that how you pronounce it? Okay. Yeah, the modelism kind of is I guess a a a word that describes what I had seen somebody else say could be problematic when ⁓ talking about the Holy Spirit because it refers to, hey, God just kinda like changes forms when he needs to. Isaiah: Yeah, like a model. Yeah. Maddie: and I feel like it doesn't fully encompass the idea of, you know, who God really is. So it definitely aligns with that. ⁓ partialism, Trinitarianism, I mean I had never heard of these, obviously. I mean, you did all this research and ⁓ It's it's difficult to describe. I just think there's maybe an element of it that people, us humans, are probably always going to be a little bit unsure about, a little bit uncertain. Just as Phil was saying, you know, when Jesus was talking about these things in the New Testament, you know, those twelve guys they didn't understand. And maybe that's just kind of reminiscent of how we are, you know, it's kind of difficult to fully understand when you're not of divine nature. I hope I answered that right. Isaiah: No, that's no, that's great. You hit a lot a lot of really amazing points. And that was my biggest r issue with this because, you know, again, I I do have a lot of faith, but one of my natures is to create systems for things internally in my head. And whenever I look at things in the Bible, I'm mechanically analyzing things throughout the scripture. And that's just how my brain works. And when I looked at the the Trinity, even growing up, whoever explained it to me, whether it was my mom or pastor or whatever, I created my own system in my head to kind of ⁓ you know, understand it or right, decipher it. And I and I feel as if I almost kind of created a pseudo modelism, ⁓ partialism idea in my head. You know, even if I in my heart knew that there was this supernatural, unexplainable idea. And I wanted to compare it to things around me, right? And I and I think that the nature of having a resolution for the definition of God is completely in alignment with our nature, right? You know, when when you know, we see a lot of New Testament, there's reference to people, you know, scouring the scriptures, looking for answers or trying to create knowledge or understanding to define things. You know, we always wanted to have the definition because it it it kind of appeals to our nature of wanting to be like God. You know, we want to have complete understanding so we can control the narrative, we can control understanding without relying on faith. And one of the best answers to the idea of the Trinity, which is something that I was almost afraid to have to, you know, even think about is I just don't have an answer. Right. And I think that is the best. place to be because it makes us fully dependent on faith, which is you know, believing in something that you don't have an answer for. You don't can't you can't see it. Right. You might understand it in parts, very similar to how Jesus spoke to us in allegories. Like the people that were listening to the stories understood in part, right? But they didn't see the full picture. And in those scriptures, you know, I don't think that Jesus blamed them for not understanding, but I think It was highlighting our heart and highlighting the idea that even if th all these mysteries are explained to us, we're still only gonna be able to gravitate to like, you know, fractions of it at a time. And in our own nature, we reject what we don't understand. You know, so whenever we have this idea like the Trinity, you have a lot of people in the opposing camp or whether they're in the scientific world or you know, just against religion or or Christianity, you know, they will objectively scrutinize the faith because of the idea that there isn't an explanation to it. There isn't this biological comparison that you can kind of assign to it. Therefore they reject it because it it's not quantifiable, which is, you know, something that I almost did. Not necessarily reject it, but if I couldn't create, you know, an ornate package to understand how these three persons existed, ⁓ I almost didn't have an answer for anyone who asked me about it. Right. ⁓ you know, one of the things that I do want to kind of go through is, and this can be like a long topic, so I'm just gonna highlight a few things, especially answering some of your questions, Maddie, about the Trinity, right? Like w what are their roles, right? How do you use them? You know, it it And and that's something that I've o often thought of even growing up in church and and having a faith, it's like, do I pray to all three? Right? And do I ⁓ use one versus the other for a certain situation? You know, I I grew up, you know, Pentecostal, right? And ⁓ for most people that don't know what that denomination is, it's very ⁓ charismatic. And there's a lot of times where we would just and I don't wanna say everyone, but in in most cases they would pray to the Holy Spirit. Right. You know, they would really kind of lean into the Holy Spirit in terms of, you know, what they're asking or what they're trying to receive. And I only thought that that's what I was supposed to do or I didn't understand that, ⁓ you know, I can go to Jesus, you know, I can also, you know, pray to God. But ⁓ you know, Phil, this is something that I feel you'd be a little bit more adept at answering, you know, being a seasoned ⁓ you know, believer, if you will, like Is there like an application to the Trinity? Like if someone's listening to maybe they're Catholic, maybe they're Christian, maybe they're just figuring it out, like, how do I pick which one? phil: ⁓ Great question. ⁓ That is a great question. Other than the references, you know, where it's God the Father, Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I personally, I wind up, it's Jesus who was, I don't know, he's the earthly representation of that, the three in one. And he's the one that that I would I would pray to that I would reach out that I talked to, you know what I mean? And then the Holy Spirit I see is just somebody that that does come alongside. And he's the one that quickens your conscience. He's the one that says, hey, it's that it's that voice in the ear, if you will, that says, hey, you know, that that might not be the right step or, you know, just it just helps you at the spur of the moment. He changes. He convicts us. He brings. He brings that sense. then the Father, you know, I just find myself reaching out to Jesus, you know, and that's who I pray. That's where my relational aspect enters the Trinity is through Jesus. I don't if that helps or not, Isaiah, but it's a great question. It's a great question. Isaiah: No, th Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't think there's I mean, I'm sure there is a wrong answer, but I don't think there's a wrong answer in a sense that ⁓ you know, when in doubt you go to Jesus, right? ⁓ you know, but I think of the our the our Father, right? You know, that's a very orthodox or Catholic, you know, prayer that will be said and you know, it's roots in the book of Matthew, you know, it's used it as a template for us to pray, you know, so You know, there's application to an Our Father in terms of ⁓ how to structure how we talk to God, at least as a training wheel. And when I think of the Our Father, what does start with? Our Father, right? It doesn't say our Jesus or our Holy Spirit. ⁓ you know, so when I when I think of that template and that model, you know, I I question myself. I'm like, Okay, how do I is there an order of operations, right? That's just how my brain works, is is there a certain sequence to how I I talk to God? But And in in most cases, and I can only speak for myself, you know, whenever I would pray, I think of Jesus as being that ⁓ represent that represent that representation to God, right? So I might be asking, you know, God, but I'm I'm going through Jesus. And whenever I'm using the Holy Spirit, the you know, in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of truth, right? ⁓ at least in the New Testament. And I will ask, you know, the Holy Spirit to assist me with understanding something, whether it be, you know, a word that I'm reading or maybe even a conversation with someone, I'll, you know, I'll ask the in the spirit of truth, like, you know, you know, aid in it aid in this, you know, conversation or aid in this reading so that it can make sense to me, right? It's almost like this magnifying lens for things where I can get a little bit a clearer understanding, but phil: That's what I like. Isaiah: I still understand that it's connected to God the Father, right? And in my heart I understand that it's not like a separate like route, you know. Any questions on that, Maddie? J I want to include you. Maddie: Yeah. Well I can even offer some ⁓ some insight there. I mean, I think at least the way that I had grown up, just with, you know, the Our Father, you kind of just learn to speak directly to God. And there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis on needing to needing to have any kind of relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, considering we were taught they were three in one, right? But something that I was thinking of as Phil was sharing how he prays is how I always pray directly to God and I I talk to him like he's my father in heaven. And to me, and maybe this is just dependent upon the person, but to me, having that godly father feeling like I'm coming to my dad almost, that is very it it creates like a level of intimacy in the relationship that maybe it would be more difficult to have if I were trying to include all three in the conversation. And yet as I'm talking to God, I think of him as, you know, the human form of Jesus. I think of how Jesus was. And then I can also think about how, hey God, I've been feeling convicted about this. And I know that that comes from the Holy Spirit. So it sort of is encompassed just in the prayer to God. And maybe depending on the person I mean I don't think anybody would like pray to the Holy Spirit, maybe, but maybe ⁓ depending on the person they just would feel more comfortable addressing God as Jesus, you know. Isaiah: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean 'cause yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong wrong with that either. You know, and and I think that just kind of speaks to your heart posture, right? Like the position to where you are praying that, right? And that is the biggest, you know, aspect of faith is like what is your intent? You know, where's your heart at when you're asking these things? You know, that's how God really kind of connects to us is through intention and through position, ⁓ phil: I do too. That's well said. Isaiah: And yeah, I don't really think that there's I'm I'm sure there's people that would be listening that are screaming at the, you know, the their car speaker, like, no, you pray to this. ⁓ but yeah, I don't really think there's an issue with with either. I think as long as you understand that, you know, you're praying to, you know, both Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, and you know, that is who you're communicating with. And, you know, there's almost you know, it the message is getting received, right? Phil, I don't know if you have a comment. Maddie: There's a level of understanding. Like when you're talking to God, it's like you know that He's also Jesus. So sometimes I think God can feel like you know, God feels like a holy, almighty being that we just can't fully relate to. But that's why like having the idea of, you know, Jesus being one with God is so helpful because when you talk to God, it's not just like Isaiah: Yeah. Maddie: He's your father that's disappointed in you and doesn't understand why you're struggling or why you're asking for the things that you're asking for. God knows, you know, the full range of of human emotion and experience because he sent his son Jesus, who is also in one, to earth to experience all of the things that humans do experience. And so it almost seems like there isn't a thing that you could say to God. that would not be fully and completely understood. And I just feel like that makes the relationship much deeper. And maybe that's why it's important for people to understand this because I think it just adds that intimacy that maybe it can be hard for people to feel. Isaiah: Yeah, and and I'm unaware of a specific blueprint, right? Where it would kind of nullify your request. ⁓ you know, so th that's where like it it's it's I don't want to say it's like preference, but there's I don't think there's an issue with, you know, what you're doing. ⁓ but one of the things that I wanted to kind of go into is is some scripture to kind of back up, you know, in the Bible how these people, these persons are explained, right? ⁓ so there's three scriptures that I'm gonna go through and we're not gonna spend a whole lot of time talking about them because I wanna break out into our segment. But with the idea of there only being one God, right? This idea of monotheism. You know, I picked a a scripture in Deuteronomy. It's Deuteronomy six, ⁓ four, and I'm gonna read ⁓ the translation that I have here. And this is ⁓ this is ⁓ Moses speaking, right? It says, Attention, Israel, God our God God the one and only. Love God your God with all your heart. Love Him with all that's in you. Love Him with all you've got. Right, this is like a easy reading translation. Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside of your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street. Talk about them for the time that you get up in the morning. To when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. And I I like that scripture because it really kind of paints this picture of ⁓ a daily practice of just acknowledging that you're constantly thinking about God, you're constantly meditating on who he is. And even though it's like very old testament, you know, you start to kind of see this relational. idea of God even before you know the kings came and all these different evolutions of the Old Testament. ⁓ you know, so when we kind of branch out into the the description of Jesus being fully God, this would be that second part, that second person in the Godhead or the the Trinity. And I picked Colossians two. It starts in verses eight through twelve. And it says in Colossians Now see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy. And this is Paul writing, by the way, I want to say that. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not accor and not according to Christ. Right? He's saying not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him. Who is the head of all rule and authority? In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. Right. You know, so Going through that one scripture, it kind of talks about the idea that everything that was perceived in the past when he's talking about the, you know, the Jews of that time and the people that are referring to the maybe the scroll of Isaiah or different kind of things, you know, everything that God was represented was kind of represented through Jesus, right? And so maybe that kind of answers that one question that we had earlier where it's like, okay, well, who do we pray to? And and Phil, you kinda said you just kinda go to Jesus because He does become that representation, even though he is all three parts as well, right? I don't know if you have a comment on that before I move on, Phil, 'cause I phil: No, I don't, I don't. I was just waiting for your next scripture there. I'm always very sorry about that. Isaiah: Yeah. No, you're good. Yeah. Matty, do you have any questions on those first two scriptures? Maddie: I don't think so. Isaiah: Okay. We can always ⁓ go back if there is any. But you know, just in generality, there is this idea that Jesus, right, is there's a lot of explanations to who he is to us, but he is that personification that we go to that represents all these things. So, ⁓ again, as long as you're praying to God and you know that you're speaking to Jesus, you know, I feel as if the intention is still there. but just so we have a direction and understanding, right? You know, so the Holy Spirit I I picked Acts chapter one, ⁓ verses three through seven. And I could have picked a lot of different things, but I went with this one. And it says, After Jesus died on the cross, he became alive again. During the forty days after that, he showed himself many times to his apostles, he showed himself in different ways, then they could be really sure that he was alive again. During this time Jesus spoke to his apostles about the kingdom of God. This is a longer one. One time when Jesus and his apostles were together, he said to them, Do not leave Jerusalem yet. You must wait there until you receive my Father's gift. My father promised to give it to you. I have already told you about it. John baptized people with water, John the Baptist, but after a few days God will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. While Jesus Apostles were together with him. They asked him, Lord, at this time, will you now give the kingdom back to us, the people of Israel? Jesus replied, My Father decides when things will happen in the world. You do not need to know the day or the time when this will happen, but the Holy Spirit will come to you, and he will give you power. The Holy Spirit will make your spirit strong. Then you will tell other people everywhere in the world about me. You will do that in Jeru Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and in in places far away. All right. So that kind of gives this picture of all right, Old Testament, Deuteronomy, we have an idea of this monotheistic God. He's the only God that we should be serving. ⁓ we're still having a relation with him, right? You know, as Moses was talking about. And then in the New Testament, Paul talks about ⁓ you know, Jesus being you know, all these things in one, right? In where it's like we have ⁓ you know, this this representative, right? This ⁓ intercessor that some people will call. And then in Acts, which is before the letters of Paul, there's this idea of this ⁓ you know, after Pentecost, there's the Holy Spirit, this assistance, this ⁓ you know, this helper that comes to us that allows us to have gifts or have understanding or have Aid in understanding things of God. Phil, do you have anything to add? phil: Yeah, think that's where things get interesting for a believer, know, the Holy Spirit, because it's, you talked about your Pentecostal roots, and I had the same, some of the same experiences as well, too. And I think for me, it was a positive thing. really, it brought, if nothing else, it brought more of an understanding of some of the Holy Spirit's, what He brings to us and how He actually does help us. And some of it is supernatural. You know what I mean? And some people in my generation would struggle with that. Not all, but some people would struggle with that and say that that time has passed for whatever healing or supernatural entities that are in the Bible that was compartmentalized into the apostles' time. And so just, it really started the discussion for me and I really had to wrestle with that as a person. Wow, what really do I believe about the Holy Spirit? And it was a good exchange. Still not through it all, but at least it opened my eyes, man. Isaiah: Yeah, I wanna tie in together that idea of the Holy Spirit before we go into our between two gen segment, which is where we'll kinda ⁓ have that final last segment to talk about. ⁓ we can talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. And Maddie's question to me a few days ago was, you know, how do you know that you have it? Right. ⁓ this is an interesting question because there's a lot of ways that we can kind of go about explaining this. And it really kind of depends on Again, where you you come from, you know, being ⁓ in a specific denomination, they might explain the acquisition of it differently. ⁓ but if we if we look at the what the Bible says, which is what I typically go by, ⁓ you know, the definition of receiving the Holy Spirit is almost like a three-part system, right? You know, the first part is ⁓ humility, like humbling yourself to know that you need God, you need his assistance, right? ⁓ You know, the third part and the second part, I'm sorry, the second part is to turn away from the things that you did prior to following God. You know, in in the Bible we call that repenting. But you're essentially just no longer doing the things that you did before you came to him or came to this faith practice, this faith walk. You know, a a simple example is hey, maybe I was, you know, drinking, you know, excessively or struggling with X, Y, and Z and then You know, things had caused ⁓ an opportunity for you to s to to you know do away with that stuff or to not partake in that. Right? That is you're repenting, you're essentially turning away from what you did. And then the third component is to believe in Jesus, which really kind of hyperlinks itself back into what was it, Colossians or Corinthians? ⁓ you know, so it's this idea that the three systems that you see in the in the New Testament, whether you're reading the book of Luke or in all these other descriptions of the Holy Spirit, it's it's humility, it's turning away, and then it's believing in Jesus. Right. And the faith part that comes with the Holy Spirit is very similar to the faith part of the Trinity. Like you have to just kind of believe that he r resides in you, right? And this is something that I experienced a lot when I was younger. ⁓ when I grew up in more of a charismatic ⁓ you know, atmosphere, you know, we kind of believed in certain things like speaking in in tongues, which is essentially like a like a holy or angelic language, ⁓ depending on who you're asking a definition to. ⁓ and I wasn't able to do these things, right? You know, whether you think it being a legitimate thing or or something manufactured. And I thought that God didn't love me because I couldn't do these things, right? 'Cause I would go up every Sunday to some kind of a a call, like an altar call where you're where you're asking for people to pray over you and to receive these gifts. And every time I would leave, I would just speak in normal Isaiah speak and I was like, ⁓ I guess God doesn't want to give me a gift, or I guess God doesn't love me because I can't do these things. But one of the things that God has showed me in my life as I I continue to follow him is that we all have different gifts, right? You know, and and those gifts aren't necessarily for you all the time, right? And and I had to learn through faith that I have the spirit of God that's in me, even if it doesn't physically look like something spectacular or miraculous, right? You know, you can have a gift of ⁓ charity or or knowledge or wisdom or Or, you know, love, you know, just all these different things that are highlighted in the New Testament that are are supernatural. Like I have I have supernatural patience and supernatural ⁓ understanding for certain concepts that ⁓ you know yeah yeah and and and those are gifts that the others that others don't have, but then they have gifts that I don't have, right? So we're we're we're parts of a body, you know. Paul talks about phil: Yes, he does. Isaiah: someone being a thumb and someone being a hand and someone being a foot. ⁓ and we have to be okay with that position, right? And and just understanding that we do have the spirit of God in us. Maddie, I believe that the Holy Spirit resides in you because you've done those three things, right? You've humbled yourself to know that you need Jesus, ⁓ or you know, God, right? You've you've turned away from a lot of the things that ⁓ you were doing before, even if it was just in your heart, right? Even if it wasn't like a physical thing, you've turned away, right? And you believe in Jesus, right? So you have to know in confidence that you have received the Holy Spirit. Right. And that's encouraging, right? Because you have a supernatural as assistance in everything that you do to give you understanding and to give you these things that really will make you like a like a new creation, right? ⁓ so what I I do wanna do is I wanna go into this ⁓ between two gen segment 'cause I'm gonna try and not necessarily condense it, but there are some topics that I wanna kinda go over. In this segment, we have a generational discussion between the older generations being Boomers, Gen X, and then Maddie and I represent the ⁓ millennial Gen Z, ⁓ maybe even Gen Alpha a little bit. Between the question, Phil, how did your generation understand the Trinity? Right. And this is a very open ended question. We can try and, you know, consolidate ideas based off what we already talked about, but you know, what were some things that were understood? phil: Yeah, I think, again, was a very, I'm speaking personally, ⁓ I think, born in 1959, ⁓ a lot of my early influences about the Trinity were shaped by my church and the family, the leaders in that church. ⁓ And I think one of the influencers with part of that ⁓ was something, Isaiah, that you and I were talking about before as far as the one of the excesses that was happening at the time, and my dad, I remember him talking about that too, were ⁓ traveling evangelists that were not necessarily ⁓ godly people. They were there for ⁓ the collection plate. They were there for, you know, just gaining money from, ⁓ know, having an audience of people in front of them. So from that culture, my dad experienced that. I was born into that, at the tail end of that. And so I think the church leadership where I attended was highly ⁓ resistant to outside influence. And then we became kind of inbred and kind of bunker mentality when it came to outside influences. So we kind of formed our understanding ⁓ inside those four walls about who the Trinity was and what that was all about. And to my understanding, nothing was wrong about what they taught about God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ⁓ But some of it may be influenced and was influenced by that ⁓ notion that all authority comes from this body right here inside the four walls. We get to determine who God is or how he relates to people and the Holy Spirit as well. And from my early experiences, the Holy Spirit was definitely minimized. You know, that was definitely on the back burner. The Holy Spirit was somebody that was barely a part of the Godhead, barely a part of the Trinity, ⁓ and not talked about as much because of that. You know, because it was definitely more of a left for the person to find out and experience. ⁓ So that's kind of where I started my understanding with the Trinity that God the Father, a fairly good understanding. Jesus definitely was portrayed, I thought, fairly well, but the Holy Spirit definitely was off in the distance, left in the dust. And some of that was through lack of understanding as far as there wasn't a whole lot of experience within our four walls as far as what the ministry of the Holy Spirit was. Isaiah: Do you feel like that was Do you feel like that was specific to your time or is that something specific to your denomination? phil: I think, and this is just me speaking, I think when the Holy Spirit enters into the discussion, it becomes a dangerous topic to talk about because it's divisive. ⁓ Many things that happen because of that, you know, you talked about the Pentecostal movement, you know. ⁓ misunderstandings, know, over overemphasis on the gifts of the spirit. ⁓ So I think. I think that's probably why our church leadership decided to leave that off to the side and just leave it up to the person to figure out who the Holy Spirit was. That was my understanding. That was my understanding. Isaiah: No, I appreciate that. And and again, you know, everyone's gonna have a different angle on that. I'm you know, we don't want to hate mail. We just, you know, want people to understand where what we're asking. But Maddie, when I ask you this question, I want you not to answer it as a Catholic, 'cause we re we already kinda touched that. But what I want you to answer that as someone just kinda living in society, like what as a Gen Z you know, youth, like phil: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Isaiah: when you heard these terms maybe on social media or just with friends that maybe went to church or maybe didn't, what were some things that were just collectively understood? Maddie: When you say terms, can you clarify what terms? Isaiah: Sure, yeah, just the idea of the Trinity, like God having three parts, like, you know, how was that kind of perceived within your you know, your timelines, you know, ⁓ lexicon, if you will? Maddie: Well, this is going to be this is going to be, I guess, an interesting answer and maybe one that doesn't reflect the full youth experience, but I will say nobody really talked about it. I didn't have ⁓ friends that were interested in the church even though that that's, you know, how I grew up. And in my time being a youth from, you know, I guess whenever I was born to now, I have not really come across anybody my age that is talking about this and so it's very difficult to say because I just don't have I don't have the experience to go off of. I have no idea what people my age really think about this. All I can assume is then going back to, you know, the Catholic upbringing in school and and maybe assume that most would be in a similar position that I was in where it was hard to fully grasp. So maybe I just would generalize and say I'm I'm assuming a lot of them would probably have a lack of understanding of what the Trinity is because it's very hard to grasp. Isaiah: That yeah, I mean, and again, I think a lot of it's dependent on the kind of people you hung out with, right? The life experiences that you had, whether someone was a believer or maybe they were just dabbling with trying to find the answers to themselves, right? Because, you know, with my upbringing, you know, I I obviously had a specific lens that I see things, but then when I was, you know, younger and kind of getting into different lifestyles, whether it was, you know, drug or alcohol abuse and, you know, going into things of the New Age, you know, or just kind of more esoteric ⁓ understanding of of spirituality. ⁓ you know, there was a very specific thing that was being taught when I was a a younger millennial. And you see a lot of, you know, the New Age influence in Christianity where they're almost ⁓ separating the the supernatural aspect of who God is into into certain parts, right? You have, you know, the idea that the universe is God, right? That's a huge thing that was was kind of taught when I was younger. ⁓ you know, like, ⁓ like it just send your intentions into the universe and then things will come back to you, right? ⁓ so yeah, exactly. You know, so like the you know, the whole entire idea of the universe being God Maddie: But Manifesting. Isaiah: de you know dehumanizes the Trinity, right? It separates, you know, how important that God is. I think it was in the book of Amos, you know. I I I want to say Amos, I could be wrong, but there's this interesting minor prophet book where he says, ⁓ you know, you know, you know, to not worship the creation but the creator, right? And I remember reading that, you know, many years ago when I was still battling with a lot of these new age concepts. And I never really thought of it like that. Okay, like I'm giving so much power to the universe, but who created the universe? Right? I'm basically, you know, going to the middleman and thinking that that's important, right? ⁓ so we have the universe being the re representation of God in the New Age movement. And then you have ⁓ you know, when we look at Jesus, we have what's called the Christ consciousness, right? Where there's this collective consciousness of ⁓ you know, you know, you know, Jesus was an allegory. And and what we really want to do is ascend to this consciousness where we we all are following his directions that was kind of put in the Bible, but it was the same as Buddha or the same as all these different ⁓ prophets. You know, they were always called like ascended masters where there was these different people throughout the ages that had one goal and they were supposed to teach society ⁓ how to live their life. Right. So you had like, you know, people like Buddha and and Jesus and you know, kind of like just own little pantheon throughout history. Right. And so our goal was to just kind of use those people as interchangeable examples to live our lives. Right. ⁓ and then, you know, then you have like the idea of the Holy Spirit, ⁓ you know, and and that just kind of becomes, you know, like whether you want to say frequency or energies, you know, different things that we would kind of go into and think like, well, know, there's there's a spiritual energy that we're trying to get, like a frequency or a tone. ⁓ and and these are things that, you know, I was exposed to, right? Whether it be due to the psychedelics or, you know, the the different kinds of people that I I kind of ran with. And a lot of these things, you know, we're seen in some Christian circles. You know, you have some churches that would talk about the same thing. you know, so the whole entire idea of ⁓ the Trinities is very important because Everyone's trying to deconstruct it in some way, right? They're trying to take away the importance and the unexplainable nature to it. And they want to assign ⁓ you know a a definable nature or like a hidden knowledge or a secret truth. You know, you have these Gnostic principles that kind of come through. ⁓ and and the reality of it is it's it's not definable, right? You know, the father isn't the universe, the son isn't consciousness. You know, the spirit is an energy of frequency. It's it's it's its own God, right? It's it's it's one one being, three persons. ⁓ and and that's like my perspective again, 'cause like I was in in in certain ⁓ you know, aspects of of the new age, you know, and and I got exposed to these things and it and they really challenged my faith because I didn't really know what to believe, because you know, their arguments were compelling, right? And I didn't have a definition to kind of base my my my oppositions to, you know. So again, these aren't necessarily like answers, but you know, they are they do kind of create very interesting questions and and maybe, you know, indirect definitions to the Trinity because you know, we we do have to wrestle with the idea that ⁓ we have a limited understanding on earth, right? We have a limited understanding within. Our ability to understand all things about God. We think of eternity or infinity, these words that might be used in in interchangeably depending on who you ask. And I don't know what that looks like. You know, I I don't, you know, so there's things about the nature of God that we want to conceptualize and we want to understand. ⁓ but I don't think they're meant for us to understand because they they diminish how powerful and how significant God is ⁓ to us. And also they take away the idea of faith. They they make this, you know, ⁓ manufactured religion where we have to ⁓ define everything and have an understanding for everything because we want to control it. Right. you know, Phil, do you have any ⁓ well Phil or Maddie, do have any questions on or comments on those last couple of things? phil: I liked your analogy, Isaiah. I really did. That was good. Maddie: I ⁓ I definitely would have something to add to that. I I feel like you know, believing without seeing. Kind of like the thing that we were all taught growing up when it came to Santa Claus, or at least most of us were taught that. ⁓ you know, you have to believe in Santa Claus. It doesn't matter that you can't see him. You just like had this idea that he was real. And I don't mean to compare God to that because obviously Santa Claus is a fantasy. But it's the same principle of, you know, belief without seeing, belief without fully understanding it. We didn't have to know why Santa Claus was able to fly in the air and how reindeers could fly and how he had this magical North Pole. Like we didn't know any of that, but we just believed in it and it was so easy because we were kids and we didn't have this ego where we needed to have all of the answers and fully understand. Then as we got older, you know, entering the preteens or, you know, young grade school years, you start talking to other people and you start reflecting and you're like, hmm, how could that really be true? And eventually the belief of Santa Claus dies because you're met with reality, but God is so beyond that. And we're never going to be able to come to that understanding. I think maybe that is why it's easy to fall away, because it's very difficult to grasp the entire thing, but that is what makes the faith beautiful because without having that faith, there's no trust. And trust is where the relationship is built. So yeah, I mean an at least in a Catholic church, you know, they always talk about the mystery of faith. And I just like the phrase mystery of faith 'cause that's what it feels like. It's it's a little bit of a mystery, but that's kind of what makes it that's what makes it faithful. we have to put our trust in God without really fully understanding how all of this works or ⁓ maybe the full understanding of the Holy Trinity. You know, we can understand it to the best of our ability, but that's okay that we don't. Isaiah: Yeah, I have in like these final thoughts that, you know, the the Trinity isn't meant to shrink God down to our own understanding, right? It reminds us that God is greater than than our understanding, right? So exactly what you said, we wanna keep on pursuing this definition because it it kind of coincides with that story in our our last episode that I had you on with Adam and Eve in the Bible, where we you know, we fall this deception of trying to make ourselves into God, right? Make ourselves into God and and to make ourselves into God by aligning our understanding with God. Where we want to understand all the mysteries. We want to be able to have a an explanation to everything. So that if someone question us, we have the answer. But ⁓ you know, that's why sometimes well not even sometimes, that's why we're called to be a witness by our actions, right? by how we treat others and by how we ⁓ you know, represent who God is because most people, just like in the in the New Testament when Jesus was trying to tell them by allegory, they they rejected it, they didn't understand it. They understood in parts. You know, so when we have people in in in real life, they're they're also gonna do the same. They're either going to reject you, they're not gonna understand it, or they're gonna understand it in parts. But the things that they will understand is our actions. They will understand how ⁓ you know, how different someone can be in comparison to someone else. And that o kind of helps draw them to that understanding, right? Even if it is in part All right. Any final thoughts before I close it? ⁓ Okay. So I wanted to thank both of you. And again, this is episode ten. You know, this is something interesting. I've when I first started doing this podcast, my only goal was to get to ten episodes. Because I've I've been on podcasts before, ⁓ and I've always dreamt of having a podcast. ⁓ it's a kind of a weird dream, but I also just like talking. But it was always like this this this goal of mine where I was like, okay. Maddie: Yeah. Isaiah: If I get to ten episodes, I know that this wasn't just like a whim, right? I I always go off into these things where I start something and then I stop, right? You know, and that's something very you know, something that you'll see like throughout my life. It's like I just kinda get into things and then I stop them, I get into another thing and I stop them. But I told myself, okay, if I get to ten episodes, I know that it wasn't just ⁓ a thought or it wasn't just something that I wanted to do. So it It's a it's a it's a proud moment, but it's also like this understand that nine episodes ago, we're just now starting to figure it out. I have great co-hosts in Maddie and Phil. You know, we have a good direction with how we wanna kind of portray this information, you know, for the audience. We wanna rely on the scripture. You know, we wanna rely on the scripture to be the definition because our opinions are always gonna be faulty, right? You know, anything that we say here that is, you know, strictly by opinion, it's you know, you have to take it with a grain of salt. You know, it's not it's not meant to be taken, you know, verbatim. ⁓ but what you can trust is in the word that we say, ⁓ you know, through the Bible. And we also want to make sure that we are unique in our comparison of different times, because you know, one of the biggest things that I see in our reality in our time is people don't talk. To each other anymore, right? And we also don't exchange information with younger and older generations. There's these barriers that we've created. ⁓ so my mission through this podcast is to break down barriers and to have an intergenerational discussion with faith, even if we don't have the answers or even if we're just asking questions. So I do want to thank you guys for listening. ⁓ we do plan on coming out with another episode. ⁓ on a weekly basis and and sometimes I will drop a bonus episode. So just be on the lookout and I hope you guys enjoy your weekend and ⁓ have a good night. God bless. And cut. phil: Maddie, great piece at the end. That was relatable. Santa Claus. That was, that was, I'm like, okay, where's she going to go with this? ⁓ my, that was good. The building. Great. Maddie: Yeah. Isaiah: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was like, wait for it, wait for its it's building. Space is gonna drop. Maddie: I was a little bit nervous 'cause I didn't know if that would have with how Isaiah wanted to do things, but I was like, Well, you know. Isaiah: Mm-hmm. No, that's great. Yeah. And that that's ⁓ you know, I liked how you tied that in 'cause again, I yeah, the idea of Santa Claus is like the first ⁓ I heard it explained one time that ⁓ Santa Claus is the first conspiracy you ever you'll ever believe in. Right? 'Cause it's like you're told you're told a lie until you're old enough and then you're told the truth and you have to like understand that everything you believe is a lie, right? But it's like the first opportunity that most people have with the idea of faith 'cause it's invisible and then Maddie: Yeah. phil: Yeah, yeah. Isaiah: You get told that doesn't exist. phil: Yeah, yeah, that was awesome. Isaiah, that came out well too, dude. You just put a lot of time into that, you? Yeah, that was great. That was great. Isaiah: Did it. Okay. I did. I was I was stressed. I was sweating bullets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I hope it like did something. I don't know. Like I can never tell, but we'll find out. Yeah. Yeah, I I just mostly wanted to my biggest closing thoughts was I don't want to have the answers. You know, I want people to understand that we we don't have the answers. phil: That's not your deal. That's not your deal. Isaiah: The only thing that we could do is point to the Bible. And if they and if you know, I don't want to be this opinion based where it's like, okay, like you have to be evangelical or you'd be orthodox or Catholic or whatever. It's like I just wanna point to the Bible and I want to ask questions and see who benefits from it. Maddie: I think that's why it's so great. It's like such a such a great way to go about this 'cause you really don't see well, I don't see many people doing that. And because it is so denominationally charged and there's a lot of confusion about where do I go? What church am I supposed to be in? What's right, what's wrong, it's like you're taking all of that noise away and you're just you're speaking directly about like like the meat and potatoes maybe of the religion, which like, yeah, there's some little things that all these denominations don't agree on. and everybody can have their opinions on those, but I mean, like, we all believe in the same God and you're just bringing you're connecting people. Like I I just heard somebody else on a podcast, I think it was Bryce Crawford saying that like we need unison within all of these branches of Christianity. You're doing that. Like that's I think it's really important. Isaiah: Yeah, no, it's funny. I was I was walking the other day and this gentleman came up to me and he was wearing like this shirt that you know, it's like a religious shirt and I had my crucifix on and he's like he's like, ⁓ it's like you're a believer and I like, Yeah, yeah And he's like, Well, what denomination are you? I'm like, I'm a believer And then he was like, Well w well, wha what are you part of? And I'm like, I'm not part of anything, you know. And he he just couldn't understand it and then, you know, he was I think he was like Orthodox or something like that, but ⁓ I told him like, listen, when we go to heaven, there's not a line for Orthodox only and Catholics only and Pentecostals only. It's it's you know, h who followed Jesus, who loved Jesus, you know, who who believed who lived an example. You know, that's and he looked at me, he was like he's like, Yeah, that kind of makes sense. And and that's the thing, it's like it like there's nowhere in the Bible that talks about denominations, you know, so it's it's it's my phil: Hehehehehe No, no. Isaiah: Not my job, but it it it's my miss my objective is to just kinda tear down those barriers so people understand like yeah, we're here to learn about Jesus. Yeah. Cool. phil: that part is coming through. Maddie: You'll have phil: Yeah, that part's coming through, Isaiah. Isaiah: All right. I'll let you guys go. ⁓ thank you both. Yeah. phil: Matty, you're falling asleep on me. Poor thing. ⁓ Maddie: ⁓ no, no, I'm not falling asleep. Maybe it just looks like it because it's like dark down here. Isaiah: Yeah. No, I I appreciate you guys. And and and I I like the fact that I can lean on you guys a little bit more because before I was too protective of like how I wanted things to come across. ⁓ and Phil was just kind of the you know, sending me the alley oops sometimes. But ⁓ I I do wanna delegate things in the future where it's like, okay, like I have this topic or maybe there's a topic that Phil wants to do or Maddie wants to do. phil: ⁓ dude. Isaiah: And I want this to be very ⁓ round table, you know, where there isn't anyone that's in charge of it. It's just how can we bring people closer to Jesus and what are the most common barriers and questions? ⁓ and that's why I like this conversation of the Trinity, 'cause it's a very hard thing to talk about. It's not easy, you know. phil: Can I have a self correct there? Can I have a correct? You have a gift of speaking. Isaiah: Yeah. phil: In a way that's that's. It doesn't bring division, it doesn't bring. ⁓ Church into it and is in a greater sense where people are, you know you're forming sides. Well, this is obviously he's from this camp or you have a gift of that and that you're going to have to be the mouthpiece dude, sorry. You're going to have to be the mouthpiece. I can offer insight. You know, certain times what Maddie said tonight was awesome. I mean, that's what a great way to end it up, but you're you're definitely. You got the gift. Isaiah: Yeah, well we all play our role. So we'll we'll end it on that. Yeah, I know. I I must be broken, right? Yeah. Yeah. phil: Stinks that you can't speak in tongues though. Sorry about that, dude. ⁓ I love that. ⁓ you're great, man. Isaiah: All right. I'm gonna let you guys go. I'm gonna edit this episode. I wanna get it out tonight. That way I'm gonna do a bonus podcast tomorrow, so we'll see. phil: Alright kids. That's good, See you guys. Bye bye. Maddie: Right, sounds good. Have a good night. Isaiah: All right. See you guys. ⁓ You two.