The Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19

Dr. Gurtner and Tyler discuss the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 and his willingness to pay the cost of following Christ. They look at the same story in the other Gospels.

Creators & Guests

Host

Dan Gurtner

Professor of New Testament Studies

Host

Tyler Sanders

Director of Communications

Producer

Courtney Robenolt

Digital Media Specialist

What is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels?

Dr. Dan Gurtner takes on challenging passages and common misconceptions in the Gospels.

Tyler Sanders 0:04
This is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels with Dr. Dan Gurtner. I'm Tyler Sanders, and today we're reading The Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19. Before we get into the details, let's take a moment to look at the big picture. Dr. Gurtner will you tell us, why is it important to address our misconceptions, like the misconceptions we bring to the text? And how do we best do that?

Dan Gurtner 0:29
Yeah, that's a great question. It's sort of like any kind of relationship in that, we want to be able to understand the text that we're kind of familiar with, especially for those of us who've been Christians a while. We think we know it really well, and so we might be very familiar with the stories, and so we kind of want to move so quickly to application, and we think we know what it says, that we sort of tune out parts of it. We do this... I will sometimes do this with my wife. I've known her for more than 20 years now, and I think I know what she's going to say. And so there'll be points whenever she'll say something, and I'll kind of tune her out, because in the back of my mind, I'm thinking I know, I know what she's going to say, so I really don't have to listen. Now, I wouldn't actually say that. But that's kind of what's happening. And we kind of do that with the Bible, too. We think we know what it's going to say, and so we kind of tune out. Because it's a familiar story. So what we really...what I'm trying to encourage us to do is just slow down and pay attention, and really see what it says and what the author is trying to say to the readers first and foremost. And we might find that there's a lot more there than we first realized. So that's really what we're trying to do, is to just really be good listeners, to understand the other, like you try to do in a good conversation with somebody. To just really understand what somebody else is trying to say, before you try to sort of internalize what they're saying. Just listen a little bit first, that's all.

Tyler Sanders 2:16
Well, what's interesting about some of the passages we've talked about so far, and I think this one too, is like some of them are very familiar, and I think we do like you said, we just kind of read past it and we miss some of the interesting details in it. And I think some of them, maybe have really challenging bits and pieces of like, really unexpected things. And what I find I do when I come across those is almost like rationalize it, or kind of try to like coordinate off so I don't have to deal with it and I miss something important. And there's a couple interesting things like that in this passage. I think today, so do you want to get into the text?

Dan Gurtner 3:01
Sure. And sort of to your point, we kind of domesticate it. We sort of want it to be in our own box, rather than try to let it be in the worldview of, and in the context in which it is written. So you know, we might not have people possessed by demons coming out of tombs and keeping us from going into our work every day. But there were some people who did. So let's just try to understand what was going on there first, and then sort of see how that might relate to us today. So that makes us sort of walk in somebody else's shoes a little bit first. That takes a little bit of effort on our part. Another thing I'd like to point out before we jump into this, is the podcast conversations that we've had so far, we really haven't had to go outside the text itself. We've really just made observations of just what's there. Like, the time we spent last time on the Raising of Lazarus. We were on the highway, and we looked at those forks in the road, and we just saw what was there and tried to make sense of what was there. So you don't need a PhD. You just need a good set of reading glasses and a little bit of patience to see what's there.

Tyler Sanders 4:17
Yeah, yeah. Which I think is another awesome part of this discussion we're having and I hope it's an encouraging part of it too, that just putting time into this, there's a lot you can draw out of the Bible. You don't have to have an enormous library of commentaries and resources. But really, there's so much good just in the text. We just need to kind of give it the time to percolate a little bit.

Dan Gurtner 4:43
Sure. In fact, too, and then we'll get to the text. To your point, I'm having students write in one of the classes I'm teaching right now for Gateway, having them articulate; what is the gospel. Just from Biblical text, what is the gospel? And I don't require them to use secondary sources. And they're kind of struggling with that. Because they're used to go to commentaries. And I'm thinking, next time I teach this course, I'm actually going to require them not to use secondary sources. I just want them to really search the Scriptures because everything they need to know is right there. We're just kind of used to go to all of these helps, when really everything we need to know is right there. So let's just talk about getting some skills, and that's kind of what we're trying to do in this podcast; get some skills to find out for ourselves what's there. So where are we headed? We're headed to the story of the rich young ruler.

Tyler Sanders 5:38
Rich Young Ruler. So it does show up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I think we're going to focus on Matthew this time.

Dan Gurtner 5:44
Sure, so we're in Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16. And I'll read 16 through 22. And then we'll look a little bit afterwards because after verse 22, Jesus is going to give a little bit of commentary on what just happened. And that's really helpful when Jesus himself explains the scene. Beginning of verse 16, and I'm reading from the ESV, "And behold, a man came up to him, saying, 'Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?' And he said to him, 'Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.' And he said to him, 'Which ones?' and Jesus said, 'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' The young man said to him, 'All these I've kept, what do I still lack?' Jesus said to him, 'If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me.' When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."

Dan Gurtner 7:29
Now, in this story, Matthew doesn't tell us anything else about this man. So he doesn't show up again. We don't know what happened. But we're told everything that we need to know as readers of what occurred. We don't know. So he doesn't skip away and sell everything, and we don't see him come back and said, okay, everything's done, let's go. So we presume, by his going away sorrowful, and when Matthew says, "For he had great possessions", that he wasn't willing to do it. So what is it that kept him?

Tyler Sanders 8:12
The cost was too high.

Dan Gurtner 8:13
Yeah, the cost was just too high. So a couple things that we notice, at the beginning, beginning in verse 16, the man says to [Jesus], "What good deed must I do to have eternal life?" His presupposition is, I have to do something to get eternal life. What do I gotta do? And Jesus' response isn't first do this and do that. His first response is, why are you talking to me about good stuff? There's only one who is good. So what's his point? Why is he dwelling on this 'good' idea?

Tyler Sanders 8:57
Yeah, it's a bit of a confounding answer to the guy's question.

Dan Gurtner 9:01
It is, but it's key to the whole thing. Jesus, and we saw this sort of before in some of the discussions we've had, he says, "There is only one who is good." And who is Jesus talking about?

Tyler Sanders 9:14
God.

Dan Gurtner 9:15
Right. So when Jesus says, "Why do you ask me about what is good?" And then he says, Only God is good. What is he saying to the rich young man?

Tyler Sanders 9:28
Well, I think he's making a statement about who he is.

Dan Gurtner 9:31
Exactly!

Tyler Sanders 9:32
Jesus is he saying who he [himself] is, right?

Dan Gurtner 9:33
Right. Yep. He's saying; you're asking me, why are you asking me about what is good? Only God is good. Do you believe that I'm God? (That's what he's throwing out there). And we're going to see what you really believe about me by how you respond to what I'm about to ask you to do.

Tyler Sanders 9:57
Yeah.

Dan Gurtner 9:58
And so [Jesus] says, Okay, you want to enter life, keep the commands. And so he throws in these softball ones; don't murder, don't commit adultery. And [the rich young ruler] says, Yep, I'm good with those. Those are the easy ones. And then [Jesus] says, "If you would be perfect," Now, he's not talking about moral perfection. If you really want to acquire what it is that you're looking for, if you want to achieve this thing that you're looking for, this eternal life, here's all you got to do; Go sell what you possess-and of course, Jesus knows who this guy is, we don't know anything except that...well we don't know anything about him until the very end-give to the poor, you'll have treasures in heaven, and then come follow me. So that's all he has to do. And then as you said, that's just too much. He won't do it. So what's the point of the passage, then? What do you think? What's Matthew saying to his original readers?

Tyler Sanders 11:13
Well, you know, we talked previously about the importance of following in Matthew, that that's kind of a theme that comes up a lot. And so I think there's definitely a part of this, that saying there is a cost to following Jesus. We see that kind of repeated a few different spots in Matthew, and you know, other places in the Bible, that there is a high cost here. So I mean, I think that's an important part of it. But I kind of think there's also a bit of a split that Jesus is kind of bringing up earlier in this, of like, it's not based on your works, it's about following me. Like, there's kind of a difference here. Because his answer is like, you're asking about goodness, but there's only one who was good, but it almost seems like the second part of his statement is like...well he says 'but'-I actually think I'm reading NASB that says-'but if you wish to enter the kingdom', it's almost contrary in a way. Like you're talking about goodness, but you're talking about eternal life, and he's says the eternal life is through following me. That's how you get redemption and stuff.

Dan Gurtner 12:23
Yep. Absolutely. So this is going to be costly. You need to be ready, to have it cost you absolutely everything you have, to follow him. So part of the message to the early church, think of yourself, you're a first century Christian, and maybe starting to undergo a little bit of persecution, and you're wanting to follow Jesus, and you're thinking about counting the cost. Am I going to follow this guy? And well, you realize that you live in a predominantly Roman territory, and in some places it's legal to be a Christian, someplaces it's not legal to be a Christian, you realize you could lose everything. Is that something you're willing to do? And this story, draws a line in the sand and says, count the cost now. Make sure you're ready. And it does the same thing for us. I mean, I talked to somebody recently, about Lordship. You speak about salvation. You can say the gospel message clearly, you know that Jesus died for your sins. But the way you're living your life, you're not ready, if he walked up to you today and said, leave 'x' and come follow me. I'm not sure that you would leave 'x'.

Dan Gurtner 13:50
So what would I...what would cause me...so this is sort of how we get to some application, What would cause me to hesitate? Or to be sorrowful, if he says, Leave it and follow me? That's, I think, the real challenge of this. So let's look at Jesus' commentary a little bit of this. Because part of the worldview that I think the disciples are wrestling with is the assumption that a rich person is blessed by God.

Tyler Sanders 14:27
Oh, sure.

Dan Gurtner 14:27
By definition. So Jesus says the disciples, "Truly I say to you, Only with difficulty, will a rich person enter the kingdom of habit. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." Now, you may have heard sermons and various things that there's a gate in Jerusalem called 'the eye of a needle' and for a camel to go through it, you have to take all the stuff off the camel and then he can squeeze through. That's hogwash. There's no such thing. And even if there were, that completely overturns the meaning of this whole illustration. He is talking about a literal, large, smelly, hairy animal squeezing through a tiny, little hole. And if you're thinking to yourself, 'that doesn't make sense, that's ridiculous,' then you're getting the point. That doesn't work.

Tyler Sanders 15:33
That's the point of the image.

Dan Gurtner 15:33
That's exactly the point of the image. And then verse 25, so we don't miss it, "When the disciples heard this," they're thinking what we're thinking, "they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be saved?'" If these rich people who had the blessing of God in their bank account have a hard time...? "Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" In other words, of course, you can't get this camel through. Of course this is hard-there will be rich people in the kingdom of heaven. And it's harder for them, because of how much they have to give up. But it's not impossible. And we could say is just as difficult, well maybe not just as difficult, but it's difficult for the rest of us who maybe wouldn't consider ourselves quite so wealthy.

Tyler Sanders 16:25
Yeah, it's still only possible through God.

Dan Gurtner 16:27
Right. It's still only possible through God. Right.

Tyler Sanders 16:31
Which I think also kind of hangs back to that first question, or the first answer that Jesus gives of like, there's kind of this, this separation happening, where he's like, you think that being good, keeping the commandments, is going to be how you obtain eternal life, that's how you're gonna do it. And really the answer is that that's impossible. It's only possible... eternal life is only possible through God. And that's the real answer there, right?

Dan Gurtner 17:00
That is the real answer. That is the real answer. And actually, you had mentioned that Mark and Luke also have the same account. And in Matthew, it says, "What must I do to have eternal life?" In Mark and Luke, it says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" So both of them are about acquiring eternal life, they're all three talking about this acquisition of eternal life. So they're looking for something, and Matthew alone, he says, "What good deed must I do?" So in all three, he's looking for 'doing' something to inherit eternal life. And Jesus is, first of all trying to get him to respond to who he is. To who Jesus is. And that's the crux of the whole thing. And whether the man recognizes who Jesus is or doesn't recognize who Jesus is, he doesn't respond accordingly.

Tyler Sanders 18:10
Yeah, actually, it's a little bit like some of the parables we see like the treasure in the field, and like the Pearl of Great Price, where people have the recognition of like, the thing I found is worth more, I can give up everything I have, because it's actually a better trade. There's a recognition of the value and in this story though it's a bit tragic, because he doesn't...he's not able to do that same math, you know?

Dan Gurtner 18:40
Yeah. And it is tragic. And I think it's deliberately tragic to make us feel how foolish it is of what he's giving up. And it also reminds us of Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount-well let me turn there, Matthew chapter six, verse 19. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." And here's the kicker, verse 21, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And so this story of the rich young man is really a great example of where his treasure is. And I think a warning to us about where our treasure needs to be. And why I put that question of what would cause me to-and I think we all need to constantly come back to- what would cause me to hesitate, if he says; Sell it all. Give to the poor. Follow me.

Tyler Sanders 19:54
Yeah, and it's a powerful story. It's funny, you mentioned earlier what you're asking you're students to do right now, or what you're thinking about doing next semester, to really define the gospel only using the text. And this is an interesting passage for that, because it's, in a way, it's not very explicit. But a lot of the framework is there. And it really is a very striking image of a response to the gospel.

Dan Gurtner 20:23
It is. It really is. It's, like I said, it's drawing a line in the sand and saying, you have to make a choice. And I think for all of us, at some point, we have to make a choice.

Tyler Sanders 20:37
Yeah, I think that's totally true. Okay, well, let's look at this narrative in Mark and Luke as well. Let's just check it out real quick, and see if there's anything kind of interesting in there that maybe a little different, or what's the same, what's kind of word for word the same? We can just compare. So we're going to be looking at Mark 10, and Luke 18, for these passages that match up with Matthew 19.

Dan Gurtner 21:06
Yeah, and it's clearly the same account. And sometimes it's hard to tell, but this is clearly the same account, and all three have it, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew says at the beginning, "Behold, a man came up to him saying," Luke says, "And a ruler asked him," and Mark just says, "And as they were setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him," So all three are describing the same event, they just use some of their own words. Some of it is verbatim identical. Some of it is somewhat distinct. And they're listing some of the commands. In Matthew, it says, "Jesus says, 'Why do you ask me about what is good?'" In Mark and Luke it is, "'Why do you call Me good? No one is good, except God alone.'" So they're making explicit, what is implicit in Matthew.

Dan Gurtner 22:04
Now, when we do this sort of thing, just as sort of a side note, we want to be cautious about trying to harmonize these. By that I mean, trying to reconstruct and squeeze these together and say, oh, there's a contradiction, there's a contradiction, there's a contradiction. You know, I think we may have mentioned this before but, we could all go to watch, maybe the lighting of the Olympic torch at the next Winter Olympics, and maybe five of us could be together with a couple of friends, and we could all describe the exact same scene and have very different accounts and be completely accurate. But our accounts would be very different. So we need to allow the authors a little bit of leeway, just like we would with any other author. And if we just squeezed them all together, we would really lose the richness of the narrative they're trying to tell. But there is merit in putting these side by side. And I think the merit is, it sort of helps us to see, if we just had Mark for example, and didn't compare it to Luke, we wouldn't see what's unique about Mark or what Mark says that's special about Mark. It reminds me of like when I was in college, when Shaquille O'Neal was a really big deal. I mean, he's still a big deal, because he's a big man. But when he was just starting to get out really, really big and basketball, very popular, I had no idea how really big he was until-because I'm six foot three-until some people in my college dorm had a life sized poster of him in our dormitory. And then I stood next to it. And when I stood next to him, like, okay, getting some comparison makes me realize that's a very large man. And so just the comparison helps me to see something. So putting Matthew, Mark, and Luke beside each other, helps us to see things in the others that otherwise we might miss. So that's the benefit of just putting these beside each other like this.

Tyler Sanders 24:07
Well, you know, it's interesting, in Mark, I'm just looking at it right now, Mark 10:21, Mark specifies out that Jesus looked at him and he loved him.

Dan Gurtner 24:17
Yes!

Tyler Sanders 24:18
And that's an interesting, you know, that's a small detail. And I think it's implicit in the other passages, but to have that just stated, it does help color that a little bit and it helps us know, this isn't like-this is a dumb term-like a Jesus Juke, you know, he's not dunking on this guy.

Dan Gurtner 24:36
Right. Yeah. He's not just setting him up to fail. That He really wants him to respond positively.

Tyler Sanders 24:45
Yeah, He wants him to follow.

Dan Gurtner 24:48
Yeah. And when the young man says, "All these I have kept.", In Mark and Luke, they both say that he's kept them from his youth. Matthew doesn't say that, but he does say, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?" I'm still missing something. What is it?

Tyler Sanders 25:15
That's so interesting that he knows that too, isn't it? Because it is driving him to come approach Jesus and talk to him about this.

Dan Gurtner 25:23
That's a good point, I hadn't noticed that before. But do you see how just comparing these helps us to see that?

Tyler Sanders 25:29
For sure.

Dan Gurtner 25:29
Good. Yeah. And we noticed, and I don't know what quite what to make of this, in the accounts they have the same commandments, except in Matthew and Mark they have 'Do not murder' first. In Luke, they have 'do not commit adultery' first.

Tyler Sanders 25:47
Yeah, that is interesting. That's an interesting switch up.

Dan Gurtner 25:51
And Matthew also has the addition after 'Honor your father and mother', it also has 'love your neighbor as yourself.' which isn't found in Mark and Luke.

Tyler Sanders 26:04
Well, you know, and I'm just looking at this right now. It's interesting. I think we talked a little bit about this on the narrative on The Stilling of the Storm; what all the people say. And you made the point that this probably took place over a fairly long amount of time. And so some of the dialogue has been condensed, you know, you're not going to list every single thing a person says, and so they're getting the main ideas and whatnot. But you know, you just talked about Matthew and verse 20, specifically the rich young man says, "What do I still lack?" And he doesn't ask that in Mark and Luke, but Jesus answers him with that word lack. He says, "one thing you still lack." So the idea is still absolutely there. It's implicit in Jesus's answer, what the rich young man is asking.

Dan Gurtner 27:01
Yeah, so in those accounts, Jesus supplies it for him, you're still lacking something. But in Matthew's account, he lets him speak for himself and say, I know I'm lacking something. Good. That's great. That's a great observation.

Tyler Sanders 27:12
It's very interesting. I think this is a [good idea] and I'll just go ahead and tell everyone, you actually printed a document for me to look at, but this does help a lot to be able to list passages like this on one document, right next to each other side by side, to make that comparison a little bit easier. Do you find this is a useful practice for yourself?

Dan Gurtner 27:32
Very useful. There are some books out that do that, but not really well, the way I like to. Basically all I've done is I've copied and pasted the text of the ESV into a Word document, from the three passages and put them side by side, and then just really tried to line up where I thought they where they really lined up, verbally, as closely as possible.

Tyler Sanders 27:57
Could you give us some advice? How can people integrate something like this into their...just their kind of personal Bible study? Is it useful to maybe get one of those books? Or is it better just to like, do it by hand? Get a notebook out or do it in Word and kind of copy and paste and put it in there?

Dan Gurtner 28:19
Yeah, the books are still, I think the jury's still out on getting the best book that's really useful. The best book that's out there is a bit clunky. I really think that...probably my students would say, Well, why reinvent the wheel if there are already some of these books out there? You really learn a lot about how the Gospels are put together by taking an extra five or 10 minutes and doing this yourself and jotting down a few notes, and putting this into a Word document. Let's just say if you're doing your devotions and you're going to spend some time in Mark chapter 10, drop this into a Word document and put the other ones side by side and just spend the whole week in Mark chapter ten. I mean, there's no hurry, unless you have to get through it for a certain reason.

Dan Gurtner 29:04
But what I like to do with these passages, and I know this is a little bit nerdy, but I'll put them into a Word document or even from that book that I mentioned, and then I have a color coding system that I use, where I have a rather intricate system that I devised, where one color means that they're all the same, and other color means it's only in Matthew and other colors only in Mark, you've noticed some are on the Mark and Luke but not in Matthew. And you can sort of start to notice some patterns and that's not so much a big deal as it is sort of...whenever you might start to think well, what is Matthew's theology or what are Mark's emphases and how do your textbooks get those things? Basically what they do is they go through the whole of the gospel of Mark and do what we're talking about. What is unique to Mark with respect to the other gospels? It's not found in the other gospels, they just do it for the whole thing. So it's a good enterprise and the more you can sort of get into the text and do it yourself and see how it's put together, the more you'll actually learn from it.

Dan Gurtner 30:18
So one of the exercises I had for my gospel of Mark class this semester, was I gave them the whole text of the Gospel of Mark in English, in a Word document with no paragraph breaks anywhere. And I had them outline it in two pages, and explain what the gospel of Mark is about. Because the paragraphs all tell us what the thought units are. But if you have to go through the text and decide what the thought units are yourself, and how it breaks down, that's a totally different way. Now, yeah, there are 1,000s of outlines of Mark out there, but when you have to derive one yourself, it makes you think about the text. And when you have to think through the text itself, you're doing something that just sitting down and reading something from another book isn't going to do for you.

Tyler Sanders 31:17
It's kind of engaging a different type of thinking almost.

Dan Gurtner 31:21
It really is, and you're thinking the Biblical thoughts, after the Biblical author, which is totally different from just jotting down notes of what somebody else says. So I'm a big fan of just working these things out by taking out your Bible and a notebook and jotting things down yourself.

Tyler Sanders 31:38
To me, it's one of those things that's like a principle of studying, almost, there's a real benefit. And it takes more time than probably a lot of us want to give to it, but it doesn't have to be something that takes over your whole life or your whole day or something like that. But there is kind of something to these kind of studying principles and it's making me think of when I was in college, I was a music minor. And I made it all the way to college and I really didn't know how to read music. And I was in a music theory class, and they gave me tools to help me read music, and you basically just look at a piece of music, and you have to break it down into really simple pieces, right? What key is this in? Do I know all the notes that are in that key? Okay, good. What is just the rhythm? I'm not going to try to connect notes yet, just the rhythm, get the rhythm down in my head, read the rhythm. Okay, I've got that. Now, I'm just going to figure out what the plotted notes are with no rhythm. And it's like a four step process. The fourth step being you kind of integrate these things.

Tyler Sanders 32:43
And it takes a little bit more time. But I developed the ability to sight read music over a semester or semester and a half by developing these principles to kind of break it down. And that's kind of what I feel like you can do with the text a little bit here. We need to address it and look at it, take our preconceptions away a little bit. Don't try to jump to application. And if we're in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, let's see if it shows up in any of the other books, and just compare it. And just look at it, What's it saying? What's the same? What's the different? How is it different? Why is it different? And just look at these things to kind of approach it from different angles. And there's something about doing that and engaging your brain in that way that makes you catch stuff. I think part of it is just slowing down. You're not trying to do everything at once.

Dan Gurtner 33:38
And you will learn more about the Gospels, from 15 or 20 minutes a day doing stuff like that, then from 15 or 20 minutes a day reading a book or a devotional or a commentary on the Gospels. Because you're getting into how the Gospels work and you're learning how the gospel authors are thinking and writing. It's beautiful stuff.

Tyler Sanders 34:01
That's fantastic.

Dan Gurtner 34:02
Good.

Tyler Sanders 34:02
Well, I think we're about ready to wrap it up. Do you have any final thoughts on this passage?

Dan Gurtner 34:08
Well, no, just again that what we've seen, like we've seen in all the passages that we've looked at is there are no bells, whistles, or fireworks. We don't have to pull any rabbit out of our head. All the questions that the author wants us to ask are here. And all the answers that the author wants us to find are here. So we just have to take the time to look for it. And we're gonna find them. So to your point, let's just dig in and get there. And also I guess, to part of the point that I see in students and I kind of see it in myself is we can sometimes become consumers of the Bible, we want to get to results. And we want to get some sort of a quick, almost like a Happy Meal kind of drive through. But there's times to just sit and let it ruminate and that's okay. There's just so many gems. I've been studying the Bible for a while and I still find gems and it's a beautiful thing. And taking time to just reflect on God's word can be a worshipful task. It might seem tedious and time consuming. But when you take the time and prayerfully and worshipfully reflect on God's word and find things that He's communicating to His church, that's a beautiful and worthwhile thing.

Tyler Sanders 35:26
That's fantastic. That's a good word. Dr. Gurtner, thank you so much for your time.

Dan Gurtner 35:30
My pleasure.