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Dr. Douglas Peake and Zac Peake sit down to discuss some of the Christian origins of traditions we celebrate for Christmas and how the secular world is trying to steal them away.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
Doug: So, oftentimes we, as people,
we get an opinion, we do something,
but we don't have anything that
mitigates or limits our opinion.
Jesse: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome
to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a
podcast dedicated to helping you
learn and grow in your faith and
your critical thinking skills.
I am very blessed today.
Um, as the host of the Salty Pastor
Podcast, to have both Peakes on the
desk with me today, Zack Peake, and of
course the Salty Pastor himself, Dr.
Douglas Peake.
And I am Jesse Maher, your host, and
we just want to welcome you to our
podcast, but, um, we have been spending
some time, talking about Christmas.
Doug: Yes.
Yes.
And last, uh, Tuesday, you guys did a
great job of Luke chapter two chapter
two, reading the Christmas story and,
uh, talking about, uh, the birth and
then about the shepherds in their fields.
And I was really, uh, interested in
your discussion on how they were afraid,
like how angels would appear and what
does it mean to have a fear of God?
Angels are scary.
Zach: They're not the guys in bathrobes
that we usually.
Doug: Yeah.
They're not nine-year-olds bathrooms.
Yeah.
Who stumble over their lines.
Uh, they're pretty scary.
Yes, they are.
They're massive.
But, uh, what's really interesting.
What I thought is your discussion
about the fear of the Lord, and
that people have kind of left that.
And that got me thinking today
on how, what you guys studied on
Tuesday really applies to our world.
And that is, is that, you know, I
talk a lot about postmodernism and
what postmodernism basically says
is that there is no absolute truth.
There's no objective truth.
And really that basically means that they
have lost any respect or fear of the Lord.
There's nothing objective outside
that holds them accountable
so they can just make up their
own reality, their own truth.
Have you seen that in your generation?
Jesse: I think so.
I mean, I'm slightly older than Zach,
but I mean, at least for me, it's
everybody wants to give their own.
It's like, we can just
do whatever we want.
Like the more and more the
culture evolves towards this,
whatever you believe is true.
If you don't believe there's anything
scary or you rely on the government or
immediate to tell you, what's scary.
I think that's where most of
our fear comes these days.
It's not like an innate
moral sensibility of like
we should be fearful of this wonderful,
amazing God that could smite us if
he wanted to, but loves us instead.
It's instead you should be afraid of
this thing this week and this thing
this week and saying this thing,
cause you might delete to this thing.
Like I think that's where a
lot of the fear comes from it.
My generation, as opposed to like kind of
a mortality slash, understanding of who
God is and what he's doing in our life.
Doug: Then you, you point out a perfect
example of what postmodernism produces.
And that is, if there is no
objective truth, then we don't
know what to be afraid of.
And if you don't know what to fear,
you end up fearing everything.
Jesse: What about you, Zach?
Are you seeing similar stuff?
Zach: I think that, um, I
won't limit just this specific
generation too much, I think.
Yes.
It's very prevalent in this one, but
I think that if we look back that,
you know, uh, a belief in an objective
reality, Uh, you know, human rights
and thinking about others, you know,
in selflessness is a very unique thing,
you know, throughout all history started
with Jesus really, and then only,
you know, countries that were heavily
influenced by him and his followers
have ever had any semblance of that.
So I don't think its
isolated to this generation.
I think what's unique about this
generation is that our country
and our culture is slowly been
heading more and more this way.
What it really is, is an arrogance.
It's an arrogance that if you
don't believe there's an objective
reality and you believe you
can think whatever you want.
That's incredibly arrogant, and all
arrogance is rooted in insecurity.
And that's why we see so much fear.
Is because arrogance and
insecurity go hand in hand.
Okay.
Jesse: Well, and the ability for
that fear to be propagated is so
much easier these days, despite
what generation you are, right?
The internet thing of that.
Zach: That is very unique.
Uh, you know, in some
ways we'll, it's funny.
Cause sometimes people will admit
things about, you know, my generation
and I think that I'm like, well, that's
happened a lot of times before, so it's
not just our gender still a problem.
It's not just our generation.
That's true.
But I do think that the internet
and especially things like
Twitter, just increase the
velocity of change so quickly.
Like I w I'd kind of wonder like in the
ancient world, you know, or even just
a thousand years ago, like if you were
scared of, you know, if there was a fear,
even whether it was founded or unfounded,
whether it was of the Lord or of something
else, like an entire village or society
could be afraid of something of the
same thing for, you know, generations.
And now there's a new thing
every week on twitter.
And the trending thing.
And like, I, I enjoy Twitter sometimes,
and I don't think that Twitter on
its own is this evil thing, but
I think it definitely increases
the velocity of what happens.
There's a new thing every
week to be worried about.
Jesse: And the rate at
which it can be propagated.
So let's say, you know, uh, uh, culture is
afraid of the God in the volcano, right?
Like we, we don't want to
make the volcano angry.
Right.
It could take a long time for that fear
to like spread out just because the way
information traveled back then was slower.
It's like, yeah, look, I might wander
to another village and be like,
Hey, back in my own village, we have
this God that rests in the mountain.
And sometimes he gets
angry and blows things up.
Right.
Like, yeah, that would be a thing, but
it would be a slower process of spreading
out, especially across the world.
Like most of it would die or.
Argued against before then, but
now it's like, you can type in
three seconds, 48 characters and
send it out into the entire world.
And it may get picked up by
some random media person.
And then suddenly it's the
news of the day, right?
Yeah.
Zach: Well, it was viral.
It just expands the entire world
almost instantaneously with it.
Doug: I think those, those, uh, Those
modem, modalities require rapidity.
When you live, like you said
something earlier, uh, it's so
much easier for people to be afraid
today than before, which is odd.
When we live in such an affluent
and advanced society, we
should have less fear and safe.
We should have less things to be
afraid of, but what's really amazing is
that's because people don't know what
they believe or why they believe it.
And so with RA, with the
shallowness, It requires rapidity.
Uh, some people may not be familiar
with this, but, uh, here in Idaho,
river boating is a big deal, especially,
uh, through rapids and stuff.
And I don't mean whitewater rafting.
What I mean is river boating and
these boats are made out of aluminum.
They're welded together and they
put jet thrust engines in them.
And so they can, uh, basically
cruise up rivers in water.
That's just 18 inches deep at
times, you know, because, but in
order to do that, the boat has to
travel at a high rate of speed.
If the boat slows down, it'll
settle into the water and it can
settle down 20 inches into water.
But when it's cruising over the water,
it displaces maybe two inches of water.
Cause it's just, you know, zooming along.
So these guys, they get in these
things and then they just go
flying up these river rapids.
It's just really crazy what they do.
Well in the same way.
This stuff that's being propagated
requires rapidity in order to maintain
its shallowness, and then people
will end up believing anything.
Like just case in point this week, I
was reading articles about Christmas.
Here in Idaho, we have a bunch of local
web based type of media outlets that
run in tandem with the Idaho statesman.
And there they produce these things called
conversations and they all pick it up.
It's like kind of like a news story
released on the AP, but they'll
pick it up and they'll propagate it.
And I think this is one of the things
that bothers people about the news media.
And how and why people call it fake
news because this guy, he's Thomas Adam
from the university of Arkansas, and he
just wrote this little Christmas story.
Right.
And it's titled how Christmas became
an American holiday tradition with
the Santa Claus Gibson tree published
by the Idaho press on December 6th.
And it's really interesting because
in it, he says, Uh, the whole idea
of Christmas trees, uh, in your
house came to America through German
immigrants in the 18 hundreds.
And then he said the idea of putting
a candle on an evergreen was inspired
by the pagan tradition of celebrating
the winter solstice with bonfires on
December 21st, these bonfires on the
darkest day of the year were intended to
recall the sun and show her the way home.
The Christmas tree was
essentially a domesticated version
of these bonfires.
And the reference that they're
making was a pagan tradition
in Rome called Saturnalia.
And what he's saying is
patently, unequivocally, false.
And it's historically proven false.
And what happens is we have people
who write this stuff, people who
read this stuff and they become
more shallow in their belief because
it's built on a house of cards.
It's a falsehood.
Because all you have to do is take
five minutes in or not even that.
And just Google.
Well, where did Christmas trees come to?
You go to history.com.
You can go to history today.com
and everybody says the same thing.
And that is, is that the whole notion
of li lit candles on Christmas trees
was started in the 15 hundreds by
Martin Luther, the religious reformer.
And he was walking home,
one night, and he was seeing the glory
of the twinkling skies and he went
in and he says, you know, we need to
put candles on our tree and we want
to celebrate the birth of Christ.
You know, that it was, you know,
the shepherds all the night and
then the Wiseman followed the star.
And that's why most Christmas
trees have on the top of them.
What?
A giant star.
You know, and so, but what's interesting
is that what postmodernism does
and what a secularist try to do.
And these are people that I
think at their core, have a
conviction that absolute truth.
Eh, they're skeptical of it.
They reject it.
And, but the problem is they never
become skeptical of their own skepticism.
They never take any accountability
for what they produce and what
they produce is people who are
fearful of everything and anything.
And when people become
fearful, they become fascist.
You know, they want to impose, their
belief or conviction without any
scientific fact around their conviction
or in any type of historical fact around
their thing or any data fact around it.
But because they're convinced
this is their truth, they
want to impose it on you.
This, it started out with
religious types of things.
And now we're seeing this, uh,
scientifically the things that
people want to impose on our nation
in order to deal with a pandemic.
I mean, it's really fascinating.
It's, it's one thing to say.
You have the freedom to pursue any type of
prophylactic or therapeutic or whatever,
depending upon your healthcare needs.
But what's happening today is
this overwhelming desire to impose
therapeutics, impose prophylactics,
pro impro, impose all of these things
upon people against their will.
Which that, that only results
from a society that has become too
post-modern and its orientation.
Jesse: So, what you're saying is
you're really for what this guy
wrote is what I'm hearing and
your, oh, you heard right Zach.
So maybe I missed the plane, but
Doug: I just think when people
publish this ridiculous tripe, it just
hurts people more than we realize.
Jesse: Well, and I think we see
this more and more where there is
a sense of like distrust in the
media, but if it's written, we have.
What we were taught in school.
At least what I was taught was in order
for someone to publish something in
a newspaper and asked to be sourced
in, like it's supposed to be sourced
and like, fact checked, right.
Like, but that was what
we were told growing up.
So people who are not going well, maybe.
What we were told is not always true.
We'll just assume that, oh, well
it was written in the paper.
Therefore the main must have
done the research, so I don't
need to do the research.
Therefore it's probably accurate.
Yeah.
Doug: And it's not, I mean, like
another thing he says here that is
really interesting, as he says that
the notion of Santa Claus was created
and it first appeared on the front
page of the union army in 1862.
Uh, and well, it was, it was
published in Harper's weekly in it.
What it had is it had in 1862, an image
of Santa Claus visiting the union army.
Right.
And so he was saying
that's when it was created.
Well, I could, you could make an
argument that the image, you know, of.
A fat guy in a red suit and stuff, but
it's factual history that the whole
notion of Santa Claus, Saint Nick was
based on a fourth century monk known
as Saint Nicholas, who lived in Myrna,
which is on the coast of Western Turkey.
And he was a priest.
And what he would do is he found girls
that were from poor families, uh, that,
uh, were unable to pay a dowery or unable
to cause they had inverted it then.
And, and so what happened the whole
concept of doubt, where you can go on
that if you'd like to discuss a little
bit, but these girls couldn't get married
because they didn't have any dowery.
And so what he would do is he took money
that he got, and then he would go in
the middle of the night and he would
give them a dowry coin, you know, that
was enough for them to get married.
And so that was a really big deal.
And so it was a giving of gifts
and he would do it at this
certain time during the year.
And that's the whole notion.
That's why we call Santa Claus Saint
Nick, because he's based the legend
of sin on this actual character.
Right.
So I think, I think when, when people
don't know their history, then what
happens is you end up believing anything.
And then when you believe anything,
you become afraid of everything.
And I really, I really appreciate how you
guys talked about, you know, that these
things that happened were remarkable.
They created fear in people,
but not in a bad way.
You know, Zach talked about
how fear can be a good thing.
Zach: And I think it's important
to recognize that there's kind
of two different types of fear.
There's fears that are rational and
fears that are, you know, accurate.
I've always been a little
bit afraid of Heights.
Doug: I can't imagine why
Jesse: You guys are some
of the tallest people?
I know.
Why are you afraid of heights.
Zach: I don't think six
inches matters when you're looking over
a cliff, but maybe that's just me, but
yeah, like, you know, if you're, if
you're standing over 100 foot cliff
and you're a little bit nervous that.
Probably pretty rational.
That's pretty accurate.
That's not necessarily a bad fear.
That's a fear of founded on facts,
Jesse: You have a respect for gravity.
I have a respect for electricity.
Its not that I'm afraid of it.
I just have a healthy
understanding of what it can do.
Zach: But
what's really interesting about you
bringing up that healthy respect is I
remember when I was younger in Sunday
school and we talked about how in the
Old Testament we'd do Bible stories and
we'll talk about the fear of the Lord.
And that's the number one way
they tried to make a sense.
We were like as little kids.
Why are people scared of God?
It's like, well, they're not, it's,
it's a healthy respect and that's a
great way to put it is that's what
this fear is of angels in the Lord.
It's a healthy respect of knowing that
is very powerful that I am very small.
Jesse: Yes.
I have a very healthy respect for large
wild life.
Zach: But those are fears
that are based on reality.
But what we see now,
besides a little phone call.
Thanks.
Sorry.
Um, is fears that are based
on insecurity and untruth.
There are fears that are based on
lies, your fears that are based on
things that are purely emotional.
You know, emotions can help us in a
lot of ways, but if we're basically.
Things purely on emotions.
Just like if you're facing things
purely on science or anything
else you're going to go wrong.
Fears are purely emotional.
They're purely based on how people
are feeling or what they're scared of
in the moment and everything because
of our society and the postmodernism
and the arrogance, all of our
fears now are based on insecurity.
That's not founded on reality.
That's not founded on truth.
That's not a healthy respect for
something that is an emotional
response that people are giving into.
Doug: Yeah, well, and I think
that that's really important.
I read a book a long time ago called,
uh, uh, uh, it's called following the
called Follow Me, uh, experiencing
the loving leadership of Jesus and is
written by a pastor he's retired now.
Uh, oh quite a while ago,
his name was Jan Hettinga.
And kind of the Bothell kind
of the Puget sound area.
And he wrote this book and I read this
book and it was really, really fascinated
because fascinating to me, because
he said that in our society, we are
skeptical of any and all of authority.
We reject all authority, you
know, the rebel kind of attitude.
He said, but what that does is
that exacerbates fear in a person.
And he said, if you want to be a
secure person, How, how do you, and he
said, how do you overcome your fears?
Right?
He says, well, you have a greater fear.
That's how you do it.
And he said, when you fear, God, He said
that gives you the clarity, the focus, the
strength to overcome any and every fear.
And what it does is it gives us a, uh, it
gives us a limiting factor in our lives.
So oftentimes we, as people, we
get an opinion, we do something,
but we don't have anything that
mitigates or limits our opinion.
Right.
And that is the.
Uh, here's how this, the
logical syllogism works.
And that is, is that there
is a God, you're not him.
Number two, you are going to be held
accountable for your life and your
choices because you have free will.
Number three, this God came in the
form of Jesus to die on the cross,
to save you from your sins and to
redeem you and give you a new life.
Okay.
That's awesome.
I'll say so then some people
think, okay, well then let's
make everybody believe in Jesus.
Because it's so much better.
And you're like, wait, there's
a limiting principle there.
And that is, you're accountable for
your sins because you have free will.
Therefore we believe in the
doctrine of non-corrosion and
that is we'll make the case.
We'll plead the case.
We'll prosecute the case, but in the
end, everybody has to be given the
freedom to make their own choice.
You can't force a person to fall in love.
Right?
So what we have to do is we can
create opportunities to learn
and experience we can share.
We can proselytize.
We can evangelize.
But in the end it's
everyone's own choice, right?
So that's called a limiting principle.
Well, if, if you don't have a greater
fear and if you don't have an objective
reality or objective truth, then
some, even some of your lesser fears,
then you want to impose with no
limiting principle on everybody else.
Yeah.
And that's a problem.
Jesse: Yeah.
Cause then it just spirals out of
control spirals out of control.
Yeah.
Like you said, there's no end to it.
There's no like,
Doug: Well then communism
is a perfect example.
There's a story of a man who, uh,
there was, uh, a leader under Stalin.
Uh, it wasn't himself, but his daughter
did a piano concerto, like a piano thing.
And she came out and played the piano.
And so the people stood up and
started clapping and everybody
was afraid to stop clapping.
You know, and then it just
went on and on and on.
I mean, it was absurd when for
half an hour people were, and
then finally one person just
said like, this is so, so stupid.
So he stopped clapping.
They arrested him and sent him to a Gulag.
See, that's how ridiculous it gets.
After 45 minutes of clapping for
a little girl's piano recital.
That's a little, nutty.
Do you see that's what happens in
postmodernism and that's what's
happening in our society today is that
people want to get elected to office
for one reason, one reason only.
And that is, I want to impose my
vision and my values on everybody
else, as quickly as possible.
It's a power play it's power play.
It's a hundred percent powerful in a way
that's going to tear America apart because
America was not designed for that purpose.
America was designed for the
purpose of how do you get
people with all these different,
belief systems and values and stuff,
to get along and be at peace, solve
political conflict, peacefully
have peaceful transitions of power.
And, and you do that by limiting
the power of the people in
charge as much as possible.
Who you serve?
Jesse: They're supposed to
be balancing each other.
They balanced Akili with
the two party system.
It was supposed to be.
Checks and balances checks
in the system, right?
Doug: Yeah.
But now it's starting to
try to get around that.
And that's what I find fascinating.
Is it in the end, I don't
think that's going to be
healthy for anybody in America.
Jesse: Right.
I wonder as we, as we kind of talk
about these, this treating like people
that understand who God is and have
a healthier spectrum, as we talked
about, they have more confidence and
courage in other matters of their life.
They don't let the.
Fears that are being perpetuated,
these smaller fears or these unfounded
fears kind of rule their life.
We see this a lot with, I
mean, we all love movies.
We talk about them quite a bit.
You see this as a trope in a lot of
movies where it's like the main character
has some innate fear that they end
up overcoming to save the life of the
love interest or a child or whatever.
And it's like, you can kind
of take that same thing.
In your walk with God is once you
find something you care about more
than the thing you're afraid of,
you're willing to do whatever you
need to, to do it if up to that step.
Right?
And so it's like, if we treat God the way
that these main characters treat their
love, interests, children, whatever.
Then there's, it's not that we won't, you
know, still have some fear, you know, we
have that, but it gives us this courage.
And we see, we talked about this last
week on the podcast is the, Bible's
constantly filled with points in time
where God, or an angel or somebody
saying fear, not I am with you.
I go before you, you, you
know, I'm going to be with you.
And it's like, when you have that,
it's like, Still recognize that
you have fear of it, but it's not
going to rule your life instead.
You know, I know somebody
bigger, better, stronger than
anything else the world can do.
And he's going before
me to take care of it.
Doug: Yeah.
And I think that it has a lot
to do with the greatest fear of
all, which is the fear of death.
You know, and, uh, you know, as a pastor
over the last 34, 35 years, I've spent,
you know, the last few moments w uh, with
a lot of people who have passed away.
And I can tell ya, it
is unmistakably clear.
That people who know God who know
Christ, um, are so much more at peace
than people who don't, you know.
And I mean, it's, it's a market difference
between the two types of situations.
And I, cause I think
people are afraid of death.
They are afraid of being
wiped out of existence and.
You know, nativism is the
result of, of meaninglessness.
And so the fear of death is, you know,
w what brings our lives, meaning, and
now I don't want it to be meaningless.
And so we had this huge fear, and I think
that, that corrupts down into every single
area of your life, you know, your response
to the pandemic is directly proportional
to how afraid you are of death.
You know, because, and
what we're trying to do.
And I think some people are so strongly
opinionated about it because what we're
trying to do is a basic human drive.
And that is we're trying to impose control
over something we don't have control over.
You know, and that's the thing about
an a pneumatic virus and airborne virus
that's traveling around is, is that in
the end, there's really, I mean, you can
try to slow it down or you can do other
things, but, uh, blaming people and their
behaviors for, you know, that everybody's
going to get infected eventually is
like arguing that it's gravity fault.
Yeah, it's gravity is a constant, a virus
is going to get everyone eventually.
And there's really nothing we can do
about that other than slow it down.
Jesse: Well, I think this is a
great example of that exact thing.
When you were talking about where
people who know Jesus and how to have.
An interesting response to the pandemic
was when, when we first heard about
it, we encourage people to watch from
home, but we never closed our doors.
We still had them open if people
wanted to be in the building.
And what was interesting was some of the
oldest, most at risk people were coming in
to the church to be at church on a Sunday.
And we're like, you're the
most like in danger in there.
You know, I survived a war.
If this kills me, it kills me, but
it's not going to stop me from spending
time in church and with God and
doing what I'm going to do with God.
Yeah.
And so it's like, that was like
the most fascinating thing.
It's like the people most at
risk, we're the ones that are
like, I'm going to church.
And, If you guys have the
doors open, I'm showing up.
And it was just like fascinating because
you're the ones we're hiding for.
And it was like, they're like, whatever
happens, happens.
Doug: Yeah.
They, they were well, and it's interesting
because they took it seriously.
They knew the dangers, they knew the risk.
It wasn't like they were being ignorant,
you know, or Pollyannish about it.
They knew all that,
but their faith, right.
Was more powerful than their fear.
And so, you know, I I'm, and I'm not
trying to say that people who are taking
extensive measures, you know, to deal
with this stuff are acting out of fear.
I'm not saying that at all.
I, I, you know, I fully support
people who are getting vaccinated.
I think, especially if you're in
a high risk population, I think
it's, um, you know, I've said
this on the Salty Pastor before.
I think it's a medical modern day
miracle that it's even available.
I think it's awesome.
And, but what I do think is that
fear comes in when our choice
has to be everyone else's choice.
You see?
And I've seen that because I've
seen some people who are saying,
I'm never going to get vaccinated.
And stuff.
I said, well, that's great for you.
And they say, and everybody else
who does is, you know, something.
Yeah.
Okay.
You just went from rational
to irrational in the blink of
an eye and then somebody else.
And I just read an article today.
This poor woman lost her husband.
You know, he was fully vaccinated and
everything, and it was a breakthrough
case, but he had a lot of comorbidities.
He had all of these health issues, you
know, heart disease problems and heart
attacks and all this kind of stuff.
And she said, the only reason
my husband is dead is because
people won't get vaccinated.
I'm just like, yeah, I'm sorry.
You lost your husband, but
that's totally irrational.
That's totally irrational.
Um, and so I think that's the difficulty
is that you see, we go from rational
to irrational in the blink of an eye.
How is it that human Americans have become
so shallow and so judgmental because
they've lost their respect for God.
That there's an objective
truth outside of ourselves
that holds us accountable.
And because it holds us accountable,
then that means every thought,
every action we have to think
about, you know what I'm saying?
We have to think about it.
There's a limiting principle there.
And the limiting principle is,
there's a God, I'm not him,
I'm not, God.
I, I cannot make choices
for everybody else.
And I like the way you said it
earlier in that is, is that,
you know, it's just, it's just
really arrogant to live that way.
And yet we've become so opinionated and
so want to impose our opinion on everybody
else that we're becoming a more arrogant
and shallow society because of it.
Zach: Yeah.
Well, I mean, I don't think it's
any surprise when you believe that
there is a God that has created
you and he has overall things and
you know him, it's a little bit
hard to get too full of yourself.
Yeah.
You know, it's a little bit
hard to get too full of yourself
when you read about Jesus.
Oh, yeah well, these a lot better
than being a lot of different things.
So I should probably take a back seat,
you know, but if you don't have that
and you know, as we talked about with
postmodernism, it's all about your reality
and you know, what's the number one thing
about post-modern, it's all about you.
It's all about.
Doug: me.
Yeah.
Zach: Uh, how could arrogance
not arise from that?
Yeah.
And again, arrogance partners with
insecurity because it's not built on
anything real, you know, everyone who
builds, you know, the reason why this
guy wrote an article, you know, attacking
Christmas tradition and trying to make it
sound like it's not some actual, you know,
thing that was founded on grace and love
and gift giving is because he's insecure.
Yeah.
And you know, one of we, we talked about
fears and what the great human fear is.
I think in most cases for people
whose greatest fear is not God, it's
their greatest respect is not for
God and his creation and his reality.
It usually becomes being left
behind, being part of the crowd.
And I think that's why we see things
that move so fast and they get so
shallow is because everybody just
doesn't want to be the law or the
first person to stop clapping.
They don't care if there's
nothing objective about.
There's not a single thing objective.
It's purely, I don't want to be the first
person to stop, or I don't want to be the
person left behind, or I, you know, I want
to be in this group and not that group.
And I don't know what it takes, but
I'm just going to kind of hang out
here and that's not built on anything
real that's built on insecurity.
And so those partners with arrogance and
that's the, what is the world and our
culture is trying to highlight in people.
That's what it's trying to build
up more than anything else.
And the way to combat that,
is to have our fear and our respect,
you know, those ha pair those together.
When thinking about God, respecting him,
knowing him, loving him and accepting
his love also recognizing he is the
Supreme authority of the entire universe.
And we're accountable to him.
And pairing that with, you know, our
understanding of reality, of truth.
How can you be arrogant in that?
How can you be overly self-confident?
I look at so much of this discourse
on COVID and vaccines and, you know,
anything that happens that comes
up politically, you know, even non
COVID things, but just like certain
rights, whether it be abortion or
taxes or whatever it may be, and just
seeing people speak so incredibly,
just engulfed with their own opinion.
It's incredible to me because I
look at it and I'm like, well,
I can see how I get there.
I can see I get there.
And I just, I feel like I'm in this
space because of my relationship
with Christ of being able to look at
somebody and be like, yeah, they think
this, and I can see how they think
this, and this is their experience.
And let's work together
to make something better.
You know, because I know that I
am not the center of the universe.
Right.
But if you think you're the center
of the universe, it becomes, why is
that person not agreeing with me?
Well their dumb.
Oh, you know, and then they use because
of the deconstructionism that's compare,
that's paired with the postmodernism.
All it takes is one little
technicality, any little thing
you can bring somebody down for.
Oh, them they're not a reporter.
Throw them out.
So they're out.
They're not academic enough.
That's fine.
Oh, they use this statement wrong.
Boom.
And then.
Every single opinion.
You're the only thing that's left.
And then you don't have any
joy because you're isolated.
Doug: You have no joy.
So,
Jesse: well, I've really enjoyed
having both of you on the desk today.
It's been a great conversation.
Zach's going to um, kind of
wrap up this portion that we've
been talking about this week.
Um, on Sunday as he shares a message.
And ultimately we just want you guys
to be having discussions like this
with your friends and your family,
um, really understanding what you
believe and why you believe it is
the real point of this podcast.
We want to encourage you to critically
think through your beliefs and
understand why you believe them.
Don't ride your parents theology.
Don't just do it because you know,
your spouse or whatever does it.
It needs to be your belief system.
Otherwise it's not your belief system.
It's just affect, simile of one.
So please have discussions because
that's going to be only grow you
and further your understanding of
what you believe in why you do.
So thank you guys so much for joining us.
We hope you join us on Sunday
here in beautiful Boise, Idaho
at Foothills Christian Church.
Doug: Blessings.