WEBVTT 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:36.320 The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Hey, everyone. 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:45.615 Welcome to the Cultivate podcast with The Grove Church. I'm Charlie Loften, and I'm the lead pastor there. And I'm here with Abigail Boone with 00:00:45.615 --> 00:00:47.615 a new hat. The best hat I've 00:00:47.615 --> 00:00:48.015 ever had. 00:00:48.095 --> 00:00:52.175 That hat. Oh, you know, a pretty talented artist somewhere 00:00:52.175 --> 00:00:54.255 in town. Young local artist 00:00:54.335 --> 00:00:54.575 Yeah. 00:00:54.575 --> 00:00:56.340 Just up and comer. 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:57.140 Yeah. Right? 00:00:57.140 --> 00:01:00.500 No one's heard of her. Also a great podcast producer. 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:00.980 Thank you. 00:01:00.980 --> 00:01:02.500 No. No. I'm talking about the person that made the hat. 00:01:02.500 --> 00:01:03.460 I'm not sure about you. Yeah. Not me. 00:01:03.460 --> 00:01:07.220 Not me. Hat. Like, it's just like Yeah. Multimedia artist 00:01:07.460 --> 00:01:07.620 Yeah. 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:09.685 And also podcast. I mean 00:01:09.845 --> 00:01:11.925 And hat designer and T shirt designer. 00:01:11.925 --> 00:01:13.125 Is this somebody you look up to? 00:01:13.285 --> 00:01:22.480 Definitely. Okay. First, do do you watch Saint Dennis? No. Absolutely hilarious and would totally fall into your category of humor shows. 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:40.115 Mhmm. But there's a trauma surgeon in it. It's like an ER setting. And multiple times throughout the show, the trauma surgeon is talking to people, and he's like, well, I respect myself the most, so I gotta listen to what I say. He says crap like that all the time. 00:01:40.355 --> 00:01:42.595 Yeah. You made some really cool merch. Thank you. 00:01:42.595 --> 00:01:44.195 It does feel like the kind success 00:01:44.195 --> 00:01:50.570 listening to this. I don't know what people are listening to, but for us, it was this last Sunday when it debuted. 00:01:50.570 --> 00:01:51.930 And I think it went good. Yeah. 00:01:51.930 --> 00:01:53.770 A lot of people liked it. Yeah. A lot of people liked it. 00:01:53.770 --> 00:01:54.650 It was a crowd favorite. 00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:59.450 My my wife looked at the whole crowd and was like like our our family. 00:01:59.450 --> 00:01:59.770 Sure. 00:01:59.770 --> 00:02:02.010 It was like, I'll buy one of something 00:02:02.330 --> 00:02:03.290 for everybody. 00:02:03.290 --> 00:02:11.215 It was not... So not counting me. It was She didn't include you. Me. I I I take what I want. 00:02:12.815 --> 00:02:17.375 Yeah. Heidi, three daughters, and a and a boyfriend. 00:02:17.375 --> 00:02:18.335 Did he get something? 00:02:18.335 --> 00:02:20.480 So it was three shirts and two hats. Wow. 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:26.560 He was a hat. He was a hat. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of hat lovers, not just me Right. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:27.440 Within the church. 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:31.680 But there are a lot of comfort color tee fans in the church. 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:33.200 Yes. So that was a huge hit. 00:02:33.200 --> 00:02:33.520 Yeah. 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:37.025 That's not my preferred shirt, but for the people. You know? Right. 00:02:37.025 --> 00:02:40.625 I wore I wore... I would I would've worn it today, but I really... I wore it yesterday, actually. 00:02:40.705 --> 00:02:43.905 Well, actually, when you walked in, I thought that was it, but then you got closer. 00:02:43.905 --> 00:02:49.745 I thought... I, like, I I lost track of the day, and I was gonna look at, oh, yeah. I wore the shirt today. So now that was yesterday. This is just the same color. 00:02:50.750 --> 00:02:52.510 Alright, Abigail. Here we are. 00:02:53.310 --> 00:02:54.590 We finished we 00:02:54.910 --> 00:02:56.030 finished the parables. 00:02:56.110 --> 00:03:03.470 I actually... Before we move on to how much I love this new series we're about to do, I genuinely did love the parables. 00:03:03.470 --> 00:03:04.350 What did you like about it? 00:03:05.135 --> 00:03:20.490 Well, I think I spent... We were talking before this actually, my past of a lot of the faith setting that I grew up in. I read Paul and the other letters so much that I just completely neglected the gospels. 00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:20.810 Right. 00:03:20.810 --> 00:03:45.990 And so I don't think I had ever given the the true, like, look into them and really given the understanding they're worth. And you said at the very beginning that you would assume that it would be, like, totally my type of teachings and, like, type of literature, and I wasn't positive about it. But now I'm like, yes. You're right. I love the parables. 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:46.550 Right. 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:48.230 But 00:03:49.510 --> 00:04:06.425 I had just never given it that much time. I had... One time was challenged to read the book of John, and then I don't think I ever really revisited unless it was, like, Christmas time, and I wanted to find where those verses were. But beyond that, I just hadn't spent much time in them. And there wasn't... 00:04:06.425 --> 00:04:16.610 I'm sure there is a lot of material out there that can guide you through the gospels. I was not privy to a lot of those, and so the gospels are kinda just like stories you read. 00:04:16.610 --> 00:04:17.090 So 00:04:17.490 --> 00:04:20.530 once we finally did it, I was like, no. I... These are really, really cool. 00:04:20.690 --> 00:04:23.490 Yeah. I don't like necessarily quoting myself. But 00:04:23.730 --> 00:04:25.410 But you might respect yourself the most. 00:04:27.445 --> 00:04:55.050 Yeah, but I think the thing that I was saying where it's like when we realized what Jesus was doing, which was kind of like a theological bridge between real big misconceptions about the Old Testament to what was about to happen with the death and resurrection. We think of him in kind of that theological bridge. What he's saying in these parables start to make sense. Because they don't necessarily make like, Paul wouldn't say that. 00:04:55.625 --> 00:04:57.465 If you're just reading it, it's like, 00:04:57.465 --> 00:05:21.010 everything I know about the resurrection and where you put your Jesus and putting your faith in the cross, that doesn't make sense. Well, that hadn't happened yet, but it's something he is saying that is preparing them to rethink their world and come into an... And so I think I think it is a really good key to kind of unlock some of the more confusing or difficult to understand. 00:05:21.650 --> 00:05:28.735 Well... And it's like, who better to talk to than the most direct source? Right. You know? 00:05:28.735 --> 00:05:32.415 Like I wanna wanna learn more about Jesus. I should I should read Paul. 00:05:32.415 --> 00:05:37.640 Or just like, I wanna learn more about God. Well, who spent the most time with them? 00:05:37.640 --> 00:05:40.200 Well, there you go. You know? Eternity guys. 00:05:40.200 --> 00:05:48.760 Yeah. So I... It just... It was really interesting. And I I had said, and I don't know if I've said this to you, but I've read The Alchemist. 00:05:49.145 --> 00:06:00.985 Mhmm. And that was like... I don't know why I read it out. I was an adult. There wasn't a school reading that I did or anything, but I was like, more stories need to be like an allegory. 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:10.520 And it just really hit me, and I was like, that's why I don't think I enjoy reading the Bible because it's not just like a large allegory that I can come back to, but I wasn't reading the parables. 00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:11.800 There you go. Now you've got it. 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:16.435 So now I read it, and I'm like, it wasn't crazy for me to wish that type of literature 00:06:16.835 --> 00:06:19.395 would be there. You should read Revelation. 00:06:20.595 --> 00:06:22.115 We'll see. 00:06:22.595 --> 00:06:28.000 Alright. So now we are on. We're moving on. New topic. Church history. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:28.480 Yes. 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:33.920 How long have you been, for lack of a better word, pestering me about this? 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:41.360 Well, it feels like forever, but I just realized I needed to get you to go to another country, like a historical biblical place. 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:44.205 Oh, okay. Just needed me to to Rome. 00:06:44.205 --> 00:06:54.205 I didn't realize that that would so quickly... Like, you you would kinda like, yeah. We may do that. We may do that. And then you went to Rome, and you're like, we should do this. 00:06:54.205 --> 00:07:05.540 And I'm like, yeah, we should do that. So I've been asking forever, but next time I wanna do a series that you may not be interested in, I gotta figure out something. 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:08.820 I wanna I wanna talk about the missionary journeys of Paul. 00:07:09.655 --> 00:07:15.575 Should go to Ephesus for him. Anyways. Okay. I'm glad it's here. 00:07:15.575 --> 00:07:58.140 So here we are talking about church history, and let's just get just a quick definition of kind of what we meant, is kind of the history of the Christian movement. And really, when we talk about church history, we're not really talking about from Acts two, the moment of Pentecost on, even though technically church history starts there. Really, it's like, what happened to the movement of Jesus post the events of the Bible? We will, of course, start some with Pentecost and what we learned from the book of Acts because it does launch us into that. But it is this idea of like, how has the church grown and developed over the course of its two... 00:07:58.140 --> 00:08:04.140 Almost two thousand year history starting approximately ninety AD to now? 00:08:04.620 --> 00:08:17.575 See, that is one good part about it being history of the church that you can pretty easily whittle down what year range it started in. Right. You're not guessing, like, well, this war was in, like, 18 Psalm Psalm. Right. Like, no. 00:08:17.575 --> 00:08:20.215 Just think back to the beginning of zero. 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:29.910 Start with zero and work your way forward. Okay. So why, though? Why for you? We're gonna we're gonna talk today about why... 00:08:30.230 --> 00:08:50.720 Because we've gotta we've gotta sell some people on this, I'm guessing. Yeah. It's one thing to study theology, which people intuitively understand why that's important, walking through the teachings of Jesus and the parables, right, and you don't really have to sell people on that. But now we are essentially gonna step out of the Bible. We're not gonna be like, okay. 00:08:50.720 --> 00:09:04.805 Well, now today we're gonna be talking about first Samuel. No. We're not gonna talking about first Samuel. We're gonna be talking about, you know, these events that happened and these people that mattered during different periods of church history. So I think we're gonna have to sell some people on this. 00:09:04.805 --> 00:09:14.485 And so that's what we're talking about today and probably today and next week, which is why studying church history is important. So I'm gonna start with 00:09:14.485 --> 00:09:15.285 you. Okay. 00:09:15.285 --> 00:09:17.605 You tell me why you're so stoked about this. 00:09:18.090 --> 00:09:24.250 Well, I don't know that this would be the textbook definition, but this is why I enjoy it. 00:09:24.250 --> 00:09:25.130 That was the question. 00:09:25.130 --> 00:09:26.570 Okay. Okay. Not just I 00:09:26.570 --> 00:09:30.890 didn't ask why they should enjoy it. Why do you why do you... Why you 00:09:30.890 --> 00:09:32.465 are so excited Sure. 00:09:32.465 --> 00:09:33.265 About this. 00:09:33.345 --> 00:09:43.105 So before we started recording today, I was talking about a poet from... When was the World War? Second World War? 00:09:44.225 --> 00:09:46.545 1939 to 1945. 00:09:46.545 --> 00:10:08.005 Okay. Yeah. And so listening to someone's personal writings about their understanding of God can somewhat be confusing, but then you go into the historical take on it of like, well, what were people's views on God and the church at that time? Well, that's influenced by what war was happening. What was the financial state at that time? 00:10:08.005 --> 00:10:21.950 Who was in power? Was there certain wars happening that was influenced over a certain belief system? Is that influencing why they think God is this way? And it's just more than... I mean, we're complex human beings. 00:10:22.350 --> 00:10:38.935 That is true. You can't just give someone a sticky note that says the answer and assume that's gonna stick for the next thousand years. So you can't... I think it's just interesting. It's not just one answer of, like, why or how do we view church? 00:10:38.935 --> 00:10:55.280 How do we view baptism? How do we view... Even how do we view God? Like, people just learned over time, but then not only learned, was impacted by different influences, whether it be... I mean, it could even be, like, who owned the religion at that time? 00:10:55.280 --> 00:11:15.810 Was it people in poverty or people in power? And what different churches? Was there different laws that gave churches different authorities and sometimes not? And how did that influence theology? And it just is, like, passed through so many different hands, but each time period that you're looking at it through is just, like, radically influenced by the current circumstances. 00:11:15.810 --> 00:11:16.290 K. 00:11:16.290 --> 00:11:34.945 And so it's it's not... It does influence my own faith of, like, learning from writings from those times. But when I'm reading those things, I'm like, well, why did they think this? Was this a prevailing theory at the time, or was it not? Or did this splinter off from a different sect, and why did they splinter off? 00:11:34.945 --> 00:11:39.265 That has a reason behind it. And so I like what they call bottom up history. 00:11:39.900 --> 00:11:40.460 Okay. 00:11:40.460 --> 00:11:52.460 And so, Dean, are you familiar with that? It's... So I started learning it whenever I was in college. I was a history minor, and we did the French Revolution class. It was only about the revolution. 00:11:53.045 --> 00:12:03.685 And instead of starting from, like, what was going on from power structures and what laws did they implement and what things happened, we started reading fairy tales. 00:12:04.165 --> 00:12:04.565 Okay. 00:12:04.565 --> 00:12:22.395 And it was like, you could completely come to an understanding of how society viewed leadership, the laws that were passed, the different food shortages and stuff because of the fairy tales they told their kids when they were going to sleep. Okay. And so you understood the society, and you're like, oh, I understand you guys now. 00:12:22.395 --> 00:12:25.835 I understand. I know who the villain... Based on the villains of this fairy tale. 00:12:25.835 --> 00:12:31.835 Yes. I can understand it. And why are you using that imagery to describe them? What did that thing represent to you guys at that time? 00:12:31.835 --> 00:12:39.250 It's interesting you say that, but the very first time I took a church history class, I did a research paper on myths of the apostles, 00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:39.730 which 00:12:40.290 --> 00:13:44.690 was stories about what the apostles were up to outside of the book of Acts that don't appear really to be historical. And based on the myth itself, when do you imagine it was written and by whom? Because based on what that apostle is doing and either what he is advocating or what he's doing implies or whatever shows that it really comes from the time period in which this particular theological issue was controversial. Well, actually, you won't believe this, but when Peter blah blah blah, he did this, which makes me right and you wrong. And there were just a lot of stories like that that came about, about all the apostles and different things that they did and didn't do, and you can attach them to certain time periods based on what was controversial at the time. 00:13:44.690 --> 00:14:04.820 A little bit kinda like we suddenly were trying to figure out if Jesus is a socialist or not or a libertarian. Right? And depending on your background and the way you look at the Bible, you really can't... You can make a case for a socialist Jesus or a libertarian Jesus 00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:06.660 if you Whichever way you 00:14:06.660 --> 00:14:13.940 take it. Yeah. Right? But in reality, that is not a question that has been asked Until until, you know, yesterday. 00:14:13.940 --> 00:14:14.260 Right. 00:14:14.260 --> 00:14:20.585 Right? And so, you know, if if, you know, the books that are written now about Jesus along those lines 00:14:20.825 --> 00:14:20.985 Mhmm. 00:14:21.385 --> 00:14:36.690 Will be very, very dated. And you take them and you run them back a thousand years and be like, hey, Why don't you read this? And you're like, well, this is garbage. Yeah. Now I'm really gonna check at some point between now and then to see when I said go back a thousand years. 00:14:36.690 --> 00:14:48.105 My brain went to Ancelum, and now I'm gonna have to go check at some point to see if that's actually the guy. I think it is that was around 1100. So anyways. 00:14:48.265 --> 00:15:05.440 So I... Yeah. I think it just gives more... It's kinda like if you learned something about your parents when you were five, and it was like, that's weird or that's confusing or I don't like you for that or whatever. And then you go back and you ask the question again at 30 and you're like, oh, you didn't just do that. 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:26.140 You also had just lost your job and your parents had done this and you had moved to a new city and you had to start a mortgage and it's like, well, there's like 50 more pieces that influence why that thing happened, but I had to study more beyond to understand now at 30. Do I actually agree with that or do I not actually agree with that? So there's just... I... That's why I love... 00:15:26.620 --> 00:15:38.595 It's not objective or subjective. Yeah. I don't know which is the right word, but, like, if you study chemicals, it is always gonna be what it is. Right. But you're studying objective. 00:15:38.595 --> 00:15:50.850 Okay. So if you're studying history, you have to learn so many facets because, like, we're in September. You learn about September. So many of them are learning it. Crazy to me now that there's a bunch of... 00:15:50.850 --> 00:15:53.410 My sister's a high school teacher. None of her kids were alive 00:15:53.650 --> 00:15:54.050 Right. 00:15:54.050 --> 00:16:02.690 When that happened. But if you just learned about gas prices in the early two thousands, you'd be like, that's incredibly random. And it's like, actually, it's not. 00:16:02.690 --> 00:16:03.330 It's actually not. 00:16:03.405 --> 00:16:09.085 There was a bunch of cultural things happening that influenced this belief system that came out. 00:16:09.805 --> 00:16:37.315 I think for me, one of the things that I think is of real importance when it comes to this is we imagine ourselves, at least kind of from the faith tradition that you and I come from. And for those of you... If if somebody... I guess I should say this. If you have stumbled upon this randomly, which happens sometimes, you know, 90 plus percent of our listeners are Grove Church members, but you may have accidentally googled something. 00:16:37.475 --> 00:17:32.965 We are a nondenominational evangelical Protestant church. We're not gonna We're not Catholic, we're not trying to hate on Catholics, but we're gonna be really honest about the bulk of our church history, which was when there was only Catholicism. So just to kinda put that out there. So in the tradition that you and I come from, we have this idea that, hey, just you and the Holy Spirit reading the Bible and you learn the inductive method and you learn how to study the Bible, just you by yourself can glean the answers to this and know what is true. And on the one hand, that is sort of true, but where that is also just, like, so naive to think that somehow you are not being influenced by 2,000 generations 00:17:32.965 --> 00:17:34.165 and generations and generations. 00:17:34.165 --> 00:18:27.780 Just even the idea of inductive study Yeah. Is a historical concept that is developed in a particular period of time, and that being the primary way that you learn and understand and attack a text is a relatively new idea and we don't know that. And also, we have no idea how our upbringing, whether we grew up Christian or not, has been shaped by two thousand years of Christian thinking. And so we are so narrow that we can think, me by myself, I can figure this out, and I don't need anyone. But no, someone else like that, I need to at least be in a small group so that when I study the Bible, I can talk about it with other guys. 00:18:27.780 --> 00:19:02.135 Well, and your small group needs to be a part of a church, but like our church, we're not a part of a larger denomination. Right. And you can kind of imagine yourself being like, well, we're sitting here on an island, and we know better than all these other people, and we should just come to this church because we just have this perspective, and it is, quote, the right perspective. And then it is a very novel teacher that comes out and is like, Hey, actually we're kind of in partnership with churches all over our community, and that's just like, What? Blows my mind. 00:19:02.215 --> 00:19:46.480 Even the ones that baptize babies? Yeah. Right? And you're just kinda like, I mean, and that feels like I just have a really big, open minded perspective on Christianity because I can be kind to a Presbyterian. And that's still small because it is not only churches in our community, but we need to step out of that and be like, regardless, we all still live, depending on your perspective, an amalgamation of the South And Midwest of The United States Of America. 00:19:46.880 --> 00:20:04.410 Okay? Well, are there Christians in China and Kenya and South Korea all over the world experiencing what it means to follow God from a completely different perspective, and that is still small because the church has been around 00:20:05.450 --> 00:20:09.690 for two thousand years. And has lived through many different hands. 00:20:09.690 --> 00:20:20.165 Right. And I don't think that we have any real deep sense of how culturally limited our perspective is. 00:20:20.485 --> 00:20:48.855 Well, and I also think, I mean, we've we've said multiple times now how doing a church history approach, you're gonna see so many different angles that maybe you weren't aware of or influences that had a bigger impact than you realize, things like that. But I think once we do that view of how many generations we're going through or how many different countries or different people groups that the church has gone through, but there's a lot of things that are have remained true and have not changed over time 00:20:49.095 --> 00:20:49.575 Right. 00:20:49.575 --> 00:21:00.615 That you're gonna be able to see. Oh, CS Lewis' sermons that he was doing to people during wartime is a totally different context than what I'm living in, but this thing is still true. 00:21:01.460 --> 00:21:08.580 Yeah. I mean, so I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep rant down. Okay? Okay. Right? 00:21:08.580 --> 00:21:14.500 So we we start with really kind of the first thing, which is it just helps us think beyond ourselves. 00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:14.740 Mhmm. 00:21:16.085 --> 00:21:40.340 The second thing is, kind of what you were saying, it helps us to know that there are certain things that the church has believed everywhere, all the time. No matter what's happening. There has to be some limit to our ability, and I I do not think that there is anything wrong with challenging the presuppositions of the particular Christian movement that you're a part of. 00:21:40.340 --> 00:21:40.820 Mhmm. 00:21:40.820 --> 00:22:16.755 And to really kind of to read and to study and to and and to talk to other people to really make sure, hey. Like, this this is what we're gonna be doing this whole time. We need to expand our worldview here a little bit, but there are certain things that all Christians always, all the time have believed. And there are certain things that just really, when it comes to talking about what does or doesn't make someone a Christian and what is an essential Christian belief, there are certain things that just are nonnegotiable. Mhmm. 00:22:17.155 --> 00:22:31.020 And it's not even like they discuss those nonnegotiables of, like, we don't wanna be connected to those people from our past, but I think this is important. It's like, no, that just was a prevailing thing that stuck that is foundational to belief in God. 00:22:31.900 --> 00:22:49.480 Yeah. I mean, we wanna decide, woah. Maybe Jesus isn't who the church says he is. Okay. Well, go and find a time when someone said anything other than Jesus being fully God. 00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:52.840 How long did it last? 00:22:54.200 --> 00:23:23.260 Yeah. There are certain things that are culturally narrow and some ways that we talk about Jesus and parts about Jesus that we ignore, all because of our particular cultural perspective. But there are some unifying truths that just really, except for very narrow windows of time, there's some truths that have never really been up for debate. You know? We we said, well, the Bible doesn't even use the word trinity. 00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:32.735 And so it's like, prove that to me. And I'm like, part of me is just gonna be like, read a book, bro. Mhmm. Well, it doesn't say it in the Bible. Well, read any other book. 00:23:32.815 --> 00:23:43.660 Yeah. This is... This was not just something that some random guy made up somewhere. Mhmm. This was hammered out over generations of kind of like, okay, wait a second. 00:23:44.220 --> 00:24:23.125 Here it says this, and here Jesus said this, and here Paul said this. How do we put all of this together? That doctrine was built over, again, decades of people with incredible hearts for God, deep amount of learning and understanding, and you coming in here on your own is like, well, don't don't... Come on. I mean, there's just certain things like that, like the divinity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, he's coming back. 00:24:23.125 --> 00:24:30.885 I mean, there are just certain things that are that are anchors. Mhmm. And I think in a... I don't use... We don't seem to use this word much anymore. 00:24:30.885 --> 00:24:34.885 I saw it again the other day, so I'll bring it back. Right? In a deconstruction kind of world 00:24:35.045 --> 00:24:40.490 Oh my gosh. Someone said that to me this morning, and I was like, I have not heard that. Bring it back. Bring I it mean, 00:24:41.130 --> 00:24:55.045 there... I've said this to so many people as they are trying to reimagine their faith. Maybe they grew up in an unhealthy environment. I've said this every time. I was like, man, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, but you need to have some anchor points. 00:24:55.045 --> 00:25:09.040 Yeah. There are certain things that have to remain in your foundation. And if you wanna look for what those things should be, and we've talked about this before. Right? What are the non negotiables, the soil in which you build your house, the foundation of your house? 00:25:09.520 --> 00:25:23.315 Ask yourself, did a second century Christian believe this? Did a fourteenth century Christian believe this? And if the answer to that is yes, yes, and we still believe it now, then you should keep that important. Keep it as an anchor. Yeah. 00:25:23.315 --> 00:25:34.250 And then you can still critique that the church has become too commercial or not sacred enough or is bound by this and bound by this, and the way you talk about this is unhealthy. Like, great. Great. 00:25:34.250 --> 00:26:06.220 But Jesus is God. Yeah. Which I think a lot of a lot of the things that if you took, like, 10 different historical time points of church history and you see, like, different themes maybe in each one, you could probably go to those foundational points, and those would all still be there. There just happens to be a current circumstance 's making one thing more animated than another. But it's like, well, it's just because this was going on. 00:26:06.220 --> 00:26:16.855 So they were more focused on serving the poor. Like, if you look at the church in the depression compared to the church in the eighties. Right. Like, yeah. But there was... 00:26:16.855 --> 00:26:30.510 They still believed in these foundational things. Those did not change. They just happened to be flexing to different muscle based on current cultural events that were happening. Right. And so, like, things change, but also they don't. 00:26:30.510 --> 00:26:31.950 Right. You know? 00:26:32.270 --> 00:26:44.165 Yeah. And if and if we if we if we lose sight of that, I mean, you're just... You're... What you've got... You're not gonna have anything left. 00:26:45.605 --> 00:27:03.540 Now essentially, you are doing what you are accusing the church you grew up in a being of just like, well, you get to make up your own rule. And you don't get to do that. You don't get to make up your own religion. I guess you can. 00:27:03.540 --> 00:27:04.180 You can. 00:27:04.180 --> 00:27:10.655 We call that a cult. And you don't you don't get to decide who God is. 00:27:10.655 --> 00:27:11.135 Mhmm. 00:27:11.135 --> 00:27:38.615 God gets to decide who God is, and you don't get to decide what is a core church belief. Really, one of the one of the more objective things that we can study over the next several months is what are the core true principle beliefs Mhmm. That make someone a Christian? If you if you believe these things, you are a Christian. If you don't believe these things, you're not a Christian. 00:27:38.935 --> 00:27:59.450 That can be objectively studied over the course of just looking at church history. We act like that idea became... That makes you a fundamentalist if you think that you have. Well, first of all, we misuse that word fundamentalist all 00:27:59.450 --> 00:28:00.410 the time. Men. 00:28:00.410 --> 00:28:16.065 Do you know why? Because it is actually a historical term. There are, in fact, if we're gonna be the most precise you can be, there are no fundamentalists left because it is a limited historical term. Yeah. It is not simply... 00:28:16.065 --> 00:28:47.110 It's not a theological belief. Anyways, regardless, the idea that there are clearly defined belief systems that one must believe in to be a Christian, I mean, act like we're coming up with something brand new here by saying, Well, no, it's not. It's blah blah blah blah blah. And really, that kind of gets to what I would say is number three of why it's really important to start about this. We think we're coming up with new ideas all the time. 00:28:47.270 --> 00:28:51.510 Mhmm. But really what we're doing is reinventing heresies. 00:28:51.590 --> 00:28:52.790 Sure. Yeah. 00:28:52.790 --> 00:28:56.950 We are we are rebuilding 2,000 year old heresies 00:28:57.110 --> 00:28:57.270 Mhmm. 00:28:57.270 --> 00:28:58.470 From first principles. 00:28:58.470 --> 00:28:58.710 Yeah. 00:28:58.710 --> 00:29:07.415 Hey. Guess what? You're not the first person that had that clearly erroneous idea. Yeah. In fact, there's a guy's name, and we will learn that guy's name over the course I 00:29:07.415 --> 00:29:25.250 mean, I legitimately said that to you right before we started filming that I was reading this poet that during World War two time period Mhmm. Had this belief about God. And Abigail in 2021 Mhmm. Had those thought processes. Right. 00:29:25.730 --> 00:29:28.370 And I read a poet that had the exact same thought process. 00:29:28.985 --> 00:29:52.640 You see some clown on TikTok or YouTube or whatever talking about how, well, yo, Jesus in the New Testament is very different than the God of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is this, this, this, this, and this, and Jesus is all these things, and really, we need to kinda separate those two things. Like that that's something that was birthed out of the hippie movement from the 1960s, when in fact And a 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:53.280 lot of people do think 00:29:53.440 --> 00:30:21.250 there is a name for that, and it is Marcionism. And we will talk about our boy and where he came up with that, but that is not a new idea. Again, a thousands year old idea. And we think that we're inventing new things, and I was talking to somebody the other day, I was talking about something the other day, and I was like, that's just Gnosticism with new words. And I don't know what Gnosticism is. 00:30:21.250 --> 00:30:22.530 It's like, guess what, bro? 00:30:22.530 --> 00:30:23.090 You're doing it. 00:30:23.090 --> 00:30:42.195 You're about to find out because I'm dominate about you right now. And I think there's just a lot to that too, where it's just like it helps us have this foundation... Of course, if I was to keep reviewing, it keeps us from having a small Christianity. It's just me, God, and the Bible. Nope, it's not. 00:30:42.195 --> 00:30:49.880 It's two thousand years of church history. It helps us understand what the key foundational planks are. 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:50.520 Mhmm. 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:55.240 And it also puts up some very significant guardrails. 00:30:55.240 --> 00:30:55.480 Yeah. 00:30:56.415 --> 00:31:18.570 Some guardrails that when they get lost, next thing you know, we're inventing Mormonism. Next thing you know, we're inventing Jehovah's Witnesses. And all of these different ideas that someone's like, what... A second. And you've unlocked some great truth, and somewhere, Saint Augustine is going, I thought we killed this seventeen hundred years ago. 00:31:18.570 --> 00:31:30.685 Well, and I think it's not just starting a religion. They're just, like, tiny little micro movements. Yeah. And people are like, oh, this is what that passage was saying, and then you see something crop up in 00:31:30.685 --> 00:31:41.510 some states. Some smug person wearing some sort of fancy sweater in a TikTok video Mhmm. With a bunch of books behind him. Oh, he must be smart. He has books behind him. 00:31:41.510 --> 00:31:42.950 He's unearthing something really. 00:31:42.950 --> 00:31:44.630 His voice is very soothing. 00:31:44.710 --> 00:31:45.190 Mhmm. 00:31:45.190 --> 00:31:58.695 And here's something that your church won't tell you. Mhmm. Let's look at this passage. And they act like that they're saying something new when, again, it's docetism, Arianism, Pelagianism. Mhmm. 00:31:58.695 --> 00:32:09.150 And you're like, I don't know what any of those things are. I was like, guess what, Abigail? You asked for it Yeah. And you're about to get a lot Mhmm. Thrown at you because I think, honestly, of my... 00:32:09.150 --> 00:32:40.370 I've got several more, we'll pick this up next week as I knew we would. To me, I think the core three for me are those three. It helps us have a bigger picture idea of this movement that we're a part of, which just has lots of tangible and intangible benefits. It helps us understand what our foundation are. And I think number one for me, honestly, even though it was three in the list, is the more we understand classical heresies, just the better guardrails that we have. 00:32:40.370 --> 00:32:53.875 Yeah. I mean, there's just so much so much like, what? You know? What if this Christian morality, it seems too restrictive and... I was like, oh, okay. 00:32:54.755 --> 00:33:15.875 Antinomianism. We should talk about when the church was battling that and these sorts of ideas that somehow in Jesus, now there is no moral code. That's not a new idea. Mean, the number of times that I'm just like, Man, sorry, it's not a new idea. That is not a new idea. 00:33:15.875 --> 00:33:51.275 That is not a... And people smarter and more deeply connected to God determined a long time ago that that was outside of the borders of what makes a healthy follower of Jesus, and we should have a measure of respect for that. Because if you come to a point to where in 2026 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, you can't really be... This is what a Christian is, and they're... And for two thousand years, people didn't believe that? 00:33:51.515 --> 00:34:04.130 Really unlikely that you're right. I mean, it's just... I mean, because God has been preserving his church, and we should be able to trust in these core truths and then have these 00:34:04.130 --> 00:34:23.350 fences available. Yeah. So Well, and I think with the understanding the guardrails, I mean, right now, our youth of America is going through a horrific crisis of dressing like the early two thousands. I don't know if you've noticed. It's a tragedy. 00:34:23.590 --> 00:34:30.070 Tragedy. I wish it would stop. They're gonna look at photos years from now and being like, wow. That's so ugly. And we're like, yeah. 00:34:30.070 --> 00:34:33.670 I know we did it, and we thought we would never repeat it, but here we are. 00:34:33.670 --> 00:34:34.230 Here we are. 00:34:34.675 --> 00:34:35.875 But I That's how 00:34:35.875 --> 00:34:37.635 I felt when bell bottoms came back. 00:34:38.275 --> 00:34:45.555 That was... I thought, well, maybe I'd have to see how long this has lasted. But I feel like bell bottoms is a little bit shorter than what's going on right now. 00:34:45.635 --> 00:34:46.035 Okay. 00:34:46.035 --> 00:34:51.970 It's just really disappointing that I'm like, y'all are all dressing intentionally ugly, it feels like. 00:34:52.290 --> 00:34:55.970 But I feel like bright patterns and tight rolled jeans never came back. 00:34:55.970 --> 00:34:58.530 No. The eighties No. It did not. 00:34:58.530 --> 00:35:02.065 The eighties, I think the... I think eighties fashion may be dead forever. 00:35:02.065 --> 00:35:20.770 Possibly. That was a lot of saturation and a lot of stuff. But I think I think I've talked about it on here before, the Decadent Society Mhmm. That you kinda... It's not related to this at all, but talking about different societies that you could track when they're gonna collapse based off of what stage of decadence they've gotten to. 00:35:20.770 --> 00:35:38.545 Mhmm. And a lot of these theories or heresies that get get brought up, I feel like maybe you as a pastor from seeing so many different iterations of this. You could be like, I see you're now in your retirement phase. Right. Because you have the leisure to think these theories up or the... 00:35:38.545 --> 00:35:49.390 You've finally gotten to this stage of like, oh, now this issue is important to you, and you think you've created this thing. But every person, once they get to that point in their life, starts thinking those things. 00:35:49.390 --> 00:35:59.475 Yeah. I mean, helping helping people figure out... Kinda like, I under... I understand why you're thinking this. I understand why it is attractive to you. 00:36:00.195 --> 00:36:13.070 But you need to understand that you... You're not unlocking a door Right. That has been locked, that that that has been an... Unknown about. That that door was intentionally locked Mhmm. 00:36:13.070 --> 00:36:19.790 Eighteen hundred years ago, sixteen hundred years ago, whenever it was intentionally locked. And we need to keep it locked. 00:36:19.790 --> 00:36:20.430 Mhmm. 00:36:20.670 --> 00:36:39.925 And it used to be guarded. And I think, hopefully, what this podcast can do is to help those of us who are listening to it to have better guards Mhmm. Watching over certain doors. Mhmm. Because there there there are lines of thinking that are just dangerous. 00:36:40.020 --> 00:37:16.320 And have been declared dangerous by church leaders for almost two thousand years. And not every idea is a good idea. Not every new thought is a good thought, and some things have proven to be dangerous. I mean, I've had this conversation with all my daughters and I've started using that terminology more than wrong because I think it lands a little bit better where it's like, hey. Your your friends are experimenting with this sort of sexuality or they're trying to express their sexuality in these sorts of ways. 00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:25.815 I'm not asking you to judge your friends or to or to think that they're wrong per se, but I can tell you from experience, these ideas are dangerous. 00:37:25.815 --> 00:37:26.375 Mhmm. 00:37:26.535 --> 00:37:34.810 And there are such a thing as a theologically dangerous idea. Mhmm. That is is a dangerous way to think, Abigail 00:37:35.050 --> 00:37:35.290 Mhmm. 00:37:35.290 --> 00:37:42.570 Because it leads to here, and this is... There's real danger here. Right now, you're just... You're... I'm just talking. 00:37:42.570 --> 00:37:50.595 I'm just thinking. I'm just talking out loud. Yeah. Okay. But you've unintentionally gotten on a boat, and that boat is in a river, and it's taking you here to St. 00:37:50.595 --> 00:38:19.375 George, you need to get off of that boat. And I don't think that we're doing a really good job as a church, big picture, of guarding. And you think, well, I mean, the larger denominations are, and honestly, the larger, more mainstream denominations who used to be the guardians of particular branches of theology have become significantly looser. I mean, when the United Methodist Church can break up, I mean, you got united in your name. 00:38:19.375 --> 00:38:20.335 Yeah. And you. 00:38:20.335 --> 00:38:36.820 And the branches of Presbyterian, I mean, just every... Everything. I'm like, there's no guardians, and this is where a pro Catholic person comes in and says, that's why everybody should be Catholic. And I'm like, you think the Catholic church has done a good job over the last hundred years 00:38:36.980 --> 00:38:37.220 Yeah. 00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:43.635 Of putting up really good guardrails against the important areas of doctrine and 00:38:43.715 --> 00:38:58.370 Yeah. Church. Well, and I think that is... And I don't know if there's more on your list that maybe would be next episode, but plenty of people out there study church history without also bringing the Bible along with themselves. Right. 00:38:58.370 --> 00:39:27.950 And so I think if you know there's those doors that are locked or you are not even taking it from that perspective, if you're looking at certain things today that you're thinking this is a new issue, this is whatever, assuming the Bible cannot be relevant to whatever you're looking at. It's like, well, those type of issues that we think are unique to our culture right now, there actually was versions of that happening at that time. But you're trying to study Christianity without letting the Bible speak into it. 00:39:28.110 --> 00:39:46.315 Now now you're about to get me on a different ramp, but we're gonna have to close it off. Like, we imagined the Bible land that those people lived in nineteen fifties Southern America. Yeah. Like, just a real uptight sort of Suburban. Suburban, racist 00:39:46.555 --> 00:39:46.795 Yeah. 00:39:46.875 --> 00:39:57.480 Uptight culture. Yeah. And you're like, and we don't have anything in common with that. And so when you see something restrictive in the Bible, oh, that's because they were puritanical. That's about as far back as we can get. 00:39:57.480 --> 00:40:00.040 We don't even realize that's 400 years old, but like 00:40:00.200 --> 00:40:07.960 Oh, like, you'd be blushing to no end if you walked into Ephesus. Yeah. You would Like, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:08.120 Right. 00:40:09.035 --> 00:40:13.595 And we think we're bad, but, like... But I don't think people can really wrap their minds around that thinking that way. 00:40:13.835 --> 00:40:29.050 We have such a... We we have such a narrow view of history. It's the last thing I'll say because you you brought it up. What we think of as old Yeah. Versus you walk around London, and you're like... 00:40:29.210 --> 00:40:40.285 They start saying, yeah. And this and this building was first founded during the Norman conquest, which was the the eleventh century. Mhmm. And then all of a sudden, then you'd hop over to Rome, and you're like 00:40:40.925 --> 00:40:41.325 But 00:40:41.725 --> 00:40:48.540 First century. Like, in a really old building here in ours. Mean, this Uh-huh. This was this was built in the eighteen hundreds. Like Yeah. 00:40:48.540 --> 00:41:02.300 Man, that's old. And we we think of eighties fashion as old. Right. Yeah. And we just have such a narrow view of the world and the Christian world in which we live that I think this can be real mind expanding for us. 00:41:02.355 --> 00:41:02.835 Mhmm. 00:41:02.835 --> 00:41:08.915 And really helpful. We'll we'll keep... We'll con... We'll continue that conversation. I can already tell 00:41:10.275 --> 00:41:11.635 That you're gonna love this too. 00:41:11.635 --> 00:41:17.235 I'm gonna get into a lot of rant. Okay. Great. So I hope you're ready. Hope you're ready. 00:41:17.650 --> 00:41:21.730 And, again, as always, Abigail, thank you for joining us. And, again, kudos to the hat. 00:41:21.730 --> 00:41:22.210 Thank you. 00:41:22.210 --> 00:41:42.175 And and we look forward to seeing you next time. We'll continue talking about, all the reasons why it's important for us to study church history. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions and you're looking for answers. 00:41:42.630 --> 00:41:46.790 We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that 00:41:46.790 --> 00:41:47.510 we can help you. 00:41:47.510 --> 00:41:53.590 You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts including YouTube. And again, thank you so much for joining us.