[00:00:00] So the, the power of thinking for yourself is that you gain knowledge, your faith is strengthened, you become mature. And that opens up the full measure. Everything of the fullness of Christ. So thinking for yourself is really what it means to be a disciple.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn, to think for yourself and solidify your beliefs. We are here to be your guides, but we can not do the work for you. You have to decide what you believe and why you believe it. And you have to learn to think for yourself not how the media wants

you to think, not how the politicians want you to think, not even how your friends and family want you to think. You have to define your critical thinking skills and help solidify your belief system all on your own. We are here to be your guides. My name is Jesse Maher. I'll be your host and we cannot do the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor [00:01:00] himself,

Dr. Douglas Peake. 

Well greetings everyone. You know, I love. You phrase that the power of learning to think for yourself and Ephesians chapter 11, Paul told the church, he goes, look, Jesus gave apostles. He gave prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip, meaning to give tools to his people so that we can do works of service.

And when that happens, he goes on to say that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God, and become mature. So the power of thinking for yourself is that. You gain knowledge, your faith is strengthened. You become mature. And that opens up the full measure.

Everything of the fullness of Christ. So thinking for yourself is really what it means to be a disciple. And so that's why I think what we do is so important for people here [00:02:00] at the Salty Pastor. 

Agreed, and we are starting off our brand new series titled Storybook Ending. Um, what relationship story are you writing?

And I'm excited about this. I'm a single guy. So I'm excited about this. Cause I want to learn how to be successful. Not only in my romantic relationships, which we will be covering, but we're also covering a lot of other things. And I think that's the biggest thing is we're doing family, we're doing raising kids,

we're doing, you know, romantic relationships were, uh, friendships were hitting all. I mean, life's about relationships, right? So this is a highly practical. Um, series, even for someone like me, who's single and doesn't necessarily have someone that they're romantically involved in. It's easy for us, single people sometimes to see these 

available people. 

Available. Long walks on the beach,

and podcasts by night. 

Um, you grandmother's out there who listened to the Salty Pastor. You need to think of your granddaughters who might be available for Jesse to meet. 

[00:03:00] But, um, I think it's really easy, especially as a single person, you start seeing any of these relationship based series to instantly go, oh, this is for the married couples.

I'm just going to zone out or not show up for the next couple of weeks. Cause this doesn't apply to me. Yeah. I would kind of say the opposite. This is one, future-proofing your next potential relationship. And two, you don't like to focus only on married couples. You like to focus on all the relationships.

And what we're talking about is all relationships. Our lives are built on relationships. And so this is a series for everyone, whether you're married. Uh, parent or a single 30 year old male. 

That's right. Cause we're gonna, we're gonna talk about how family relationships can be complicated and why that is how romantic relationships, whether you're finding one, searching for one building one, or you're actually trying to keep one going, you know, you're married, it's complicated.

Everything from dating all the way til, [00:04:00] uh, you know, your empty nest and, and growing old together, friendships can be very complicated. Friendships, have a huge impact on you as a person, your coworker relationships. How do you manage those relationships at work? You know, there's professional relationships that you have to manage.

So this is a highly practical series a, we call it a downstream series focusing on every aspect of relationships. 

So when it comes to relationships, Where do we begin in the Bible? Are you, are we just flipping open to whatever passage shows up or have something in mind? 

And when it comes to the New Testament and your reading, you, uh, realize that Jesus spoke a lot about, you know, relationships and how we manage relationships, all different kinds of relationships.

Uh, reflect on our relationship with God. Uh, we see Paul's writings predominantly were written to the churches to get them to have better relationships across the board and teaching and structure. But I think it'd be important to even [00:05:00] though this is a downstream series, we have to talk about the most important upstream

principal or value. And there's a direct link and it begins in Genesis chapter one. And what's really interesting is when you're reading Genesis chapter one, it says in the beginning, God created this and it was good and God did this. It was good. God did this. It was good. God did this. So he creates all creation, right?

And then he gets to the end of the chapter in verse 26. And they say this. Then God said, verse 26, let us make mankind in our image and in our likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. Now that's one place. Now, if you go down to Genesis chapter nine and verse six, it [00:06:00] says whoever sheds human blood by humans shall their blood be shed for in the image of God, has God made mankind. So we see this statement again, the image of, of God.

And then you see in the new Testament, the same principle. James chapter nine, verse three, it says, and with the tongue, we praise our Lord and father. And with it, we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness or the image of God. So the principle here is the image of God, and that is a very upstream,

biblical principle that is critical to all your other relationships. Now, why is that? Well, the Bible says that if we've created the image of God in Genesis chapter one, the actual verbiage in the verse reveals part of what this nature is. For instance, In Genesis chapter one, verse 26, it quotes God and God refers to himself in the plural.

Now in the first 25 verses [00:07:00] of the book of first chapter of the book of Genesis, it's all singular, but here it becomes plural. So this is a very intentional shift by the author. Moses is recording this. It says, let us make mankind in our image and in our likeness. So here we see the very first reference to the Trinity, you know, God, the father, Jesus Christ, the son and the Holy Spirit three in one.

And so what he's saying is that we, you know, the, the Godhead is a triune in perfect relationship. Okay. So he, so part of God's image, In us is that we are relational beings. We are designed to be in relationship with God and Jesus. This is why you have free. Will you see? You cannot, God created a creature that cannot be forced to love.

It has to be something you do [00:08:00] by free will. And so we're driven. Towards relationships. We're in to be in a relationship with God. We are designed to be in a relationship with other human beings. And so all research points to this fact, uh, human beings are relational. Even the most hardcore introverts require relationships to be healthy individuals.

Uh, you see this very, very early on and that is, is that babies that are born. Uh, they have to be held and caressed and loved, right. Have affection in order for their immune systems to develop. If you don't do that, then they're prone to sickness and death. Men who are single in their sixties die much younger than men in their sixties who are married.

Uh, it's extremely, I mean, this, this research is, uh, extremely available for everybody to see women. Even if they are extremely introverted throughout their entire life, we'll deal [00:09:00] with severe loneliness. It has incredible physiological impacts on them and their psyche. Uh, when they deal with loneliness over a long period of time, women are designed and need to be in relationship.

So all of these things, point to the fact that to be created in the image of God, which is an upstream principle. Is what drives us to be relational and why we need relationships. 

Well, and I think it's, we see this over and over again throughout history of people coming together, wanting to create relationships, um, even as technology's advanced and we've started not being physically together as much, we're seeing, you know, social networking, which, you know, take it or leave it as far as its toxicity and its help.

But the idea behind it was to. Be able to see other people's lives that you want to connect with and stay in touch with. Even from afar, we see this in video games, there's people that will literally just have, you know, the most introverted person in the world. Who's just stays at home [00:10:00] plays, video games.

They still have friends that they play video games with online and they are building relationships, even though they are sequestered away at their house. Right. And during quarantine, you know, the idea of zoom and all these other things too. Reconnect for people was incredibly important. Like that's one of the biggest things we've seen psychologically happening in people's lives is during quarantine, they were, there was so much depression because you weren't allowed to be around people.

And so it's like our natural desire to be in relationship to be in community with people is overwhelmingly apparent in all of these different situations, right? 

Yeah. You know, and I mean, that, that's interesting that you brought up how technology, uh, is created to try to do that. I mean, it was, it's interesting because, uh, my son, you know, he built his own computer and, and he's a gamer and he's got like two or three monitors

there. And he has a microphone that looks like this, and he's got this [00:11:00] headset and stuff and he plays video games and, and he's playing with five or six of his buddies that are on one of the monitors and their cameras are all on and he can see them and they see them they're talking and interacting and you know, so it's really intresting. 

And, and some like I've, I play video games as well.

And sometimes I've have friends that I've literally never met face to face, but they know lots of things about me. And like, I would consider them a friend, even though we've never been in the same physical cities. So it's like technology in some ways can be amazing for relationship growth. You know, we see this also in romantic things, through apps and stuff where people have met people, they would never have

Interacted with and they are now happily married. And so it's like, there's many success stories. There's also many failure stories, but there's, you know, there's some amazing things, but they are all created around this idea of yeah. Being social and creating relationships. 

We're driven that way. You know, it says in Ephesians two 10, it says we are God's handy [00:12:00] work.

We are his workmanship and we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And so our lives have a purpose. And since we're created in the image of God, this principle that you said, why is its own board? And it's been important because it drives everything we do.

And a lot of these good works that were designed to do our relational in their orientation or their nature. So, uh, uh, when you know that I've been created in the image of God and I'm driven for relationships, what it does is the image of God in me gives me value. Every human being has to answer the question for themselves.

Do I matter? Right. You know, do I matter? In Jesus alone says, yes, everyone matters. Are you a father? Are you a business owner? Are you a leader in your community? Guess what? You matter, whether you feel like it or not. Are you a single mom who cleans houses for a living? Are you a teenager? Who's confused with your identity.[00:13:00] 

You think maybe you're lesbian a. And so do you matter to God? Absolutely. Are you wondering about whether you're transgender or not? You matter to God, uh, let's broaden, you know, all the stuff that people are using divide people to, are you vaccinated? Guess what you matter to God? Uh, are you unvaccinated?

Yes, you matter to God the same. You know, no matter how much the world wants to denigrate you, you matter because Jesus gives you value. The world doesn't give you value. He doesn't give you value. Those in power don't give you value. Government doesn't give you value. Institutions don't give you value. Your value comes from Jesus Christ and him alone.

And because of that truth, is why Christianity is the largest belief system, largest faith in the world today with almost 3 billion followers. So almost half the world's population is devoted and following [00:14:00] Christ. Okay. And what's amazing about it is, you know, where it grows the most and the fastest, it's always the poorest.

And the least. You go to the most, you know, you, you look at where Christianity is growing like gangbusters right now. I mean, it is just screaming and it's growth. It's growing super fast in China, in Indonesia, in Africa, all of these places

All these places that are poor or are oppressed. 

Oppressing Christians. Yeah.

You know, one of the F uh, as a percentage rate, one of the fastest growing churches in the world today is in a Iran. Where it's illegal to be a Christian and it's run all almost all by women, you know, and they're like, we'll kill us and imprison us. We don't care. You know, they're like, okay, us religious men, you know who our she, where she, uh, uh, Muslims, you know, we're, we're in charge.

Well, maybe not as much as you think, not with no women go on [00:15:00] strike. But, but see it's why is that? Because they have. They all humans have value because Jesus says we were created in his image. And so we have value in people who are poor. People were oppressed. People have nothing. It's the affluent countries.

That are abandoning God and following Christ. And they're paying the price for it. You know, not because, uh, now some people would say, well, judgments of God coming in and will God's judgment. I don't want to get into the theological implications of this. It comes in many different forms, but my opinion is when you turn your back on God, you just get stupid.

I mean, you read right there. You, you know, you think you're so smart, you're so wise, but you just do really stupid things and you make stupid decisions. And, and because you're, you're full of yourself and your own sense of worth and value and wisdom, it's like you, you, you make decisions and they're just dumb.

And, and that's why you see all [00:16:00] societies have become incredibly affluent crumble and fall apart. I mean, it is the cycle of history. You see, and one of the common things of all affluent cultures is they turn away from God. You know, they do that. They, I guess they put all their faith in themselves and they pay for it in the long run.

Now, you know, the value that it, it brings us, um, is, uh, being created in the image of God, is why we have seen such an overwhelming broad-based expansion. I think of Christianity. And because what you're doing is. You're answering the question. How do I know? I matter, will you matter? Because Jesus. Says you matter.

And he is creator the universe. Now you may be a single 20 something struggling with your sexual identity, a person, but you matter to Jesus because he says, you matter. Now, here's the point though, if you want to feel you, you matter, if you want to experience in your soul, that [00:17:00] you really matter, then you have to make a life changing decision.

And this decision has to become a conviction. So, if you want to have a conviction that your life is significant and that, you know, you matter no matter what, and you have value that you're loved and that you're affirmed, then you have to make this choice. And you know what that choice is. And most people don't want to make it it's do I believe what the world says I am?

Or do I believe what Jesus says I am? Now the world intentionally is designed to deceive you in answering this question. It sets up a. Uh, Um, impossible standard for a, a young person today. In other words, It sets up an impossible standard of beauty or what is physically attractive for girls. Right. And so these girls compare themselves with this and then they realize I don't measure up to that.

I don't measure up to that. I went to a high [00:18:00] school. And it had 2,700 students. And the entire high school was run by probably 30 people, the most popular people, the in group, you know, because they were like the ones that fit that social standard of beauty at that time. Right. And so it's just amazing to me, um, how our society creates that. God doesn't create that, but society

does. It says to girls that if you don't measure up, then guess what? You're, you're not, you, you know, you're not adequate. Right. Uh, so you're a young man and it says to young men, you must look this way. It says, you know, you have to have a certain cool hip vibe about you. Young ladies must look this way, but you know, since deepen your soul, you don't measure up to that.

You feel like you don't matter. You feel like you don't have value. And so our society then says, well, that's cause you're different. You feel out of place and they [00:19:00] create the false construct that makes you feel out of place. So now we come in and say, it's not because you have, uh, uh, it's the reason you fit.

Let me see if I can phrase this right. The reason why you feel out of place, isn't it? Because we, as the world have created a false construct. Right? Right. The reason you feel out of place is because you're a girl trapped in a boy's body. Or you are a pansexual or you're a bisexual, um, or you might be queer or you might be some other thing inside of the, uh, the alphabet letters that they kind of streamed together.

One of the pluses. So what's interesting to me is why doesn't anyone step back for just a moment and ask why is it when I think about who I am, it's always focused on sex? Why is the world trying to convince me that everything that I am always revolves around sexual activity. Isn't being human [00:20:00] much more than that?

So if so, let's get back to this biblical God's image within us that drives us towards relationships. If, if I have a drive within me, that comes from my soul towards relationships. Why is the world sexualizing all my relationships? Why is that? So, so what that tells me is that there's an agenda in the world that is trying to deceive you for a purpose.

The number one outcome of all of this is factually proven. That by sexualizing, every relationship, friendships, co-worker relationships, parental family relationships, every, you know, romantic relationships, everything across the board. Because of this and our obsession with sexualizing, our identity. People today in America are more isolated, more disconnected than ever before.

And that's why the principle of being created in the [00:21:00] image of God is so important that we get back to. If we want to have healthy, vibrant, fulfilling relationships across the board. 

Well, The thing I'm seeing the most, at least in my generation is this loneliness and isolation because we're not having real relationships anymore because we've sexualized everything.

It's not about actually making a connection with someone it's about how do I have sex with that person, or how do they fulfill my sexual desire in some way, rather than, you know, I want to be, friends with you. It's, you know, friends with benefits, it's friends that hookup, occasionally, or whatever. Like it's, it's turned into this lack of like having a real understanding of what a relationship is.

And then on top of that, you know, technology can be good, but on it can also be bad in that we don't know how to be with each other in the same room and talk more than [00:22:00] 30 seconds before our desire to pull our phone out and check, you know, Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, if you're on the east coast or whatever. 

So it's like with these compounding issues, it's caused a significant issue within my generation of not understanding what a relationship is supposed to be, whether it's romantic, platonic, or whatever, even with your family members. I mean, obviously. The, the sexualization of family members is not as big of a deal.

You know, it's not being propagated, but it does influence how you understand you're supposed to react with your family members. You know, whether you're calling them, you know, my dad, he's very old school. He's like, I call my family members every Sunday and we talk on the phone. And it's like, for some of my siblings, it drives them insane. Saying, they're like, why can't you just text me?

I'll tell you why. I'm fine. That's all it needs to be because that's how they're used to communicating with people. And I go out of my way because, you know, I want my dad to be happy. So I take his call every Sunday and we [00:23:00] talk and it's like, is that my preferred way of communicating as a millennial? No, like, I don't know what happened in my generation, but talking on the phone scares us now.

I know every w whenever you call me, I know, oh boy, he has a big question. Yeah. 

Otherwise I'll just text you because 

usually you're texting 

me, but it's like, that's a thing throughout our generation is like, even just the act of speaking to someone is harder for us. And so it's like, how are you supposed to build a relationship when you can't even have a one-on-one conversation with someone, let alone the technology, let alone the sexualization, let alone anything else.

It's like, that's just where, are the compounding factors have come in. So. How do we have healthy relationships and why are they important to our human nature, Pastor? 

Help me. 

Well, I just, I want to bring what I've said earlier, just all together. And that is if you're created in the image of God, then this means your relationships with [00:24:00] other human beings are critical to your spiritual, emotional, and intellectual self.

Okay, so you're going to, you're going to be healthier. You're going to be stronger. You're going to have a deeper sense of identity and value and meaning in your life. However, our society does not have a vested interest in that. Right. And so what it does is it tries to use base drives or base desires in order to create profits of economy.

And that's, that's why, you know, uh, like when Tinder started, you know, I don't think people sat in a room saying, well, if we swipe left or right, this is going to help people build long-term lasting relationships. Definitely not. That was not the intent of Tinder, you know, however, it's interesting, some people find each other on Tinder.

Yeah. But, but what's happening is that what society knows is, is what so many people know. Now, drug dealers know [00:25:00] this, pornographers know this, people who, some people who produce alcohol know this, and that is, is that if I can get people hooked on my products, guess what. They become a lifelong customer. And so there is your economy of profit for me.

And so you creating it, this is why drug dealers go to elementary schools and give away, uh, samples of their drugs and candy to kids. That's why they do that. And they do it. This is why, if you want to try a drug, you can call a drug dealer in the first time you try anything. It's usually free. Here, oh, just it's on the house.

Well, why did they do that? Because they're appealing to your base desire to get you hooked. The world does this over and over again. It's what they learned. 

They learned it from Costco. So. 

Yeah. Yeah. Costco, they're trying to get to, you know, I don't know. You walk into Trader Joe's and you get one of those, uh, those Kringles or whatever they have that those.[00:26:00] 

yeah. That's where all of this stuff is designed for that and what we need to do, if you want to think for yourself and you want to have healthy relationships, you need to step back and say, how is the world conditioned me to view relationships? Okay. Because guess what, if I'm created in God's image, I'm driven for, I am driven for relationship.

Now Jesus has a way for me to fulfill this drive within me, that really helps me flourish and thrive. It is the path of God, or I can listen to the world. I can sexualize everything I could objectify my friendships and objectify my sexual partners. I can see friendships and people and things just to fill what I think I need.

Is that going to create a healthy person or a toxic person? Toxic? Yeah. It's going to be toxic. You see adult men, who have no one that they're connected to, no one to love, no one to be responsible for, no one to invest [00:27:00] in. If they have no one who they are bonded with or not healthy men. They're not healthy, psychologically.

They're not healthy, uh, emotionally or spiritually. Adult women, regardless of whether they're introverts or extroverts who have no one, they are bonded with care for or able to invest in to love or be loved. They're not healthy either. You know? And so it's very important to understand that it is in relationships and healthy relationships where we become our best

selves. Because this is how we are designed. Relationships are where we grow. It's where we discover how to love another person. It is where we experience the fruit of the spirit, which is what love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, forbearance. It's where we learn all the higher virtues and how we start to appeal to the higher virtues of what make us more human,

not less human. But the world has conditioned us to look at our relationships through the most [00:28:00] base drives of human nature. You see? And so there's a vested interest in why they're doing this. We'll talk about that more on Thursday, but I think that's why healthy relationships are so important. And you can't do that unless you believe.

What Jesus says about you as opposed to the world? 

Well, and I think just as we're wrapping up, um, this idea that the Bible says we are in the image of God, that we were created to have a higher purpose, that we are here to have a relationship with God. And then the world's telling us, you evolved from a monkey.

You have no control what you think isn't even what you think you're just ran off of pure sexual drive or the need to survive. And it's like, oh, that's not very, that gives you like no energy to do anything in life, but there's no value in. Yeah. There's no value. It's like, well, why do anything? I mean, if that's all I am is just, you know, when an amoeba that happened to walk out of the sea at the [00:29:00] right time, it's like, Oh, that's just like, it gives you one, understand why people are dealing with depression these days, if that's the baseline value that everything else is being built off of, is that all you are your base needs of wanting to procreate eat and drink like why, why, why? 

Yeah.

There's no meaning there's no value. You don't matter. 

Yeah. You don't matter. And so the New Testament in particular has a lot to say about relationships. Why do people struggle with applying what the Bible teaches about relationships? Why do they default to listening to the world?

Well, well, first of all, you know, if you don't go back and make that conscious choice, every single

day. I believe Jesus and who he says I am, or I do. I believe the world what the world says I am. If you don't do that every day, then your tendency is going to be to kind of the gravity. Well, I guess of culture always pulls you in [00:30:00] that direction. And, but the that's why the upstream idea is so powerful and that is, am I created in the image of God or not?

You see all the teachings on relationships in the New Testament are based on the simple principle you're created in the image of God. So if, if we don't understand, that this is the, the upstream principle on which all the teaching in the New Testament is based, and guess what? It doesn't make any sense. It's not going to make any sense to us, but if you live in a world due to the fact that the world has an opposing idea of human nature and who you are, it's trying to tell you that you're something different.

It says you are not created in the image of anything, like you just said, you know, uh, it's trying to tell you that you have no purpose in life. It's trying to tell you that your drives are your desires, are the most important thing about you, so you better listen to them because they're always right. You become a solipsist. Now that's a philosophical term.

That basically means that you live in a [00:31:00] reality that the only thing you can confirm is real is yourself. Okay. So everything else out there. I, you can't 

confirm. Could be a hologram it's could be anything. 

We're in the matrix, the matrix, right? Yeah. So I'm not sure why that comes across that way, but, uh, why people would want to adopt that, but they do the philosophy of solipsism

says that since you can't actually verify anything outside of yourself to be real. Then, what that does is it says the only things that have value is what you want. And when that happens, what you do is you diminish relationships and the value of them in your life, you don't enhance them. And, and one of the best things that men do is when they say, you know, I need people in my life.

I need them, for my own wellbeing and health. And I need to manage those. I need people that I love. I need to, I need to take [00:32:00] responsibility for the wellbeing of other people in my life. And that's where men really thrive, is when they take responsibility to be a man. When that, that drive of protection and, and, uh, uh, responsibility wells up within them.

That's when they really thrive and become the men they want. So in the end, I think that's why this powerful idea is so important. It's an upstream idea. You're created the image of God, but it drives everything that you do in your downstream relationships. 

Absolutely. Well, we appreciate you guys joining us today.

Obviously, Tuesdays are our Bible study portion Thursday. We're going to do some more practical application on this new series, a Storybook Endings. We love that you guys are here with us every Tuesday and Thursday. Learning more about what you believe, why you believe it and how to critically think for yourself.

Thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll see you on Thursday here on the Salty Pastor Podcast. 

Blessings.[00:33:00]