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A Lot of Words is a conversational deep-dive podcast hosted by Pastor Brett Schoeneck and Pastor Matt Smith, created for listeners who want biblical clarity applied to real-life questions. Each episode pulls apart the questions people actually ask—not the ones theologians wish people were asking.
From tough topics like anxiety, AI, politics, prayer, sexuality, and suffering to practical questions about how to read the Bible, how to think Christianly in a digital world, and how to follow Jesus in a noisy culture, Brett and Matt aim to give listeners honest, pastoral, and intellectually serious answers.
The show blends theology, humor, cultural analysis, and pastoral insight—inviting you into a conversation that is purposeful, biblical, and surprisingly entertaining. If you’ve ever wanted a podcast where you can actually get your questions answered, welcome to A Lot of Words.
If the snake was cursed to crawl, would it
imply that he had legs? Snakes do have
-knees. Could it have been a dragon?
-Yeah.
Saying, "Why do some churches do baby
dedications?"
Yeah, I don't think we know why we do
them, if I'm hon-
Is, is feeding an untruth to an AI model
lying?
Let me give you a better question, I
think. If you are in a video game as a
character, and you cheat on your video
game wife, are you an adulterer?
It's about forgiveness. What is the
difference between biblical forgiveness
and therapeutic forgiveness? Pizookies, do
they slap?
-A what?
-And if you, and if you don't know what a
-pizookie is, are you even saved?
-A pizookie.
Welcome back to the A Lot of Words
podcast. I'm Brett Channing. Joined with
me, as always, Matt Smith, senior
preaching pastor, Barabbas Road Church
here in sunny, beautiful San Diego. Sure,
it's expensive and the taxes are high, but
at least we got a lot of homeless. Um.
-That's a-
-You sound like a radio host.
-I bet. I've been saying that to people.
-Ugh.
No, there's ocean, man. It's amazing. This
is the best.
Now, when you say I'm the senior preaching
pastor, it assumes that we have a bunch
of senior pastors, and I'm the senior one
of those.
Yeah. You're the senior elder pastor.
Ki-
Senior el-
Matt, I gotta... There's two giant
elephants in this room right now, and none
of them are named Chauncey. He's a
person. Uh-
-What's that?
-I gotta get the first one out of the way.
I understand I'm wearing two different
shoelaces,
-and-
-What is happening?
Everyone... Yes, exactly. It's two
different shoelaces. It's a, kind of a
-fiasco.
-I didn't, you didn't even tell me this
-until we got on camera. I, I feel like-
-I know
-... I'd notice that.
-I did, I knew while we were talking you
would eventually notice it, and you would
pause in whatever you were talking about
-to bring this up.
-Am I just like a... Are, do, are you
-managing me?
-I am preemptively-
-Yes. Oh gosh
-... talking about something that I knew
you would fixate on later.
What happened is I played basketball on
Monday nights, and it w- it-
-In those shoes?
-No, no, no. I w- I walk into the building
in these shoes. When you play basketball,
you, you carry your shoes you play in. You
don't want those, you, you don't want
indoor basketball shoes to touch the
-outside.
-Ah.
-Little pebbles in them and whatnot.
-A little pretentious here.
They're very pretentious.
And so, uh, I got in there, and then my
basketball shoe lace broke, so I had to
swap it out with one of these laces,
making-
-Those are outdoor laces, though.
-I know. Yeah.
-How dare you.
-I d- exactly. I had to h-
-You need to play on the blacktop
-I had to-
-Yo, man
-... whore these laces out to my-
-Is, is blacktop-
-... pure basketball shoes
... is blacktop basketball, like, tougher?
-Like, is that-
-Yeah
... like, is it, is blacktop basketball
where you're like, "And one."
Everyone does that now. But yeah, ba- uh,
outdoor is way tougher. I don't even, I
-won't even play it anymore. It's-
-My wife was a Division I basketball
player. She's taller than me. She's
gorgeous. She's 6'1". But all that aside,
I think basketball is the thuggiest sport
around.
-Oh, yeah, yeah. It's, yes. It's terrible.
-I mean-
It's obv- it's, it's unwatchable. Like,
March Madness is watchable-
-Ah
-... and some of the NBA playoffs.
-I mean, I, I w-
-That's it
... I had a period where I kinda liked
basketball. I'm, I mean, I, I'm not, I
don't think that, like, you're not in sin
if you like basketball or anything. I
-think it's fine.
-Well, I mean-
It just seems like the most random sport.
You, it, like, when I watch it now in the
NBA, it looks like they're traveling the
whole time, first of all.
-They are, yeah.
-Well, what's the deal with that? And then
secondly,
they're just so slow. Like, if you
actually see, like, the court's so small,
and they're just cruising. And they're so
tall, it's like watching...
Like, they're, they're, they're, they're
so tall, it's like they're handicapped.
And so, but they're, they can play
basketball. Is that rude to say?
-No, I, I-
-I mean, I'm not against them. It's just,
-it's a crazy thing
-... I have said this for years, that-
-To me?
-No.
-Oh, okay.
-For my own self.
-'Cause I haven't been-
-Now, listen to my logic.
So if you're a midget, you get, like, a
handicapped...
What?
You can't say that.
-You, the-
-What? Let, let the-
-You can't say
-Follow my logic.
-We're starting on, no, we're s-
-What?
You can't start the show- ... and say if
you're a midget.
-I-
-Listen, first of all, it's little people.
-I didn't say-
-Second of all, this is inappropriate. We
-gotta start over.
-No, no, no.
-What is happening?
-No, that's not inappropriate. I, I was
-friends-
-I hope this is going well
... I, I was friends with a midget in, in
Minneapolis. She came to all of our shows,
and she preferred that term.
-She thought little person-
-Ugh
... she's like, "Well, why would that..."
She's like, "I hate that term."
-Okay.
-So I have validation for this. Anyway.
-Ugh.
-So they get a handicap sticker,
because if you're a midget, you get a
handicap placard. Like, you can park in
-handicap spots.
-You can't keep saying midget.
-I feel, I can't.
-You just ca- keep saying it.
-So I don't, if you let me-
-Yeah, Chauncey, you gotta bleep that out.
-No, you don't.
-I think you have to-
-You don't. This is, it-
-Can't, don't, don't-
-You don't have to bleep it out.
-Can you say midget? I-
-You could, you could say it.
-You know what? You can say whatever you
-want.
-Exactly. This is a lot of words. This is a
-word.
-What is the movie where it's like-
-Anyway
-... Carney, small hens.
I gotta, yeah, I gotta finish it. So then
they get, like, a handicap sticker th-
because their size, um, is prohibitive for
a lot of things.
I am that same way on the opposite
spectrum. I'm 6'7". I don't fit in cars.
-Are you 6'7"?
-I don't fit in cars. I, like, I can't buy
clothes at a store. I can't get normal
shoes. It's, it, for me, walking, I,
walking further is bad. I have hip
dysplasia.
-Yeah.
-Like, I should be able to park in the
-front.
-Are you 6'7" really?
Yeah.
-Wow.
-Yeah.
I thought you were 6'6".
No.
-Are you serious?
-Mm-hmm.
Did you grow an inch?
I grew a half an inch my freshman year of
college.
Ugh. I'm, I'm under six feet, and when
you're under six feet, every quarter inch
matters. So I'm, like, 5'10" and 3/4".
But all I'm saying is, you can, p- post in
the comments. My logic is flawless.
-Yeah, I think you're handicapped.
-Thank you.
-Yeah, you-
-That's a-
The world is not made for you.
-I agree with you.
-That's what, thank, exactly. That's what-
-Ugh
-... that, that's what I was trying to-
-Yeah, I mean, basically-
-I wanted you to admit, yes
-... the world is not made for you, Brett.
-Yes, thank you.
-Yes.
-I know.
-Ugh.
-Yeah, exactly. Um, uh, okay, for, that's
the biggest elephant. The second elephant
is that-
-Oh, we're still going
-... I'm, yeah, the two elephants, then
we'll get into it.
I'm driving to surfing last Friday, which
we've done for 20 years.
-Mm-hmm.
-Met you Friday morning for surfing, Pastor
Trace, one day Pastor Paul,
and I come around the corner,
and what do my eyes see but the greatest
motor vehicle ever bestowed on mankind
being driven by you.
-Right.
-And, and if I would have woke, if I-
Now, if you, before you pause, people
might be thinking, "Is Matt driving a
-Ferrari?"
-No, but if I would have woken up with my
head sewn to the carpet- ... I'd be less
surprised than I was when I saw you coming
-out of a Honda Element.
-It was a Honda Element, yep. It is a
manual transmission Honda Element. It was
gorgeous.
That's a-And, and I mean, welcome back to
another episode of Brett Was Right.
-No, I just-
-Uh
-It was a, it's, it was-
-A car
... gift, it was gifted to us wonderfully,
um, by a family that was moving and, uh,
took great care of it. It's like a 2006.
It's awesome. Um,
and, uh, we're... I'm keep driving it once
a week, keep it on the road so when my,
one of my daughters, uh, gets... I, well,
I don't know how much to talk about my
kids. So when Guinevere gets to be 16, so
she's turning 15 in a minute-
-Mm-hmm
-... which is crazy, and so, um, we'll need
to have a car so all the kids can drive.
It's like a little truck, so keep it on
the road. Apparently, I just got it
smogged, these things can run for like
-400,000 miles, so that's kind of cool.
-Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, it's fun to drive. I mean,
like, I love cars. I like cars. I think
they're great. I think having an Element
like,
is like having a little truck, you know,
you can do stuff with, so that's fun.
But I love cars, and I just hate,
ugh, I hate practical cars. Can I be
honest?
-You do.
-I feel like-
-You just do
-... I feel like every car I've ever had
has been like the most midlife crisis car
I could afford. Like, that's always been
-what I've been... For, since I was 16.
-Yeah.
I've always liked cars. And, uh, I don't
know, it just, when I see someone... And
if you drive a Toyota Camry, good for you.
If you drive a Nissan Sentra, good for
you. I'm not against you. I just,
the amount of money for one of those cars,
you could literally buy an older,
you know, BMW or a Porsche or something,
an older one and just, yeah, there's risk,
but that's the whole point, right? You
have some fun and,
I don't know. So I, I love that, and so
then here we are in the Honda Element, but
the thing I like about it, it's so u- so
here's the difference. A Camry, a Centru-
Sen- Sentra, these, they get you from here
to there. So you're like, "Okay, I get
that." It's so utilitarian in its
function,
but it's a simple utility that, to me,
other things do that so much more fun.
Whereas the Element works really well as a
beat it up, throw stuff in it.
Mm-hmm.
Which a truck doesn't necessarily add
value to that, so it kind of solves that
dilemma. But, but as a pastor,
like, I think about this all the time. I,
you know, I don't want to drive a Corvette
because even though, I will say on the
record, I think Corvettes are the most car
you can get for the money, period.
Um, but
for me, Corvettes remind me of like Oakley
sunglasses.
-Mm-hmm.
-They're just like not quite-
-And no for your T-shirts.
-Well, no, but if you're a Corvette owner,
I don't think you're a bad person or
anything. I just think that like they're
so,
uh,
obviously I'm a fast car guy, that, you
know, that's kind of what they are.
They're like, "I'm wearing my Oakleys to
like the dinner." So it's like almost like
not a...
But
yeah, I like, I li- I, I love cars. I
think the BMW M2 is pretty cool. I love a
good old Porsche Cayman. All these old, o-
these, uh, it's Porsche, not Porsche.
-Hmm.
-Um, all these cars are great, but yeah,
you can't, as a pastor, you can't roll
around in a Ferrari, even if you could.
-Um, but you can roll in an Element.
-You can.
And you can pretty much roll in any SUV
you want, but-
-Yeah
-... yeah. I mean, you should be able to
-drive whatever car you want.
-I roll-
-There's no, there's no car-
-I roll deep in my Element
... that's holy. I mean,
the... Okay, one more thing, that we're on
this. My only problem with fast cars, I
like fast, fun cars to drive, but the
problem is you can't enjoy them legally
-unless you go to a track.
-Mm-hmm.
That's the only thing. So once you, once
you get to a certain level of like, I can
drive fast, usually small two-seaters,
how much faster can you go before you're
totally breaking the law?
Whereas an off-road vehicle of some sort,
you can kind of enjoy legally everywhere.
-Mm-hmm.
-And I don't plan to go off-road, but I
-like that you could if you wanted to.
-Mm-hmm.
So that's my whole car take. Oh, we're on
a show. What's the, what are we talking
-about?
-Oh, it's good, yeah.
-What's the subject?
-Uh, today we are talking about questions
and answers.
This is a whole show, Matt.
What do you mean? Like questions and
answers as a theory?
No.
-By the supporters, for the supporters.
-Oh, it's like a-
-This is like a-
-... it's a lot of words holiday
... this is a lot of words by the people,
for the people. This is, uh, you know,
once every now and then, the questions, we
get a backlog. And so I want to do a Q&A,
a whole podcast just about questions that
our subscribers, our faithful
subscribers-
-Yeah, we have subscribers.
-We've, we're-
-We have some
-... yeah, we're up to like 340. Our goal,
just so you know, our stretch goal, is to
be at 500 subscribers on YouTube,
-uh, by the end of summer.
-I mean, we sh- yeah. Okay, how, are people
-still buying me- membership?
-Yeah, you sold one this week.
-One?
-Yeah.
Listen, let's, my, my goal by the ...
-I want this-
-This is a Ferrari, by the way.
-No, no, no. Yeah.
-It's one of these books.
Yeah. We'll, we'll get a Ferrari wrapped
in a mirror.
No, this is a, yeah, this is a lot of
words podcast by the people, for the
-people, um-
-Okay, so you're just gonna ask me
-questions
-... I'm, this is just a, well, a
-potpourri, if you will.
-So, okay.
-A cornucopia.
-Just so I understand really quick, if the-
Mm-hmm
-... the title of this-
-Is Q&A.
-Okay. All right.
-So it's-
-So it's like a holiday.
-It's like a holiday. Yeah.
-Yeah.
-There's nothing sexy. And if it's bad, we
can blame them.
-Right. So the people are the hosts.
-Exactly.
-All right. All right.
-The people are the host. One day,
actually, in the comments, we want to do a
live podcast at some time, some point,
-some point.
-With a studio audience?
Uh, w- well, with a studio audience, and
also where on YouTube you could like watch
live and then write your questions in,
and Chauncey on the fours and fives
-will relay the questions to us.
-If we did a studio audience, like-
I would love it. People would show up.
-I, I feel like-
-In the comments, let us know if you'd show
up. This is my new thing this week. I
don't know why. I'm, I'm thinking so much
-about the people.
-A studio audience, like I... All I'm
thinking of is like y- I want to sell
tickets.
-Well, you-
-I want to like someone at the door that
doesn't let you in. Like there's a guy-
I'm just thinking like cartoon style. Like
you have a guy at the door like a
bouncer, and you have to have a ticket to
get in.
-That's a little much.
-Wha- I'm not doing it.
-No, I love it.
-Get tickets. Like it, look, if, yeah.
-No, that's great. I'm a huge fan.
-Mm-hmm. $100 a seat.
-Um, yeah. We could probably do that.
-I'm just kidding.
-Or we could do it upstairs.
-You can sell them for like 100 pesos a
-seat, but let's-
-We could-
-Like what are the, the questions?
-We could do it upstairs.
-Are these nice questions?
-So some of these were stump... I, I have
just briefly breezed through them. Some of
them are stump the pastor.
-Oh.
-Um, some of them are just things they're
probably too embarrassed to ask you in
front of your face.Um, so we're gonna
-start with one of those
-Didn't you start with last week talking
about
-sex or something?
-Yeah, this one's on the same vein.
Oh, gosh.
-This, this-
-Oh, god
... th- so I'll start with this first
question. This first question.
-Jeez
-I was like-
Can we pray before we get to these
questions? Lord, help us. Okay, go.
Yeah, there you go. Th- it was, um, I,
one...
I was laughing so hard.
-Oh.
-And, uh, and then I was texting a bunch of
people, like, "Is this you?" Is it...
'Cause I know so many guys where, that
-this-
-Oh
... has happened to. This circumstance
will arise.
In the words of, uh, Derek Stephens, uh,
"That guy's more awkward than a Christian
-pool party." And so that will segue into-
-What is that? That's, that's... What?
I'll segue, that'll segue into the
question. But he used to say that all the
time and it, it still kills me.
-All right, uh, Anonymous writes in-
-Uh-huh
... who is definitely not everyone I
texted, but probably is,
"Based on your bikini talk from last
week-"
Oh, I didn't remember that. Okay, go ahead
... which, uh, yeah. I was like, we didn't
really... You d- I don't know if it was
last week. Anyway,
"I have a friend who is a mature believer
from my understanding."
"My wife and I invited them over to our
pool to hang out, and his wife wore
-something very cheek-revealing."
-Oh.
"A swimsuit, and I was a bit shocked. I
tried my best not to look, but I am but a
man."
Sorry, that's... He goes, "Later, I called
him and lovingly explained how those
parts are for his eyes only, and that
every guy at the pool was looking at her,
and just wanted to encourage him to talk
to her."
So that's one. His response was, "I like
that she gets that attention. It makes me
know that they can't have it, and it makes
me, makes them jealous of me."
What, what... This sounds like one of
those... Okay, go ahead.
Hold on. It continues.
"I like that it makes them jealous of me,
plus she worked hard and is in sha- is,
and is in shape so she can flaunt it a
bit."
-Brr.
-He goes, "I was pretty shocked, didn't
know what to say, obviously. Where do I go
from here?"
God. Um-
-Ugh
-... is it... All right
Also, what's Deuteronomy about, asks no
one ever.
Yeah. Um, all right. So golly. W- normally
I can press a question for the... Let me
-take a second.
-No, that is a-
This is... Okay, so the first thing is, i-
if, if it's a... Swimsuits, I have
daughters, I understand this.
Swimsuits are a challenge for women
because
you wanna look pretty, and what's
considered normal, um, is relative. And,
and what I mean by that is
w- swimsuits, like, so for example, uh,
you say, "Well, I, my, in my family, we've
always made a big deal of I wanted my
kids to not wear two-piece swimsuits. I
want them to wear one pieces
because,
uh, I just,
I needed to find some line, uh, that,
that's not a bikini." I, I... And again, I
don't think it's wicked. I think there's
appropriate times. If you wear bikinis,
you're not wicked. I just, for my kids, I
wanted them to learn about modesty, and
the, the challenge is two things. First of
all, when you get most one-piece suits,
they're very cheeky. It's very, very...
They, they just in general.
Um, and then they make tankinis, and the
girls do the tankinis. And my daughters
are so great, and they're modest, and
they're great, but it is a challenge for
girls to find suits that they can feel
pretty in, that they're out, and then, and
the standard of what's normal has shifted
so much. So we live in Southern
California. It is a beach culture. It's
the same as, like, going to the gym and
people are wearing, like, tight pants that
show your
everything, and, you know, people are
around you constantly, and so what's
considered normal has constantly shifted.
So when it comes to something like
modesty,
um,
what everyone wants is, like, what's
modest? Like, what's the outfit? And
that's why cults thrive by saying, "Wear
this
frock. This is the, this is the outfit of
holiness," right?
-Mm-hmm.
-Like, and there's something p- there's
something that is a relief to people.
Like, when you look at the crazy
fundamentalist Mormon people that wear
those-
-Mm-hmm
-... those little House of Prairie dresses-
Yeah
...
they, they like it because it, it f- it's
a,
-um, like a uniform, right?
-Mm-hmm.
They're like, "This isn't the world."
I think it's a lot harder to live in the
world and be in the world but not of it
because especially in things like modesty.
So in a general sense, I just wanna say
this, um, anybody that's dealing with
these issues, we need to be really,
really, um, patient with each other and
gentle because what's considered modest,
even in the most modest standards in some
places would be considered very immodest.
"Oh, you sh- showed your ankles?" And so
w- it's very easy to feel superior because
we've drawn the line. For example, just,
just to play, like, this out a little bit,
um, there's like, "Hey, her swimsuit was a
little cheeky." I'm like, "Okay, so if
the swim covered less of her butt, is it
a..." Like, m- it might be more modest in
comparison, but you're still seeing a
skin-tight suit that's clinging to her.
Like, so most people would say back in the
day, mixed bathing was bad. So none of
this is to dismiss standards. It's just to
say that, you know, we're each g- like we
said a, in a previous one we talked
about, like, the answer isn't to come up
with a legalistic standard. It's to, like,
answer to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
the question I like to ask is, look, is
Jesus your Lord?
H- are you worshiping him in the way
you're dressing? Is it something that
you're trying to do? Are you... You know,
like, and then
so much that is modest is con- is
context-specific. So for example,
what you might wear to a sporting event is
immodest at a nice dinner. What you might
wear to the beach is not modest at the
mall. You know, it, those types of things
is where the culture's even pushing those,
constantly deconstructing every single
norm. So
in general,
I think that modesty is somewhat
context-dependent, and so you wanna not
stand out in, in general of being, like,
pushing the envelope, but even in that
case, sometimes the whole environment is
immodest by definition, and you have to
discern, discern how you're gonna fit into
it. So beach bathing is, is one of those
areas, and I think, you know, we live in a
culture where, like, someone in, like, a,
a, a relatively modest swimsuit isn't
considered crazy, but years ago it would
have. And that's kinda my example. And
back in the time in the Bible, like,
wearing braids in your hair meant
something it doesn't mean now. So in
general, the idea of m- of modesty is that
you're staying in your lane. You know
your role. You're not trying to get undue
attention to it. Now, as to the person
commenting about the wife,
you know, I think that we're sometimes
super quick to correct stuff-I probably
wouldn't say much. I think that was the
first part. Like, what, because, and
here's what I'm saying. I'm not saying
don't confront. Yes, we talk to one
another. I think if it's on a regular
basis or you're over there and she's
always wearing cheeky, like, maybe say
something.
But I think giving people a bit of grace,
recognizing everyone's on a different
path, being a little more chill, because
if you actually ask yourself, "What do I
think is gonna come out of this
conversation?" There's not a lot of, like,
there, there might be some good wins. So
I don't think it's wrong to say anything,
but, like, it's a little bit extra. Like,
I think you just recognize and mark, "Oh,
that's a little,
maybe I need to be
a little more on edge." And then
the response of the person is maybe
defensive. Like, those aren't really good
reasons, that you shouldn't want to
promote, uh, like for example, what is the
fruit of the flesh?
Rivalry, jealousy, envy, fits of rage.
That's the fruit of the flesh. And so the
person's response sounded pretty fleshly.
She's worked for it, fine, but I want to
-make people jealous and have envy.
-Mm.
And which creates bitterness, rivalry. So
this is, that answer demonstrates n-
something bad. Um, so I don't think it's
wrong to confront, but I think the
expectation of what you're going to get
out of it might have been a little too,
um, rosy.
And then the response is 100% fleshly.
That's not a good thing. I think you could
be annoyed someone's saying something,
and say, "Hey, what, what's the deal? I
appreciate your concern."
And then maybe that person realizes, hey,
you're a little bit scrupulous. This
bathing suit's fine. You know?
It, it, there, there's, it's not cut and
dry. But I do think the answer was fle-
the, the fruit of the flesh. I think r-
telling someone you're looking at their
wife probably isn't something wise. You
probably should just stop doing that and
move on. I don't know if that's helpful,
but.
-Yeah, I would say probably.
-Everyone's gonna answer to the Lord.
-Mm-hmm.
-I mean, gosh, are they all like this? This
-is a hard one. And anyone that's-
-No
... I, I don't know who we're talking
about, so whoever it is,
you know. And then,
-yeah.
-Yeah, if it was, like, a friend, the, the,
the story was, you know, you said a
friend.
I, don't even tell me more details. I
don't want to know more details.
No, I'm just saying that, but you came
over and Becky's ba- I'd be like, "Matt,
-like, what the world, dude?"
-No.
Like, I, I would say, I would say
something.
-Right. I, yeah, yeah. No, no, no.
-If it's a body, I don't know.
But I guess if it's, like, if it's, like,
a, I don't want to get graphic, but, like,
there's swimsuits that are cheeky and
there's swimsu- like, there's just, things
happen. Like, people are-
It's like-
-You know? Like-
-Yeah
... it, you could get, I've had comments
just
in, on, uh,
I hear everything. And so we can, yeah,
it, you know,
at the very least what you're
communicating to somebody is, "Hey, I'm
sensitive to this."
-That, that's the very least.
-Mm-hmm.
That, that's something said. So,
you know, but yeah, I think that there's,
it's not wrong to have the conversation. I
just don't know that it accomplishes
everything that you think.
No, you, you, yeah, you nailed it. You're
like, is what you're, is the desire of
-what you're wearing to glorify God?
-Yeah.
That, that's like, that's the most modest.
I remember I was in a premarital
counseling once, and the wife, she had a
lot of,
the, the guy who was about to marry her is
like, "Man, she's always wearing these
very revealing outfits," and, um, you
know, and it came down to, like, she, she
wanted more attention from men, which is
bad.
-Yeah.
-Wanted more attention. And then, 'cause
she's like, "He wants me to get rid of
them." I said, "Well," I was like, "you
-can keep wearing these in your house."
-Well, yeah.
I was like, "For your husband." I was
like, "No one said," I'm not, I, I went, I
took the position,
I'm not saying to burn them. I'm saying
wear those great outfits for your husband
-in your home.
-Yeah, and I think there's, like, uh,
there's, I think there's, we just have to
acknowledge that there's realities that,
that are... So for example, if you're a
very attractive person that has,
like,
you know,
like, the, basically, if, if, if, if
you're a girl with, like, big boobs,
right? Like, what? It's just a normal
T-shirt. Like, no, okay, time out. Like,
you gotta acknowledge that it's not your
job to dress in, like, a potato sack. So
there's sometimes, like, if someone's
gonna give attention to someone 'cause
they're, they're attractive or they have
things that, well, you don't want to
necessarily draw attention to it, but then
some people are just built certain ways.
Like,
like, you can't help that you're 6'7",
you know? And, um,
what is it Zoolander say? "I can't help
that I'm unbelievably good-looking" or
whatever. You know? Like, you can't,
there's, there's times where people are
gonna draw attention. I just think in
general, I think the,
here's a good, helpful thing. Modesty is
a, is, is a largely cultural, um,
phenomenon in how to measure it in some
way. The Bible doesn't give you a, a
standard that's objective. And then
secondly, if you put everything in
biblical categories,
the fruit of the flesh is evident. That's
what Paul-
-Mm-hmm
-... that's what Paul says in Galatians.
It's evident. I think that's the word. And
so the things that we just said, the
rivalry, the, the attention-getting, the
fits of rage, bitterness, all that stuff
comes from, like, a place. So I think the
answer, those things are downstream
effects, in other words. Modesty is a
downstream effect of the fruit of the
-spirit-
-Mm
... in other words. So
there we go. I think we nailed it.
That's good. I like watching you squirm.
That was fun.
No, it's good. I just, I get it. It's hard
for, it's hard. It's a-
-With all your daughters-
-... hard subject
... I just, there's so many, you, you have
such a container in this area, and it's
-just my favorite thing in the world.
-Yeah. They, my daughters are great.
-They've done, they've done a good job.
-They're the best.
-They wrestle through it.
-But you've had, you've wrestled this for
year- uh, I just like how you, you, you
know every wall and where it has to stop.
-Yeah.
-It's, it's so good.
Yeah.
Um,
a similar topic, uh, why was Lucifer
created?
You know what's so hard about this is
we're, we're like zing, zang. Like, okay,
-so.
-Yeah. I have zero. I'm just going in
-order.
-Okay. Huh.
Uh, why was Lucifer created, and where did
sin originate?
Mm.
Are they, okay, so
we've covered this, uh, we cover all this.
The, okay-
Matt, you need to, I need this to remind
you, like I tell you every Sunday,
-everyone forgets everything.
-Yes.
Well, yeah, Lucifer was created for the
glory of God.
That is the answer. There is, it is truly
the answer. Bible says everything's made
for his glory, even the wicked for the day
of judgment. That's, I think, Proverbs
16:4 or something.
Um, it, it, so Lu- that's why he was
created. And why does evil exist? The, the
way you answer this is very simple. Um,
God has a decree, a plan of everything
he's gonna create. He doesn't do one thing
then another. He planned perfectly. And
for us to imagine that God made a world
where everything isn't perfect would be to
imagine a God who's not God. And so we
know that if the c- the purpose of God
creating, and he states it repeatedly that
everything is through him, for him, all
things for the glory of God. Every single
thing that exists was made for his
glory.... everything, and even the wicked.
And so we have to say to ourselves, of
all the plans that God could have made, is
the plan that he made where there'd be no
Lucifer, sin, or challenge
good? Of course, it's good.
Would that give him glory? Obviously.
Did he choose it? No. Which means it's not
the plan that gives him the most glory.
Somehow, the temporal existence of evil
serves to give God the most glory in the
end, and we're reminded that he's good in
this and worthy of that.
And then there's some of the ways you can
see that glory manifested. So a couple
things we brought up. One,
the glory of God is manifested in, um, in
taking out sin. So sometimes we only think
of God's mercy as good, but if w- the, I,
I always use this analogy 'cause my
favorite way to picture it. You're like,
"How can I be, how could I rejoice in
God's wrath?"
And I'm like, well, if you ever watched
the movie Taken with Liam Neeson, it's so
great because the daughter gets kidnapped,
and he has this one scene where he gets
on the phone,
and he go, and he picks up the phone and
the kidnappers p- have the daughter. And
he goes, "I have a unique set of skills.
I'm gonna come for..." And when you're in
the audience and you hear him say,
"I'm gonna come for you,"
you like rejoice. You're like, "Yes,
vengeance, justice." And the whole movie
was him just getting the bad guys. There
wasn't like maybe he's not gonna get them.
You know he's gonna get them. You want
him to show up as an avenging angel.
You're rooting for him the whole time. And
so in one sense, God gets glory in, in
taking and being just in an, even in his
wrath.
But then I think one of the more basic
problems is what we've mentioned before.
Someone says, "Well, why would God allow
things like the Holocaust or allow the
travesty and the evils that we see?"
And you see it first in the flood, where
after the flood, God restrains evil. He
knows what's in man, he says, therefore
he's not gonna
e- he's gonna restrain their evil and con-
continue his path knowing what's in man.
But really, you get to it in two places,
Romans 9 and, uh, 2 Peter 3,
where Paul says, "What if God desiring to,
uh, puts up with vessels of wrath
prepared for destruction in order,
uh, to basically lavish his love on
vessels of mercy, which he prepared
beforehand." In other words, what he's
saying is that God ordained before the
foundation of the earth my salvation, it
says in Ephesians 1, um, says it all over,
Romans 8.
And so if someone said, "Well, why'd the
Holocaust happen?" We're like, well,
that's a terrible event, but God shouldn't
have let it happen, right? We were right,
but God ordained before the foundation of
the earth that I'd be in heaven with him
forever, and I wasn't born yet. So God
puts up with the temporal existence of
evil until his elect all come home,
and that's what Peter says in s- 2 Peter
3, "Consider the patience of God
salvation." In other words,
every day we delay is because God's elect
are still being saved, and that's why we
don't tamper with the gospel, 2
Corinthians 4, because the elect will
respond to the gospel through the Spirit.
So all that to say, the temporal existence
of evil exists now because God's waiting
for the salvation of his elect. It exists
in theory because it gives him glory,
and, uh, and it serves to give him glory
in the end. And, um, compared with, uh,
eternity, the temporal existence of evil
is not even a blip.
Hmm.
I like that Taken illustration.
That's another movie that I really enjoy
because it's, I l- you, you, how do you
sum it up? You're like,
-"Get the bad guy."
-Yes, yes.
-I love that.
-And you root for the ba-
-Yeah
-... you root for God to get the bad guy.
That's what happens in Revelation when
they're like rooting for God.
Yeah.
When you get to heaven, you're gonna be
rooting for God to take everyone. You, and
then God's, you're like, "Who are these
people?" And he's like, "Oh, grace. Oh
yeah, I forgot." Like, that's not, grace
doesn't make sense to us.
-Hmm.
-But justice will,
-you know?
-Yeah.
Um.
That's good. I feel like we nailed it.
There's no more questions, right? We did
-good.
-No, yeah, there's this one. Um.
This-
I feel like you're, this is a-
-Each of these questions, okay.
-They're great.
-Yeah.
-Uh, this one comes from, this is from Big
-Brad.
-Hmm. All right.
Um, uh, shout out to Big Brad. That's our
shout out for the day. Man, he's the best.
Get him a mug.
Get, this guy, no one needs a mug more
than that guy.
-Yeah.
-He does a lot of legwork behind the
-scenes-
-All right, love it
... uh, giving me some 18-hour long
podcasts to listen to on various topics.
-Hmm.
-He writes this, um,
"If the snake was cursed to crawl,
would it imply that he had
legs? Snakes do have knees.
Could it have been a dragon?"
-Yeah.
-All right.
It actually refers to it as a dragon, I
think in, uh,
um, that great dragon. Revelation
describes him as a dragon.
-Yeah.
-And so, um, yeah. I think the more
interesting part is that animals are
talking.
-Mm-hmm.
-Not that he had legs.
Like, Adam and Eve aren't sitting there
and the snake's talking. He's like,
"What?"
Like, did animals talk? And so I have no
idea.
Yeah. It's a, I wanna call snakes post
dragons.
Well, let me say this. What if
maybe animals didn't talk at all, but this
one's talking, but th- but everything's
new, so you're like, "Well, maybe these
things just talk."
-That's true.
-I never thought of it that way, but like,
'cause you're always like, "Oh, if animals
talk..." I didn't say animals talk. This
-is the serpent, so if the donkey did.
-Mm-hmm.
Balaam's donkey, but, um,
maybe Eve, like, there's just, you're in
the garden, everything's new. It's a new
-discovery, a whole new world every day.
-Mm-hmm.
And so all of a sudden there's this, like,
dragon thing.
-Is it-
-Maybe Go- maybe when God divided language-
Wi- with the-
Maybe when God divided languages, he also
divided animal languages.
No.
No. I don't, don't go there. You just,
you, it was going, it was going, it was...
Man, it was so good. No, what I was
saying, though, is the other thing about
dragons and serpents and all this is that
they tend to be big.
So you ever thought of like, like, a, you
know in like those video games where it
shows like a dragon coming out of the sky,
like, huge?
-Yeah.
-Talking to a person? Maybe that's what it
was. That's why Eve listened, 'cause it
just seemed so majestic and powerful. I
-have no idea.
-Well, do you know about titan boa? Have
-you researched titan boa?
-I know about snakes on a plane.
No, titan, titan boa. You, I'm gonna look
it up. Titan boa is this like massive
snake that they found.
Um, it's that big, and there's a replica
of it.
-Wow.
-They found a vertebrae of it.
-I can't show it on the thing.
-No, it's gigantic.
-No, but, okay, so-
-Uh, look up titan boa, but they found like
-a vertebrae of it.
-Yeah.
And they were saying how due to the
climate of, I think it was South America,
there was this very, like,
you know, lush, moist environment like the
f- the pre-fall would have been.
-Yeah.
-And animals and entropy and all that,
animals would have been huge. And so a lot
of people, a lot of Christians grafted on
-that
-Well, you know, we talked about it
-already, dungeons and dinosaurs.
-Yeah.
-Right?
-Mm-hmm.
The, the dragons are just a name for
dinosaurs,
or dinosaurs a name for dragons, and
they're new.
-Mm-hmm.
-So that's just the word they use. So I
don't know. I think, uh, the serpent had
legs. He has probably like a dragon, but
-it could have been humongous.
-Mm-hmm.
Well, whatever the case may be, she
listened.
So I think we always get the impression
there's like a little snake whispering.
-Yeah.
-Maybe it was like a big old dragon.
-I think it was Titanboa.
-You know?
-Yeah.
-I don't think it's Titanboa, though. Oh,
-dear.
-Yeah, it turned into Titanboa.
All right. That was a good answer.
Um, all right. Traducianism versus
creationism.
-Which side do you take-
-Traducianism
-... and why?
-All right.
And can, and you define what it is for
people?
Yeah. This is... I, I feel like I need...
I'm glad I had my coffee before this. Um,
all right. So the basic issue is how a
soul is made,
and
the basic argument, the creationism s-
says that essentially God knits you in
your mother's womb. You're like, "Well,
isn't that what it says in the Psalms?"
Yes, but it's more of an, it's more of an
anthropomorphism in describing the, that
God superintends the process.
Um, traducianism is basically the idea
of... The reason, there's a couple of
reasons I think traducianism is the better
word, and it simply just means that when
a, a sperm meets an egg,
a soul is made. That when God makes man in
his image, he says, basically, "Be
fruitful and multiply" right after that.
Um, and so the idea of us multiplying,
when the man, the w- w- the husband and
wife come together, and the sperm and the
egg meet, a soul is made. We, we get to do
that. It's not like, remember the Mormon
idea is that you have souls floating in
the sky, and then bodies come down that
God puts, but that's not it either. We are
created in, by our parents, in our
parents' image. Now, God superintends that
creation. He does open and close the
womb. He is God. He is sovereign over it.
So yes, he's, it's true, but the
mechanical view, this is, is the
traducianist view. And the reason I think
it's so
powerful is it recognizes, first of all,
how sin is passed on. I think sin is
passed on more genetically. It's not just
a headship thing. But remember, in the
garden, when Adam and Eve fall, um, the
next thing they do is they hide, right?
And then what they do is they cover
themselves with fig leaves.
And so why cover their privates? Why do
they go from being naked and unashamed to
all of a sudden hiding their privates? And
if you read in Genesis, right after it
says E- Eve is the mother of all living.
The basic premise is
their, their mandate was to be God's image
bearers and to be fruitful and multiply.
They get to make children. So every child
born
was born in a perfect life, born to live
forever, born in such a way. All of a
sudden, they sin. They know good and evil.
They know that, and they immediately hide
from God, and they realize they're naked
and ashamed because when they look at
their privates, essentially,
every child
made from them going forward was gonna be
born missing a connection to God
that's, that has death. That's why Genesis
5, die, die, die, die. It's not how long
it is, it's that they die. And so sin
being passed on is in the, through the
traducian. The soul is made. So this is
why the fall,
um, when, and this is why it's important
to recognize that when we're born, we're
born with the nature of our parents. So,
um, Ephesians,
the, the build-up to this cough is just...
Ephesians 2, for example, right? Uh,
we're, we're children of wrath like the
rest of mankind. So the reason that
children are born with like mental
retardation or a cleft lip or with a
chromosomal disease or something else
isn't because God made you this way.
That's not, that's, it's too direct. It's
because you're born from your parents, and
we live in a fallen world. And so, uh,
traducianism allows for the fall to
actually be the thing that takes effect,
which is that we're born lacking the
things. It's why we die. It's why we...
And so it also explains why the virgin
birth was necessary because, again, um,
Mary is the wife, but no husband, uh, you
know, inseminates her. This is God
himself. The Holy Spirit puts a baby in
the womb. He's fully human, but without
the sin nature. Um, he's truly the second
Adam. He's i- i- placed in her womb by the
Spirit in that way. So he's able to be
fully human without the sin nature of
Adam. He's the second Adam, truly in that
same kind of like untarnished state. Um,
so that's it. Traducianism is the... You
can read it and study it. ChatGPT can
answer that probably with a lot of detail.
But the, the other view has a lot of
problems, I mean, just based on, I think I
hit them a little bit. I think I nailed
it.
-Yeah.
-That's it.
-Good.
-All right. There's other things. I'm su- I
probably missed something, but-
-Ah, man
-... that's, such is life.
-Yeah. It's okay.
-Yeah.
-Again, by the people, for the people.
-Yeah. We'll see how it's going.
Uh, this one comes in,
I want to say the name, but I think from
the subject line you'll know who it is.
-No.
-The subject is, "Jupiter's moon is in free
fall, and it needs gravitational pull."
Do you know the inside joke there?
-Ugh.
-Ah, what's up, Jeremy?
That's so funny.
All right. It says, "In light of your
book, Mere Membership-"
-Ooh.
-So first of all, there's like-
-It's a Mere Membership question?
-Yeah. First of all, there's-
-Okay, every Mere Membership question.
-Yeah. There's about 14 em dashes in this,
-so I know it was written by ChatGPT.
-Oh, dear.
"In light of your book, Mere Membership,
highly reme- recommend it." Thanks,
-Jeremy.
-Your ChatGPT-ing a question?
No. He submitted, he definitely wrote some
questions, then put it in ChatGPT, and
-then submitted it.
-So this is gonna be a sophisticated
-question.
-It's, yeah.
-Oh, dear.
-All right. For the third take,
"In light of your book, Mere Membership,
highly recommend it.
How should Christians think about the
structure and organization of the local
church?" Let me continue. It's pretty
long.
"More specifically, how do we think
biblically about staff expectations,
office hours, and what actually
constitutes the work of the ministry? It
seems like many churches, especially in
America, default to a corporate framework
where a 40-hour workweek, set office
hours, and measurable output shape how
pastors and staff are evaluated. Along
those lines, ministry itself can sometimes
be narrowly defined,
primarily as teaching, sermon prep, and
running programs, while the harder to
measure work of shepherding, discipleship,
and simply being present with the people
can be undervalued or often overlooked.
I've also heard your emphasis, for
example, in your Deuteronomy sermons, that
structure doesn't fix faith. So how
should that principle shape how we
organize the church today? Is there a
danger in adopting business-like
assumptions like fixed work hours and
productive metrics as the primary grid for
evaluating faithfulness in ministry? And
if so, what would a more distinctly
biblical framework for pastoral work and
church structure actually look like in
practice? And honestly, this feels like a
category that hasn't been clearly defined.
At some point, I'd love to see you write
mere elders."To help the church think
through this more faithfully, it would
help pastors organize their schedule and
the members to understand God's structure
and expectations
Okay. First of all, if I did a book like
that, it would be called Mere
Management because it's about how we do
time management stuff. Okay, um,
-no, okay, I think the, the couple of-
-What about Mere Presbyteros?
-Oh, gosh.
-Uh-
I, I'm having fun with this, but that,
that's a good question. Um-
-That's a great question
-... it's a great question. Um, okay, so I
think, first of all, we gotta be careful.
The, w- we don't wanna define what the
Bible doesn't-
-Mm
-... beyond,
beyond, like,
m- here's some principles of why we do it.
In other words,
the Bi- well, God is uniquely vague about
ecclesiology in some ways, right? We, for
example,
the Bible says some basic things we should
hold true, and that's what mere
membership, that's why I think Jeremy's
referring to that. When we talk about
membership, for example, the Bible's not
emphatic about how you manage the
administration of that. It just, it
basically points us to the communion
table, to belonging, to knowing, to
distinguishing, and I think the same is
true in some case for elders.
Th- I, I think these basic truths are in
the Bible. I think that the Bible, the
church is supposed to be led by a
plurality of elders who have authority to
run the church.
Um, some churches are congregational,
where they vote. Some churches are...
Okay, those are fine. There's nothing
sinful about that. Some churches have,
like, a bishop, and they have... Okay,
there's nothing sinful about it. I think
we go too far when we say a, a, a m- a
leadership role is sinful. Um, some people
have one pastor with deacons and then no
other pastors. Again, not sinful.
I do think emphatically or the emphasis in
the Bible is on a plurality of elders. I
think deacons are in a servant role, as
we've talked about in another podcast,
um, that basically are u- usually for a
service. So anyone that's leading a kind
of like ministry type service is, would
essentially be a deacon. Um,
in terms of, like, how pastors do their
hours and hourly work in a business model,
um, yeah, Deuteronomy when P- Moses is
teaching, he refers to them getting the
best leaders and dividing them up, and
none of it protects us. In other words, we
keep thinking that when someone falls, a
ministry fails, something happens, that
the answer is if they had more
accountability structures.
But, but that's, like, a
sort of a grievance thinking in our
culture. Like, the structure isn't the
issue. That's what Moses was getting at in
his argument. They had the best leaders,
the wisdom, the word of God. It was
unbelief.
Structure isn't the issue that ca- that
protects us from, like, the sin of man.
For example, congregations often will ba-
you know, bond together to coup and split
off a church and throw a pastor under the
bus. There'll be, like, people locking the
church out in politics because they have
everyone voting. Um, single pastors can
rule like a, you know, a tyrant, and a
plurality of elders can get abusive
because they have, uh, someone over here,
and they say this. At the end of the day,
there's no model that protects us from
sort of man.
Elders are accountable to God for how they
work, and we don't like that, but it's
true, and God's real, and so it matters.
That's, that's, that's really what
happens, and sometimes a church fails, and
it's okay. In other words,
like, a local church can fail, but the
church won't. And so God's good all the
way through. The model is
elders that have authority. If they
mismanage that authority and you don't
wanna stay there, you can vote with your
feet. Um, but there's no, there's no
system where you're gonna create, like, a
perfect church. So all that to caveat and
say a church can run a lot of programs.
They can have really strict business
hours. There's nothing wicked about it.
Um, my problem personally with that
-is more in line with what a pastor is.
-Mm.
So I think a pastor is a calling, uh, to a
life.
And so at least at our church, all you
guys, no one has hours. We basically say,
"Here's your phone. We pay for your phone.
It's a 24 hour a day gig,
and we want your life." And so what that
means, you can use your time how you see
fit. So, like, if... And so the, the
challenge for me as a, the senior pastor,
someone's like, "Well, what's Brett doing
on a Wednesday?" I'm like, "I have no
idea."
Does that make him...? No. I don't want a
management. Brett, Brett is my partner in
ministry. He's serving the Lord. And so we
have basic ways we check in. We have a
meeting. We do... I like this model.
The reason it works is because you guys
have great character.
Th- I say that because if you didn't, yes,
you could abuse things. Um, you could
say, "Well, what if someone spent all
their time playing video games, not doing
ministry?" It's the same as you could say
about what if a husband is a terrible
husband? What if a wife is a terrible
wife? Like, at the end of the day, yes,
all those things what if are true. God
exists, and he's gonna protect his church,
and we have to hide behind his skirts and
let him do it. So I'm positive that if
you were abusing your f- the freedom of,
to do things, that God would smite you
and, or me and all that. A lot of people
don't like that, so we build these
structures. There's nothing wrong with
them. I don't think they're as effective
as people think, and here's why.
Management solutions, the America, North
America in particular, has been known as
we are the middle management nation of the
world. This is what we've been exporting
more than any other thing is middle
management, and cha- and, and AI is
getting rid of it very rapidly, and
there's no place that middle management
has more tarnished the chur- than
tarnished than in the church. Because it's
come into these churches, and they have
so much management, so much systems, and I
get it 'cause you're managing lots of
people, but it's all premised on the
church being some kind of service
provider. So you have hours, and then
that's because you have programs to
manage.
-Mm-hmm.
-And so you have emails to send and people
-to do.
-Mm.
I don't know, like, what hours look like
in the ministry of Jesus. In my own life,
I mean, even just thinking about the time,
like getting called at 3:00 in the
morning,
um, what, am I off the clock? Or what,
when do you go meet people? Like, half the
time you're gonna spend your life among
people is when they're off of work.
-Mm-hmm.
-So do we say, "Well, what about the other
time?" Well, that's my... So the problem I
have with hours and check-ins is it gives
you the impression that you're, you have
a job and that you clock out.
One thing that I know for me is I'm
always, like, you're my best friend, and
-we hang out. I'm always the same.
-Mm.
-And I'm always a pastor, though.
-Mm.
I think that's hard for people, but I
think that's a better model. I think that
the idea is that real discipleship is life
on life. I think that pastoral
ministry... has to be more of a salaried,
here's the basic check-in type things,
here's what ministry success might look
like.
My job as a pastor is to make you guys
happy, make sure you guys are paid enough
that you're not freaked out, that you can
live, and then get out of your way
and be the dumbest one at the table. Um,
I don't think that's the normal model. Um,
I get why, but I think it's demeaning to
people. I think it basically, we, we,
we work towards what we measure,
and so if we measure attendance and cue
cards and this and that, again, I don't
wanna caricature it, but I don't think
it's wicked, I just don't think it fits
-what ministry is.
-Mm-hmm.
You know? Um, that, to that said, there's
times when you have to take time and when
you're not, when you're just home and
you're just chilled out. Like, that's n-
you're not in sin doing that. Like, I
think
we all want and desire this life where p-
where ministry is this awesome, organic
thing, and then we keep structuring it
into this, like, terrible,
you know, casual Fridays you can wear your
sandals, and then the rest of the time. I
just,
yeah, I don't wanna see you guys at the,
at the office very much. I wanna see you
-out and among the people, and-
-Mm-hmm
... I, I don't know if that answers the
question.
It does, yeah. Well, I think that I, a lot
of the pastors I've talked to that get
burnout, um, are in that 9:00 to 5:00
schedule because, like you said, 9:00 to
5:00, that's when all the people are
working.
-Yeah.
-And so then they go to their, their office
9:00 to 5:00, and then when they get
home, well, now they're getting all the
phone calls and emails and text messages
and gonna hang out with everyone. And so
they're just burning themselves all day
long, and their families are upset 'cause
they never get to see them.
-Um, it can really lead to some problems.
-But I'm a zealot. Like, I remember early
on, like, I won't, I, I don't, if you guys
ever say the word vacation, I get upset.
I, I say you can take a trip, but vacation
implies-
-Sure
-... this is work you gotta get away from.
I'm, like, a zealot. We don't call anyone
at our church volunteers. They're
ministers. We, you know, so I'm, I think
if you have that mentality, you're able to
zealously, like,
hold up excellence. But here's the thing,
I'm,
I don't, I'm not an insecure leader. I
think another reason for a lot of these
hours is that it's very easy to be an
insecure leader. We, we wanna show people
we're working hard, so we can point to our
hours.
-Yeah.
-We can go to the office. It all feels so
respectable. B- um, like, no offense to
anybody or anything, but, like, ministry
isn't... You're not respectable. It's a
shame. People-
-Mm-hmm
-... I get more cr- like, there's no amount
of, "Look at me, I'm a professional."
That's not what that is, and I, frankly,
I do think if you're running a lot of
programs, it does demand a certain amount
of organizational middle management. And
so I do think as churches get larger, they
tend to be program managed, and, and I
just, I think that's what leads to that.
-Mm-hmm.
-And so then you have to have the
secretary. Uh, 'cause I c- I'm like, "What
are you printing?" Like, what, what is
happening?
I don't understand. I mean, many, the...
It's so confusing to me.
I had someone ask me the other day, they
said, "Hey, I'm, I'm at church, so I wanna
serve. How can I serve?" And I'm like,
"Well, you can... Well, I know we need
some folks in the children's church, but,
like, can I give you a, a tip right now?"
And no one's taken me up on it.
I always say, "Go to the small group." And
they're like, "Okay." I said, "And serve
those people." And they're like, "Yeah,
yeah, but what serves..." I go, "No. Find
out. Go ahead of time, find out and, like,
set a goal to pray for each of the people
in that group. You don't even know them.
You haven't even gone-"
-Mm-hmm
-... "and met them yet, but you're gonna
join the small group, and you're gonna
actually set aside some Lego slots of your
time
to serving those people, like, as if I
hired you."
-Mm-hmm.
-"And then let me know how it goes." Like,
just serve them. Like, go and do it. If
everybody in the church did that, the
church would be the place the Bible
describes it as.
Uh, but instead, we usually, and I get it,
we wanna go volunteer for the corporate
office. How can I go help? You know? And I
get that. It's a great environment. It's
not sexy
to go say, "I'm gonna go pray for this
person and for an hour every day," or,
"I'm gonna go, they need some help, so I'm
gonna go bring them, they take their car
-to get washed while they go..." You know.
-Mm-hmm.
They didn't ask. No one's celebrating you
and rewarding you for it. But that's-
-Yeah
-... that's, that's the kind of ministry to
do that,
we have to be willing to kinda get out of
these structures that are really just
validating that, like, hey, I'm doing
serious work. I'm important.
On the flip side,
I love telling people on a constant basis
I have no job.
-Mm-hmm.
-Because I don't. But it's funny because
some people will be, like, with me,
I was playing golf with somebody the other
day, and they're like, "Yeah, I had to
get off work." I'm like, "This is my work.
I, I get paid to hang out with you. What
are you talking about?"
I love what I do. It's great. Um, but
there are no hours, and I never turn my
phone off. I manage it the best way I can,
but I'm like, I know everyone's
different,
but it's a calling on my life, and so I
can't not be a pastor, and so I don't
think office hours reflect that properly.
But if they do for you, I don't know. I
wouldn't wanna work there.
No.
-I don't know if I could.
-That sounds terrible.
I don't know how many churches do it the
way we're doing it, honestly.
-Like, none.
-Maybe.
-I don't know.
-Maybe they do.
I've never met one.
All of a sudden everyone's like, "I wanna
work with you. This sounds great."
But I al- I also think it goes to the fact
that you didn't grow up in the church.
You came in with no system. You just read
the word and you're like, "Okay, well, I
look at what elders are, and they're,
they're qualified-"
-Well, al-
-"... gifted men," and therefore, like,
like, like, everything you said just goes
back to, uh, Titus 1 or, you know, 1
Timothy 3.
Yeah, but also, like, I think there's a
couple things we don't talk about enough.
I think pastors should be paid well. You
know, none of them are gonna be rich.
That's silly. But they should be paid well
enough to, like, what people don't
realize is a lot of pastors, th- they
leave the ministry, I don't know if the
stats have changed, but a r- like, 20
years ago when I looked it up, I think the
average tenure of a pastor was, like, 18
months.
-Mm-hmm.
-That's so short. And that, and that's
people like me that have been 18 years in
a ministry. That's with the stats. I think
what happens is
y- they, they go to small church, they're,
they're starving, they don't have any
money, and then as soon as it gets, starts
getting successful,
they get asked to lunch by a bigger
church. Because bigger churches aren't
hunting for resumes. They're actually
hunting for pastors at smaller churches
-that are, quote-unquote, "successful."
-Mm-hmm.
And so as soon as that church is doing
well and their pastor's starting to do
well,
they feel called
to go somewhere else. And I'm like,
there's nothing wrong with the language,
but also we get real spiritual. And
instead, instead of saying, "Hey, this
church is gonna pay me enough to support
my family, and it's bigger," they move.
And so before we even started the church,
I'm always like, what's it take to supply
a pastor to live in San Diego so their
wives don't have to work and they can just
sort of live?
And we need to target that from the
beginning, mainly to make sure that
pastors aren't beingThey, they're not
moving constantly. The, the goal is to
have you stay for 30 years, 40 years,
and that happens sometimes. Now, sometimes
people move, but hopefully it's not
because of the normal sniping effect.
Well, the Bible backs all this up. A
pastor should be paid,
you know, enough to live. That's it. They,
they should be able to live well in that
community and, and, and, and do that.
Well, that's
-helping them do ministry. And so-
-Mm-hmm
... you don't, not everyone needs to be a
pastor. I think churches are overstaffed.
-Mm-hmm.
-I think they have too many paid positions.
There should be as few people paid as
much as possible-
-Yeah
-... so that you can keep going. Because
most service is ministry. It is service as
unto the Lord.
Um,
you know, you're not trying to pay people
for all these things. This is, like,
literally their worship service. And so
the pastors are really equipping the
saints for the work of the ministry, not
doing the ministry.
-Mm-hmm.
-And so you don't need a ton of those, but
-you need enough.
-Yeah.
-So.
-I have like 1,000 things I wanna say and
ask, but, um, I wanna get to more
questions.
-Yes.
-This is obviously one of our hobby horses.
No, I don't know.
-So we-
-I just, you, you asked. I mean, this is
-like Q&A.
-I- I'll do a-
It's like, I don't even know. I have no...
Like, normally, when you talk, I feel
like I'm trying to stay on a track, but
right now I'm just like-
-No, we'll-
-... going in the weeds
... we'll do a whole... I, I do have a
plan to do a whole- ... episode on pastors
one day, but, um, that basically sums it
up.
-Oh, you'd be interested in that? Okay.
-Yeah, of course.
-All right.
-Con- constantly. That's... They're like,
yeah. Um,
all right. Uh, Alberto.
-Alberto.
-This is Alberto that we met at a shepherds
-conference. What's up, Alberto?
-What's happening?
He writes in, "Why do some churches do
baby dedications? Isn't that what parents
in the church are called to do?" "Parents
to raise their children to the Lord, and
the Lord... Or sorry, in the church to
come alongside them. Why do a dedication
when that's what we ought to be doing
anyway? Does Barabbas do baby dedicat-
-baby dedications? Why? Why not?"
-Thanks, Alberto. Um-
Great question. I was very excited when we
saw that.
Yeah. I don't think we know why we do
them, if I'm honest. Let me explain where,
why it comes out. I think that we don't
baptize babies.
-Mm-hmm.
-I think that in a covenant church,
covenant theology church, you baptize your
babies, which is essentially what,
essentially it's a baby dedication,
because it's not salvific for them in the,
in the sense of it's not signifying
salvation. It's signifying they're a part
of the family of God, the covenant people,
and the people are all kinda, like,
celebrating. What they really are getting
at
in practice is essentially a baby
dedication. So then Protestant churches
that don't believe in baptizing your
babies, we're, we're like, "Well,
we can have the baby without the
bathwater,
and we'll just do baby dedication so we
can have the same effect without having
what I consider
the..." I don't, I'm not a Paedobaptist,
so I don't... I get why they do it.
But I think that Alberto's question's
correct in one sense. Um, but it leads to
another thing. So baby dedications, the
idea is a parent gets up and says, "Look
at our baby."
And everyone's like, "We like your baby."
And then we're like, "We like you, and
we're all gonna see you," and this.
There's nothing wrong with it. There's
nothing wicked about it. I, I think we be
careful. Just because the Bible doesn't
prescribe it doesn't mean you can't do it.
What it's functionally doing isn't wrong
or bad, but he's right. It is a bit, like,
extra, like, why do it? And so we have
done them in the past. We stopped doing
them, not out of any super gnarly
conviction.
It just seems like, a little bit like
Alberto's saying, like, well, all right,
everyone, every baby's dedicated to the
Lord. The family's here. I wanna keep
things as simple as possible. I'm not
averse that we ever did, but it seems like
a lot of
extra things, you know? It just doesn't
seem like it's helpful. Um, that said, I
do think that rite of passages in culture,
and that's more of what I think is
happening, can be helpful, right? So in
the Jewish time, they had the bar
mitzvahs, and Jesus participated
essentially in that same thing in Luke
when he went to...
The Bible, to, you know, th- this idea
that we have these rites of passage aren't
wrong. We don't have many in our culture,
so I think when a family has a baby
and they want to then present that baby to
the church and be like, "Here's my baby,"
and, "Hey, church, help us out,"
I think it's kinda beautiful. Um,
but do you need to have it? No. Do we have
it? Not right now. Could we ever have it?
Maybe. I'm not averse to it.
Um,
I don't know if that answers the question.
-It does. We used to.
-We used to.
-It was like-
-And, and the whole time you're like, "What
-are we doing?" I'm like, "Uh, it's-"
-That's exactly
... bas- the same thing. So it just
doesn't, I-
I was like, "We, everyone, we just wanna
show our baby off." You're like, "Cool."
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of... It's not,
again, it's a good thing. Is, is it
superfluous? Yes. Is it wrong? No. Do you
need to do it? No. Could you do it? Yes.
-You know?
-Great.
Is it better than paedobaptism? Yes, I
think so.
-Yeah, it is. Yeah.
-But that's, but that's, you know.
-Uh-
-If you're Presbyterian, cool.
Yeah.
-Yeah, and if you're not, cool.
-Maybe you're like, "It isn't baby baptism,
but we do just sprinkle people for fun."
So then you just cover all your bases.
You're like, "I've, I'm everyone."
As they walk up to the dedication, you
just throw water at th- you squirt them
-with a water bottle.
-But didn't they do the, didn't they do,
like, a Super Soaker during COVID, like,
the Catholic Church or something? I don't
-know.
-Do you think-
Never- I'm just, I'm just guessing. I fr-
my, my... It's a meme or something I saw.
-It can't be real.
-Do you think anyone under 30 knows what a
-Super So- a Super Soaker is?
-Yes.
-Yeah.
-People know everything now.
Super Soaker is, like, a brand of, it's
like Water Blade.
-Yes. People know 100% they know.
-Roller Blade.
-People know what Super Soakers are.
-No way.
Yes, they do.
-Oh.
-J- comment.
-Comment if you're-
-Tell Brett he's wrong. He knows Super
-Soakers.
-If you're-
-Everyone knows it
-... if you're under 30 and you know what a
-Super Soaker is without Googling it-
-Do we...
I don't know if anyone under 30 watches
our show.
-Ton- here's one from a teenager. So-
-All right
-... take that, Mr.-
-Yeah
... commenty comment face.
-Is this another gotcha?
-Uh, Judah, what's up, Judah? Judah writes
in, oh, this is a fun one. He writes in,
um, Matt's glasses is the subject. He
said, "Thanks for the podcast. It has
helped me in my young life as a teenager."
Hmm.
You're the best, Judah.
Um, he wants to know where you're at on
the glasses/contacts debate.
Judah, you're so great. I love it. Get
that kid a mug. I, are we gonna run out of
money? We can't get him a... Get him a
mug.
-No, I, I purposely had to stop.
-Okay, no more mugs for you, Judah.
No one's buying mugs for me to then take
that profit and buy other mugs for people.
Okay, no Judah f- no mugs for you, Judah.
-I'm sorry. Um-
-Yeah. Have your dad get you one.
So,
then we just, like, live on air stop
giving mugs out. I just like saying it.
-We're like-
-Uh, oh, okay, so great question. I, the
last two episodes were really one episode.
We filmed them...
What, um, was it the last two or the
last-Whatever. The ones where I didn't
have glasses on, did we, the last one we
did last week?
-I don't-
-Come out right now. That one I had glasses
-on.
-You had gla- I think, I think you've done
-glasses the last two weeks.
-Yeah, the, so two weeks ago, two weeks
before, that's why I mentioned it. I had
two weeks in a row without it.
-Yeah.
-But really it was one week-
-Yeah
-... that we filmed two.
So there's only that week where I didn't
have them. I, yeah, everything I said
previously was right. Glasses are
inconvenient, but I found out a secret.
I realized I couldn't, my, my glass I just
could not get clean.
-Mm.
-I washed them, I did everything. I got
special clean- nothing worked, and finally
I'm like,
I'd used dish soap,
and there must have been some film on my
glass and it made them clean all of a
sudden. Like, oh,
this isn't so bad. And I r- but I, before
I did that I'm like, well, I'm gonna just
go with no glasses on this little family
trip we took, not a vacation. And we took
this family trip and, um, I legitimately,
like, couldn't read things.
-And I was like, you know-
-Were you driving?
Yeah. And, uh, I can read while I drive
and I'm fine. I was just like, you know, I
bet I could read that better. I bet I
could read that better. And I was just
like, ugh, I'm so, I... So tired of
myself. So
I got home, I used dish soap on my
glasses. I can see them better.
Um, I saw some pictures of myself without
glasses, and I think I'm fine with glasses
on. I'm not a big fan with me not having
them on either, I don't care. I, they hide
my oldness,
so-
-Yeah
-... more.
-They cloak your thuggery.
-My thuggery. They do, actually. You know
-what's funny?
-They do.
They do. When I meet people without them,
people are like, "Oh, you're a fighter,
you're this." I'm like, "'Cause of my
ears?" When I have them on, everyone are
-like, "Oh, hello."
-Yeah. This guy must read.
-He reads. Um-
-I know
... so I'm sticking with glasses for now.
We'll see if I last till next week. But I
thank you that you're with me, dude. I, I
appreciate it. Oh, one more thing, though.
I was watching a, a golf YouTube video,
and these guys were playing and they said,
to one guy says the other guy, "Wait, he's
a glasses guy, too." And I realized in my
wildest nightmares, I'm like, no one
describes people as glasses guys. And my
wife paused the video. She goes, "That's
not how it normally is." Because all my
fears were coming true.
And the one guy says, "Yeah, I'm the other
glasses guy." I'm like, wait, what is
happening? This is like my nightmare. And
he had a belt with the glasses logo on it,
and I was like,
-am I now a glasses guy?
-I think you're a glasses guy.
-Ugh. It sucks.
-Embrace it.
-Yeah, whatever.
-Thanks, Judah. Have your dad buy you a
-mug. And speaking of your dad, Eric-
-Yes
-... writes this question.
-Oh, nice.
I, I lo- there's something that I love
about Eric and Judah sitting around, like
-putting their questions and figuring-
-Do you think they know that they both
-answer, ask the questions?
-I, I hope so. That's, what a great f- what
-a great family time.
-What if they, what if they didn't know,
-and that's even cooler?
-Anyone with a family should just sit
-around their laptop, go to-
-Good family time
-... go to alotofwordspodcast.com-
-Yeah
-... and start firing some questions away.
-And come to brabos.com.
-What a bl- what a blessing
-... brabosroadchurch.co-
-And then they should all-
-... and come to that
... buy several mugs and T-shirts from
you.
Oh, my goodness.
Uh, Defending the Faith, he writes in,
"What are the contemporary ways that
assault the word of God in the sense of
did God really say? In other words, NT
Wright, et cetera. What are the
contemporary assaults on the word of God?"
That's a good question.
Maybe from like, yeah, sounds like
specifically from bad theologians.
Yeah. I think there's, well, so in, in the
theological space from what I understand
right now,
uh, well, I think there's a couple things
happening. Um, I think that a lot of
theology is like fashion. It just, like,
cycles.
Um, I think the main thing I'm seeing
right now, there's always a, the church
and the culture kind of play off each
other. I think one of the issues in
theology I'm seeing right now is a very
toxic sort of
-anti-dispensational bent.
-Hm.
And I think it's really bad. And what I
mean by that is there's a difference
between saying, "Hey, I'm, I'm taking the
covenant theology," versus, "Hey, I, I, I,
I have a difference," we talked about the
last episode a little bit more. Um,
you know,
evangelical Christianity hasn't... When
you look at the Shepherds Conference, you
had R.C. Sproul, you had John MacArthur.
Sproul's a covenant guy or a partial
preterist, and then, uh, MacArthur's
obviously a dispensational guy. And the
thing that made Shepherds Conference so
great with all these pastors, if you're
not familiar, look it up, uh, is it was
focused more on God's grace, sovereignty,
and expositional preaching. So sort of,
you had sort of the Calvinistic emphasis
of sovereign grace,
and the emphasis on preach the word and
exposition. And there's a recognition that
people are gonna have different views,
and it doesn't mean that you have to just
say the views don't matter. They mattered,
and they had real disagreements, but they
still saw themselves as brothers.
Theologically speaking, one of the biggest
issues happening right now i- in, in a
more popular level, like online level, is
dumb people that pretend to know the Bible
and they do not, are vehemently against
dispensationalism, but, but really is in
an echo chamber of dumbness.
Um, that's one thing I see where people
are just like, "Oh, that's one of the big
problems in America." And then you have,
like, ridiculous people that are
commenting,
um, online right now.
What's his na- I don't even wanna, I'm not
gonna say names. I don't wanna get into
it. But, uh,
I don't wanna get into an internet beef
with anybody.
-Say the name.
-No, no, no. But there's one guy in
-particular who's like-
-I love, I love beef
... against the Jews, and against this,
and they blame dispensationalism. I, it,
it's not serious theology.
Um, but that has impacted the church
because people that are online hear this
stuff. That's the Nick Fuentes group. They
get, they get into it.
Um, but theologically speaking, I think
one of the things we're gonna see right
now is an attack on the,
the, the
sufficiency of the word. Um,
so we might say that the word is inerrant,
but we don't think that it's sufficient.
-Hm.
-Um, in other words, people will say
they'll affirm, there's always been a
battle for the Bible, always.
And there's been battles fought to
conserve the Bible. I think right now
people recognize that
conservative Christians, like people that
are real Christians, believe the Bible is,
is inerrant. It's the word of God.
Um, I think the next debate is whether
it's sufficient to answer some of the, the
questions people are asking. They try to
basically say that here's the Bible, but
it's not sufficient to answer questions
about, say, homosexuality or-... or gender
or this, they'll say, "Oh, well this
is..." They'll marginalize the Bible. Paul
was writing for the, specifically for a
time, and this, that. I think that's also
one of the things you're seeing. Um,
you know, and then more specifically in
terms of just actual, like, theology,
theology, I just think that in general one
of the bigger issues is that
m- mainly pastors in general, I think
ChatGPT's gonna make this worse, not
better at first.
Um,
I think theology and the education of
pastors has largely tended towards
management techniques, and like we
mentioned a second ago, like, so people go
and all the books they read, I know one
guy years ago who would always talk about
all the books he read, and they were all
the, like, Who Stole My Cheese for pastors
-kind of books.
-Mm-hmm.
And, uh, I think that one of the big
dangers right now is that your middle
management pastor, they're not really
theologians, and, um, so that there's no
real discernment. Like, no one expects
pastors to know anything. They-
-Mm-hmm
-... so now I'll find myself sometimes
marginalized. "Oh, well, Matt, he's just,
like, a smart guy," which is kind of
actually a weird l- weird insult, because
I'm preaching the word, and it's, and I'm
saying what it says. I'm not like, "Let's
get into the word with this other..." I'm
not, like, here, it's, we're doing what it
says. And when you marginalize it,
it's not just another technique saying,
"Hey, we're gonna talk about your
relationships today, and this," like, it's
fundamentally not preaching the word.
Like, they said, "Yes, it is." I'm like,
"Well, the word's about Christ." And I
think the marginalization is if, like, oh,
you're just doing it this way. I think
you see that in the online space more,
where more pastors are gonna basically
stay in that echo chamber more, and so
that echo chamber is making the weird
dispensational stuff get worse. It's
making the
online-ish pastors get more online-ish. So
if, if I could be honest, it's probably
not what you're thinking. I think the big
attack is sort of the internet echo
chambers,
and, um, and a lot of people being very
confident about things they don't know.
Like, if you go back to the old Bible
reading episode,
um, proof texting stuff doesn't show
you're smart. You need to be able to tell
me the arcs of the Bible. I think that's
always been an, a, an issue. I think it's
-gonna get worse-
-Mm
... uh, with people using AI i- without
knowledge. I don't know if that helps.
That's, off the top of my head, that's
kinda what I can think of. There's
probably something I missed that's really
egregious. I just-
-No
-... that's what's m-
That was great off the top of your head.
I'd love to see what comes out of the side
-of your head.
-Oh, my goodness.
-Uh, all right, this one comes from Bud.
-All right.
B-U-D, Bud.
-Uh-
-All right, Bud
-... m- remember the band Primus?
-Yeah.
Every time I think about Bud,
I think about the n- the, the Mud song.
-My name is Mud.
-Hit me over the cranium with an aluminum
-baseball bat.
-Mm-hmm.
My name is Mud. Um,
-I don't know.
-I'm just, I like Air Bud.
-Airb- Air Bud. Did you ever see that?
-Yes, yes, yes.
-So our, our buddy TJ flew, uh-
-You can't say all these things.
-Everything's classified.
-No, it's not classified.
Okay.
He jumped out, he recently jumped out of
an airplane with TJ.
-On purpose.
-On purpose.
-Yeah.
-Uh, and, uh, someone made a,
-an Air Bud image of him-
-That's awesome
-... like, like Air Bud the movie-
-Love it
... of the dog. Uh, Bud writes in, "The
Bible presents a sweeping account of the
Exodus, describing the many miracles God
performed to deliver Israel from a nation
far more powerful than they were, and set
them apart as his people. As I was reading
Deuteronomy this morning, a question came
to my mind. How do secular historians
explain Israel's departure from Egypt?
What is the non-biblical account of how
peop- a people group simply broke away and
stopped serving such a dominant empire?
I'm not aware of any alternative
explanation, and it makes me wonder how
much weight historians actually give to
the Exodus narrative, since accepting it
seems to require, at least in part, a
belief in divine intervention."
Yeah, they just don't accept it. They just
ignore it. They basically say they were
never captive or this never happened. It's
not an Egy- like, they'll say, "Oh, well,
the Egyptian histories don't talk about
these things." I'm like, "They don't talk
about any of their defeats. Why would they
wr-" like-
-Mm-hmm
-... it's so stupid. So yeah, they just,
they just, they... W- there's two things.
It's, you know, it's funny. Um, I see this
sometimes in the media. So someone will
say, someone will say someone's doing
something, like, "Well, that's not true,"
and then later they're like, "Well, and if
it is true, it's good." You know what I'm
saying? That's what, like, what people
say. They're like, "Well, Exodus isn't
true, but plus he didn't wa- go through
the Red Sea, it was the Sea of Reeds," or
they'll say that when Moses took them
through the Red Sea, it was really the Sea
of Reeds, and that time of year it was
just an inch of water. So
the, the thing they were
celebrating was just a normal natural
occurrence that just happened to be a time
when the water was low, so it wasn't
really the Red Sea and it was the Sea of
Reeds.
And
the, the comeback to that is, well, that's
a pretty big miracle that God drowned the
entire Egyptian army in an inch of water.
-Mm-hmm.
-Like, you just can't get past it either
way. I don't think... I, like, I'll say
this. I think historians is similar to,
like, Fauci. You gotta remember this.
Wearing a lab coat doesn't mean you're a
theologian,
and just because you're a historian
doesn't mean you have authority when you
speak. It means that the m- the basic, any
historian that ignores the Bible
has an agenda,
period. The Bible has demonstrated itself
constantly, um, geographically,
archaeologically. It has always checked
out. It is absolutely reliable. It has not
let us down ever. Book of Mormon doesn't
work at all. None of the things are even
true. The geography doesn't check out. But
the Bible, the, the places are real, the
people are real, the events are real.
And so anyone ignoring this, um, has an
agenda, and that's all I got. I don't
know. There's not really an alternative
view, there's just that it just didn't
-happen. It's just made up.
-Yeah. Well, that's good. My problem with
Egypt is I just don't trust any people
group that venerates cats.
-Oh, Egypt.
-I just can't. I'm not a cat guy.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know. I just
think, do you realize how new the pyramids
are?
-Are we gonna get into the pyramids?
-No, just like, just, just Google, like,
when you- one of the things that people
don't realize, like, when the pyramids are
and, like, when Napoleon was, and when
these things happened. Like, people miss
this, like, our view of history is, like,
so cartoonish.
-The pyramids are what, like, 1945?
-I don't know. They're so, they're new.
-Just kidding.
-They're, like, very new. They're n-
they're not that new, but they're, they've
been around more recent. Like,
you know, and so you just kinda look at
the way thing... Well, no, the aliens
-built the pyramids. They're fake.
-Of course they did, yeah.
No, I just kind of, I'm saying, like,
there's, the way history comes together,
-it kinda reminds me of my geography.
-Mm-hmm.
You know, they ever say, like, okay, you
have California, then you have, like,
-Texas, and then Boston, and Florida-
-Yeah
... and New York. E- everything in the
middle, I'm like, "Oh."
Yeah.
Um, I think that's how we are with
history. You're like, "Okay, somewhere
there's the Vikings and the Romans, and
then wait-
-Yeah
-... what happens? Wait, wait, the Vikings
come after the Romans? Wait, who comes
where, and when was America?
Wait, Napoleon." I love this one. Just if
you...
A great modern history of the world is to
read Washington's biography, Washington: A
Life.
Uh, phenomenal. It's a big one, it's like
900 pages, but it's really good writing,
it's fun. And then right after that, read
Napoleon: A Life, because Napoleon comes
after Washington. It's really fascinating
stuff. Anyways, I'm going off.
No, that's a good... I always think, like,
Ne-
if church history is America, like, the
Middle Ages in my mind are, like, the
Nebraska of church history. Like, I just
have no idea.
-It's just a dark, dark-
-I study church, even church history, I'm
like, I- I got everything before and
after. Then the Middle Ages, I'm like, "I
-don't know."
-You basically have Constantine-
-Nebraska
-... then you have craziness, then you have
-the Reformation.
-Yeah, exactly. And then in between it's
-Nebraska.
-But yeah, good question. But I don't know.
I mean, I'm, I don't, I think they just
ignore it.
-Yeah.
-That's what's going on.
Seansey, what time are we at, by the way?
An hour and seven minutes. An hour and
seven minutes.
-How many more questions are there?
-Oh,
like 50.
-Do you two wanna keep going?
-No. Well, well, well, we won't-
-Like-
-Well, I got a couple more
-... what if you make it a mega time?
-No, I got a, I mean, I got a couple more.
-All right.
-Um, Carolyn, who we love.
-Yes.
-Hey, Carolyn.
Um,
her subject line's the best. It just says,
"A lot of questions."
-Oh, dear. Okay, I love it. Amen.
-I'm only go- we're gonna do a whole
episode on a lot of the things she's
talking about. It has to do a lot with
biblical counseling. Um, but the first o-
I'll, I'll read the first question. I
think it'll be good for today. Maybe
another one. Uh, there seems to be a
growing trend of people identifying and
diagnosing themselves with intrusive
-thoughts.
-Mm.
Are intrusive thoughts such as violent,
sexual, or fearful thoughts morally
neutral so long as they are not acted on?
Is intrusive the right way to describe
them, or is there a more biblically
grounded category for psychology, for what
psychology calls OCD-related intrusive
thoughts, including religious OCD and
POCD?
Okay.
That's a great question. Um, I think OCD,
obsessive compulsive disorder, the, the
basic idea of fixations and
being u- unable to control our thought
life, I think the biblical category
recognizes that our thought life is meant
to be disciplined.
And I think that in our culture, we assume
that we are sort of organically
organized, and we're not. Our thoughts,
because of the fall, and this means that
without the fall, we probably wouldn't be
this way, but I think our thoughts are,
they tend towards disorder.
They have, they, they, with, and without
structure and discipline,
they just float off to whatever anxious
thing our belly is causing them to think.
And so,
um, that's why in Ephesians, he says
immaturity is like
children being to- or a leaf tossed to and
fro with every wave of doctrine. Well, in
our lives, every little anxious thing,
you know, you just... A- again, I
mentioned Israel last week. Everyone's all
of a sudden asking about Israel. I'm
like, "Oh, 'cause you care about Ge- no,
you're just following the news." You just,
we react to each thing. Well, in sort of
a micro level in our lives, you know, the
anxieties of this make us act this way,
and then we start thinking this way, and
we, um, we obsess about certain things. We
want control in our lives, and often
because we think we're sovereign and we're
not.
I think the, the biblical category,
though, for all these, these ideas is,
first of all, it's normal
in,
in the flesh
to have every disorder. I think that's the
problem we have to remind ourselves.
The whole point of the law is to show us
our heart.
There is nothing
that the worst person on planet Earth has
that you don't have.
The most vile, wicked murderer has the
same heart as you. That's what the law is
saying. Your anger shows you that your
anger is what his murder is, just taken to
its con- you have it. We don't like that.
That's what the Bible's saying. So that
means every disordered, crazy thing that
you can have, violence, sex, all of it,
it's all disorder from the fall, and it's
in us. It's truly in us. And so we think
it's our authenticity. It's not.
When Paul says, for example, um,
he says two things that are helpful. One
is, uh,
when he says, "Take every thought
captive." We take every thought, we, we,
we talked about spiritual warfare, and we
take every tho- thought captive to obey
Christ. He reminds ourselves that we just,
we don't fight against flesh and blood,
but against, what did he say,
principalities and demons in high places.
What he's getting to is that spiritual
warfare is not so much you casting the
Jezebel out at work or something like
that, or shooting beams at demons. It's,
it's the, it's a, a war of ideas. Because
then Paul says the next thing, we take
every thought captive to obey Christ,
which means that the, the normal world
that we're in is inundated with
demonic worldviews, and those worldviews,
with our disordered nature, combine to
create the, you know, sort of a, a
disordered thing where we're following
these things. And as Christians, the way
we deal with these things is we take every
th- cau- thought captive to obey Christ.
There's an idea of discipline in our
minds. We, we, at one point, Paul says in
a different spot, he says,
"If there's anything true, anything noble,
anything right, think on these things."
There's a sober-minded, purposeful,
goal-setting approach to our thought life.
I think the first thing that happens is
when we have a disordered thought life and
our thoughts go to one thing, the first
thing we do is, "How do I stop doing that
thing?" And it implies that there's this
neutral state where your mind is just an
open book, and you can just float along
and go to where... That's not true. Your
mind is always tending towards disorder.
There's no neutrality.
-Mm.
-And so you're either pursuing putting your
mind on the things of Christ, on the
things that are true and noble and right,
or your mind is tending towards disorder.
And so many of us in our culture are just
mindlessly im- imbibing sort of social
media, um, things, and as we're passive.
So we're taking in all of the, the, the, I
keep bringing it up, the fruit of the
flesh is constantly being normal. One of
the things you can tell, here's how you
know you're in trouble. In a, in a, here's
your first canary in the mind,
in the mind
that things are, that you need to make a
change. When holiness and godliness starts
feeling abnormal
and worldliness starts feeling normal to
youSo you, you gotta, you're not... You're
feeding too much from the sewage. You
know what I mean? Like, so the holiness
should be the standard we're pursuing. It
should be, to us, that needs to be more
normative, and worldliness needs to be
more shocking. Um, but for us, most of us
are the opposite. We're more embarrassed
by holiness. Nor- worldliness feels
normative to us.
Um, but yeah, I wanna go back to this.
Your natural mind is not a neutral place,
and if you're not actively pursuing and
thinking upon certain things, and again,
the church really messes this up because
we create these charismatic church
services where all about your feelings and
experiences, but there's no disciplined
mind. It's how you thought. So that same
person might have an experience where they
have an emotional output, but then their
mind is still undisciplined, going all
these different directions like a leaf
tossed to and fro. So, I don't know if I
answered Carolyn's question, but I think
biblically, theologically, our minds
tend... They're, they're already, their
natural state is to be disordered. I think
that we're in a culture that is passively
putting worldviews completely un- um,
unfought into our minds, even Christians.
And the Bible describes an actually
ordered thought life
that is actively pursuing goal setting,
thinking upon Christ, singing psalms and
hymns, actively putting the word of God in
our minds. And again, I said as the Bible
reading, if you're not pursuing this,
you're definitely pursuing something else
you don't realize. And so I think that,
yeah, these, these things come. And one
last thing. I've dealt with a lot of folks
with anxiety. I know, I get it. When
someone keeps saying, "I keep fixing on,
on a certain thought,"
it, the goal isn't to get rid of that
thought, it's to add a different thought.
You don't get rid of the darkness by
waving at it, you add light.
Darkness and those thoughts is not the
opposite of good, it is the absence of it.
And so you need to put more light and
shine more light, and you need more Christ
in your life.
And so instead of stop thinking about the
white elephant,
start thinking about Christ. Start
pursuing Christ. Whatever is true,
whatever is noble, think on these things.
And so if you're gonna s- obsess about
something, that's the thing.
Yeah, you mentioned a bit, Carolyn brings
this up in her questions as well, about
the church is kind of failing in this
area,
and usually when that happens, what
happens, you get para church
organizations. Do you think, uh, para
count- para church counseling
organizations, have they been beneficial?
Are they not beneficial?
Oh.
Are they, are they doing more harm than
good?
Um, I don't know. I don't think anyone
wants the kind of counsel the church ought
-to offer-
-Mm.
-To be, to be perfectly honest.
-So explain that.
I think that... Yeah. Oh, God.
-That was, uh-
-Does that sound like a lot? Did we open up
a can? No, um, I'll say this. That's a
great question. I think therapy culture-
-Mm.
-Okay, the basic great book, The Rise and
Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Truman
deals with this. But basically, in... Oh,
gosh. Uh, okay, there's a lot I wanna say.
I gotta make this short 'cause I don't
wanna take us for another hour. Um, the
basic issue is that the idea that, um, th-
what we've said this before, the Bible's
whole picture of counseling
is how we behave.
And so when the Bible talks to us about
things, and I'll give you the thought,
we've done it on this show, but I'll do it
again because no one for- remembers, even
though they could go back and watch. Um,
if I said to you,
um, "I'm gonna pay you $30 million to play
a loving husband on this show,"
like you're gonna get an acting role and
you get $30 million for the role. Would
you do it? And like, yes. All right, but
in the show, your wife is gonna be totally
mean to you and she's gonna be, um,
plotting against you, and she's gonna be
burning the food, and being mean to you,
and saying snide things, um, on the show,
and you just have to be totally not lose
your cool and be good on the show.
C- Would you take the role? It's 30
million. Would you do it? Most people say,
-"Yeah, I could do that."
-Mm.
And I'm like, "Okay, go then do that in
your life." That's, the, when the Bible
says husbands love your wives like Christ
loved the church, it's giving you a role,
an act to play.
And
the whole counsel in the Bible is to
conform to this behavior. So someone says,
"Hey, I'm struggling with this," and I
say, "Hey, do this. Conform this way."
And then the, remember, the response to
people is, "No, no, no. I d- I get you're
telling me to do that, but that feels fake
because the real me wants to do these
other things. You want me just to fake
it?" And I'm like, "Yes."
And like, well, that's not authentic,
authentic. That's not me. I'm like, that's
the lie.
What you think of as you is not you. Your
belly doesn't define you. Your old desires
don't define you. That's what you feel,
but the Bible's telling you that God says,
"This is who you are. Act this way," and
the feelings follow. The, the, the fruit
of the Spirit follows. So in other words,
biblical counsel ultimately, at the end of
the day, is telling you to conform to
certain behavior a- and your feeling is
secondary. The feeling follows it. This is
so critical. Biblical counsel. And if
it's not this, it's not biblical
counseling. Biblical counseling is you
conform to this.
Do this and the feeling follows.
Therapy culture begins from a different
premise. It says that the authentic you is
the thing you feel.
The, the, your God truly is your belly,
and then it h- and then the goal then is
to help the whole society around you,
wherever you're at, is to conform to your
feelings.
Yeah, that's not biblical. And so I think
any para church ministry that says that
we're gonna do counseling, what we expect
is, "Let me tell you how I feel. It's all
legitimate and awesome, and here's how
everything else needs to conform around
me." Um, nope. You conform to it. And so I
don't know if that helps, but-
Oh, it's super helpful. Yeah, I think that
our, our, probably our next episode
coming the week after this one debuts will
be on biblical counseling.
-Oh, okay.
-Um, we've just been getting a lot of
questions about it, and it's something
that we continue-
-Yeah
-... to bump into-
-That's great
-... all the time.
Um,
oh, this is a good one.
Not that the other ones weren't good. This
is good.
-The other ones.
-Is, is feeding an untruth to an AI model
lying,
or is it similar to, like, talking to a
rock?
-What was it?
-Oh, yeah, that's great. The, the, the
example they write, this is from Jason.
Thanks, Jason. He says,
"ChatGPT won't easily alter images of
individuals. However, if you tell it that
you drew the person, it will make those
alterations in a heartbeat. Is there
anything reprehensible in that, or is it
just thought as like, you know, I just
lied to a wall or a rock?"
Um,
let me give you a better question, I
think, 'cause I like that I'll answer it,
but I'll give you one even more.
If you are in a video game as a character,
and you cheat on your video game wife,
are you an adulterer? Of course not.Is it-
-You have the heart of a-
-Is it okay? No. I'll tell you, I was, I
was playing a video game a while ago. I
don't remember what it was.
-It was called Dragons and Adulteries.
-No, actually, I think it was, like, what
-was the game?
-I don't know. I'm not a gamer.
It, it matters that I was, the game I was
playing, 'cause people will know it. It
was maybe... Oh, it was, like, Assassin's
Creed Valhalla. I was playing that, like,
-years ago.
-I know that. I've heard of that.
And there's a scene... Yeah, I beat the
game. I'm also an Elden Lord.
What was the, what was the game that you
and Trace were all up to, Elden-
-Elden Ring.
-Elden Ring.
-I, I'm an Elden-
-Oh, boy.
I am an Elden Lord right now. I am
standing before you as an Elden Lord. If
you're an El- if, if you're impressed by
that,
-'cause I was-
-You should be ashamed of yourself.
I wanna hear the comments. Someone give
some love for that.
-Uh-
-I'm an Elden Lord. You're like, "Yeah."
Okay. So anyways, um, but at the time in,
um, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there was a
scene where the, the, your friend's wife
hits on you, and in the dialogue box you
hit the wrong dialogue, and next thing you
know you're, like, in an affair-
-Mm
-... with your f- and that's how the game
sets you up. Not to spoil it.
And so I'm in this dialogue box, I'm like,
"Ha," and so I hit one of the dialogue
things, next thing you know,
like, your character, and then they go off
and it's...
And now you're having to manage the story,
and I'm like, I was, like, convicted by
that. And so I just, like, was playing a
little bit, and I was just like, "Man, I
don't like this." So I literally reset the
game back, like, three hours to when that
happened just because I didn't, and to
reset the whole thing,
'cause I felt guilty. So I'll say this: if
your, if your conscience convicts you,
don't sin against your conscience, period.
But the question is more is your
-conscience correct? And so-
-Mm
... so in other words, don't sin against
your conscience
because it, your conscience is a valuable
thing. The question is, is it accurate?
Um, you're not li- you're not speaking to
a person, so you're not lying. Say, you
can say what you want. You're not speaking
to a person. That's it. I don't know what
else to say. So
it's, it's pretending to be a person.
It's not a person. You're not lying.
-I don't know what else, I, you know.
-Mm-hmm.
If you tell your horse that you're hungry
when you're not hungry. Like, I, you know
-what I mean? Like-
-That's like the old Napster debate.
Yeah. I mean, well, that's a different
debate, too.
You know, I don't think that... So I don't
think it is amoral to download music and
all that stuff at all. I think prob- like,
no. That, now, I'm not saying it's not
illegal,
and it's not okay to disobey the law.
However, when the argument for downloading
stuff on the internet, if I bought a CD
and I had the CD burner,
w- like, I'm not taking something from
someone. You're gonna say, "Oh, you're
taking profits."
I'm like, "Okay, so I get it." I'm like,
"You can say I can't do that and it's
illegal, and I, and I'll follow that law."
However,
it's not an i- it's not a, it's not an...
In other words, if it wasn't illegal, it
wouldn't be immoral. What do I mean? Well,
the argument that you'd be taking the
profits from the musician, well, no, I
didn't take anything. "Oh, no, you took
the profits." I'm like, "Okay, so then did
Jesus steal the profits from the bakers
and the fishermen when he multiplied the
fish and the loaves?"
-That's so good.
-Like, it's an absurdity, so it's just not
a real, it's not a, it's not intrinsically
immoral. It might be illegal, in which
case we're supposed to obey the laws
insofar as we're able to. So that's
totally... I don't know if we, why we got
on that, but.
Um.
-It's a lot of things.
-Yeah. Remember Lars Ulrich-
-Nope
-... from Metallica, the drummer?
-Oh, yeah.
-He would always be angry at Napster.
I just remember everyone saying, like, you
wouldn't... Uh, the, the reason this came
up is they used to have on the beginning
of videos, it would show someone stealing
-a TV and robbing a purse-
-Mm-hmm
... and it says, "You wouldn't steal a TV,
you wouldn't do this, so then don't
pirate this video." And my whole argument
is
-that's bad logic.
-Mm-hmm.
Just say, "Don't pirate the video, it's
illegal," not it's the same as stealing
these other things. I don't, it's just not
a...
-It's a category error, I guess.
-Yeah.
-So.
-Uh-
I'm, I'm not-
-Next question comes from-
-... fun at parties
... potentially our not fun...
potentially our youngest viewer. Uh, this
comes from, uh, Samuel.
-All right.
-Age six.
Ooh.
He would like to know if we sleep in
heaven,
and if so, why? Would there be dreams?
-Yeah. Um-
-Great question. Thank you, Samuel. Great
-question.
-A lot of people don't sleep on Earth. Um,
no, I think we eat in heaven because Jesus
has a glorified body. Uh, w- w- w- yeah,
let me not, let me not be too precise. So
when Jesus in the resurrection, he says,
"Does anyone in here have any fish?" Now,
I wanna caveat here. I do not think Jesus
wants to eat fish 'cause he's hungry,
'cause he's like, "Oh, man, being
resurrected is a hard job."
I think he's trying to demonstrate he has
a real physical body with an actual
digestive system, so he eats fish in front
of them to prove that he has a real body.
He's not just a spirit.
Um,
but someone might say, "Well, that's just
the glorified Jesus." I mean, even angels,
the angel of the Lord pauses and comes
down and shares a meal, and Abraham makes
the meal and, but you don't ever see him
eating it. He, like, burns it up with
fire. So I don't know. I, I think that
food and sleep and all these things are
clearly things, food in particular I know
that we have, so if Jesus eats,
does he have a normal digestive system?
Does he go to the bathroom? Like, very
likely. Uh, he's got a stomach and he can
put food in his mouth.
Um,
which implies he als- you also sleep. I
think sleep's a good thing. It's one of
the, it, it's, I think sleep existed prior
to the fall.
Uh, I think sleep's something good. I
think it's boring, but it's a good thing.
And so, yeah, I think we'll have sleep. I
just don't think it'll be disordered
sleep. So,
you know, maybe we'll have dreams, maybe
we won't. I have no idea. That's a
phenomenal question, but I do think we'll
probably sleep because we'll have bodies,
-and so.
-Yeah. I hope I'll have a glorified CPAP
-machine.
-Yeah, no CPAPs in heaven. We won't need
-it. We won't need it. No, no-
-That got chassis. Yes.
Yes.
A lot of times I'm making jokes just to
see if I can get him to crack.
-Yes. That's good.
-No, that's great. Um,
all right, I got... This, this is good.
Comes in from Tova. Thank you, Tova, for
writing your question in. Um, talks about
forgiveness. What is the difference
between biblical forgiveness and
therapeutic forgiveness/healing or freeing
yourself? How do we forgive someone who
never asks
for forgiveness? Our church almost split
over this at one point.
Oh, that's a big question. Um,
all right. So-
-You tired? Need a break?
-No, I'm just trying to think through how
-to start this one.
-All right.
'Cause there's, like, more... I'm never
tired. I, I could go for, like-
-Need a nap?
-I'll go longer than you could go. I won't
stop this episode. If you keep asking
questions, I'll sit here for five hours.
I'm not stopping at all. I just don't know
if my quest- answers are necessarily that
great. Let me just see. So the biblical
versus therapeutic forgiveness. Okay,
first of all, you can't forgive
yourself.So that's not a category in the
Bible. Forgive yourself.
Um, when you feel guilt, it's because
you're guilty. We're guilty by nature.
There's always something there, okay? But
biblical forgiveness, when the Bible com-
it doesn't... I think the challenge is
there's a movement afoot which sort of
says that you don't give forgiveness to
someone unless they do X, Y, or Z to, to,
to, they need to ask it, they need to do
this, they need to show repentance. Um,
that is again, a category error. That is
not the same as forgiveness. That is
reconciliation. You are commanded to
forgive when you're wronged. It doesn't
say anything about them asking
forgiveness. And people say, "No, no, no.
Um,
well, like Jesus, uh, forgive them, they
know not what they do." I mean, the, the
idea that we, what is it? The Lord's
Prayer, right? "Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who've trespassed
against us." The, the basic command to
forgive is for the Christian. Now, why is
the... Now, here's the key element here.
Biblical forgiveness is predicated not on
what the other person has done, but what
Christ has done for you,
period. In other words, you are forgiven,
and so as a forgiven person, you forgive.
That's it.
You do not hold grudges, you do not hold
things. Why? Because God is the one who
takes vengeance, and he does it. So
biblical forg- forgiveness is something
you are commanded to do. Now, reconciling
with someone who's wronged you, or if
someone hasn't confessed to you and you
forgive them, you might still say, "Well,
I'm gonna forgive them. I'm not gonna hold
myself hostage with bitterness towards
them. I'm gonna recognize that God's gonna
take care of it. I'm gonna forgive them,
even my enemies." And,
but reconciling with them doesn't mean now
they're gonna be my best friend or I have
to even get along with them. I might be
cordial. Like, reconciliation is the
restoring of a relationship, and that
requires actual, like,
the wronged person saying, "I'm sorry,"
and you kind of working. So I think if you
kind
of distin- sometimes they're conflated,
but if you recognize them as distinct
aspects, sometimes conflated but distinct
aspects, I think it helps. Reconciliation
is a bit different than forgiveness.
It has to do with the restored
relationship, whereas forgiveness is
something you do because of what God's
done towards someone that's done something
against you.
I don't know if that answers it. Are you
reading a book?
-I'm reading another question.
-Oh, is that, was that it? I don't know if
that answers it well. I mean, that's off
the top of my head, best I could do.
It does. Usually by the ti- when, in this
format, the minute you answer and I'm,
like, satisfied with that answer, I start-
-You're not even listening to me.
-I'm thinking about the... No.
-Oh my goodness.
-Um, half the time I'm just like-
-So I'm just literally talking-
-Look, look, this is-
-... to a wall right now?
-This is, this is my current notebook.
-Oh, dear.
-But-
Don't show me what they might see your
secrets.
-I have riddles on here.
-Ugh. All right.
But this one, I, I want, I wanted to, a
lot, sometimes I will take the question,
bring it into ChachiT- ChatGPT and say,
"Make this clearer," and put it in my own
-voice.
-Ooh, very good.
Um,
this one,
it's longer, but I think it'll be fruitful
to go through. So this one comes from
Gina. She writes,
"Recently, the senior pastor at my church
preached through the Book of Daniel. In
his sermon on Daniel 9:20-27, he shared an
interpretation of the passage that he
acknowledged differs from what his
seminary taught," he was at the Master's
Seminary, "and what he had previously,
previously believed. As I listened, I
became increasingly concerned, and after
several weeks of prayer and reflection, I
reached a point where I felt I could no
longer remain a member of the church.
Before taking any formal steps, I spoke
with my small group leader. He told me
that while he supports the pastor and
agrees with the sermon, he believes I
should meet directly with the pastor to
discuss my concern, describing it as
basically a Matthew 18 situation. I'm
unsure whether Matthew 18:15-20 really
applies in this context, since that
passage seems to address personal sin
rather than doctrinal disagreement. I'm
also wrestling with whether it would be
appropriate for me, as a woman, to
approach the leader, pastor, and express
what I believe this interpretation is and
is not. I'd really value your perspective
on how you think through this situation,
period."
All right. Let's just shoot it quick,
'cause the, uh, I think there's a lot
there. Um, first of all, it's not a
Matthew, uh, 18 situation. It's not,
because it's not just that you can
confront someone over personal sin, but
that's not really the, it's, that's the
wrong way to handle this, I think.
-Mm-hmm.
-Um,
secondly, you can talk to anyone as a
woman. I don't know where that, that's
not...
Yeah, there's no...
Yeah, you can talk to anyone as a woman. I
get the, I, I appreciate the desire to be
biblical and stuff, but yeah, you can
talk to anyone as a woman. I mean, the,
the reason the Bible says in Corinthians
for women to be quiet in church,
ironically, as a side note, it's funny
that people say that, "Hey, you know, all
the miracles are for, for today," 'cause
it's in Corinthians. I'm like, "Cool, the
same part that says women should be quiet
in church?"
And they say, "Well, no, that was for
them." I'm like, "Hmm, how convenient."
Anyways, I digress.
Uh,
the,
the issue is, um,
women, you can confront and talk. I think
the idea that he's teaching something from
Daniel that he's convicted by
that you disagree with is healthy
discernment, and you're saying, "Hey, I
don't think that's correct."
If the church is largely a good church and
you like their doctrine, and he's just in
a position that you're just, like, not
sure about,
you gotta ask yourself, "Is this something
I can overlook?" Because there's plenty
of things.
I think it's good, on the one hand, it's
good that your pastor is not just hedging,
he's telling you what he thinks. I think
it's great that he's reforming his views.
It sounds like his views are based on the
Bible. They might not be correct, they
might be correct, who knows?
I think if y- if it's a big enough issue
for you to leave over, it has to be a big
enough issue to affect, like,
it's a big enough issue in theology. It's
not just like, "Oh, well,
your view of how, like, this works or that
works." I think you can overlook a lot of
things. If it's a gospel-preaching,
expository church, you could probably
-overlook it.
-Mm-hmm.
Um, I think the counsel that you have to
Matthew 18 is bad counsel. Whoever gave
you that does, is a bit
overzealous.
But I do think that with as much charity
as possible, you might mention to the
pastor, "Hey,
I'm not really keen on this. Can you
explain why you changed your view a little
bit more?" And if the pastor's charitable
towards the other position, well, there
-you go.
-Yeah.
Um, if he's on, like, a crusade, well,
there you go. So I, uh, you could also
just not mention it to him at all and just
be cool, and if other things come up,
don't keep a list of wrongs, but kind
of... In other words, I don't think it's,
unless it's outside of
orthodoxy, I don't think it's something
that you have to...
Yeah, people have all sorts of things they
disagree. I could go to,
you know, a church that's, that's
literally a covenant theology church, and
-I'd be okay.
-Yeah.
And, and if you know that's... But I think
the only challenge where this pastor
might be getting in trouble, the only
place is if he's going against their
stated doctrine-That might be an issue. In
other words, if they've doctrinally made
a stand and he's going against that
doctrinal statement,
that's actually now a bit more of a big
deal. If they say, "Hey, we actually teach
this," in their doctrinal statement and
he's not, well, that would be-
-Mm-hmm
-... an area maybe to push.
Okay. Great answer, Matt.
Uh, I don't know if we went through this
one. I don't think we did.
Uh, this comes from Josh. He says, "Matt
had previously stated on his podcast that
the gift of tongues was specifically only
other languages that could be translated
by others during a specific time period.
But how do you reconcile that with what
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:2 about
tongues?"
W-
Well,
yeah. I mean, even in that case,
the, the idea that what, that Paul
speaking a language in his prayer life,
his heavenly prayer language,
um,
is still a language, and he's not doing it
in the church. And so what... The
speaking in tongues is not the same as the
interpretation, 'cause those are two
separate gifts.
The fact that Paul speaks in tongues is
his whole point. In fact, that actually
proves my point. In other words, the
tongues that were spoken out loud, that
another... In other words, if you ever
hear another person s- that's speaking
what sounds like tongues, it would be the
equivalent of hearing someone speak
another language they don't know.
Um, the word,
the, the word for phone and gloss are used
interchangeably to speak about languages.
And even Paul in 1 Corinthians 14
references a language, and he even says
the indistinct sound he means is a sound
that doesn't
sound like that language. There's a
fascinating
study that was done. You can look it up
somewhere. Everyone has the internet. What
actually found... Uh, my son-in-law sent
me this. It was fascinating. They did, um,
like a phonetic study on tongue speaking-
-Hmm
-... across the, the movement. And what's
fascinating is when you go as an English
speaker and you go to another language
that you've never, you don't know, that's
not your heart language, not English.
It's not a, a kind of English. So for
example, if you go from English to, like,
Chinese or English to, like, Arabic, let's
say,
there's sounds that you make with your
mouth that are different than the alphabet
sounds in English. So Arabic isn't just
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, right? It's,
it's like, you know, it's not Hezbollah,
it's He- it's Hezbollah. You, you, you-
-Hezbollah
-... you're s- you're doing different
sound, like gutturals and sounds in
another language. You get to Chinese,
there's sounds you make that are different
than the English language. What's
fascinating is when people speak in
tongues today,
they're speaking the gibberish sounds all
in their own sound,
uh, profiles of their own language. In
other words,
it's not like a person that's speaking
English is also going like like, they're
just not doing that. It's always like
shabalaba dingdong. It's all still A, B, C
letters. Fascinating study. But anyways,
I'm not saying that people are all the
worst. My job isn't to be a detective on
whether... If, if whoever asked that
question wants to speak in tongues, fine,
but as we said in that other episode, as
long as you recognize that it's inferior
to speaking in English and even in prayer,
it's an inferior way to pray, 'cause Paul
literally specifically is making that
case. All right, have fun. Enjoy yourself.
I don't know.
That's great. Uh, I have one more question
from the people.
-Okay.
-We gotta, we gotta wrap it up. Uh, we're
-going on two, almost two hours.
-Oh my gosh.
-And our elder-
-This is like a special episode
... our elder meeting starts in two
minutes.
And so, um, I'm gonna ask this last
question, then I have one does it slap.
I could go for five hours, just for the
record.
-Yeah, this is great.
-You're ending, not me.
Uh, well, it's your, it's your meeting
coming up.
-Ugh.
-So if you wanna push your own meeting
-back, I'll continue.
-Out of stubbornness, I'll just, like, keep
-going.
-All right.
-Like tomorrow, I'll still be here.
-I want Paul and, Paul and Trace to just
-stay at the window.
-Oh my goodness.
-Just please. We'd like to talk.
-I'll stay on this camera.
Uh, we could just keep recording our elder
meeting.
No, no. Okay, go- what's the question?
'Cause we gotta go.
-The worst idea ever.
-You have to go, not me.
Nope. Um, I could stay here all day. Look
for more orange socks to buy.
-No, who's gonna listen to two hours?
-Everyone.
-Okay.
-Everyone will listen to two hours.
-This is a big one.
-They're, they're, they, they don't know if
their question's about to get asked.
That's the beauty.
-Ooh, that is good.
-Like in-
-That's a good one
-... Keaton Stegmeyer-
-Like you might win
-... has waited two hours for this
-question.
-All right, let's do this. Let's hear it.
-And he put it in on March 4th.
-Ooh.
-This guy's waited the longest ever.
-You... Yeah, okay.
And there, and there's still more before
him that I have to get to, so-
-Okay
-... I apologize. We'll get to them soon.
-We'll do it.
-It says, "Hi, Matt and Brett. It's going
on two years since my wife and I moved
from SD to OC, but we all miss our Brevis
friends very much. Miss you as well.
Greatly benefit from your teaching. Amen.
Praise the Lord."
-Yeah.
-"Uh, what do you think about the internal
testimony of the Holy Spirit as the
believer's ultimate ground of certainty
that the Bible is a divine, has divine
authorship? John Calvin and William
Whitaker both make this argument, Calvin
saying that it's obvious that the word of
God came from God as opposed to us knowing
its origin by a decree from a church, as
it's obvious that light is not darkness
and sweet is not bitter from the
Institutes 1.7.2."
-Yeah.
-"This, I think, is an apt way to see the
issue. However, this argument feels
uncomfortably similar to what the Mormons
say when they pivot to giving their
testimony about how they know the BOM is
true," the Book of Mormon, "and Joseph
Smith was a prophet after being backed
into a corner. Should Protestants wield
this argument about the certainty of
scripture as divine nature? And if so, how
can we do so without becoming subjective
weirdos?"
-Love that last one.
-Great, great question.
-Yeah.
-Um,
yeah, so I think the, the first part is
the Mormon argument's just so stupid that
it doesn't, it... even if the Christian
says it. What, what the argument for the
Christian and Calvin and them that are
making is, is more about the canon itself.
So in other words, scripture,
remember inspiration, I said it before,
but inspira- maybe, I don't know if I said
it. I say things all the time, I don't
know where I said it.
-Mm-hmm.
-So inspiration is a result, not a process.
So in other words, God-breathed is the
word, right? Theanustos.
And so when we use the word inspiration,
we usually describe it as a ver- as a
verb,
uh, like, or as, as an ongoing term. Like,
in other words, we say, "Oh, man inspired
by God wrote the Bible." W- in other
words, we make inspiration a process.
It's not a process. It is a finished word.
Uh, so in other words, they say, we can't
say, "Man God-breathed
wrote the Bible." It means that men wrote
in such a way that what ends up on the
page is God-breathed. In other words,
God's word, the, the thing that is his
word is the thing that ends up on the
page.
And so inspiration, in other words, is
recognized rather than
r- than organized. We don't, we didn't,
like, create inspiration. It's something
that we recognize is on the page, and
so-Remarking upon that is really just the
same as saying it's something we receive,
we recognize it. And it is not a, it's not
merely a subjective thing like the Mormon
says, which they say it's a burning in
the bosom. Um, it's an absurdity. What
they say it feels like the word of God.
Uh, it's a pale caricature of what's
happening here. What we're saying is the
Bible is coherent, it makes sense, it
doesn't s- contradict. It has the basic
marks of a- apostolic ministry. It's been
passed down from generations with other
people that have passed it down as, and
having received it the whole time as
apostolic. So that's what that's, that's
what, what's what Calvin and them are
getting to. But then the internal, um,
sort of, uh,
re- register of the spirit that, that kind
of reveals to us is more...
In first John, when he's talking about
that,
he's more talking about the idea that for
the Christian,
the reality of their faith is proven by
their new desires.
In other words,
I'm not the same person I was. The, the,
the internal, like, sort of consistency of
this, these new desires, I'm here with a
testimony of wanting and liking things
that I previously didn't want. This is not
a testimony to other people, however. In
other words, this isn't a proof for
another person, this is a proof for me. I
myself know how I had thought, and I
myself know how I was,
and now I'm like this and think this way.
That is the best testimony. In other
words, the greatest miracle I've
experienced. I'm no longer the me that was
me. The pro... I don't, that's not an
evidence to anyone else, and nor does the
Bible ask us to make it that way.
I would never ask someone else to believe
because I know from me, this is just how I
know,
uh, these things in the most...
It's not the most tangible expression,
it's the one that I experience, right? So
it's not just that the Bible is true, such
as that it's objective, it's that I've
watched God work in my life. Now, the
problem is if someone's sitting here being
like, "Well, I haven't changed at all,"
I'm like, "Well, that might be a big
-problem."
-Mm-hmm.
If you don't have that testimony, if your
Bible, if you have no change, if you're
the same as you were as an unbeliever,
that would be a challenge. The idea that
transformation happens, uh, is a
byproduct, not, of, of justification, is
sanctification, that God s- doesn't leave
you as you start, that you have new
desires and wants, and you yourself
remember not having those desires and now
seeing new desires. Now you have new
warfare, new... That testimony is the best
testimony to you of these things. I think
-that's the best way to distinguish it.
-Amen.
Uh, thanks for powering through the Q&A,
Matt.
-Amen.
-Uh, I also have a subscriber-supported
-does it slap question.
-Okay.
-Comes from Alberto again.
-Alberto.
He's the best.
Uh, he writes in, "Does it slap?" He said,
"Thank you guys for doing the podcast.
Brett, thank you for hosting." You are
welcome.
Uh, "Matt, thank you for sharing the
wisdom the Lord has blessed you with. Now
to the question.
-Pizookies, do they slap?"
-A what?
"And if you, and if you don't know what a
pizookie is, are you even saved?"
A pizookie,
I, I must not be s- I don't even... I've
heard the word. Let me guess, is it like a
-cookie with ice cream?
-Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's a
-giant cookie. It's like, they, it's in a-
-So I'm saved.
-It's, yeah, it's in-
-Okay
... it's in like a size, like the size of
a pie.
-Really?
-With like three giant scoops usually of
-ice cream.
-Um, listen, uh, Alberto, you, you have to
pray for me, 'cause growing up, if I had
the choice between a giant pickle and,
-like, cake, I want the pickle.
-Yeah. Me too.
So I can eat ice cream, fruit, f- things,
like nice-
-Mm-hmm
-... sugary things,
and I just don't like it that much. I like
it a little bit. Now, cheesecake I can
eat a lot.
-You're deflecting. Does it slap?
-Ugh.
-How big are they?
-They're like the size of a pie. They're
-big.
-Is it like a birthday cake?
Like everyone eats it, or is it just for
you?
-It's a, it's a communal event unless-
-Oh
-... unless you're like-
-I like it more than a lot of cake.
-Yeah.
-I, sure, I guess it slaps for some people.
That's not a definitive slap.
All right, it slaps. It's better than
like-
-Well, there we go
-... eating, like, grasshoppers or
something.
-I ate a-
-It slaps
-... I ate a bag of ants once, and-
-Pizookies. I don't, I don't have a sweet
tooth. Like, really, I mean, I can, but I
can. I like stale Nilla wafers.
-Yeah, that's weird.
-Do you like those? I like when they're
-stale.
-No. No, no, no. I, I'm a, I'm a salty guy
as well. I ate a bag of ants in Africa
once, and they just, like, salted it a
lot, and I was like, "This is, I could do
this."
That's adventurous. Yeah, I don't know. I
don't know. I, I don't know-
-That's okay
-... that. I like other things too.
Like potato chips.
Oh, what do I like? Well, I can't even
tell you. There's a lot of good food I
like, but there's, I'm pretty disciplined
until I'm not.
You're disciplined. That's why you wrote a
book. Uh, Mere Membership still for sale,
still out there. Go there, buy a book,
get a mug, get a hat, get a shirt, get a
-onesie. Uh-
-Come to Barabbas Road Church, please.
-Come to Barabbas Road Church.
-I invite you out. I wanna meet all of you
-that come out. I would love to see it.
-Yeah, listen to Matt's message from
Deuteronomy 4. What was the title of that
again, this last week?
-Uh, from there he will, from there, uh-
-You will see him
-... he will, you will see him.
-From there you will see him. Deuteronomy-
-From there you will seek him.
-There we go. We were close.
-From there you will-
-From there you will seek him, Deuteronomy
4. Uh, you can get on the barabbas.com or
get the Barabbas Road Church app. It was a
-banger.
-Banger.
Uh, best Deuteronomy 4 sermon I've ever
heard, 'cause it's- ... the only
-Deuteronomy 4 sermon.
-Worst one I've ever heard too.
-Worst one ever to...
-Ugh.
-Larry, anything to add?
-Smash that subscribe button.
-Nope, he's dead.
-I wanna say it as much as I can.
Smash the subscribe button. Like and
subscribe. Give shout-outs to Seansey. If
you finish the episode, shout out to
Seansey in the comments.
Actually, if you finish, say you finished.
Thank yous for Seansey.
-Say you finished. Go-
-I would, I would love to see, like, 50
-comments, "Finished."
-Just say, "I finished."
-Yes.
-You got here. You did it.
-Give yourself a medal.
-You listened to all your questions. Get...
You know what? You know how you should
treat yourself? Go get yourself a T-shirt
-and get yourself a mug.
-And then go have a pizookie.
Then buy a book and have a pizookie, and
then take a nap.
-All right.
-All right. We'll see you all next week. I
don't know if it's gonna be counseling. It
probably will be counseling.
-You could just divide this into two.
-No, no, we're never doing that.
We're never doing it. We're never doing
it.
-I think-
-Let's go
-... I need to-
-Let's hit it
-... the f-
-Let's do one right now. Here.
To, to end this segment of Brett's always
right, Brett is right, I'm gonna show you
that people will listen to two hours of
this podcast.
-No way.
-Yeah.
-We're, we're gonna see.
-Prove me wrong. Thanks for joining. We'll
see you next week.
-Hey, Matt, you know what really slaps?
-What?
Our subscribers, the people who watch the
show, you, each week. So thank you. We
appreciate you tuning in each week to
listen to the A Lot of Words podcast.
Make sure you like and subscribe, and
watch the videos to the very end. It's
great for us. Make sure you comment, and
it really supports the channel, and we
really love hearing from what you have to
say, and we're excited to keep doing this.
And buy a mug.