Cool.

Let's start and see what happens.

What's up, guys?

This is Derek.

We are trying a new thing, which is always fun, temporarily calling it open mic night.

It's gonna be.

We're just gonna talk about stuff and whatever comes up.

It's just gonna be like a roundtable discussion that is open, loose, kind of what comes to our mind.

And hopefully we will have some deep philosophical and theological blah, blah, blah at some point.

That is fun.

That's the goal of this too, is just to have a little bit of fun, talk about some things, and maybe have some truth come out of it.

Right.

Little enlightenment.

I am here with Kevin.

He is a guy at our church that I know.

He's going through our elder and training process, but we actually have gotten to know each other a little bit.

Very, very minimally over the last year or so.

But then he joined my spiritual gifts class.

Yep.

And was there once, now twice.

And then out of the eight sessions or whatever we've had.

But.

And then we got to talking at the elder in training meeting that we both missed.

It was a makeup.

It was a makeup.

Yeah, it was a makeup meeting.

And.

And we just got to talking, and it was like, what probably could have been done in 45 minutes to an hour.

Took us two and a half, three.

Guilty.

So it was.

It was awesome.

But so that's this kind of burned on from that.

So welcome.

Thank you very much.

Glad to be here.

So just to give everybody kind of an idea, what you do.

What do you.

What do you do?

Well, currently, my vocation, I sell electronics and actuator motors for the reclining furniture markets.

So when you have that reclining chair or sofa at home or even an adjustable bed, the factory I work for actually is the one who puts those motors and those buttons in there.

And so I sell them to the factories that make and upholster those sofas, and I run a sales organization that puts them forward in America.

Cool.

So do you work in an office building?

It's remote for me.

I literally tell people I live in hotels and airplanes.

I have an office and distribution center in Tupelo, Mississippi area.

So I have dual citizenship, both Florida and Mississippi.

So I'm there for about a week out of the month.

Yeah.

And you travel a lot, like, all over the world, which I think is important for people to know just from a perspective mindset that you get to interact with and are in a bunch of different cultures.

It's amazing.

The last three weeks, I've been in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Mississippi, all foreign countries.

Yep, absolutely.

Mississippi is the only state in the union where mama is a three syllable word.

Maoma.

But it's exciting, but it does and it really gives you a perspective on how blessed we are.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Well, what do you want to talk about today?

Well, you know, we were having a discussion.

I think that would be great to continue with talking about people's paths to get to salvation, if you will.

Obviously as Christians, you know, we believe that Christ is the son of God, died and resurrected and we're coming into Easter, so it seems like it's an appropriate topic for this time.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

And just for everybody listening, we're recording, we're going to record a series of things, a series of episodes before this comes out.

So right now we are coming into Easter.

So it's heavy on our minds.

And we were talking about how, how different people, I guess how they approach their faith.

Yeah, how they approach their faith.

Now we, we do want to put out there that, you know, our beliefs represent us like we, we represent our own beliefs and don't necessarily endorsed by the studio.

Right.

This is not necessarily endorsed by the truth response nor like as a whole or, or the church here at Rise.

But I don't think that that's going to be a worry, to be honest.

But I would hope not.

But we do want to just set the, I want to set the conversation with there is only one way to heaven and that's through Jesus Christ, period.

That's what Jesus said, that's what we do.

And it's through.

Well, that part of it is a very short discussion.

Right, we're done.

Okay, we're done.

But how people get there and their practices in the different faiths and the different church buildings.

Some people coming from different backgrounds.

I was raised a Catholic.

Growing, growing up.

And they're very ceremonial, very ritualistic.

It's funny because I was raised the anti Catholic, which is Baptist, Southern Baptist by choice.

I attended Southern Baptist.

I enjoyed that.

I grew up with grandparents who believed that all Catholics would just go to hell because they were Catholic.

And I truly believe that they truly believed that.

So yeah, it was an interesting, that's an interesting dichotomy between the two.

But continue.

Sorry.

Yeah, no, no problem.

But, but you know, it's funny because I have a hard time.

My wife's family is Italian, off the boat from Italy and they are Italian Catholic.

I grew up in a non practicing Irish Catholic house but went to Catholic schools for half of my education.

And so you Know, during that time frame, you know, in the Catholic Church, you do not read the Bible.

You have the liturgy that is read to you by somebody who does the reading according to whatever gospel they take the excerpt out of.

At least when I was there.

And what I found was it made me interested in finding out more.

So I started reading the Bible when I was brought to Christ.

And it was a long journey outside of the building of church that brought me there, because in the Catholic faith that I was a part of, it was a whole lot of thou shalt nots, and if you do, God's going to get you.

Not for nothing, that's exactly what it was like at home, too.

What changed my faith and really brought me to Christ was actually an evangelist who really showed me Christ's love for the first time and just said, hey, brother, do you know Jesus?

And I said, dude, I am not where you need to be.

He doesn't want anything to do with me.

I drink, I curse, I smoke.

And he's like, whoa.

He doesn't care about that.

He wants a relationship with you.

He says, but you don't want to be a stumbling block for your brother.

And that statement has always stuck with me.

And that's really been the foundation of my faith walk.

And that, that happened in 1984, and it's just gotten ebbs and flows over the years, and now it's gotten really deep.

And so I'm that mean guy that always has to point out that I wasn't born yet.

I.

I like to take the punches.

I like to give the punches, but also I can take them.

But we have experience and wisdom, right?

Which, it's kind of cool.

There's.

I've been in the church my whole life, so I literally, like then itself is a podcast.

I gave my life to Christ at the age of five because I understood as well as a lot of adults do kind of a thing.

That's amazing.

I just, I really did.

And it was.

It was all, oh, God.

I mean, obviously he was the one that put the call on my life.

But it.

It was kind of an interesting situation.

My daughter is.

Is very similar.

Like, she was seven or six, turning seven, whatever, but.

And it's just.

It was mind blowing to see her, you know, answer all the questions that me, Lizzy and Nick separately talked to her about.

Right.

Asked her about it, and she could just answer them and, and in a simple way, which is incredible to hear because we complicate things so much.

The faith of a child.

I've been.

I Mean, I've been a Christian now for 30 years, which is weird because I'm only 35, so it's cool to talk to people who also have been a Christian at least that long for me, because my peers are normally not.

That the people my age are not normally have been Christians for.

Yeah.

What are the people your age group doing?

People my age group are either ruining the world or keeping their heads down because the rest of our generation is ruining the world.

I mean, I'm a millennial, so.

And I say that with pride and also with a little bit of regret.

Yeah.

But I can't do anything about that.

I was born that way.

That's right.

That's right.

Doesn't mean I have to stay there.

Right?

Actually, yeah, it does for that.

But I don't have to act like the rest of my generation.

Wow.

My oldest son is 30 years old.

Yeah.

So I.

I get a little bit of a dose of it, so I understand.

Yeah.

And.

And honestly, like, I was raised by a solid Gen Xer.

Wow.

Okay.

Who was very Gen X.

I don't know how else to say it.

Like, they.

They're.

They have a certain way about them.

They're, you know, this is how it is.

Kind of a, you know, lifestyle came.

Out of Southern Baptist.

Now, was this fire and brimstone Southern Baptist, or was this more of the Southern Baptist Convention, where it's, like, little bit more relaxed than it used to be?

It was a solid mix.

Okay.

It was a solid mix of those because we were a Jesus loves you church.

Sure.

But there were some fire and brimstone messages at times.

You know, not as much stomping, raising fist, but look at me.

You're going to hell if you don't.

If you don't find.

Okay.

Yeah.

And, I mean, my pastor echoed.

I believe it was Billy Graham who said, you know, 18 inches, okay.

Is the.

Is the difference between heaven and hell.

Right.

And head and heart.

That means.

And so he was very much a push in that.

And he would talk about the two dogs right inside of you and the one that grows and the one that wins over and the one that shows up is the one that you feed.

So he was that kind of a fire and brimstone type preacher, but at the same time, like, there was very much a Jesus loves you, I love you kind of a vibe to him.

He was a solid dude.

But.

So I grew up.

I grew up in the church there that way.

I've always just kind of been there to listen to people.

That's kind of where God placed me.

I got broad shoulders that way because I also was the one taking the blows in junior high and high school for the people who couldn't take it, you know?

So, like, I would always place myself in the middle of that.

So that's kind of been my pathway.

That in itself is calling God.

God birthed, like, he created me with broad shoulders.

I'm a big dude.

It's funny because to get a suit jacket for me, I've got to cut off, like, five feet off of the arms because the shoulder width comes with certain length of arms.

So.

So.

But no, I also have broad shoulders in the emotional sense where I have taken a beating for others because that's where God placed me in my life.

So that was kind of.

That was my path growing up.

But then it lends itself really well to this conversation because, see, I grew up the opposite.

I was not in a faithful household.

And as a teenager, I was a rotten human being.

But in that setting, you're saying how you took the beatings for your peers, the school.

I grew up.

I grew up in Southern California.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, well, so am I now.

It was beautiful back then, I'm sure.

Right behind my house, we had orange groves, grapefruit trees, abcrots, pomegranate.

You just take it off the tree and eat it.

Now there's no trees left.

It's really sad, but when I grew up and I was an athlete, I was an Olympic class swimmer, so my life revolved in the pool or in school and at home.

What I saw around me, though, was people driven to excellence.

And there wasn't a conversation about God at that time, so I didn't have those peers.

But the reason I say it lends itself really well to tonight's conversation is because that's really the topic is how people's different faith walks have either brought them closer to Christ or sort of keep a divider there.

Because I think that it's people that keep people out of church, not God.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, yes, I agree with that.

Let's elaborate on that a little bit.

Like, one of the things.

And just one more disclaimer.

Gloves are off in this.

These conversations.

I'm gonna say things that both people are gonna be like, you're an elder.

Maybe they might not say that.

But I don't tiptoe.

Like, I'm.

I'm not a butt kisser.

I.

I don't.

Amen.

I am not going to do that.

I have been a doormat for too long.

And I'm no longer going to be that anymore either.

And I'm not saying that I have been here.

I'm saying that is kind of my stance on things.

So that's your prerequisite to what's coming next.

Right.

So with that, I have encountered a lot of people who have been like, you know, Christians are hypocrites.

Or, you know, they are like, look what Christians have done and all these different things.

And it's like, okay, you're right.

There's a lot of people who have claimed Christ that have done horrible things.

That's absolutely true.

But however, a Christian is someone who follows Christ and does things that he does and not just his commandments, but actually walks the walk that he.

Well, your heart's driven.

God's grab a hold of your heart and he's driving you to that behavior, not because those are the laws you have to follow.

Right, Right.

So one of my biggest pushbacks on that is, okay, but we weren't called to follow other Christians.

No.

There could be a billion bad Christians out there and one good one.

And we're not called to follow any of those.

We're called to follow Jesus.

It doesn't matter if there's good Christians, bad Christians, somewhere in between.

We're not called to follow any of those people.

We are called to follow Christ and his example, especially those of us who have access to all of that.

Right.

Like we have access to reading all of scripture.

We have access to study after study after study, after commentary, after commentary, after commentary.

We're called to follow the Christ that was written down in the Bible that lived on earth.

And his example is what we are supposed to live by, not by any other Christian that has ever walked in.

Amen.

And we're not to judge ourselves to anybody else or anybody else to ourselves.

And we're not to judge them.

We can go there.

We can have judged.

Let's go there in a minute.

Let's.

Let's finish up this conversation first.

But so one of the things that I like to tell people, though, after I push back to that is, you know, you go into a church and you're gonna find what you're looking for.

Yes.

If you're looking for hypocrites, you're gonna find hypocrites.

I want one more keep you away.

Right.

If you're looking to find a sinner, you're gonna find it.

If you going to look, you're looking for somebody who struggles with lust or drugs or alcohol or abuse or whatever, you're going to find that person.

But guess what, if you're looking for Jesus, you're going to find him too.

And so it really matters what you're looking for.

Are you looking for the truth?

Because that's what you're going to find.

Right?

And if not in that truth you're going to find, or in that truth you're going to find that that church is not holding the truth.

And so you seek another one, but you're going to find whatever you're looking for.

And if I can elaborate a little bit from what you're saying, I agree with you.

I use an analogy, I've spoken it to you before, that standing in a garage does not make you a car any more than going into a church makes you a Christian.

Absolutely.

And to use the analogy that the church building with the people in it is much like going to a school.

You go into class, you find like minded people with similar interests.

So if you are gravitating towards those that are not following Christ's path, it might be a good time for introspection.

But the reality is I think that people use that as an excuse because they are there.

A pastor said at one time, and I'll use it for a moment to say generally somebody finds a church because they didn't like what was going on in their other church or they're having a hardship in their life and they need that support.

And either way, they show up at your church and you really don't know which one they are when they walk in the door and you greet them.

But we as Christians following Christ, our responsibility and our want is to help them.

And I think that the biggest challenge we have, especially because there is a faith movement in the United States and I think that's a wonderful thing.

But I think that younger Christians, because they've started to identify what is the right way to behave, they start taking much the checklist, as I call it, of what thou shalt nots and what shall do.

And they get caught up in that.

And so in that when I say don't judge, they also get caught up in, well, if you're doing something that I'm not, then I'm judging you for that.

Because if I'm right, you must be wrong.

Well, and something to note there though, generally that comes from an excitement of finding Christ.

Because when you find Christ, it's like, whoa, I need to know everything.

Everything.

I want to know all of it.

This dude loves me how much.

Like you know so.

And you generally comes with a okay, and I want to follow all the things that he told me to do.

And all of that excitement a lot of times ends up there because you're like, well, but I'm going to put these barriers in my way.

And, you know, the Jews did the same thing.

And that was one of their biggest problems, right, Was that they, they put so many barriers to stop them from sinning that they missed the point of Jesus.

Right?

They put so many barriers in the way that they couldn't see the Messiah through the thou shalt nots.

Absolutely.

Like, they couldn't see the Messiah through.

The And I think that's the barrier that we create in a church body if we're not careful.

And that's sort of what the topic we're talking about is at different churches.

They are all Christian churches, whether it be the Baptists, the Pentecostals, whoever.

The Christian church is here at Rise, we're a Christian church, a biblically centered church.

And what you have is, well, we do it this way.

Well, they do it that way.

And you see other people's behaviors.

And some you may be comfortable with, some you're not.

We don't deal with absolutes.

And I think that's when you start getting into Christ's love methods.

There you go.

Perfect methods are not methodology.

There you go.

Methodology is not absolutes.

The message is correct.

The message is an absolute.

There is a black and white.

And methods.

We're all called differently.

Like, we're in this.

We're in this spiritual gifts class.

And one of the very first things that we talked about was the fact that we are all one body, but we're all created differently.

And it's intentional.

Correct.

It's intentionally done that way.

And my personal belief, which is correct, is that that's why we have different denominations.

It's not.

I mean, it's not as much that there was a, you know, a split because this person's wrong and this person's right, but rather this person believes this methodology is the correct way of doing it.

And this, this person believes that this methodology is the correct way of doing it.

What's really crazy is when those two churches can learn to work together because they agree upon the primary doctrines, which is the primary things that we believe.

The ones that matter the most.

Christ, death and resurrection.

Right?

There's only one way to heaven, and that's through Jesus.

That Jesus is God, That God is a trinity exists in three persons.

He created all things.

Those are primary doctrines.

Secondary doctrines are things like whether spiritual gifts like prophecy are still in effect or healing, physical, miraculous healing is still in effect, or whether you can be possessed by a demon is still a thing.

All of those things are all secondary doctrines.

And it really truly doesn't matter one way or the other.

However, a lot of times churches let that be what splits them.

But if we can work together, then we start seeing, oh, we are the body like this is.

We're meant to be different because different people need different things at different times.

And so like we as rise Christian church cannot be all things or else we will fail.

We cannot be all things for everybody.

You have to be what you are and you have to be true to that.

Right?

That's your calling.

Now it doesn't mean we can't as a singular Christian, like Paul said, you know, I will become all things for all people so that, you know, some might believe or whatever, but it doesn't mean that us as personal Christians can't do that.

But we as an organized building church entity, we are called to a certain thing and that is what we're to pursue.

That's our mission from God is said thing.

You could say that denominations are like Baskin Robbins, except for one thing.

At Baskin Robbins, nobody's judging you as being wrong if you prefer strawberry instead of chocolate.

Right?

Except for me.

Hit the hot button.

Bam.

No, yeah, but yeah, absolutely, that's, that's, that is it.

And I mean we could, we could talk for days on things that, that talk about things that push people away from, from the church and that like you said, it's people.

I mean, so okay, there's scripture that says that the.

Basically I'm gonna paraphrase it because I can't remember exactly the quote, but when, and it's like in the Psalms or the Proverbs.

I think it's proverbs that says that the stable would be clean if there were no oxen.

That's correct.

But upon oxen a strong farm is built, basically, or a strong crop is built.

So that means without people, church would be great.

It'd be easy.

People are imperfect, but people, people are required for there to be a church.

I think it goes back to what you were saying about Paul.

Paul says he wants to be all things to all people.

And I think as a personality trait, when we're dealing with the public, that we should aspire to having that well rounded personality.

But we are also built the way God built us and from life experiences.

Whereas we're talking about the spiritual gifts class, there are people in that class that are absolutely Empathetic, compassionate people that are driven by their emotional state and they will fulfill that person who needs that.

I'm going to suggest that's not one of my heavier gifts, but he is.

I'm a passionate person, just not in that way.

Right, right, right, exactly.

I've got emotions and they come out.

And I think I tend to be more like that myself.

But what I see, though, is again, going back to our faith walk as Christ.

Christ rebuked when it was necessary.

He showed his temper when it was necessary.

But he also did not stay with just the holy people.

He went out to the tax collectors, the prostitutes, those who needed those are.

The primary people he went to.

He ministered.

Those were the primary people he came to, which is ironic.

I mean, like, it's.

It's crazy because they weren't the people looking for him.

Right.

They didn't even know that they needed him.

Most of them, some of them.

Right.

That's a key.

Right.

Some of them.

But most of them didn't even know they needed him.

And yet the people who should have seen him a mile away didn't.

Didn't just.

And then rejected him, but they, like, literally murdered him or had him murdered.

Didn't even have the guts to murder him.

Right, right.

Well, but they went against even Roman law in that.

You know, like, it was a favor that got him crucified.

You know, it was a tradition that got him crucified.

And you got to believe that if Christ were to return today in all his glory and walk the earth like he did in biblical times that we're speaking of during his Gospel, we would probably have him institutionalized as a nation or arrested in some manner, possibly.

And it floors me because he could be here.

You never know.

But I think as ambassadors for Christ, it's our job to represent that on a daily basis.

And if we stay centered in that, it won't matter if you Catholic, Pentecostal, Baptist, whatever, again, because I think that's, as you aptly put, it's the methods, the methodology of it.

And that was something that was hard for me to get to.

Although I've always hated tradition, like, I hate tradition because people are so stuck to it.

I don't hate tradition because the things that are traditional are bad.

Right.

So, like, hymns, there are some great hymns.

There's some hymns that we hold very holy that aren't biblically sound, which is interesting.

But hymns as a whole, like, I like hymns.

See, I never put much stock in them, but there's like a big book and there was about four of them that we ever sang.

Right, right, right.

But I like hymns.

I do.

But at the same time, like, there's things that reach people better now, I agree in this time.

And so I get so frustrated when that becomes contention, you know, like when that becomes a point of contention or.

And that's just an example.

What would the point of contention be, though, if you don't mind me asking?

Because I've not experienced it.

Well, you guys don't play.

You guys don't play hymns.

You should play hymns.

There's old people here.

It's like, okay.

So is it the old versus the new?

Meaning the people who have been in the church a long time?

Whether that's.

I mean, that could be me, because I've been in church a long time.

Right.

And I grew up with hymns.

But it's people who have been in the church for long enough to know better that still miss the whole.

It's their comfort zone.

It's not about them.

That's what they miss.

That.

It's not about what they like.

That's something that's hard for me.

That's hard for a lot of people.

It's not about what I like.

Do you think that.

Okay, so I am not your typical, I guess, go to church Christian, because I don't listen to.

The only time that I listen to worship music.

Yeah.

Like, contemporary worship music is when I'm practicing it on Thursdays.

Okay.

Or practice it throughout the week sometimes, you know?

And that's the only time I listen to it.

I hate it.

Really?

I hate listening to it.

Like, I hate listening to.

I love playing it and I love singing it, which is weird, but I hate listening.

I can't listen to K Love.

I can't listen to Way fm.

I can't listen.

I hate it for me.

And it's so uplifting to me.

And.

And my playlist is filled from every genre of music there is, except country.

Can't stand it.

No.

But I'll try not to hold that.

My wife loves country.

Drives me crazy, but I do.

I love it.

And I get in the spirit with it.

Like, I'm going to Brandon Lake in a couple of weeks.

I'm so excited about it.

Right.

But I do.

And I get it.

I love the messaging of it.

Christian contemporary.

I don't feel that way about hymns, you know?

You know who the greatest I personally believe is the greatest Christian band possibly of all time is.

And it's gonna throw you off.

It's gonna throw you off.

Skillet I like them.

I have one.

I have them on my playlist.

John Cooper takes every.

They're a contemporary Christian rock band.

They sound a lot like they're a Christian rock band.

They are like, they sound like Linkin park when they play.

They do sometimes.

Yep.

They have changed a little bit over.

But they.

They've toured with, like, Papa Roach and all those types of dudes, you know, like, all the.

All the secular rock groups, you know, but they.

They make sure, even though they sound like, like, quote unquote, the world, as some people would say, you know, they.

They have that rock feel.

Their lyrics are solid.

But see you.

They found something there.

They take that, that time during every single show.

Every show, to preach a message.

If John feels like in the middle of his song, God is telling him to speak something, he'll break it, he'll stop singing, and the band will just keep playing.

And he will say whatever it is he's been laid on his heart.

Like, he just follows whatever God throws at him.

That's awesome.

And it's wild to see.

That's awesome.

And so, like, as far as I'm concerned, like, that is the epitome of what we're called to do, all of us.

And that's been a big prayer of mine for those who are preaching at our church, is that if God calls them in the midst of them preaching off script, that they follow.

Right.

But anyways, so back to the music.

Right?

But that I am able to connect with God easiest.

Okay.

I can connect with God, however.

But the easiest way that I just really am able to connect with God is through rock and rap.

Christian rock and rap.

Okay.

And so I pretty much don't listen to any contemporary Christian music at all, whatsoever.

It's funny because I listen to all.

Of it, and I have, too, don't get me wrong.

But you touch on something that's very, very important.

I think going into the people.

You say you're not the traditional Christian in that.

I think you are.

I think you're defining what a real Christian is about.

We all come from different walks of life, and we all have this image that we grew up.

At least I did that.

Grew up with, you know what?

Those are goody two shoes guys.

They're those ones who wear the bow tie and there's Sunday school clothes every day of the week.

And I found that very, very hard to deal with.

I didn't like those people growing up.

They were not the people I hung out with.

Yeah.

And so I do my.

I come from A rock background and 80s rock and, you know, back in the days of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne was jumping off back then.

And so I have the metal that Metallica is one of my favorite groups.

Yeah.

They started as country Western, by the way.

Did they really?

They did.

I've met them.

They didn't stay there long.

Not very long.

Yeah.

But so it's like.

It's so funny because what you were talking about though is breaking script because God moved your heart.

I've experienced that with Bethel music.

Who has an inter.

I was going to say an interloper of different rock stars or contemporary musicians that come with them.

Also note, we do not support Bethel anyways.

Continue.

Don't even know who they are other.

Than the church has got some heretical teaching.

Oh, no kidding?

Yeah.

Okay.

See, I don't even know their church.

I just know their music.

Some, not all.

And I don't know if it's current, but it was at one point.

I'll be darn for sure.

I'll look into them, which is crazy.

And they're not ones that'll come like right out and say it, but like in their sermons, they will say things that are definitely a lot of times.

Yeah.

So I've never heard them speak the word.

Actually them, Elevation worship or elevation.

Not elevation church, not elevation worship.

And some hillsong.

Hillsong.

Yeah.

All three of those have had ties to heretical teaching, which was a contention inside of me at one point.

But I just want to put it out there like I want people to know that's my view on them.

If you need to seek it out.

I'll tell you what, keep that in mind.

To always go back to that.

We can do a podcast on exactly what that is some point.

Because I listen to their music and somebody like Brandon Lake will be singing a song with them and he stopped right in the middle of it and start preaching, which I love, and calling for prayer, which I love.

And I'm not saying everybody that's with those people are that way either or agree with everything that's said.

I just know from the pulpit at times from each of those churches, there has been things like denial of the full deity of Jesus or humanity of Jesus at times just depending on the church.

It was.

It wasn't like a full out Jesus is not God, but it was like the way they.

They were soft peddling was very, very much that thing.

Okay.

You know, which is kind of unfortunate.

And Steven Furtick is.

Is one of those that's like, nope, don't don't.

I.

He may have changed since.

I don't know for sure.

I've got a lot of people that are around me that may have liked him at one point and then realized what he was teaching and.

And have since been very against him too.

So.

So let me ask you a question then, because.

And I.

I also.

Yeah.

Just before you, before you go there.

Yeah.

I.

I am.

I'm a name dropper.

Cool.

Especially of people who are out in public.

Yep.

Because I.

I think that if you're going to step out and say, you know, I'm a Christian and I'm a leader in the church.

Right.

Then I am then called to call you out whenever you're not doing things.

Right.

Right.

So totally.

I just want to put that out there.

That's why I don't mind saying names like that.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it because I'm.

Totally cool with it now, congregation people, I'm not going to say their names, obviously, because, like, they're not.

They're not elevated to a point of public eye.

Right.

Right.

Those who are in public eye, I'm.

I'm called to call them out publicly because I don't have a direct connection to them.

Or else I'd call them out that way.

But go ahead and ask your question.

No, and that raises the question is, see, I seek out the songs that will elevate my spirit.

Not knowing anything about these people.

Sure.

And have no interest in their preaching.

If I did, I'd be attending their church.

I suppose.

But when their words and their lyrics and their song moves me, I'm like, wow, I have room for that.

So I think that that is an interesting perspective because I don't know them.

Sure.

And per se.

Don't want to know them.

Well, we stumbled upon.

I'll give you an example.

There's a song called so Will I.

And it also has another part of the name, but so will I.

And we were discussing the lyric about evolving in pursuit of whatever the word evolving.

Right.

Like, okay, macro evolution is not a thing.

There is no proof for it.

In fact, all the proof that has ever been thought about has not been there.

Right.

Supports creationism well.

But there is no macro evolution like there.

No.

No evidence of it in history at all whatsoever.

Micro evolution, sure.

There's the small changes over time.

Right.

You know, within the thing, but one species into another species has never happened.

Agreed.

And.

And there's just no proof of it.

Like, if there was proof of it, I'd be like, okay, well, maybe we should you know, we should look into that a little deeper.

I am somebody who's very much.

I want the truth.

I will defend my beliefs.

But if there is truth that trumps beliefs, then the truth is the truth.

Right.

Like, so I want to dig into it.

Well, and that's where it goes back to your original point, though.

Find it in the Word and in the gospel.

Right.

Not from the people in the church.

You're not following a person, you're not following a Christian, you're following Christ.

Right.

So, yeah, I would tend to agree with that philosophy.

So we're talking about the song and like, one of the guys that, well, he's off at college now, but one of the.

One of the guys that was working here at the time, part time, he actually looked up.

Well, he's like, oh, fine, I'll just look it up.

You know, I'll look up the author and what his beliefs are.

Right.

And he's a macro.

He believes in macro evolution.

And it was like, okay, we are not playing this song anymore because that is clearly now the song could be great.

Nobody could ever think anything of it.

Right, Right.

But that author believes in macro evolution.

Therefore the lyric was talking about literally evolution.

So the beliefs are following are falling out into the music.

Well, right, right.

Well.

And see, I've never heard the term macro evolution.

So my own ignorance there.

Evolution is split into two different categories.

It's macro, which is one species to another, apes to humans.

Got it.

Microevolution is the difference of a wolf to a dog.

Okay.

Or a poodle to a greyhound.

Different little changes here and there, but not a species to a different species and a kind to a kind, you know?

Right.

It's.

It's micro.

It's little, Little changes, longer beaks on birds.

That's what Darwin experienced was, was micro evolution where he'd see one bird over there and one bird and another place, and they, they were slightly different.

Like, that's.

That's micro evolution.

That is undeniable.

Like, that happens with humans.

That happens with environmental out of it.

Yeah.

Environment.

Everything in the environment does that.

Like there's a million different types of spiders out there.

Right.

So.

Which is terrifying.

I don't know why I went to spiders first.

I have a phobia of spiders, so.

You could have gotten snakes.

Anybody who's a listener of this, they know, like, I don't.

They.

They all know that.

I don't know why I went there.

But my point is, is that micro evolution is undeniable.

Macro evolution.

There's no proof for.

So cool.

So I have no problem with it.

I.

Yeah, yeah.

I've never.

I've never agreed with the ape to man kind of concept.

I just didn't know the title for it.

Yeah, yeah.

But it gets lumped in with evolution just generally a lot of times.

Yeah.

And there is a big difference.

And it's important to distinguish those because I'm not a denier of micro evolution at all.

I think things change.

Things change over time, just not.

It's funny because in order to educate yourself or be educated, you have to open your mind to different possibilities.

And that's, I think, why things are called theories.

And the problem comes down is when people take them too seriously.

Sorry, but no, they do.

And I think it goes back to even the faith walk inside the building of a church.

Whereas people come with a specific paradigm that they are viewing the world from and what they expect to receive when they walk in the door.

And I think that the big change for me, because I was not a churchgoer, I did not grow up one.

And I didn't enjoy my communing with church people.

And still to this day, I don't like church people, quote, unquote.

People in the church, different thing.

We have relationships and they're individuals.

But that stigma of church people always kept me away.

And so I look at it and say, okay, well, what you were expecting to see and receive when you walked in the door is where a lot of people.

I say, keep people from church.

However, the deeper you get into the Word I find, the less that bothers you because you realize that you're there to participate, not to receive.

And it's not a spectator sport, if you will.

Even though we're watching the preacher listening to his message, we are on a daily basis in the Word and in prayer.

And if we are, then a, we can call out the fault if we find one, and we can stand on biblical principle for that.

But two, you become more rounded in your viewpoint to where it's like, okay, I understand what he's saying.

And you're not so offended when somebody says something that might have been spoken the wrong way if you understand the principles of it.

And the only way to know that is to read it.

You must read it through God's words.

And what drives me nuts on a little tangent here is how many different versions of the Bible there are.

It's like you got somebody who's bent.

You talk about different methodology.

The King James follower versus the new Living Word or Tree of Life Bible or Whatever it is.

And it's like, goodness gracious, you know, it's like, listen, talk about tangents, man.

I could go on that one for a long time.

Yeah, ESV standard, that's where I'm at.

That's where I land.

I do the tree of life.

The American standard is decent.

The NIV is all right.

I get worried that they've contemporary changed the words and which in some ways changes the message sometimes I'd much rather take the straight shot than you put the mix are in it that dilutes the message.

So here's the thing with that though.

So I don't know if you're talking about NIV specifically, but with translations, the idea that people are taking things out or leaving things out or adding things in and all of that, first thing I think everyone should know is that none of those things that are added in or taken out that in those different translations matter.

Agreed.

Not in any way, shape or form really.

Most of them are context clues pointing to other places where similar things are said.

That's generally what it is.

Or a fulfillment of a thought maybe.

Because most of the, the scribal errors that might have been found in earlier translations are gone now.

They really are because of the fact that the way that the things are translated is they take, as long as they're doing it right.

They take the manuscripts that are available to them.

I know how the Jews do it.

They take the manuscripts that are available to them, all of them and compare right across the board all of the, all of the, them that they can get their hands on.

And with technology of course, that makes things a little bit easier to cross reference and see.

And when we're talking about translating, a lot of people are like, well, you know, you're translating a translation and all that.

And it's like, well, no, not, not really.

I mean we have, we have manuscripts that are.

Let me help you because I'm in manufacturing.

Manufacturing.

You have a prototype and everything you build from that prototype is production.

So what you're talking about in the translation is you have a prototype that you're using the manuscript and everything is built to that spec.

So it's not like telephone where it's going to become a different version in that sense.

And I'm probably speaking to personal preference in some of it.

Sure.

But because I do prefer to hear some of the Hebrew words because I don't know Greek, I don't know Hebrew either.

But it meant a lot to me when reading through the Jewish words of the Bible that Christ Saying, who do you say that I am?

And Peter answers them and he says, on this rock, I build my community.

Well, that changed my faith a lot for me because it gave me the depth of my responsibility outside the four walls of going to church.

And it really changed how I carried myself outside as opposed to all my life.

I heard, on this rock I build my church.

And I never thought of it because to me church was what I went to.

It's not what I was a part of.

So that's where I get into it.

You could get down that rabbit hole and lose yourself.

I have a similar story.

And it was actually Jesus and Peter as well.

And it was, it really kind of changed my, my faith walk a little bit because for a long time I, I, I took the whole Jesus interaction with, with Peter after the denial and all that, the, you know, the, you know, do you love me?

Right?

You know, and Peter said, yes.

And then do you love me?

Yes.

And you know, do you love me?

Of course I love you.

Whatever.

That's, that's what we're talking about here.

And I always just took that at face value.

But there's a lot missed in translation there because what, there's two words used for the love in that passage and one is agape, right?

Which is an unconditional, like I, I love you in the deepest, most unconditional way there is.

And then it's phileo, which is a, hey dude, I love you brother.

Like, you know, it's like we're friends, we're close, you know, I love you like family, but it doesn't have that depth right.

Quite as.

And so what's actually said there is Jesus says, peter, do you agape me?

And Peter says, of course I filet o you.

Oh, wow.

And yeah, right.

Totally different right there.

And then Jesus is like, peter, do you agape me?

And Peter says, of course, Lord, I filet o you.

And then Jesus says, peter, do you filet oh me?

And he goes, of course, Lord, I agape you.

And it's like it's not just this surface level thing that happened there.

There was true reconciliation to a point where an understanding that it's not just a thing that we do, but it's an all in situation.

And that really changed some of the course of my faith walk was, was that simple little thing.

And what's funny is in college, I went to a Christian college for philosophy and religion was my major.

And I wrote a paper on the words agape and philo and how they're used interchangeably throughout scripture based on that passage and that they didn't really have a difference.

And that was the paper that I wrote.

And it was funny that years later I realized how wrong I was and how much it actually meant difference.

Like it was a difference of what actually was made.

Well, think about this.

Just interject it because you just blew my mind with that.

It makes so much sense to me and I'm glad that you brought it up.

How many people listening to this podcast actually are reading their Bible like I have over the years and just.

Okay, repeated it three times, what the heck is he hard headed kind of thing?

Or is it just alluding to three denials?

Right?

Like three different three denials.

Three.

And in this context you just gave that translation really makes that passage mean so much more.

My goodness, so much more.

Right.

And I get emotional just thinking about it.

That passage for sure.

But so there's definitely something to translations.

King James I had a problem with.

I just couldn't digest it.

But see, here's the thing with King James 100 years ago, it was the way they spoke.

It was the way they spoke and they understood what the words were.

They understood the.

They read it.

It was simple.

It was in their tongue.

We don't talk like that now.

None of us, even the people in England don't talk like that.

Well, here's a little bit of a twist though.

And I haven't done the research on it, but I take it at face value because I respect the person who made the mention of it back in the original translation.

Back in Jesus time, James wasn't actually a name, it was Jacob.

And that even the gospels or the epistles were changed by King James because call him a narcissist.

Or that during that time period that those names came in vogue.

Now I don't know that to be 100% accurate, but that's where I say some of the translations may or may not be fully there, but your agape vite file makes totally much more sense.

Or the community versus church.

And those are the little nuances that.

Look, this is just me geeking out, okay?

I love geeking out on the Bible, right?

And I like digging into that.

I like, you know, Elohim or Adonai.

It doesn't mean Jesus or Yahweh is wrong.

It just means I like hearing.

I would push back against that idea where the names are changed like that just simply because we don't base our are translations off of King James.

And any translation, quote unquote, that is based on The King James is actually a paraphrase and should, with the exception of deep study, should be dismissed in my opinion.

And that's a strong opinion that I have, because a translation is taken from the Greek in the Hebrew manuscripts that are as old as we have copies of.

Correct.

We have as early as first century.

We do have some Aramaic still though, I believe.

Well, okay, but the New Testament is written primarily in Greek.

The Old Testament is written primarily in Hebrew.

There was a little bit of that in the midst of it, but it's interwoven a little bit just because of the way that in the New Testament especially there was multiple languages that might have been spoken by the people that would be interacting with one another.

Okay, so there would be some Hebrew, there would be some Greek, there would be some Aramaic in the midst of the people that were talking amongst each other.

But as far as like New Testament, we have manuscripts that are as old as 1st century of some of the stuff.

Right.

For New Testament, right.

Like that's like super close to original.

And we have B.C.

you know, or BCE or whatever you want to call it, whatever before Christ, before common era, the, the old stuff.

Right, right.

Before that, manuscripts of, of.

I think, I think, if I'm not mistaken, we have like 400 BC manuscripts of old Testament writings.

Okay, so we're not talking like 300 years ago.

We're basing all of our writings now off of that.

Right.

All of our translations.

We're talking based on 100 years ago.

We're talking.

Yeah, we're talking long time ago.

Trans.

We're translating from that now because we have understandings of how that that language works now.

Sure.

Way better than even 300 years ago.

We have access to all of that stuff.

Whereas 300 years ago, with the, with the King James, they wouldn't have 200 years ago or however long it was, they didn't have the access to all of that, whereas now we do.

So if people, if anybody listening thinks that like the NIV or the ESV or English Standard or the New International or the whatever, all of those different things, I will get to amplified here in just a second.

But if you think that those are based on a translation of King James, you're mistaken.

That's not how things are done.

I don't know.

I'm not trying to say that.

No, I'm saying them though.

That is not how things are done.

And that even if King James himself had those names changed to what they are known as today or to anything different, we have original, not original but we have older manuscripts than then that would say otherwise.

Fair enough.

He doesn't have access to all of those manuscripts to have been able to change them.

So that would say otherwise.

Now, we also have to remember that a name in one language may not be the.

The same when translated.

So, for instance, Jesus.

Jesus is a primary example of it.

Joshua, Yeshua.

It would have been what it was in Hebrew, so in Greek, it was Jesus or Aramaic maybe, but it would have been Jesus or Spanish Jesus, but at the same time.

So all of that to be said, there are some translations that I also don't agree with, and the Amplified is one of them, because what they did with the Amplified was they took all the different possible meanings of the word and stuck it in there.

So, like, for instance, if a word could mean, I don't know, I've gotten so far away from it because of that that I can't even give you a solid examp.

Like it.

It'll list, like, three or four different things that are adjectives.

Right.

Okay.

Describing a thing or just reiterating something.

But all those words mean something different in our language.

But yet there's one Greek word that they are using all four of these words to place in that spot.

Okay.

And so I.

I have an issue with that.

Sure.

Because that's a.

That's kind of like a throw the spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks kind of a thing.

Okay.

And so I struggle with that one.

I also hate the message.

The message paraphrase is hot garbage, in my opinion.

Never read that one.

Don't.

It was actually a guy.

A guy wrote it as a paraphrase.

Like the Cliff Notes version of the Bible.

So a paraphrase is like going to take this English version and explain it in my own version.

Make it easier.

Oh, your interpretation.

Make it easier to understand or attempt to.

Like the pirate version.

There's a pirate version out there in the Bible?

Yes, there's a pirate translation.

So that would be a paraphrase.

Calico Jack, one of the disciples.

I don't know, actually.

I didn't get that far.

I want to buy one so bad, though.

30 bucks.

But it doesn't stray away from what scripture says.

But at the same time, it's not what you should be studying if it's all you got.

Okay, go there.

But if you have access to anything else, please use it then.

Paraphrase.

Well, it's like you said in the beginning of the podcast, we have so much access now.

Yeah, we do.

We do, in fact.

Anyone who has a cell phone, which is almost all human beings.

Not all, but most.

Most human beings have cell phones.

Even poor countries.

I mean, I was in Honduras, and everyone had cell phones in Honduras.

Everybody.

Very, very close to everyone.

Sidebar.

One of the craziest things I ever saw, and I don't know why it bothered me so much, we were in Rome years upon years ago, and there's a priest walking across the courtyard on a cell phone, pronto.

And it's like.

Like, who's he talking to?

The Pope?

That's funny.

But almost every human being has a cell phone.

And I get it.

There are countries where they're not allowed or whatever.

North Korea, whatever.

I don't know.

I go to China, man.

We got two phones, right?

I have my Chinese phone.

So that way all they want to spy on, they can have that and they can't touch my phone.

Right.

Well.

And I've heard South Korea is one of the leading people and some of the technology stuff, too.

So that being said, anybody who has a cell phone, most of them have access to the YouVersion Bible app.

Oh, yeah, right.

And in that YouVersion, you got eight.

Different versions right off the top.

Oh, that's the ones that, like, come pre downloaded, right?

Yeah.

And then you've got, like, access to.

There's a Jamaican translation in there, and there's all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff.

It's great.

So if you don't have the YouVersion Bible app, check it out.

It's even got Bible studies and reading plans and everything else.

The audio devotional really helped me out.

The first year.

I was trying to get into being disciplined about the Bible.

You know what's crazy?

And I know we're all over the place and it is what it is, but I had grown bored of reading the Bible for a long time.

Like, probably, I don't know, six, seven years.

I struggled.

It was like a drudge to read the Bible because I went to college for it.

I read it several times over.

I've studied in depth.

I've actually translated Greek to English for a small section of the Bible.

It was a tough class.

It was not an easy class, but I passed.

So, hey, whatever.

Greek is Greek to me.

But I lost my train of thought.

Where was I going that you'd become bored with.

Oh, yes, okay.

But I became bored with reading Scripture because I'm like, I know all this stuff.

I know it, I understand it.

I get what it's telling me to say, what to do, whatever.

I get what it's saying.

And maybe I can't quote scripture and verse all the time, but I'll tell you what, you tell me something's going on and I'll tell you whether it's biblical or not.

I know that, I know it that well, but I had gotten bored with it.

And so about three years ago, three and a half years ago, I became a part of my first discipleship group ever.

Okay.

I had never done a discipleship group where it was just a group of guys holding each other accountable and digging in, you know.

And so we started a Bible reading plan that was a 3ish year Bible reading plan.

And that was about two years, two and a half years ago now that we started that.

And it's one chapter a day.

And I decided, you know what, I'm just going to listen to it.

And what's crazy is it has unlocked things that I just never noticed before.

It has.

I have seen things jump out that were like.

Oh, even, even simple little things like, like the, the average, the average age of a, a soldier in the Israel, you know, the.

Their army, the Jewish army or whatever.

Israel's army, sure.

What age do you think that was?

Talking about current day or historically, Biblically.

In biblical times, what age was the age in which you became a soldier?

Age?

No concept.

I'm going to say 20 years old.

Really?

Yes.

I would have never known that.

I didn't.

But they talk about like, you know, they'll say things in scripture like he was a fighting age or he was, you know, whatever.

Or like they talk about David when he was little.

His brothers were all off at war, but he wasn't.

Well, if they were all off at war, they were all at least 20.

But those kinds of things.

There was a part in scripture where it talked about the different age groups and it popped out because I was listening to it, that I was engaged in a different way.

What's cool about that too is that it was an oral tradition for a long time too.

Yeah.

And that's how people learned it.

Now it doesn't mean it wasn't written down too, but I mean the Jews carried that as oral a lot and they would memorize things.

And so just there is something to listening to it be read that is, it's just something different.

So it has really reinvigorated my like, well, understanding and, and it's alive for me again.

You know, it feels like it's, it's.

Well, I think that's important whether it be the reversal, which is what I did or whether do it the way you did.

I think you're touching on something that's very important is keeping it alive, not as a.

This is an exercise.

Yeah, because really, in fairness, that's exactly what I think a lot of my experience in the Catholic Church became was.

We walked into church and it was, the Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

And we did the same thing.

And it stopped meaning anything.

Sort of like the Pledge of Allegiance.

People don't think the words.

Our father Luke 12.

People don't think the words because they've memorized them.

And anything that you can do to keep it alive and growing in your heart and your spirit, I think is really an effective tool and something you should do.

So like I said, for me, it was the exact opposite.

I went from the you version listening to it because I was in the car all day.

And it was a much better way to go about it.

And what that did is it spurred on a desire from me that God put me into the Word where I started reading it.

Now I got so many different versions of the Bible at home, it's not even funny.

But I love it because now I can go down those rabbit holes by myself and just what does the concordance say?

Now, see, that's what I'm talking about with deep diving study.

Is that okay?

I'm totally cool with you cracking open the new living paraphrase.

If you're also cracking open a New American Standard or NIV and all of those, you're cross referencing things, they make parallel Bibles, that's what they're called, where they have four different translations all lined up.

They're thicker, I've seen them.

But they're really neat.

They're really cool.

But by golly, that's the only time I would suggest, well, it's a study tool.

It's a study tool.

It's a study tool.

I agree with that.

It gives you another perspective to bounce it off of an actual translation to see if it would actually apply in that way.

But yeah, that's great.

I mean, that's a cool thing.

And for a long time I was doing all of those things.

I had a parallel version which I ended up giving away to a friend who was going off to Bible college and stuff.

But it was like, I don't know, I had all that stuff and I did all of those things and I, you know, I was deep in it and then I lost desire to read it.

And until that happened, until I Got the.

Fair enough.

So.

But what's interesting too, a lot of people think that you have to read the Bible.

What about the people that didn't have it?

It's a good point.

Right.

Like it's.

It's.

Scripture says to meditate.

Right.

On.

On God's word state.

Right.

And.

But I would mean that you necessarily have to read it daily.

Correct.

To meditate on it.

Right.

Like, I've studied scripture for a long time now, and I know Scripture.

So me reading it and me meditating on it could be the same thing.

Not necessarily, though.

No, what I'm saying is it could be the same thing.

I could read scripture or I could be thinking about what God's done for me and what he's taught me and the things that he wants for me, and it be the same thing because as Scripture says, I've hidden his Word in my heart.

And so as that has happened.

Right.

Like I can meditate on his Word.

Amen.

Without cracking open the book.

Well, because I've.

In the Bible it says in the beginning was the Word.

It didn't say in the beginning was the Bible.

Right.

You know?

Right.

Well.

And it's funny because Jesus.

Jesus alluded to Scripture a lot.

Yes, Right.

Yep.

That wasn't New Testament.

Nope, didn't have that.

So.

And all of those dudes that were running around with him like they had some memorized, they had some.

They knew some Bible, but at the same time, they were fishermen, dude.

Like, they were not necessarily the most.

Well, well educated.

And how great is that?

Right?

It gives us all hope.

It does.

It really does.

I mean, I've.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially this redneck dude from, you know, Podunk, Missouri.

They were from Missouri.

Huh?

You from Missouri?

Yeah, just north.

North of Kansas city.

Okay.

About 45 minutes, probably.

So on the Missouri side, though, not the Kansas side.

You have to differentiate.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which is also the side that the Chiefs are on.

I just want to put that out there for anybody who doesn't.

Doesn't know that they get associated with Kansas too much.

So.

But I was.

I was born and raised in.

In Carney, Missouri.

Okay.

Little, little town and just north of Liberty.

A lot of people might know Liberty if you know Missouri, but it's north of Kansas City.

I went to college down in Branson, Missouri, which more people.

People know that because it's like the old people Disneyland.

I always, I always considered it the, The Christian Nashville.

Could be.

It could be.

I had some friends, more of the Dolly Parton country playground.

Okay.

So that's the Ozark.

It's kind of the way I feel about it.

I know Dolly Parton's got her own thing other places, but it's.

There's a lot of that feel to it.

So.

But it's also, it.

It was on an episode of Pinky and the Brain, even though it was like, you know, you get old, you go there, you know, and so it's as we.

As we speak in southwest Florida, right, Where you get old and you come here.

Right, right, right.

This is where you go when you get old to live.

And that's where you go to have your own version of Disneyland.

So.

Okay, fair enough.

So.

But.

So that's where I went to.

Went to college, was down near Branson in Branson, but it was right outside of Branson, little place called College of the Ozarks.

And it.

Yeah, it.

Some of the greatest people in all of the scholarly world, I believe are right there.

Very cool.

One Dr.

Rap and Chuck probably never gonna listen to my podcast, but shout out to him, but somebody who knows who might he even.

Right, right.

He even will converse with me through email today.

That's great.

Whenever I am like, dude, like, I don't.

I don't know.

And so.

But yeah, so if God can use me, he can use some fishermen.

And if he can use some fishermen, he can use anybody, you know, like, that's.

That is where it is at.

Again, all of this, it seems like we are all over the map, but it comes back to the main point, which is we have many methodology, many methods to receive the Word.

The Word is coming from God and it's not coming from a person per se.

Person may be the messenger that God uses to bring his Word to you and to bring you closer to him.

And scripture will always back it up.

Exactly.

If it says something different than Scripture, it's not right.

And that's right.

Or correct them, that would be better.

But that's what God has put me here to do, I believe, is to call out the people who are saying the wrong things.

But I do want to say one thing on.

On our faith walks, right?

Like, it's not a.

You gotta get right and everything's gotta be perfect in your life.

And then you can come to Jesus.

Still waiting for that to happen.

That's not how this is.

Wait for perfection.

Right?

And in fact, like, for those of you who.

For both of you, right?

For those people who are like, well, I can't just change all at once.

But also the people who are like, man, you need to Give up all your.

All your sinful ways.

You don't clean a house all at once.

Nope.

Like, you can't clean the entire house at the same time.

You go piece by piece, room by room.

And so, man, for those who struggle with sin.

Right.

Let's point out one that the church normally is like, oh, this is the sin of all sins for homosexuality.

Right.

Maybe that's a struggle of yours.

Right.

There's been.

I mean, that's been the grandest, most.

Oh, my gosh, you can't.

You couldn't ever be a Christian if you struggle with that thing that the church has stigmatized for a long time.

I mean, that's the sin of all sins in the church.

Right?

Ridiculous.

But it is a sin.

Right?

Homosexuality is a sin.

But let me tell you, like, I struggle with things too, you know, not homosexuality, but I.

I'm a work in progress.

So just because you don't.

You're all of a sudden not like, I fight it all the time.

Right.

Doesn't mean that you're not being worked on.

And God's going to convict different parts of you throughout your faith walk to perfect you at some point doesn't make whatever that sin is okay.

Well, since you bring that one up, it's funny.

I had a sister who just died recently who's actually in homosexual marriage.

And it's become a subject of conversation in my family quite quite frequently over the time.

Because being a Christian and acknowledging that it's a sin, it's created some friction within the household.

Absolutely.

However, I will tell you my belief on this and open it up for criticism.

But somebody who's homosexual, albeit a sin, is no greater or worse than.

Than my own sin.

And since we know that nobody is perfect and we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, I am not in a position where I'm going to be the person to judge them.

I can judge their behavior as being wrong and sinful, and I can try and correct them in Christ.

But we're not called to condemn.

Right?

That's God's work in their life.

We've all been condemned already.

But here's the thing.

Who am I?

And it's the staff in your own eye versus the toothpick in theirs kind of thing.

But I'm not here to talk to you about what's wrong with you per se, unless you're asking me the question or you're trying to be discipled to Christ.

If you ask me, is it a sin?

Absolutely.

I think it is.

100% a sin.

I think the Bible backs me up quite completely in that.

But again, that doesn't mean you can't come to Christ.

But we shouldn't celebrate sin in the church or in person either.

And so I think that little.

It may seem semantics, but I think that that's a big thing, that a lot of the gay community is having a hard time with these social issues as we speak politically in an election year, whether it be abortion, the killing of babies.

Don't think that's right.

But you know what?

I can't litigate your morality.

And I can tell you.

Well, I can tell you what it is for me, and I can tell you what God has convicted me and what it says in the Bible.

And I believe that my role in that conversation would be to seek God's wisdom for you and try and share it with you.

I think we get hung up on the differences instead of the fact that we are all the same and that we're all sinners.

And again, I think that once you're convicted on something is a sin, if you continue to do that behavior, you are sinning against God's will.

And that's a totally different subject for another time.

But I think that is a greater concern than whatever that sin actually may be.

So.

So one of the things.

Let's pick that apart for just a minute.

Let's actually start with something you said that is a little bit of a tangent off of it.

But you were talking about the spec and the plank.

I don't think.

I think that you misquoted that.

And here's why.

You were talking about two different sins and that script.

I wasn't quite quoting it either.

I'm just.

Right.

No, no, no.

What I mean, I'm saying I.

Referencing it.

You referenced it out of context.

Yes, because you were speaking of two different sins.

Now, it'd be one thing if.

Okay, so that scripture is actually specifically talking about not calling out somebody else's sin that you are still struggling with.

Okay.

And aren't trying to work on.

Work through.

Fair enough.

So, like, if.

If you are struggling with drunkenness and I am struggling with drunkenness and you start calling me out on drunkenness, then that's Plank and Speck.

Okay, fair enough.

If you're struggling with drunkenness and I'm struggling with pornography and you call me out on pornography, that's not speck and Plank.

Okay?

Okay.

So that's one thing that.

Because we are called to do that, right?

Well, I believe.

Absolutely called to each other.

But I'm going to stand on very seriously.

I don't believe that God's will in my life is for me to go around judging other people's faults.

False.

We use the word judge a little differently.

We found that out whenever we were talking.

But look, having discerning or being discerning and having a discerning heart, I think is where I lean on.

He gives us the gift of discernment to understand right, wrong, good, bad, those kind of things.

And some of that is wisdom.

I think that when you get into judgment, that is God's.

How do you define judgment?

Let's go there, because I need to know before I can agree with.

Sure.

It's a great question because I've never been asked to put it to words.

I would say judgment means to convict you that you are wrong in my eyes.

I believe that is for God to do.

I do believe that there are behaviors, again, scripturally, that if you are in.

If you are not congruent with God's word, that you now stand at risk of judgment by God.

It is my responsibility as a Christian trying to lead you to my faith that I would share with you where I think you are in error, but I would have to do it in a teaching sense, not in a judgmental sense.

And I know it's really, it's a little bit of semantics in here, but judgment is for God to do, not for me.

Okay, so you're talking about.

Okay, so there's two different scenarios here that we need to break down because I feel like what you're saying is more directed towards unbelievers versus believers.

Yes, 100%.

And I should stipulate that.

Also, what you are describing is condemnation, which is the final decision basically, of what.

Where you're headed based on, you know.

Yes, that's for God to decide.

Condemnation would be a better word than judgment for what I'm describing.

However, we are called to call each other out.

And that's what I mean.

That's.

That's what people usually throw out there as judgy man, you really shouldn't.

You really shouldn't watch pornography.

It's not good for you that, that people are like, don't judge me.

And no, I think we have to judge that behavior.

Right.

Well, absolutely.

I think so too.

But that is what the outside world will get hung up on.

Right.

Like that.

They'll.

They call that judgment.

Okay.

In that sense, let them get hung up on it.

Right, Right.

It's not a, hey, you're going to hell because you're doing this thing, right?

And you know, I've.

I decided that for you, it's a.

Hey, dude, that's that Scripture tells us we're not supposed to lust after someone and we're not supposed to do these things.

And so you should not do this.

It's not good for your health, it's not good for your brain.

There's plenty of things there that you can go into for that.

You know, there's a lot of people.

Soft pedal the Bible because they don't want to get into conflict.

And I'm not that guy either.

Yeah, because that's why defining.

No, no.

And I appreciate doing it because it helps me clarify it in my own head.

What I'm trying to say as well.

And that is one of my biggest struggles is defining terms like I will say something and people will be like, well, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

There's not.

It's like, okay, well, no, it's not.

It's the truth.

But maybe I'm not saying it the right way.

Sure, I get accused of that a lot.

I've been married 31 years.

I am not a good communicator.

I've learned that.

Ask my wife.

I am not either.

It's funny, I run a podcast on not a good communicator.

So maybe this is me just getting all of my thoughts out on words.

So there you go.

It's perfect.

As Edgar Allan Poe says, for my own part, I have never had a thought that I could not put down on words.

Doesn't mean they were put down in the right words, but their words.

So.

No.

So that's why.

I mean, hopefully in the midst of what we're trying to get started here with this, there'll be a lot of defining of terms.

We'll be rubbing heads with each other and other people and whatever term you want to put to it.

Fighting, arguing.

Debating.

Just discussing.

I like all of those words.

Yeah, me too.

I'm good with all of those things.

So whatever my household arguing was how we expressed ourselves.

Yeah.

Right.

So hopefully there will be a little bit of that in.

In whatever's coming and defining of terms so that we can understand each other better.

So I would call that condemnation.

Okay, so that's important.

I am not here to condemn you, but I can judge your behavior.

I'm not here to condemn you because you've already been condemned by Jesus.

Amen.

Like, that's already been done.

So we all have fallen short.

Right?

That's.

No.

So we all need him and period.

So, but as far as that goes, like, I also, I can say that you are not acting like a Christian.

I can't say you are not saved.

Right, right.

Right.

So.

And I wouldn't.

I would never want to even try to tredge those waters and be saved.

That would be a deep.

That would be a deep discussion for anybody.

I have zero problem saying you are not acting like a Christian.

Absolutely.

Well, that's why I say you judge their behavior.

Right.

But not the person.

Right, Right.

So, yeah, I'm 100% on that one.

Clarifying terms.

Yep.

It's awesome.

I love it.

But yeah, so clarifying terms.

Well, maybe we'll have to think on that one.

Yeah.

So.

But.

But back to your, your situation of, of all of that, like, you know, the, the struggle, the thing that it, it is that it comes down to one of the biggest, biggest contingencies that church people have.

Right.

Believers have, I should say, you know, like the church people.

Well, you know what I mean?

That's the label of those people that fit into that box.

I use church people as people go to the church, go to church or have gone to church for a long time.

But believers, we'll use that instead.

But I'm fond of believers.

The problem that, Me too, sometimes, the problem that most of them have with things like homosexuality is that there's the whole, you know, living in sin portion and not living in sin is not sinning.

It's sinning and not wanting to change.

Agree.

There's no repentance.

So there's no, there's no attempt to change.

Correct.

It doesn't mean that you don't keep screwing up.

It means you don't really care to adjust the behavior 100%.

So that's living in sin.

And I think a lot of people miss that.

I would say that someone living in sin willingly should really check their heart.

Well, that's willful sin.

That's totally different subject.

Because you must repent as part of our faith.

Right.

You must repent.

Well, yeah, I mean, work in progress.

I mean, I don't personally believe that you have to ask forgiveness every single time you make a mistake or else you are condemned.

Agree.

You know what I mean?

So I just want to.

I want to.

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of things being said that could be taken differently.

Clarify some things.

But yeah.

So when it comes to.

When it comes to living in sin, I would urge people who, especially if they think they're Christian or claim to be one, I should Say I would urge them to check their heart if you're living in sin willfully.

And I understand to some degree people debate on different things being sin or not.

Right.

Smoking tobacco.

Right.

That was something we had talked about before the podcast.

Right.

And since you're going there, let me stipulate what the statement is.

I believe because I used to smoke and God convicted me, that I needed to stop.

Now, I don't walk around society and see people smoking, go, ooh, that's a sinner.

But I can tell you, if I were to pick up a cigarette right now and start smoking, it would be a sin for me because I felt that God convicted me not to.

Sure.

So.

And that, I think, is a very personal thing, that what is a sin for me may not be a sin for you.

Sure, sure.

And that's what I was going to say was that tobacco smoking in particular, I would argue Scripture doesn't address as much.

Right.

Some people might say that it does.

And the whole body is a temple.

Well, drinking comes up frequently.

Drinking comes up frequently.

That's a really good one.

But.

And that's.

There's personal conviction versus conviction for everyone.

Agree.

So you are not to hate.

Nobody should hate.

Jesus says, if you hate someone, it's like you've murdered them in your heart.

So no one is to hate.

But some people shouldn't drink.

Granted.

You know, and Scripture says that some people shouldn't drink, but not everyone.

And there's also an appropriate time and place for different things.

And I don't think that is necessarily clarified in the Bible.

But you can take sex between a man and a woman.

You wouldn't go walking around the street doing it.

And you certainly wouldn't necessarily be talking about it in public.

But.

And it's clear that you don't do it before you're married.

Right.

But in the appropriate setting, man and a wife.

Okay.

It happens.

So there's an appropriateness.

Drinking, I think, is one of those things.

Right.

Some people are called to abstaining from sex entirely for their whole life.

Paul even addresses that.

Paul does.

But I think that really we get hung up.

And this, again, going back to the first premise of this conversation, people getting hung up on certain things.

The methodology to reach God.

A.

If we're all on the mission to reach God, then we need to be listening to his will in our life.

And his will in my life may be different than his will in your life.

And I think some of that comes from our own history and our own personal experiences.

The guy who Had a problem with alcohol.

You know what?

God might convict him that he shouldn't be drinking.

Okay.

Can't say that I don't know.

But I can tell you this.

What really stuck with me when I was being discipled to Christ was the brother spoke to me, and he said, look, God doesn't care about all of that.

You know, the drinking, smoking, cursing that I was doing at the time that.

I.

I'm glad you're getting back to this, because I wanted to talk about it, too.

He said, but you don't want to be a stumbling block for your brother.

Right.

And I took that to heart because I do have a responsibility to walk my faith and to represent.

You know, people walk out there in their jerseys for the football team.

Well, we all wear uniforms.

And as a Christian, you know, they always say, is there enough evidence to convict you?

Well, you want people not to look at you as that Christian and go, whoa, he calls himself a Christian and have reasons or reasonable doubt as to your faith being genuine based on your behavior.

And that.

Which is the stumbling block is where I go.

Yeah.

So with stumbling blocks.

Right.

I think it's.

It's important that.

I think it's important that we point out, generally speaking, that is a personal thing.

Agreed.

Like a.

It's not a.

All of public, like.

Right.

So it doesn't mean shut down your whole life.

You can't buy alcohol in the store because somebody might see you that might find out that you're a Christian.

That's not what that's talking about.

But that does put a responsibility on us as Christians to know our brothers.

Correct?

Right.

So, like, knowing that a personal conviction of yours is you're not to smoke tobacco, I'm not going to invite you to a cigar bar with me.

You know what I mean?

Yep.

So, because that.

I mean, I would hate to have you stumble in that way.

So.

Same thing.

I have another brother who.

He was an alcoholic.

Most alcoholics say they're still alcoholics even though they've stopped.

So however that works, I don't have that issue.

But I met up with a group of guys to go to cigar bar, and we were gonna drink scotch, smoke cigars, talk about scripture and philosophy.

And I was talking about it in front of him, and I made sure afterwards to be like, look, dude, I didn't invite you because I know that that's a struggle for you.

So I.

I don't want you to feel like I'm excluding you.

But I also want you to know that I'm also Looking out for you in that way.

So.

And he was totally cool that he didn't think anything of it until I brought it up.

By the way, God didn't convict me not to smoke cigars.

Okay, well, whatever, however that is.

No, it's funny that that would come up because I actually rarely.

But I do smoke cigars.

The funny thing is, I think it had to do with the self destruction.

I was an avid smoker and I think that it was.

He removes my chains, you know, and it's funny because I had a discussion with my brother at one point and he was like, I told him some of the things that I've given up and he's like, wow, your God doesn't want you to have any fun.

And I'm like, you misunderstand.

I'm like, God took away my chains, you know, and the funny thing is, I think that the devil wraps a whole lot of things up.

These enslavements in our lives, and he wraps them up as fun, you know, Take partying.

I mean, you know, I.

Back when I used to smoke pot, and to me it was.

That was the party.

And hey, man, it was great.

It was fun.

And over time it became, no, this wasn't fun.

It was just a habit, first of all.

And it wasn't to enjoy myself, but if I didn't have it, I was going through changes to try and either get it or it would affect my mood, those kind of things.

And that much with cigarettes too.

Cigarettes, forget it.

That addiction is totally psychological and crazy.

When I was smoking, I mean, I used to smoke non filters and could roll my own and pull the filter out of a Marlboro so I could hit it.

I mean, we're talking.

I was smoking a lot of cigarettes and not like four packs a day kind of people, but I've been known to get two packs a day and smoked for a lot of years.

And in that one day, literally, God just stopped me, you know, Another one cussing.

I've just never done that.

And I don't care if other people do it.

What's just really weird is I grew up in a household where my dad's a paramedic firefighter, so.

And so that is like their next language down from sailor, you know, so you got sailor level cussing and then you've got fireman level cussing.

But I just, I never use those words.

I mean, I was always the guy that was like, I can express myself without using them.

See, I couldn't.

I was very expressive and I just.

And But.

But here's the thing, see?

And that was.

That one's a little bit weird.

I brought that to God.

I wanted to stop cussing, and I couldn't.

I gave it over to him.

I'm praying deeply and God, you gotta take this from me.

And overnight, it was gone.

It's like, God's miracles are amazing.

Yeah, but see, with that one, though, like, a lot of people are like, you really shouldn't cuss, because it's, you know, it's not wholesome and it's not biblical.

And it's like, okay, like, I think that that is depending on how you utilize it.

Sure.

Well, if you put God's name in vain, that's the one that.

Fingernails on chalkboard.

I can't play that one.

Right.

And that's a way of speech.

Up Northeast, up in Boston, they use it as a regular diction term every day.

And I was like, the struggle that.

I have with that one is only when it's done by somebody who claims to be a Christian.

Because, you know, like, other people that doesn't.

They're not.

I mean, they're not talking about my God.

Right.

You know, they're.

They don't even understand the concept of that.

Fair enough.

The, you know, saying Jesus's name in vain.

Right.

That's a big one.

Like, they.

They don't.

They don't claim to accept him as anything more than a human who lived most of the time.

And most of them aren't really thinking about him when they say it.

True.

It's.

I.

Yeah, no, I'm projecting my faith.

On Christians to that standard with those two things.

However, man, cussing is like one of those things that's like, eh, whatever.

Like, I.

For me, it.

That's just for me.

Like, I don't.

I don't.

I don't use it.

But at the same time, like, if you're gonna use it, I won't be like, yo, dude, you shouldn't say that around me.

Or you shouldn't say that in church.

Like, I hate that in church.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We could have a whole podcast episode on in church.

Because the whole, like, you shouldn't do that in church.

Well, I'd be like, then.

Then you.

Then you really shouldn't do it.

Do it because you are the church.

So that's funny because it doesn't bother me when other people cuss at all.

This was totally, totally me.

And it's so funny because it really was.

I wanted to be more righteous for God.

Yeah.

I wanted to clean myself up and be better for God.

And I felt that that was not one of those things.

Well, I think that.

So unwholesome talk can mean different things.

Absolutely.

Right.

You could use cursing in.

I wouldn't say a wholesome way, but a way in which you don't mean anything bad by it.

Right.

You know, you're not upset with anybody cursing anybody.

You're not trying to bring anybody down, talking bad about people, and you can use cursing in that way.

I'll expand it even further since you brought it up.

Non wholesome Hebrew is called lashan hara, which is basically gossip.

Even if true, if it is not uplifting, it is lashon hara.

And God does not like it is the way they see it.

So, yeah, unwholesomeness.

I could see that too.

I mean, most of what Paul wrote about, even, for instance, prophesying.

The church in Corinth had a big problem with.

Everyone really had the gift of prophecy.

Everybody was speaking in tongues.

And it.

He commended them on the fact that he thought it was great that they all had that.

However, the chaos of it a.

They were not.

They weren't doing it in the right manner.

We'll get back to that.

But the chaos of it was making people be like, oh, these people are nuts, and leaving like new people.

Okay.

It was turning people away.

And so he was like, yo, it's great that y'all got it, but you got appropriate time and place a little bit, right?

So he.

He laid out like, here's.

Here's what this is supposed to look like.

Okay?

So.

And what that's supposed to look like is if.

If you get up and you speak in tongues and you prophesy, if there is no one to translate, it's edifying for.

For the person.

Scripture is clear that it is edifying for the person that is speaking it, but it's not edifying to the body if there's no one to translate.

And so it's to be disregarded.

However, if there is someone to translate, then it's edifying to the body and it should be adhered to.

So there will always be a translator if the prophecy or the speaking in tongues is legitimate to be done in church, which is interesting.

So Paul brings that to head with some things that even gifts are done in that way.

Yeah.

Well, it's funny.

I've attended churches that actually people do speak in tongues, and I've always been a little bit confused on it as a.

Something that I've read about is the gift of the spirit.

And I understand that, but yet always wondered if I was actually witnessing it or if I was witnessing some.

I'll call it self righteousness or a self belief that you're supposed to.

Because as I understood it, that if you were speaking in tongues, the people around the person and the interpreter would understand what you were saying.

And the people I've ever heard speak in tongues really was gibberish to me.

And there was nobody ever.

So.

Okay, that's also.

So there's a difference between prophesying with tongues and speaking and giving a message in tongues.

Slightly different.

What would you call.

If somebody's in prayer and somebody's in prayer in church and they start speaking in tongues?

That's what I'm speaking of.

I've never witnessed either of the other two.

There's some people that would say there's no biblical standing for that, but that that is what most would say is called praying in tongues or the gift of, you know, whatever.

It's.

It's a prayer language.

Okay.

Really?

That's not for you.

It like the other person.

Right.

It's for them.

It's for between them and God.

And that's really what the edifying, this self edifying, you know, that's edifying to your personal body bit can be referring to or probably is referring to in Corinthians.

Now, I'm open to being corrected on that.

But what is supposed to be translated or understood like they did at the day of Pentecost.

Right.

Like when they were just talking in their own language and everybody understood.

Right.

That's one thing.

And then there's also.

If a message is given to someone to speak to a church or a body of believers, and there is someone else who understands it and has, you know, understands that and can translate it, and then they give the translation, it's generally prophetic word.

But there's.

That's how it's supposed to happen.

Very cool.

So if you're at a church where people are up in front speaking in tongues and prophesying and there's no translation, you are to disregard that as scripture says in First Corinthians.

So.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I think it's First Corinthians.

It's one of the Corinthians.

I'm glad it came up.

I'm pretty sure there's just one of those things always sitting there going, what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, head scratcher moment.

I personally believe that there is a personal language that.

That some people have with.

With God, which is cool.

Yeah.

I mean, it says that the, the spirit will.

Will, you know, intercede for you at times.

So, you know, we.

It wasn't necessarily clear how that looks in scripture, so.

Right.

It just is clear that the Spirit intercedes for you.

So however that might be in your personal walk with Jesus school by me, as long as things are followed on the up and up with.

Right.

You know, when it comes to the body and so.

But man, we've been going for about an hour and 45 minutes.

I'm totally cool with keeping going if you want to keep going.

Sure, why not?

I mean, this is gonna be something that's a different style of things.

It's a long winded discussion for those who are wanting it.

Just a discussion, deeper conversation or this is how a man's brain works kind of conversation, I guess.

Or this is how Derek's brain works.

And I'm certain my wife listening to this would be just shaking her head.

Yeah, and I understand, like, we get it.

I know it's an hour and 45 minutes into it, so if you weren't expecting this to be an hour and 45 minutes, you should have looked at the timestamp whenever you clicked on it.

But also, like, I get it.

If it's not for you, it's totally okay.

It's just one of the many podcasts that we offer and that's, that's totally, totally cool.

But for those of you who love it, you could totally tell us about it.

Like, we would love to hear your feedback.

And if you want to be on here and have these conversations with us, just hit me up like the truth responsemail.com like, or on Facebook or apparently Instagram.

My wife says that you can message each other on Instagram.

I don't know how any of that works on Instagram, but just message us and we'll get you on here.

Like, we'll totally invite you on to do this very thing.

Like, don't have any problem just talking through things with people.

Well, if I could add, also, if there's a subject in here that you'd like to explore deeper to actually focus on that particular topic, let Derek know.

Send it out.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have no problem rabbit trailing.

This is the rabbit trail.

Rabbit hole.

Yeah, I like that.

We could call this the rabbit Hole.

Works for me.

That could be good.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

There you go.

I like it.

I like it.

Works.

Yeah, I didn't find it.

But you know, it's so funny though, because I think this is.

These are the kind of questions that people Think.

Yeah.

And not all of them obviously, but give or take and they don't really have a sounding board.

Yeah.

At least I've been seeking somebody to discuss these kind of things with and it's like you want to find the appropriate place and time and audience to do it and I find it very enriching.

I thank you for having me because.

I think this is great.

I appreciate you hopping on here because this is, I'm always looking for new ways to do, to love it, do podcasts.

So I, I want to, I want to grow this thing and it's through people like you and, and the others that contribute and those of you who are listening, it's.

This is all because of you and thanks to you.

So men to that I, I can't even express my, my thanks in any way, shape or form like to any degree with, with that I have for you guys because it's a, a dream that I had that was far fetched.

And this is four years later and, and we are now up to.

Well, if you count the.

This one.

Right.

That we're starting now we're kicking off.

It's almost the backstage pass of the truth Response.

But we can't call it that because that's already taken by the Daily Wire.

But it's.

That's so far.

That's four different podcasts.

That's very cool.

On the same vein, you know, we've got our main truth response.

We've got, you know, the Daughters of Truth and warriors of Truth podcasts.

And then now the Rabbit Hole.

I like it.

So very, very cool.

And I think it's very cool.

I want to commend you because you really your dream actually you found a way to live your faith through your dream.

Sure.

Which I think is amazing.

That's awesome.

You know, I could figure out how.

To make money doing this thing.

Well, you know, God will show you the avenue when it's time.

I don't need a lot.

I don't need a lot of money either.

Like I said to you, man, we're gonna make you the Joe Rogan of Christ Christian podcast here, man.

Oh man.

Yeah, that would be cool because.

But I gotta tell you, I mean, it's interesting conversation in the fact that your background lends itself.

I mean, come on.

Philosophy and theology, I mean, yeah.

These are two non absolutes that can take you down a rabbit hole at any given time.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, and those who came before, you know, like that was why my bucket list, my only bucket list item Truthfully, the only thing was I wanted to do.

I wanted to smoke a cigar, drink scotch and talk philosophy and religion with a group of guys like the scholars of old.

Right.

I love that came before us.

I love it.

And.

And I got to fulfill that.

That bucket dream.

Well, when you're listening to this, it'll be months ago probably, but just last week, you know.

Yeah.

So it was.

It was cool.

So I think there's more buckets in your.

In your future, though.

Yeah, I just have to.

We should make that.

I don't know that I want to, like, have a list of buckets, you know?

No, no, I'm just saying you can repeat that.

Bucket.

Oh, yeah.

Refill the bucket.

How's that?

Totally.

I totally ordered my own humidor and all that, so.

Oh, very cool.

Okay, I've got it at home now, so.

So we talking maduro wrap?

We talking.

What kind of reps?

Dark or light?

Dude, I just got into this.

The dark.

I like the dark.

That's maduro.

I.

There's a local brand, Florida.

Florida brand called Rocky Patel.

Yep.

Rocky is world famous.

I like their 12 year vintage.

Okay.

The 1990 vintage.

1990, whatever.

12 year.

I really like that one.

But it is.

But yeah, but Rocky Patel is made here in Florida.

I believe it's based here in Florida is what I was told.

Rocky is world famous.

I've had some.

I know some people that actually know him.

Yeah.

I actually know somebody in the church that knows I'll be darn.

Or has met him at least, so.

But yeah, no, that's really.

I haven't branched out too much because I've only smoked a couple.

But, like, last week was the very first time I'd ever smoked anything besides hookah.

Okay.

And I know this is like, way off topic, guys, this is way off topic.

Hookah's just flavored tobacco dipped in molasses.

Is that dipped in molasses?

Yeah, it's really.

All I know is my son used to smoke from a hookah pipe and he used to heat the coal on the burner in the kitchen.

And it jacks up the burners.

I promise.

God bless my wife for allowing it because it's like, what?

It also burned a hole right in the wooden floor, too.

You know, when you were a child, you thought like a child and you act like a child.

Yeah.

And then you grew up and put childish things away.

Putting things away.

So I became a cigar smoker last week.

So I became a man.

No, I'm just kidding.

All of this is to Say that, you know, whatever.

If God convicts you of it, don't do it.

Amen.

And that really is the message.

And so it's part of our faith walk is conviction.

And if you're convicted of something, first and foremost, clarify whether it's a personal conviction or if it's something that Scripture designates as something that nobody and everybody should follow.

Right?

And once you figured that out, then do it, like, fulfill that.

Whatever that conviction is.

Whether.

Because convictions can be positive things.

It doesn't have to be.

I mean, it can be a task in which God has placed on your heart as a conviction to do, whether that's getting rid of something or adding something or whatever that might be.

But figure out first whether it's for you or for all.

And don't condemn people.

There you go.

If it is for all, just be there for your brother.

That's what it is.

It's help carry each other's loads and keep each other accountable and on the right path.

And be prayerful.

First of all, be prayerful.

Do not just pray reactively.

Pray actively.

Right?

Like, don't pray in reaction and don't use it as the last line of defense.

If you are listening to this now, the beginning of 2024, we had a series on prayer in the podcast on our regular truth response podcast, designated TTR on the feed.

But we had a series on prayer and it got more intense as we went on.

But start somewhere with prayer, but don't let it be your last thing.

I mean, that is one of the biggest things as a Christian that we are called to do is be in constant communication with the one we're walking through life with, because Matthew 7, and I know you're all tired of hearing it, but I'm not done saying it.

So Matthew 7 tells us that we are to know Jesus and to be known by him and to do the will of the Father, or else we're not going to make.

It doesn't matter how long you've been in the church, what you've done for the church, how many miracles you might have performed, how many demons you might have cast out.

None of that matters if you are not known by him and.

And walked in his will.

Just remember that.

And that should be something that's inspiring, not something to cause fear in you, if that makes sense.

I'm not trying to make anybody afraid.

I'm just trying to let you know that's the direction.

That's the well, that's one of those absolutes.

That is an absolute and also Something that you touched on, the disciple group that you were in.

I was in one.

Not the same time with you, but I think it's very important that you find that equally yoked mentor in your church, in your community.

I think it needs to be at least three.

Scripture talks a lot about numbers.

There's a lot of numbers.

And I'm not a numbers guy, but I know that it talks about a quarter.

Three is not easily broken.

And I think that at least three of you, there needs to be a.

Group of at least three guys.

I agree.

Or girls.

Women, if you're listening.

Three women, at least.

I mean, minimum.

Obviously just get with somebody.

But there's something about being in a group, a small group of same gendered individuals holding each other accountable.

Yes.

The accountability factors there.

And you're going in the same direction.

Hard accountability, like, yo, have you been loving your wife the way that you're called to love your wife?

Have you been loving your kids the way that you've been called?

Are you.

Have you been lusting?

Have you been.

Whatever it might be.

That list of questions from that discipleship group is very straight accountability.

The book that we're talking about is Growing Up.

Growing Up, I always get it mixed up with another one that I did.

So Growing up is a really great.

If you haven't done discipleship before, really great book to start because the way it's designed is to teach everyone to be able to lead a discipleship group, which is cool.

And the questions in it are phenomenal.

And as you are together and the further you go along through the book, the easier it is, you get to trusting each other a little better and you build that relationship to where those hard questions are not quite as hard to answer as you go along, but it asks some tough questions and holds you accountable to.

It does a really good job of kind of covering everything with those questions.

But there is something about being held accountable to the lifestyle that you're claiming to want.

Right.

If you want to be called a Christian, you're claiming a lifestyle that you are saying you desire to be a part of.

So then you need to step up and be held accountable to that lifestyle that you're claiming.

Right.

And that's what discipleship is, is just growing together in life, in that function and teaching others the things that you've learned.

Right.

The Great Commission.

You can't bring others to God if you don't know him.

Right?

Right.

And that all comes through relationship.

That's something that I believe wholeheartedly, that relationships, though, aren't the only way though.

They're not the only way to bring somebody to Christ.

They are the best avenue of bringing people to Christ.

I'm not pooh poohing, evangelism or.

But there is something about getting to know somebody and loving on them and that the words that you say stick a little deeper.

Well, it goes back to people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Right.

Especially the relationship is there.

Oh man.

Especially with the newer generations, the younger generations right now.

They live and die by that.

I know.

They're so emotionally wired even, even if, like, even if they don't agree with anything that you have to say it all whatsoever when they understand how much you care for them.

Like they're willing to, to open up a lot.

Yeah.

Even, even if they're like die hard against all the things that you, you believe in.

If they know that you love them like and you care about them, man, it's, it's crazy how like just willing they are to open up.

Opposite of Gen X.

Gen X.

You guys are all like, I believe what I believe.

And you're, you can go to hell if you think something else.

Right?

Like that's Gen X in a nutshell.

Like, I'm talking to you specific person that you know who you are.

So if you listen to this episode, it's a long episode, so you might not.

If you're listening, we're talking to you.

So.

But yeah, so yeah, relationships, man, relationships really mean a lot.

And I'll tell you, if you're a Christian, you struggle with really caring about other people.

Because I get it, like, we're all not wired the same way.

Fake it till you make it.

Because I promise you, the more you pretend to care about somebody intentionally, if you struggle with that, the more you pretend to care about somebody, the more you actually will and God will change your heart.

I say test that.

Well, I think inevitably the more you act as if fake until you make it, like you say, the more you're going to hear.

And the more you hear from that person and listen to that person, the deeper your emotional attachment to that person will become.

So it actually is self fulfilling in.

That fake till you make.

That's it.

I'm one of those people that I do genuinely care about people until they give you a reason not to.

I'm one of those.

So no, I genuinely care about people or else I wouldn't do the job that I do currently.

See, it's so weird.

I genuinely care about people deeply But I'm not good at getting close to them.

And it has to do with my own issues, if you will, my own baggage that I carry alone.

But, yeah, because I do.

I care deeply, and I've woefully poorly show it.

But it's like, you know, I could see somebody walk in the church door, and I know they're new, and I'll make sure I go say hi to him, because I know what it feels like to be the outsider walking in, and I don't want somebody to ever feel that way.

So in that way, I feel that empathy, and I feel that compassion for that person or children or whatever, but on a daily basis, I am woefully inadequate.

See, I feel the opposite.

Like, in church, and this has been a more recent thing, I'm one of the most.

I talk to hear myself talk, sometimes even, like, not intentionally, but, you know, it's just like, one of those things that I like talking.

I'm very outgoing.

I'm very charismatic person.

I just.

I don't know.

I'm an extrovert through and through, right?

I exude extrovertness.

But, man, during church on Sundays, sometimes I just want to go hide.

It's weird.

I don't know.

No, I don't know.

Like, I just feel like I just don't talk to anybody.

I just want to.

I just want to lock myself away during.

In between.

I don't want to, like, not because, you know, I'm better than anybody.

Is it like a job?

Like, it.

Sometimes it's just like, man, like, I.

I do that all week long.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Like, because I work at a food pantry, we serve the homeless, I'm constantly listening to the same stories over and over and over and over again that are mostly bs.

That's somehow.

I was gonna say people got gamed.

The same story, but you know, that it's not true or whatever, you know, or exaggerated, you know, and so.

But that's day in and day out, every day.

And so I love that about my job.

I really do.

But when it comes to church, it's like, I don't want.

I don't want to do that.

Like, I.

I don't know.

Like, it's.

And that's a more recent struggle.

Like, I just.

Maybe you just.

You need your cup refilled.

And maybe that's just what Sunday is for me is the refilling.

And I know I'm on the stage.

You know, I play most weeks.

I sing most weeks.

How many instruments do you play?

Well, I play electric acoustic, 12 string bass.

I play a little bit of keyboard.

I could fumble through it.

I play drums.

Okay.

I can sing.

I can play the alto saxophone.

Wow.

I can play the recorder.

See, it fascinates me.

Musicians seem to be able to do multiple instruments.

It's like, you got it or you don't.

I think.

Yeah.

I tried to learn violin one time.

Oh, I would love to know how to play violin.

Me too.

I would love to know how it captured dust and then I gave it away.

It was given to me, so it was free, so.

But I'm just afraid my wife would divorce me over the.

Sounding like a cat getting run over.

If I reply, you know, it didn't quite sound like that when I was first starting to learn, but I'm a little bit more of a natural.

I'm not naturally talented, but you have that.

But I have an ear enough and I understand how the concepts work.

You know, I've been playing enough stringed instruments for long enough that I get the concept of what I got to do, but I just didn't have the patience for it.

At, what, 32, I think when I was trying to learn a couple.

Three or four years ago, five years ago, maybe I was 30, but I just didn't have the patience for it at the time, so I.

It just felt other pursuits.

Yeah.

So say life happens.

Banjo someday.

Banjo, I'd love to learn.

Or how about the mandolin?

Mandolin, yeah.

Ukulele.

Oh, man.

I could play the ukulele.

Yeah.

That's one thing that I learned kind of over the weekend.

Not weekend, over the Christmas break.

I.

I picked one up for the first time.

That was a gift.

Christmas gift, not from me, but for one of my nephews.

And I tuned it for him and was like, I wonder while tuning it, you want to play.

I need to learn a chord so I can see how it sounds.

And then it was like, oh, I could totally play this.

And, like, I played, like, over the Rainbow.

I knew that was coming because that's a classic, right?

And then I'm Yours by Jason Mraz.

I played that one.

That's my ringtone for my wife.

That's nice.

I love it.

I love it.

I love that song so much.

It's so funny.

But so I played those two songs, like, 30 minutes after picking it up for the first time.

But I would love to have a ukulele.

Like, that's something that I gotta have the right one.

I don't want to just have any ukulele because I'M super picky about my instruments, but if your wife's listening to.

This podcast, maybe it gets in your Christmas list.

Well, see, that's what I don't want, actually.

Maybe a gift card to get one.

So you can pick it out.

Right?

Okay.

Okay.

There's a.

There's a certain touch and feel to it.

Understand?

Look, it's like golf clubs for me.

Okay?

Yeah, I need to pick out my own golf clubs.

I was told that's not a sport for me by.

By a professional golfer who tried to give me lessons.

And they were like, you know, this isn't.

This isn't.

Something like.

That's rough for you.

And it really wasn't for me.

Now, mini golf, on the other hand, super putter.

I'm pretty decent at mini golf, so I'm assuming I would be pretty decent at, you know, once you get it to the green.

But getting it to the green, that's not happening.

So, yeah, it was.

I just can't imagine golf pro turning me and going, just, yeah, go play basketball, right?

No, it was like.

He was like, yeah, this is not a sport for you.

This is not something that you should be doing.

That's wild.

I mean, he tried.

And I was like, yeah, I don't think so either.

But, you know, whatever.

It wasn't like I hurt my feelings.

It was like I was giving it a shot because a buddy wanted to go golfing with me.

That's usually how it starts.

And I was like, yeah, okay.

He knew a guy, you know, and so that's the guy that was training me.

And he was like, yeah, no, that's so funny.

This is not.

I mean, like, one lesson.

Like, we didn't even, like, get past a day.

Like, it was like, nope, this is not for you.

So.

But it was so that.

That would hurt my feelings if you told me that.

Yeah, I got thick skin, remember?

Broad shoulders?

Wow.

Full circle there.

Yeah, there you go.

So, guys, like, I think that we have rabbit trailed, rabbit holed.

We've gone down the rabbit.

We've gone down the rabbit hole today.

And so, man, everybody's faith walks different.

Our lives are different, and it's intentional.

God has created each one of us unique.

We have all been woven together by God in our mother's wombs.

Specific.

It wasn't random.

Everything about you is intentional and was done with a purpose.

And so your faith journey is different than mine because it's supposed to be.

And so we'd like to hear about your faith journey.

I'm collecting episodes of people talking about their testimony.

So I'd love to hear about your faith journeys and record that eventually at some point we'll start releasing those.

But man, that's that your faith journey is yours, but it's yours to be shared because that's why we go through them.

So just want to thank you guys.

Thank you, Kevin.

Hey, my pleasure.

I'm blessed being here.

Jump on this thing.

I'll come back and share my testimony with you one day.

Perfect.

That'll be great.

We'll get that episode recorded too.

But people better hold on and wear a seatbelt for that one, right?

So, yeah, thanks for listening.

Hanging in there for a two hour plus episode this week of the Truth Response the Rabbit Hole.

There you go.

The world premiere.

The world premiere.

Love you guys and God bless.

God bless you.

Hey, thanks for joining us.

Make sure to subscribe and give us a like on itunes and Spotify so that you will never miss a show.

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You don't want them to miss out on the truth because we are all about the truth here.

Thanks for joining us this week and God bless.