Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Good. Good morning. We didn't mention it, but it's Monday. So yesterday was Sunday. Hopefully you went to church. So yeah. Happy. We assumed it Sunday, a day ago. It's Monday. We assumed that you were going to church though. We assumed we didn't even bring it. We, yeah, we just assumed that you were gonna be there already. Yeah. And church is good to attend. I know there's a lot of other options that are out there that people go to. A lot of different things. I was thinking about gonna a different one. Were you But I showed up. I'm like, I should probably be there. I mean, it's good. Because if you went to another one, they might not know that you're a pastor. And so when you stood up and grabbed the guitar and started to lead worship and then yeah. That would be a little awkward. Kick the pastor off the stage and started to preach. They'd be like, who is this guy? Yeah. But if you brought fire, maybe I brought fire, like in the word preaching. I'm trying to be champion trying to appeal to the younger. I was thinking like a literal flames dude. Okay. I mean, if you brought literal flames, fire, you let me, preacher, this thing's going to go down in flames Day of Pentecost Tongues of fire. Yeah. Hey, so, something that's in its genesis was meant to come alongside the church in fact, that's, its behind its very name are some organizations like Young Life or FCA or Bible State Fellowship, or some of these others that we know of today as parachurch organizations. So, parachurch Para meaning to come alongside of the, come alongside the church these are organizations that I remember. For example, young Life. Growing up out here was huge. A bunch of people were involved in that. There was another one called K Life that was very similar that was basically a midweek student ministry program that wasn't put on by any church. So you had a bunch of people from different kinds of churches and different backgrounds showing up at this bible study basically. But there would be young life retreats and. Young life presence on college campuses and you'd have big conferences and everything else and they were there as preaching the gospel, helping students meet Jesus. And there was a lot that was really good about it. But by the same token I've seen, there have been times where the parachurch has been conflated. With the church itself. So I remember having some conversations even back in, in California with some people that would come to our college ministry on Sunday nights. And then they were super heavily involved in one of their campus ministries, which again, parachurch organization. And they would say, well, we do worship there and there's preaching there. And so that's my church family and. While I appreciated that, their commitment to that, and I think that they were receiving some good teaching. The parachurch is not the church, right? And so, as we think about it here, maybe you're involved in a parachurch ministry, somewhere in our area. You're involved, you've got kids in FCA or you've got kids doing another Bible study, or you've got kids that, or maybe you're part of a Bible study fellowship, BSF or something like that. They're good, but they're not the church itself. And so when our commitment to the church is challenged by a parachurch, then I think it's important that we remember, man, I gotta make sure that I'm prioritizing the church and getting my main meal from the church, from the bride of Christ, and then supplementing that with the time that I have left over from some of these other ministries out there. Okay. A couple follow ups. And this isn't the question that was sent into us, but we're gonna, we're gonna riff on this just a tad bit. Why is it not a church If there's Christians and doesn't Jesus say where two or three are gathered? There I am in the midst of them. Why is it not considered church with the capital? See I've seen posts recently of people saying, oh look, me and my guys are, we're gonna go out bow hunting in the middle of the field and there's five of us and we're Christians. Therefore, this is a church gathering. One of us is gonna lead a Bible study. We'll sing a couple songs together. Why is that not considered? Church. Yeah. Because of what church is defined by. So where two or three are gathered that we need to remember contextually, that's Matthew 18. That's in the context of church discipline. So Jesus is saying there that where you have two or three gathered, you have the authority of Christ imbued in what's taking place there. So, you're able to go through the process of discipline that's not about fellowship, that's about the authority of. Preserving the purity of the church and fighting for the purity of the church. So for us to say where two or three are gathered their Christ is, thus, that's the church is not what the biblical concept of the church is. What we see the pattern of is we read through the New Testament, is that churches are established, elders are given to the church. And so there's pastors and there's elders. So your para parachurch organizations are not led by pastors and elders. They're led by your volunteers, they're led by a director, they're led by, whoever your peers, but they're not led by. By pastors. And so the New Testament model shows that churches are to be shepherded by pastors, by elders. And then the other thing too is the New Testament and we talked about this a little bit a couple weeks ago, has given the church specifically a couple, primarily two of the ordinances that we observe as the Protestant church at least, and that is baptism and communion. And so the church shepherded by their pastors are the primary areas where baptism and communion are both to be carried out. And that's why we went to First Corinthians chapter 11, the context of that where. Get into communion is in the context of the local church. And even when we look at church history, as Protestants, a lot of times we take church history and we throw it out with the baby of the ba, the throw out the baby of it. With the bathwater of Catholicism. We're like, well, tradition church history is bad because Catholics appeal to that for why they follow the Pope. But I think there's something for us to be able to say, okay, how has, how have things been done over the 2000 years almost of church history? What's the pattern established there? And let's do our best to follow that. And so that's another thing that makes the church as well as the biblical precepts of the one anothers things like that are called to be lived out in the context of the local church, acts 2028, he shed his blood for the church. And that is what we understand as the gathering of the local church. And that's why we can't say that. My Parachurch organization is the same as my church. Yeah. And the parachurch works best when it does do what its stated position is, which is to come alongside the church and to support it with additional helpful ministries for sure. And all of them, if they do call themselves a parachurch, they recognize that that's the whole, the name itself. As you said at the beginning, tells you what its function is and it comes alongside the church to support what the church is doing. So on that note, then we should be aware that Para church is meant to help the church and if it's undermining your connectivity to the church or if it's not supporting, it's overcoming that that's a problem and we should wanna. Resolve that. On that note, then the person that sends in this question here is asking a question about resources for personal bible study. What are some wise guidelines to go about discerning what is helpful and what's not? And they bring up two resources that lots of people have probably heard of. One of them is the Bible project and the other one is got questions.org. So those are two big ones that are out there. There's others. How do we discern the good, the bad, the better? And are there any other guidelines that you would suggest for someone who's. Looking into those things. Yeah, I would say number one, Google is a dangerous place to be. If you're just gonna throw out a question to Google, and that's not what this person said at all, but I know some of us do that, that's exactly what they said. And so we need to have discernment. And that is important. And so as you I know a lot of people go to got questions. I've heard a ton of people talking about, Hey, I went to got questions and I checked, got questions. I've interacted with, got questions a little bit. I haven't interacted with it a ton to be able to know and give a blanket affirmation or I find them generally helpful. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, yeah, I haven't heard anything concerning about that, but I don't know who's behind it. And that's part of the danger here is anytime we're gonna look at. At an external study, help to know who's behind. It's helpful 'cause that's going to give us an information, some information of you talked about bias earlier, of the slant or the bias that they're gonna have. Yeah. In interpreting a passage or a text. And so that's why it's great to go to them, but I would listen with your ears attuned. The Bible project is great in giving their flyovers of the books and things. I think they're creative. They're very artistic. I think there's some helpful things there. But just listen with your ears sharp, with your ears attentive. And if some, they say something that you've got questions about, no pun intended, then you can. Include in this list. Your pastors, these, what you're doing right now, writing this question into us on the podcast to say, Hey I've got a question about this. Shoot your question into us. We'd be happy to try to answer it for you. And it's not, we're not the only source of truth out there. But we're happy to help and to help you with discerning, okay. What is the answer here with this question? That's really helpful advice and I really can't improve upon it. I would just affirm it to the furthest extent. There's a, there's so many good things out there online, there's so many good things, but as many good things as there are, there's probably twice as much maybe triple as much bad things. Things that we would say, oh, that's not helpful, that's not useful, or that's a misunderstanding. Yeah. Or a misdiagnosis of the issue, a misdiagnosis of the whatever. There's so many areas where we would say, oh that's helpful, but not totally true. So one thing that I probably have practical thing. Whatever research that you're doing when you go to their websites, one, one clear takeaway I think that you could use with a pretty strong degree of accuracy is if the website doesn't look. Professional. That's usually a good hint. Don't listen to this. Usually it's, if it's a guy named Bob in his basement typing out blogs and it's a discernment blog. Yeah. Avoid that. Yeah, usually That's a good rule of thumb. Don't go to websites that look shoddy. They haven't been updated by, the last page update's been 2011 or something like that. That would be a really helpful rule of thumb. But man, there's so much more out there and I would say, find trusted resources that recommend other trusted resources, that's usually the best play. So we've recommended you resources, we, things that we like. And they usually will speak about one another favorably. They do that on purpose in order to give you a network of resources to utilize. So I would say let trusted resources recommend other trusted resources. Yeah, but still be discerning. And I would be careful with podcast and social media channels because anybody can do that. Anyone can do that. Anybody. Yeah. And so just because they've got, my mom has a podcast, right? I'm just kidding. She doesn't have a podcast. They've got a pretty filter on and you know, yeah, just be careful with that. My dog has a podcast. Does he do? What's your dog's name? I don't even have a dog. Okay. I was just gonna say the podcast me Pastor Rod's dog. Maybe the dog that was pooping on your lawn last year, though. It is. They might have the podcast. I feel like. Could I cleaned up after him or her? It's my dog now. Yeah. So just be discerning on that. Yes. And that's, yeah. Everyone can pick up their phone and all of a sudden be a theologian on Instagram. That's. That's not what we wanna be turned into. So That's true. Yeah. Well, let's turn to God's word. We're in Matthew 13, and we're in Luke eight today. We've got some parallel topics and situations here, but this is all about parables in Matthew 13. This is, if you think about parables in the Bible, Matthew 13 should come to mind. This is one of the go-to chapters here. There's other chapters that contain parables. Obviously we're gonna read some of those, but this is the main. The largest section I think of teaching parables that we find in the scriptures. And it's interesting because these great crowds show up. Now, if great crowds were to show up to our church on a Sunday, I wouldn't think to myself, let me make what I'm about to say. Super hard to understand. And yet that's what Jesus does here. He says, I'm gonna teach in parables so that those that have eyes to see, can't see, and those that have ears to hear, can't hear. And so this is a fascinating situation. And there's the parable of the sower, the parable, the weeds, the parable, the mustard and the leaven. The parable of the treasure and the pearl, the parable of the net, and then bringing new and old out. All of these are. Taught in such a way as the people won't be able to fully understand what Jesus is teaching. And the disciples even ask, why are you teaching these things in parables? And Jesus says, so that those who don't have eyes to see will be kept from understanding. So this is a, an act of judgment in Matthew 13 of Jesus against a portion of the audience there by teaching things in a way that they're gonna continue to remain in the state of. An inability to see and an inability to hear. And and so he teaches these things about the kingdom that are told in story form. And that's what a parable is. It's a story with a point or it's a story with a moral. And he's doing that for those that are able to understand it. But he's also doing it in a form of judgment with the crowds that are gathered there, which really highlights what we were talking about, I believe on one of our last podcasts. Jesus will distribute light he'll distribute knowledge according to the receptivity of the audience. And so it is actually a mercy of Jesus not to give them more light unless they acquire more judgment. And so even though it is judgment, it is also a mercy. Yeah. But you'll also notice in this same chapter and chapters following, Jesus is gonna explain to his disciples, here's what this means and here's why this is important. So again, you see the principle of more. The right response means you get more light from Jesus. Jesus gives you more understanding, more more ability to comprehend what it is that he's saying. And I think that principle still holds true today. Our obedience to Jesus commands renders us able to receive more from Jesus and not less. Yeah, for sure, for sure. As we go through these parables, a lot of 'em are pretty familiar. The parable, the sower, you've got the four different types. The first. Path there is the outright rejection of the gospel. The second path is is the one that receives it, and immediately there's signs of life. What struck me this time reading it is it says it, it continues for a little while, and so this is somebody that could be. In the church for a period of time. This is somebody that could be professing faith for years even, and then encounter opposition, then encounter the persecution, then encounter the difficulty, and then they fall away from Christ. Right? So this is not that, this is right away, immediate, and I'd say the same thing about the third soil. The thorns, the ones that's choked out by the lust of the world and the cares of the world. It may take a while for those things to fully snuff out the professed faith of this individual. And it may be that this, these are the people there in Matthew seven saying, Lord, Lord. We, we were following you. Yeah. That they go their whole life still professing that they're following him and yet there's not the fruit there. And that's the differentiation. 'cause the good soil is good soil because of the fruit that it bears. And so the parable of the sower is again, one of. Probably the most famous parable that he's to told. And it's those four paths. There's only one that's really the good soil there, the one genuine believer there, which tells us lots of things. And it would be such a good thing for you to spend time studying this. You're just reading it right now. So don't feel like you have to pause on every reverse to understand it all. You're just trying to get the sense of it. It would be worth studying, but one, one thing that stands out here, verse 30 of Matthew 13, let both grow together until the harvest. He's talking about the weeds and the wheat and the weeds. Are those in the. In the parable. This is the second parable or the next parable. The weeds are those that are not Christians and the weed are course they're believers. He says, let them both grow together until the harvest. The harvest being the end when Jesus gathers all of his people together and brings them in. Here's what's fascinating. This tells us we should always expect that there will be unbelievers in the church. Period. Yeah, no matter what you do, no matter how strict your membership requirements are, if you meet with every single member and say, tell me what the gospel is. Hey, I think they'll be convincing enough. Yeah. And Jesus is telling us, you should always expect that there will be unbelievers in the church practically. Then what does this mean? I don't think it really changes a whole lot. Your job is still the same, but you should be aware there's gonna be unbelievers in your midst and it's gonna be hard when you see, oh, someone that I loved and cared for. And I brought the meals. I can't believe they're no longer walking with Christ. We ought to expect it. Not that we're cynics, but that we're aware of what Jesus is saying and this is gonna cause us then to experience more maybe frustration and sinful conflict because of that reality. Yeah. There's gonna be unbelievers in our midst that need to be prepared for that. Yep. Well, as we jump over in Luke eight we find a few more parables there. The parable of the sailer is repeated in Luke chapter eight. He talks about the idea of a lamp and a light. And something that is worth noting here is he talks about the fact that everything that is concealed will be revealed. And that's a good sobering reminder for us that nothing is done in secret, nothing is done that escapes the notice of God. It's all gonna be revealed on one day, either at the Beamer seat or in the great White throne. And that is something that we need to be, allow to be a sanctifying thought for us that, that we're never escaping the notice of God when it comes to things both good and bad. And so this can be a sobering thing as far as, hey, don't think that your sinning in secret is not gonna be found out. But then also it can be, Hey, when you do things in secret Allah, what Jesus commended in Matthew chapter five and six, your Heavenly Father who sees in secret will reward you. That, that those things will be revealed on that day as well. I think it's really cool at the beginning of Luke eight that these ladies get special credit here, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna they are commended as a key support role in Jesus' ministry. These were ladies that were helping financially support the disciples and Jesus as they were going through their their work in their ministry. Pretty cool that Luke specifically calls them out here. It says here that. At the beginning of chapter eight, the 12 were with him and also some women. Does this mean that Jesus traveled with the ladies? It appears that way. Yeah, I think so too. I think they were part of the band. I think so too. Yeah. That's huge. Yeah, I think that's really cool. It strikes me as funny. Yeah. I don't know. Strange even it's counter my expectations. I'll just say that. That's fair. But I think that's what it says. I would agree. And that's incredible. Yeah. It's interesting 'cause Luke in records here, the garrisons and this is something that we see in, I think all of the synoptics. And in fact, yeah, we do Matthew chapter eight, mark chapter five as well. And yet. Luke and Mark both record, only one man coming to coming out demon possessed, and Matthew Records two. And I think the best explanation of that is Matthew was an eyewitness. He was there, whereas Luke and Mark, neither of them were. And so Luke and Mark May have been recording Jesus's interaction with the one that he was talking. Where there could have been two versus the other accounts are recording. Just that Matthew's account is recording. Hey, I was there and I saw two of them there, but it's another reminder of Jesus's power over the spiritual world. We've seen his power, in fact, even right before this power over nature calming the storm. Here we see his power over the spiritual world that the demonic forces are at. His win and will they have to beg permission of Jesus to go into these pigs. And so they're not able to just do as they please. Jesus is the one that is in charge here. And then we see the power over life and death at the end of Luke chapter eight with Jairus again and the power over sickness. So really you see so much of the deity of Christ in Luke chapter eight. You see that the power over nature, the power of the spiritual world, the power over sickness with the woman, with the discharge and the power of her life and death as he raises Jairus's daughter from the dead. Luke chapter eight is a pretty bold. Pretty clear testimony as to who Jesus is. Yeah, those pigs, man. 2000 of them, right? 2000, yeah, 2000. So I just want to point out to you it's at least one man. There's probably two and one only gets the focus, but Jesus is willing to sacrifice 2000 pigs for two people. Yep. Let's just let that sit on you for a second. I know we have a lot of people that love animals. I do too. I like them a lot, contrary to the things that we say about cats, but I just need you to see that God values. At least 2000 animals to two people. And that should tell you about how God values people versus the animal kingdom. We should a good point. We should do good things to the animals. Protect him, care. Yes. All those things, but the people are where it's at. Only people possess the image of God. And that's what makes us distinctly valuable in God's sight. He values his image, which is why he values us. You just need to see that. Please care for animals and your animal and all animals in proportion to the way that God cares for them. One final thought here with the Garrison Demon Acts there is they one or both of them want to go with Jesus, and Jesus says, no, I want you to go and tell other people what you've seen and heard. And so his tune is changing a little bit. Now. He's been telling people, some people at least, Hey don't tell people about what I've done for you, but go and offer what you need to offer. This is in Gentile territory. And he says, go and tell others what you've seen and what you've heard. And that's similar to what we talked about. Yesterday at church on Sunday when we talked about the fact that we as a church have been called to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. So Jesus is telling the gne to go do that. You haven't been cleansed of a, of demons i, I trust, but you've been cleansed of your sin and that's even more remarkable than this. And you've been tasked with the same thing. And that is to go and tell others what God has done for you. And so what a good charge for us as the church, for us as individuals. Let's not forget that's why we're still here primarily is to go and tell others what God has done for us. So we can take that away from from this and submit to the Lordship of Christ because he, again, he's God. And we see that so clearly in Luke chapter eight. Let's pray. Lord, give us opportunities to testify to who you are and to your deity and to what you've done in our lives. We pray for multiple opportunities. Even this week coming off of a sermon talking about how we need to be a church that is, is doing that. I pray that you would give us chances with our neighbors and that we would not just see the chances but take them. That we would not just see the opportunity but that we would lean into the opportunity and be obedient to the. Prompting of the spirit, even in our lives to go and do this. And so give us those opportunities. Help us to even be fruitful in those conversations. Lord, we'd love to hear that people are be being saved because of the gospel being shared by people in our church. And Lord, we, we know that you're able to do that and you can, and you desire to see more and more people saved. So use us towards that end, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Keep your new Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said