WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:00.720 It 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:02.480 is the 18th of December. 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:03.600 I am Cory J. 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:06.160 Mahler and this is at any cost. 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.920 I think I will probably just jump right into the questions and 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:13.840 answers section since there's not really any housekeeping this time, except for 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:17.920 the usual sort of things at the end of the episode. 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:22.000 I will assume that the audio is fine for everyone, since I 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.600 don't see any comments in the chat that it is not. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:30.720 So I will simply pull up the first question here. 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:32.960 The first question is 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:40.320 relatively long but a very simple question straightforward, so I will just 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:41.600 give sort of the 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:46.160 cliff note version of it as it were. 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:51.760 How do we have faith and not doubt is essentially the question? 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:54.400 And so there are a lot of places in scripture where it 00:00:54.400 --> 00:00:58.000 says basically if you have faith and you don't doubt, then 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.200 certain things will happen. 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:05.200 This is not sort of a prosperity gospel or therapeutic gospel or 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:10.480 any of those various other I'll be generous and call them heterodoxies, 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:10.800 but 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:16.720 you have to look at the places in which this is said 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:21.680 in scripture and many times you're dealing with Christ speaking in parables 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:26.320 or speaking in riddles, which he very much enjoyed doing while he 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:29.760 was serving in his ministry here on earth. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:33.760 And so for instance, I think it's probably good to start by 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:36.640 looking at the fig tree. 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:37.280 Because 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:44.400 when Christ curses the fig tree and and then it withers basically 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:48.320 immediately and then will no longer produce fruit and so he basically 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:51.200 may no one ever eat fruit from you again. 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:55.840 Does that mean that it is bad for the tree not to 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.040 produce fruit in an off season. 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:01.360 The answer for the tree is no. 00:02:01.360 --> 00:02:04.720 The answer for a human being, which is what he's getting at 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:06.640 there, is yes. 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:09.920 It's sort of akin to all of the parables about the thief 00:02:10.480 --> 00:02:11.760 coming in the night. 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:15.760 You do not know when Christ is going to return, and so 00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:21.040 you shouldn't think well I'm young, I can sin for thirty years, 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:23.840 and then I'll repent and everything will be fine, because Christ could 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:25.040 come to morrow. 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:28.720 He could come in the middle of this recording, and so probably 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:30.960 not in the middle of this recording, there's some signs that aren't 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:34.400 fulfilled, but he could come relatively soon. 00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:40.400 So, the point of the fig tree is that you don't put 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.720 off producing those good fruits because you are a Christian and you 00:02:44.720 --> 00:02:47.280 should be producing those all the time. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:51.280 The point is not the tree itself, because obviously trees have a 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:53.920 season. God created the seasons. 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:57.520 It's not bad for the tree itself to not be producing in 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:04.160 season. And so with regard to having faith and not doubting, part 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:07.280 of it comes down to the measure of faith that God has 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:11.360 given you, of course, and you can think of the Father who 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:14.720 exclaims, Lord, I believe help my unbelief. 00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:16.160 There's nothing wrong with that prayer. 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:20.880 That's a perfectly legitimate prayer for a man to pray because the 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:23.760 measure of faith that you have been given is a gift from 00:03:23.760 --> 00:03:26.560 God. That's always important to remember that. 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:27.120 That That 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.320 your faith is not your own work. 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:32.640 It is something given you by God. 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:35.600 Now you can pray for an increase of your faith. 00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:37.600 And of course, that's part of what you're praying for every time 00:03:37.600 --> 00:03:41.680 you pray the Lord's Prayer, and really any other prayers, particularly if 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:44.880 you're going through the Psalms and use them as a prayer book, 00:03:44.880 --> 00:03:47.680 which they're sort of a hymnalslash prayer book, so you can use 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:50.240 it in both ways. 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:50.400 But 00:03:51.920 --> 00:03:58.240 insofar as not doubting is concerned, basically don't dwell on 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:04.640 basically doubts, the possibility of doubts, because you can always find some 00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:07.520 little thread to pull at with anything. 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:07.840 And 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:12.400 in basically anything in life, if you start down that path, you're 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.280 going to destroy whatever the thing is, which is why it's good 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:18.240 to use the illustration of pulling on a thread If I find 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:21.840 a thread in my scarf and start pulling on it, pretty soon 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:24.320 I'm not going to have a scarf. 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:26.560 Now granted this one is wool and so it'd be kind of 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:30.160 hard to do, but you get the idea. 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.800 If, for instance, in your relationship with your spouse you find something 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:38.240 that annoys you about your spouse, and you dwell on it, and 00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:41.360 you pick at it, and you poke at it, you're going to 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:42.640 wind up divorced. 00:04:42.640 --> 00:04:45.680 And And you're going to have done that to yourself. 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:50.080 So with regard to your faith, don't make shipwreck of your faith 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:54.160 by finding some way in order to doubt. 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.560 Because you can always find some way to try to walk away 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:57.040 from things. 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:59.120 Apostasy is very possible. 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:03.840 So don't apostasize as sort of apostatize as sort of the basic 00:05:03.840 --> 00:05:07.120 thing here, the foundational truth. 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:12.560 When it comes to having that certainty of faith, you need to 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:14.720 be active in your prayer life. 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:17.280 You need to read the Word of God because that is how 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:19.200 God interacts with you. 00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:21.840 And trust in God that He will give you the measure of 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:25.840 faith that is necessary to meet the challenges in your life, and 00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:29.680 to meet the challenges that will be brought up by the world, 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:34.240 the flesh, and the devil with regard to your faith. 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:38.400 And And there are a number of verses and passages scripture the 00:05:38.400 --> 00:05:41.520 individuals cited here and of course anyone can go look at that. 00:05:41.520 --> 00:05:44.800 This one happens to be on the forum and I try to 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:48.240 do the ones on the forum first, so I think that's sort 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:52.480 of the the basic answer to that question, perhaps I'll come back 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:54.080 to that one at some point in the future. 00:05:54.080 --> 00:05:58.160 I think it's an important question that perhaps I will address in 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:03.680 greater depth, so I'll make a note to do that. 00:06:07.760 --> 00:06:14.000 The next question is about pacifism and particularly with a reference to 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:15.840 Dirk Willems. 00:06:15.840 --> 00:06:19.120 I'll just read this one because it's relatively short. 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:23.440 Among pacifists, one of the great heroes is Dirk Willems, who saved 00:06:23.440 --> 00:06:26.400 his enemy and got killed as a consequence. 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:29.440 How do we argue against suicidal empathy? 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:31.600 Anabaptists claim many martyrs. 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:35.920 How to differentiate true martyrs from foolish people who got executed? 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:37.920 And so a number of related questions there. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:44.160 I'll start by just briefly recounting who Dirk Williams Dirk Willems is, 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:46.560 because many people are not going to know that name. 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:50.800 There are of course many who will if they're familiar with Anabaptists 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:54.160 and their claims, but many others have no idea who that man 00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:59.600 is. So Dirk Willems was, as you might have guessed, an Anabaptist 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.400 who was imprisoned for being an Anabaptist because at the time in 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:08.560 that particular area it was a crime to be an anabaptist, he 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:14.880 escaped. And as he was fleeing, his pursuer fell through some thin 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:20.560 ice. He turned around to help his pursuer and was recaptured as 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:20.880 a result. 00:07:21.200 --> 00:07:24.720 Notably the man who fell through the ice wanted to let him 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:28.720 go, but he was reminded it was his duty he was basically 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:33.280 the captor, the jailer, and so it was his duty to recapture 00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:39.040 him. And subsequent to being recaptured, he was burned at the stake. 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:39.360 So 00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:44.880 the question would be, in his case, was it right or foolish 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:46.560 to do what he did and 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:52.320 that one comes down to how you view Anabaptist teaching because if 00:07:52.320 --> 00:07:56.400 you come down on the side of Anabaptist teaching being something that 00:07:56.400 --> 00:08:00.320 should be punished by the state, then he was a wicked man 00:08:00.320 --> 00:08:04.160 who needed to be punished, and so fleeing punishment for a crime 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:07.280 you have in fact committed is anti-Christian. 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:10.400 If you come down on the other side, and you're someone who 00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:14.960 believes in not freedom of religion, but freedom of denomination, and you 00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:17.760 think that he should have the right to teach whatever he pleases 00:08:17.760 --> 00:08:18.880 about scripture. 00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:22.640 Maybe not whatever he pleases, that's a little too broad, but within 00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:25.680 reason, you think that he should be at least w able to 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:31.200 disagree, permitted to disagree without repercussions, with regard to the sacraments, with 00:08:31.200 --> 00:08:34.560 regard to baptism, specifically in this case, of course. 00:08:34.560 --> 00:08:37.840 If you come down on that side, then you're probably going to 00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:42.560 say, well, no, he was fleeing unjust persecution, and so he's permitted 00:08:42.560 --> 00:08:43.840 to do that. 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:48.560 But of course, in both cases, it raises the question of which 00:08:48.560 --> 00:08:52.640 is sort of the core of this, the underlying question. 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:57.920 When is it your duty as a Christian to stand your ground, 00:08:57.920 --> 00:09:00.560 even if it results in your death? 00:09:00.560 --> 00:09:06.160 Versus when are you permitted or even required according to wisdom and 00:09:06.160 --> 00:09:10.720 your duties before God and men not to do that, not to 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.440 basically surrender yourself to death. 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:13.760 And 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:20.880 this is partly a wisdom call, but partly not, because it's going 00:09:20.880 --> 00:09:25.200 to be very obvious if you are called on to confess to 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:29.280 confess Christ, and there is going to be very real consequences for 00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:31.840 doing that. 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:36.160 So for instance, if we happen to have a particularly wicked government, 00:09:36.160 --> 00:09:41.520 which we do, and they start calling Christians before tribunals and saying 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:46.960 renounce God, then you have to confess Christ and go to your 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:48.400 death if necessary. 00:09:48.400 --> 00:09:51.520 That makes you a martyr, of course, and I'll get into what 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:53.680 a martyr is in a second here. 00:09:53.680 --> 00:09:56.000 But that makes you a martyr, but that is your duty as 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:56.880 a Christian. 00:09:56.880 --> 00:09:58.560 You do not get to deny Christ. 00:09:58.560 --> 00:09:59.600 We are not Muslims. 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:02.720 We don't have a bunch of different kinds of lies that we 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:06.400 are permitted to tell in order to make our life easier or 00:10:06.400 --> 00:10:08.000 more convenient. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:13.840 But But we're not going so far as the sort of mischaracterization 00:10:13.920 --> 00:10:16.960 I would say of Kant, but the one of which everyone is 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:21.120 aware and when you get into this area of discussion with regard 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:23.280 to when you have to be truthful. 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:27.280 The example that is usually used is if a psychopathic killer comes 00:10:27.280 --> 00:10:32.400 to your door, do you have to say, Yes, my wife and 00:10:32.400 --> 00:10:34.720 children are home and they're hiding in the closet. 00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:36.640 The answer is no. 00:10:36.640 --> 00:10:39.600 And as a Christian you have no duty to tell that person 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:42.800 the truth, because you don't have a duty to tell all truths 00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:45.040 at all times to all men. 00:10:45.040 --> 00:10:48.560 You have a duty to speak the truth about Christ and never 00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:49.920 deny him. 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:53.840 And so that is sort of the dividing line there. 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:58.160 But with regard to a martyr, a martyr is someone who dies 00:10:58.480 --> 00:10:59.200 for the faith 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:04.560 who dies because of his Christian faith. 00:11:04.560 --> 00:11:04.880 And 00:11:05.920 --> 00:11:09.440 you're going to get people who get very nitpicky about that because 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:13.040 they'll say, well, he died because he had political disagreements, but he 00:11:13.040 --> 00:11:15.760 was also killed because he was a Christian. 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:17.920 I would say he's a martyr if that happens. 00:11:17.920 --> 00:11:21.280 This is a hypothetical man, I'm not saying this individual in this 00:11:21.280 --> 00:11:23.040 case, Willems. 00:11:23.040 --> 00:11:23.360 But 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:30.320 whether or not someone is a martyr is a question essentially of 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:34.320 whether or not he died because of his Christian faith. 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:40.560 so perhaps an abstracted political example and illustration. 00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:47.040 The Rwandan genocide, if you actually run the numbers as it were, 00:11:47.040 --> 00:11:51.120 you can make a very strong argument that it was a politicide 00:11:51.120 --> 00:11:53.680 instead of a genocide. 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:57.760 Now, does that mean that it didn't have elements of being a 00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:00.880 genocide even if it were in fact mostly a politicide? 00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:03.600 The answer would be no, it still was a bit of both. 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:04.240 Regardless of 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:08.400 that. I have a particular professor from undergrad who wouldn't want me 00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:12.720 to make that argument, but he's just wrong if he disagrees. 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:16.400 When it comes to someone being a martyr, even if there are 00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:19.840 elements of having died for something else so you were killed because 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:23.200 you were a member of a political party that the ruling class 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:26.880 didn't like, but also because you're a Christian, I would say that 00:12:26.880 --> 00:12:29.200 counts as the person being a martyr. 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:33.280 Now, I'm not getting into the specific definition that the Roman Catholic 00:12:33.280 --> 00:12:35.600 Church uses because I don't believe in it. 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.000 Because anyone who dies for the faith is a martyr. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:41.600 I'm not going to add additional requirements to that. 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:48.080 And so perhaps another ancillary point, but the traditional distinction between a 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:51.920 martyr and a confessor is that a confessor doesn't die for the 00:12:51.920 --> 00:12:54.960 faith. He confesses the faith. 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:59.040 And so Martin Luther was a confessor of the faith, not a 00:12:59.040 --> 00:13:02.400 martyr, because he was in fact not killed for the faith, despite 00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:05.440 the fact that both the emperor and the pope tried for quite 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:07.760 a while and they just didn't succeed. 00:13:07.760 --> 00:13:10.960 So he almost became a martyr many times, but he was not 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:12.640 a martyr, he was a confessor. 00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:16.400 Sort of the distinction there. 00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:21.040 And so when it comes down to assessing whether someone did something 00:13:21.040 --> 00:13:26.160 foolish or not, it is really that question of did you have 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:28.080 to confess Christ? 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:32.560 Were you called on to either confess or deny Christ before men? 00:13:32.560 --> 00:13:35.120 And if you die for that you're a martyr. 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:40.960 If you weren't called on to confess Christ and you sort of 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.640 just chose to die, that's probably foolish. 00:13:44.640 --> 00:13:48.800 And so I'm thinking of the gentleman who decided he was going 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:53.760 to sail onto an island full of crazed cannibals essentially. 00:13:53.760 --> 00:13:57.280 That is definitely more foolish than martyr. 00:13:57.280 --> 00:13:59.760 I don't know that I'd be willing to say that he there's 00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:02.480 absolutely nothing of martyrdom there. 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:03.920 But he shouldn't have done it. 00:14:03.920 --> 00:14:04.880 It was dumb. 00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:06.320 It was foolish. 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:10.160 That's not the way to evangelize some random tribe like that. 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:12.320 That's i essentially suicide. 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:14.000 It's not something you should do. 00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:18.560 And then s the last question here that I haven't really addressed 00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:21.680 yet is the suicidal empathy issue. 00:14:21.680 --> 00:14:28.640 And you can't really fix that issue without causing a lot of 00:14:28.640 --> 00:14:30.080 other problems. 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:36.000 Because it's not so much an individual issue, it's a structural issue. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:40.160 If you don't have a bunch of individuals living around your people 00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:41.200 who will take advantage of 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:46.000 that, it's not a problem to have that desire to help others 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:50.720 around you, if you're living in a society that is properly ordered. 00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:53.840 Our problem today is that we are not living in a properly 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:55.120 ordered society. 00:14:55.200 --> 00:15:00.560 We are living around some much more than others, unfortunately, for them, 00:15:00.560 --> 00:15:04.000 but we are living around hostile foreigners who do not have the 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.920 same morals, who do not have the same concerns, who are going 00:15:07.920 --> 00:15:11.360 to take advantage of us because of the fact that we have 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:13.440 empathy, sympathy, whatever you want to call it. 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:18.160 I'm not getting into that nest that nest of vipers, quite frankly, 00:15:18.160 --> 00:15:20.720 with regard to people who think that you know empathy is a 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.080 sin. Comes down to how you're defining your terms. 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:30.640 But in this case, can you train someone to care 00:15:31.680 --> 00:15:35.200 about others and not run some risk of that being exploited? 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:37.120 I think the answer is no. 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:42.080 So you have to set up structural safeguards in your society, and 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:43.840 then it's a good thing to have. 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:47.440 Now at the same time, you can certainly train up for instance 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:52.480 your children not to simply care for everyone in the world because 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:54.160 you can't do that. 00:15:54.160 --> 00:15:57.680 You have to train them who is your neighbor, care for your 00:15:57.680 --> 00:16:00.960 neighbor to whom do you owe a higher duty? 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:05.440 If you have a higher duty to these people, so your family, 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:11.440 for instance, probably the best example, naturally, can you fulfill that duty 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:16.640 if instead you run off and pursue foreigners four thousand miles away 00:16:16.640 --> 00:16:18.560 who kill you and eat you? 00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:20.160 Well the answer is no. 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:23.760 What you've done is you have neglected the higher and greater duty 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:28.800 in pursuit of something that is not perhaps a duty at all. 00:16:28.800 --> 00:16:30.400 Which would be sin. 00:16:30.400 --> 00:16:32.880 At the very least the sin of foolishness, and yes it is 00:16:32.880 --> 00:16:34.480 sinful to be a fool. 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:39.840 Scripture is abundantly clear on that one, many, many examples Examples. 00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:44.160 I think that pretty much answers that question, so I will move 00:16:44.160 --> 00:16:48.800 on to the next one. 00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:53.600 This one This one is another exegetical question, this one about Colossians 00:16:53.760 --> 00:16:55.600 3, 5 through 8. 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:59.520 So we'll actually just pull that up since it's usually the best 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:03.520 way to do that. 00:17:03.760 --> 00:17:15.600 Pull up logos here. 00:17:21.360 --> 00:17:26.480 Logos just likes to add more steps in order to. 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:29.280 Of course, now it looks like 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:33.600 Well that's an interesting quirk. 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:39.280 Looks like OBS actually focuses on the individual tab instead of 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:43.600 the window, which makes that a little harder. 00:17:43.600 --> 00:17:44.960 Let me see if I can get it to do the right 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:45.680 thing here. 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:50.080 Okay, here we go. 00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:54.640 So reading from Colossians three, put to death therefore what is earthly 00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:59.520 in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desired, and covetousness, which is 00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:03.440 idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:06.640 In these you two once walked when you were living in them, 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:10.320 but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, 00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:12.960 and obscene talk from your mouth. 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:19.520 And so the question here, essentially, given the title of this particular 00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:22.640 post on the forum, what does it mean to put to death 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:23.760 what is earthly in you? 00:18:23.760 --> 00:18:28.080 And I think really in a large way, the answer to the 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:32.080 question is there in the verse, because when it speaks about that 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:35.440 which is earthly in you, it gives the list of things that 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:36.400 are earthly. 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:38.320 It's not an exhaustive list, of course. 00:18:38.320 --> 00:18:42.880 Seldom are the lists in the New Testament exhaustive, they're usually illustrative. 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:49.440 But sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, I idolatry. 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:51.360 These are the things you are meant to put away. 00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:56.640 And so what it's saying is you have to master the flesh 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.080 in the sense of the flesh being fallen and trying to pull 00:19:00.080 --> 00:19:02.560 you away from the things that are good. 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:07.040 Because the traditional formulation I used it earlier already in this episode, 00:19:07.040 --> 00:19:10.880 but the traditional formulation is that you are beset by the world, 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:12.640 the flesh, and the devil. 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:15.520 And you can put those in whichever order you want. 00:19:15.520 --> 00:19:17.600 They're going to differ over time. 00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:20.240 Sometimes you'll be more tempted by the flesh. 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.800 Sometimes you'll be more tempted by the devil. 00:19:22.800 --> 00:19:24.480 Sometimes by the world. 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:27.920 So, you know, sort of concrete examples, sexual immorality is going to 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:29.520 be a temptation of the flesh. 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:31.840 Pretty obvious on that one. 00:19:31.840 --> 00:19:36.080 When it comes to money, mammon, greed, that's more of a temptation 00:19:36.080 --> 00:19:36.720 of the world. 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:38.960 There's a little bit of the flesh in there as well. 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:39.760 But 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:44.160 the other ones here, idolatry, obviously that's going to be a temptation 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:45.360 of the devil to some degree. 00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:47.600 But yes, there's the world as well, because what is the worship 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:49.360 of mammon ultimately? 00:19:49.360 --> 00:19:50.480 It's idolatry. 00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:55.280 You've set up another God in your heart, another thing to which 00:19:55.280 --> 00:19:58.080 you look for all good in your life, and you've made that 00:19:58.080 --> 00:20:01.280 your God, because the things to which you look for all good 00:20:01.280 --> 00:20:06.080 are in fact your God, to paraphrase the large catechism. 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:10.400 And so when it comes to putting to death the flesh, the 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:13.520 things that are earthly in you, it's not that the body is 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:15.520 bad. Don't ever read it in that way. 00:20:15.520 --> 00:20:18.240 It's not in a Gnostic sense. 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:23.920 It's in the sense of our current flesh is fallen because you 00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:25.920 know in sin did my mother conceive me. 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:28.320 I'm going to wind up using that verse in almost every episode 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:34.480 seemingly, but our flesh is fallen because we inherit original sin from 00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:36.560 our original father Adam. 00:20:36.560 --> 00:20:42.400 It is passed down from generation to generation to generation until the 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.160 end of this universe. 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:50.000 Because once we are regenerated in the next life in paradise, the 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.480 sinfulness that attaches to this flesh is removed, it's gone. 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:58.480 We are no longer sinners, and so we will not sin. 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:03.280 And so when it comes to this issue of putting to death 00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:06.800 the things in you that are earthly, it's earthly in the sense 00:21:06.800 --> 00:21:11.360 of the fallen earth, not earthly in the sense of just fleshly. 00:21:11.360 --> 00:21:16.480 Granted, fleshly can mean either sinful or just of the flesh. 00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:18.720 I'm talking about the latter sense. 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:21.840 And so food and drink aren't bad. 00:21:21.840 --> 00:21:25.600 Right. Having sex with your spouse, not bad. 00:21:25.600 --> 00:21:28.240 Sexual immorality is bad. 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:30.160 Drunkenness is bad. 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:32.480 Gluttony is bad. 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:35.200 Those are the things that you are putting to death, those are 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:38.960 the things that you are disciplining your body to keep it under 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:44.800 control. So that's basically the exegesis of that verse, and it really 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:47.920 is sort of present there in the verse itself, but there's some 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:51.760 things on which we can expand to get a fuller sense. 00:21:51.760 --> 00:21:58.160 So the next question is about the Nicene Creed, really about apostolic 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:01.520 succession, but in the light of the Nicene Creed. 00:22:01.520 --> 00:22:02.000 I will 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:05.600 go back to not having logos on the screen. 00:22:05.600 --> 00:22:06.320 We don't need it there. 00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:08.880 I think everyone knows the Nicene Creed, so I I won't pull 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:09.680 that one up. 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:13.600 But last week you suggested to someone to start their own home 00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:14.400 church if needed. 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:17.360 Creed that got me thinking about apostolic succession. 00:22:17.360 --> 00:22:21.840 The Nicene Creed contains the line We believe in one holy Catholic 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:23.680 and Apostolic Church. 00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:25.680 What does apostolic mean here? 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:28.720 Being based on the teaching of the apostles but not successive passing 00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:30.160 of office. 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:33.040 And yes, that basically is the sense here. 00:22:33.040 --> 00:22:39.600 The apostolic succession is not the laying on of hands And one 00:22:39.600 --> 00:22:43.200 of the ways you can actually look at this is 00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:48.800 there are instances in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit is 00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:51.280 received via the laying on of hands. 00:22:51.280 --> 00:22:54.640 And there are instances where that is not the case. 00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:57.760 You can look at one of the cases with a centurion, there 00:22:57.760 --> 00:23:01.440 are a number of centurions in the New Testament, unsurprisingly for various 00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:06.880 historical reasons, but you have an instance where the Holy Spirit falls 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:09.920 on these individuals as they hear the word. 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:11.760 There's no laying on of hands. 00:23:11.760 --> 00:23:14.720 Now granted this is not apostolic succession. 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:19.520 We're not talking about, you know, bishops or anything here, but it's 00:23:19.520 --> 00:23:22.160 an important distinction to recognize. 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:25.040 It is not necessary to have the laying on of hands to 00:23:25.040 --> 00:23:26.560 receive the Holy Spirit. 00:23:26.560 --> 00:23:30.240 It is not necessary to have the laying on of hands to 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:36.640 have apostolic succession, because apostolic succession is a matter of teaching. 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:40.480 It is a matter of following the doctrine of the apostles, which 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:45.520 is to say Christianity, to obey the New Testament with a teaching. 00:23:45.520 --> 00:23:49.040 Because what is the most important tradition that we have from the 00:23:49.040 --> 00:23:51.440 apostles? Well, it's the New Testament. 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:54.800 It's the thing that they wrote down under the inspiration of the 00:23:54.800 --> 00:23:56.960 Spirit and passed on Christianity 00:23:57.840 --> 00:23:58.880 to us. 00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:02.960 That's what you have to follow to have apostolic succession. 00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:05.760 I know that there are churches, of course, and I'm just going 00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:08.800 to decline to name them here, you all know which ones I 00:24:08.800 --> 00:24:12.880 mean, because they're the only ones that make the claim. 00:24:12.880 --> 00:24:15.600 Modulo, a couple exceptions. 00:24:15.600 --> 00:24:18.720 But you have churches that will try to claim that they have 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:23.440 a direct line traced back all the way to the apostles. 00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:26.080 And the simple fact of the matter is, there isn't a single 00:24:26.080 --> 00:24:29.840 church that can actually truthfully make that claim. 00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:36.000 There's a pretty significant gray area where they can kind of argue 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:39.440 that maybe this man knew this man and this man knew that 00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:42.080 man. But not really. 00:24:42.080 --> 00:24:43.600 There's no concrete proof. 00:24:43.600 --> 00:24:44.480 They can't prove it. 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:46.480 They don't have any proof of it. 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:52.240 And that's not cause for concern because apostolic succession is not the 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:53.920 laying on of hands. 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:57.760 It's not the physical the spirit is not transmitted with a physical 00:24:57.760 --> 00:25:02.080 touch of one man giving another man the backslap. 00:25:02.080 --> 00:25:06.560 And I'm not being dismissive or, you know, dealing with holy things 00:25:06.560 --> 00:25:09.360 in a light way when I you can call it the holy 00:25:09.360 --> 00:25:12.320 backslap because that's basically what they're trying to argue. 00:25:12.320 --> 00:25:16.160 And now were it something that were necessary, were this something that 00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:19.760 were a sacrament instituted by God and necessary to the faith, I 00:25:19.760 --> 00:25:21.920 would never speak about it in that way. 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:23.600 But it's not. 00:25:23.600 --> 00:25:30.640 Because again, what is succession is teaching the doctrine of the apostles. 00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:36.560 Was Paul an apostle before he had hands laid on him? 00:25:36.560 --> 00:25:38.320 The answer is yes. 00:25:38.320 --> 00:25:40.320 Now, of course, there are those who will try to argue, well, 00:25:40.320 --> 00:25:42.400 it was because he got it from God directly. 00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:43.760 Well but okay. 00:25:43.760 --> 00:25:46.960 At the very least we've established the laying on of hands is 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:49.120 not necessary. 00:25:49.120 --> 00:25:51.280 That's very clear from Scripture. 00:25:51.280 --> 00:25:55.040 Just the same as it's not necessary for receiving the Holy Spirit 00:25:55.040 --> 00:25:56.720 to have the laying on of hands. 00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:58.320 I'm not saying it's a bad thing. 00:25:58.320 --> 00:26:02.960 There's nothing wrong with it as a tradition, but it's not necessary. 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:06.400 And so no, there's nothing wrong with starting up a home church, 00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:11.680 you're not breaking with tradition and you're not causing problems with regard 00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:13.920 to apostolic succession. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:17.040 Do bear in mind that most of the early churches were in 00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:20.240 fact home churches, because they were meeting in secret. 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.880 Sometimes they were literally meeting in the tombs. 00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:30.880 And not all of them had an apostle present, certainly. 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:34.560 The next one is sort of shifting gears, I guess, to the 00:26:34.800 --> 00:26:40.880 political, although also with a religious element still, unsurprisingly. 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:44.320 You have stated on many occasions that you believe we will win 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:48.560 because God Because God has made promises to Japheth, which is true. 00:26:48.560 --> 00:26:53.360 To play devil's advocate, isn't it possible that these promises have already 00:26:53.360 --> 00:26:57.920 been fulfilled and that we truly are in the last days? 00:26:57.920 --> 00:26:59.440 There are really two questions there. 00:26:59.520 --> 00:27:03.600 There and I'll answer them in order as it were. 00:27:03.600 --> 00:27:09.280 The first one is whether or not there's a possibility that those 00:27:09.280 --> 00:27:13.120 promises, and of course we're speaking about Noah's prophecy. 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:17.200 Whether or not those promises have been fulfilled? 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:22.240 The answer is that they have but not fully, because there's no 00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:24.480 end point. 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:28.240 The promise to Japheth is that he will be Christendom. 00:27:28.800 --> 00:27:31.920 He will dwell in the tents of Shem. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.600 And there's a little bit of hostility there in the actual grammar 00:27:35.680 --> 00:27:38.400 if you look at the the Greek terms used. 00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:41.360 And the context, of course. 00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:46.560 But with regard to being Christendom, that is an ongoing promise. 00:27:46.560 --> 00:27:52.560 That is from basically the New Testament era, as soon as the 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:57.360 scriptures and the gospel reach Greece and then spread from there to 00:27:57.360 --> 00:28:00.000 the rest of the Roman Empire, and then the rest of Europe, 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000 of course, it's from that point to the end of time. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.720 And so there's a partial fulfillment, but not the full fulfillment. 00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:10.640 We see this all the time with prophecy. 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:15.760 There's often either a cyclical fulfillment or a repeated fulfillment or a 00:28:15.760 --> 00:28:17.280 lesser and then a greater. 00:28:17.280 --> 00:28:18.400 That's sort of what we have here. 00:28:19.120 --> 00:28:23.440 There is the major fulfillment in a sense 00:28:24.320 --> 00:28:29.040 with regard to the centuries during which Europe was Christendom and Europe 00:28:29.040 --> 00:28:33.760 was ascendant, and then there is the not yet fulfilled with regard 00:28:33.760 --> 00:28:35.360 to the future. 00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:38.880 Because it is an open ended promise, an open ended prophecy. 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:42.480 There's no end date to it, except for of course the expiration 00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:45.040 date of this universe itself. 00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:48.160 And so the next question would be, are we in the last 00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:51.280 days? Well, I actually already pointed out in this episode that there 00:28:51.280 --> 00:28:54.240 are some signs and things that have not been fulfilled yet, and 00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:57.120 so are we in the last days? 00:28:57.120 --> 00:29:00.080 Maybe, but are we in the ones that are right at the 00:29:00.080 --> 00:29:02.720 end? No, we're not yet. 00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:07.520 Because there are things that must take place before Christ's return. 00:29:07.520 --> 00:29:11.600 Now there aren't a lot, certainly, if you look at the way 00:29:11.600 --> 00:29:16.240 that things are going and how many things have been fulfilled, but 00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:20.640 not a lot is still some. 00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:22.240 So are we in the 00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:24.720 absolute last days? 00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:25.600 I would say no. 00:29:25.600 --> 00:29:31.280 And personally, I also don't think this is not, you know, necessarily 00:29:31.280 --> 00:29:33.840 like you you should believe this or you must believe this is 00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:35.440 just my personal belief with regard to this. 00:29:35.440 --> 00:29:38.320 This is take it or leave it, choose whatever you like. 00:29:38.320 --> 00:29:41.840 I don't think that we're in the last days. 00:29:41.840 --> 00:29:43.920 I think we will see a resurgence. 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:48.480 I think that God is not quite done with this universe yet. 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:50.880 I could be wrong on that. 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:51.200 And 00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:54.400 I guess we will simply see. 00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:54.720 But 00:29:55.600 --> 00:30:00.160 as sort of a tangential issue, there are always those who want 00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:04.240 Wanna discuss if we're in the last days, is this the tribulation? 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:06.240 Has Satan been unchained? 00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:09.040 Or you know, all these related questions. 00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:11.280 And to some degree it doesn't matter. 00:30:11.280 --> 00:30:14.480 Of course it matters in the sense that we kinda want to 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.600 know what the ground rules are right now. 00:30:17.600 --> 00:30:19.680 Is Satan off his leash? 00:30:19.680 --> 00:30:21.920 Is he allowed to do whatever he pleases? 00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:23.200 Are we in the tribulation? 00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:27.520 Are things gonna get significantly worse than they already are, it would 00:30:27.520 --> 00:30:30.080 be nice to know those things, certainly. 00:30:30.080 --> 00:30:33.600 But at the same time, the way that I've always pointed it 00:30:33.600 --> 00:30:34.560 out is that 00:30:35.840 --> 00:30:36.800 just because 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:41.760 we aren't in the last days, so say you lived in the 00:30:41.840 --> 00:30:45.600 1300s, you're nowhere near the last days, obviously, because we're living in 00:30:45.600 --> 00:30:49.040 the 2000s, and so they were nowhere near the last days. 00:30:49.040 --> 00:30:52.800 Well, at the same time they were, because there isn't a man 00:30:52.800 --> 00:30:57.200 listening to me right now who is more than at the absolute 00:30:57.200 --> 00:31:00.000 most eighty years away from the grave. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:05.040 Okay, modulo advances in technology that maybe give you an extra forty 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:09.600 years. Maybe that's pretty optimistic at this point. 00:31:09.600 --> 00:31:11.920 You are close to the end days. 00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:14.880 Because the end days are the final judgment. 00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:18.000 Well you're close to the final judgment because you're Because you're mortal. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:21.120 And so you should always live as if you are not really 00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:24.480 far away from the last days. 00:31:24.480 --> 00:31:26.880 Because you personally are not. 00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.800 And in a very real sense, it doesn't matter to you if 00:31:30.800 --> 00:31:34.720 this universe is close to the last days, because you will always 00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:42.560 be close to the last days, because again you are mortal. 00:31:42.560 --> 00:31:45.040 And I do notice there have been a few questions in the 00:31:45.040 --> 00:31:48.560 chat. I don't know that I will necessarily get to those tonight 00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:49.760 because I have 00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:54.480 quite a few questions in my list as is, but I will 00:31:54.480 --> 00:31:59.760 note those down and add them to the growing list List. 00:31:59.760 --> 00:32:05.200 So the next question is actually about Bible translation versions. 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:08.080 This one's a specific version. 00:32:08.080 --> 00:32:13.600 Ask if I have any thoughts on the anointed Standard Translation and 00:32:13.600 --> 00:32:18.080 I'd actually not seen this one before, apparently came out not that 00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:23.360 long ago, thirty years, but that's not that long in the grand 00:32:23.360 --> 00:32:24.560 scheme of things. 00:32:24.560 --> 00:32:25.280 Time flies. 00:32:26.320 --> 00:32:26.640 But 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:30.480 the question is what I think about it. 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:33.200 It says that it's not based on the Masoretic. 00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:35.840 It's based on the Septuagint. 00:32:35.840 --> 00:32:40.400 And it's touted as the translation for whites, which 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.920 I don't like that framing. 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:49.680 Not because I have a problem necessarily with, you know, tailoring something 00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:53.440 to a particular group, because if you translate something into German, you're 00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:55.040 kind of tailoring it to the Germans. 00:32:55.040 --> 00:32:58.240 Same for French and Dutch and Russian and everything else. 00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:00.480 And so in that sense you are tailoring it to a particular 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:04.080 race when you're translating into the language of that race. 00:33:04.080 --> 00:33:07.680 Now in the case of English, English has become the lingua franca, 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.960 which is a mildly amusing term at this point in history for 00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:12.560 a number of reasons, but 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:19.040 If you're translating to English, you're still very much targeting the Anglo-Saxon 00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:24.800 race, essentially, and our very large diaspora at this point. 00:33:24.800 --> 00:33:28.000 So I went ahead and looked at the version. 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.080 I didn't read a huge chunk of it. 00:33:30.080 --> 00:33:32.640 I read basically a bit of Romans. 00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:34.960 I was not particularly impressed. 00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:39.520 It does some weird things and is very heavy handed 00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:45.200 with what is essentially Christian identity, which is not Christian and also 00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:47.440 gets the identity wrong usually. 00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:49.840 So great deal of irony in that. 00:33:49.840 --> 00:33:51.360 I would not recommend it. 00:33:51.360 --> 00:33:53.040 Don't use it. 00:33:53.040 --> 00:33:57.360 Quite frankly, I don't think there's anything really wrong fundamentally with the 00:33:57.360 --> 00:34:02.560 ESV or the NASB or the NKJV or any of the others 00:34:02.560 --> 00:34:04.640 with regard to the New Testament. 00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.000 Because obviously in the New Testament they're based on the Greek because 00:34:08.160 --> 00:34:09.440 there's nothing else. 00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:10.560 It's only Greek. 00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:12.080 It's only ever been Greek. 00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:14.800 You have crazy people off in the corner arguing that Matthew is 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:16.240 originally Hebrew. 00:34:16.240 --> 00:34:18.320 Well, we don't have any transcripts of that. 00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:19.200 We don't have any people. 00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:22.320 pieces of papyri, we don't have anything because it wasn't. 00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:23.120 It's written in Greek. 00:34:23.120 --> 00:34:25.520 There's plays on words and things that work only in Greek and 00:34:25.520 --> 00:34:26.320 not Hebrew. 00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:28.720 But the New Testament is Greek. 00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:32.480 Everyone agrees on that except for some crazy people. 00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:35.760 So all of these translations are based on the Greek in the 00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:38.880 New Testament, so it's just fine to use any of 'em. 00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:43.120 With the tiny caveats that I've mentioned before, basically the word Gentiles 00:34:43.120 --> 00:34:48.400 is nonsense, and so when you see Gentiles, just read nations, ninety 00:34:48.560 --> 00:34:51.120 five percent of the time it means nations. 00:34:51.120 --> 00:34:55.280 Every so often it means member of the nations or something very 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.280 close to nations, but it's sometimes it means heathen, which is a 00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:03.280 word we don't use that much anymore, which just means unbelieving nations. 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:04.160 That's all it means. 00:35:04.160 --> 00:35:07.360 So just read nations when you see Gentiles and 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:10.560 you basically got there. 00:35:10.720 --> 00:35:14.400 One other thing that I will mention with regard to the New 00:35:14.560 --> 00:35:22.320 Testament, certain translators play games because they're Judaizers 00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:23.760 is really what it comes down to. 00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:28.080 But so for instance, one of the times when Paul is addressing 00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:31.120 one of the groups of Jews that want to kill him, it 00:35:31.120 --> 00:35:34.960 says that he addresses them in the Hebrew language, is what some 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.520 translations, modern translations say. 00:35:37.520 --> 00:35:39.840 Well the problem is what it actually says in the Greek is 00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:43.760 it addresses him in the language of the Hebrews. 00:35:43.760 --> 00:35:45.440 This is an important point. 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:49.440 Those sound exactly the same, and they can be the same in 00:35:49.520 --> 00:35:52.960 a in a certain way, but what is meant when you say 00:35:53.120 --> 00:35:58.560 in the language of the Hebrews is the language that is used 00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:02.720 by the Hebrews at the time, which means Aramaic. 00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:04.320 That's what it's saying. 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:06.800 We would just say Aramaic. 00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:07.120 But 00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:12.800 you could look at this for instance, there are a number of 00:36:12.800 --> 00:36:18.160 different times down through history where a population has adopted a foreign 00:36:18.160 --> 00:36:23.280 language and it has become the language of that population, that entire 00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:27.440 population. You can look particularly at the peoples we colonized. 00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:31.600 And so if you were to say the language of this group 00:36:31.600 --> 00:36:37.120 is X, it doesn't mean that X is the language that corresponds 00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:38.400 to that name. 00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:41.200 So, for instance, American 00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:45.760 We yes speak American English, but we speak English. 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:47.840 We don't speak American. 00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:49.600 We speak English. 00:36:49.600 --> 00:36:55.040 And so you wouldn't say the language of the Americans. 00:36:55.040 --> 00:36:56.560 That sounds weird to our ear. 00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:58.880 And so they should not have translated it that way because what 00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:00.240 they were doing was Judaizing. 00:37:00.240 --> 00:37:03.760 They were trying to imply that he was speaking Hebrew, which he 00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:05.840 wasn't. He was speaking Aramaic. 00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:09.040 So that's one of the only other little nitpicky things that I 00:37:09.040 --> 00:37:10.560 would say with the translation. 00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:15.120 But other than that, by and large, any modern translation in English 00:37:15.120 --> 00:37:18.320 of the New Testament is going to be fine. 00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:22.080 The Old Testament is a different matter, but I've gone over that 00:37:22.080 --> 00:37:28.080 previously, so I won't repeat that here. 00:37:28.080 --> 00:37:31.680 The next question, sort of a practical one. 00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:35.280 How ought men to find good husbands for their daughters? 00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:39.040 That is a load-bearing prepositional phrase if ever there were one. 00:37:39.040 --> 00:37:42.400 Since sending them to college is so foolish. 00:37:43.040 --> 00:37:45.680 Yes, I'm going to agree, of course, that sending them off to 00:37:45.680 --> 00:37:50.000 college is College is incredibly foolish these days and pretty much always 00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:50.720 has been. 00:37:50.720 --> 00:37:52.480 It's not advantageous. 00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:57.760 It is designed basically to destroy women and also the university system 00:37:57.760 --> 00:37:59.360 in the process. 00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:02.960 Discussion for another time. 00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:06.720 But the question then is how do you find husbands for your 00:38:06.720 --> 00:38:08.800 daughters basically to keep them out of trouble? 00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:12.080 Because if you marry them off younger, you're going to avoid a 00:38:12.080 --> 00:38:13.120 lot of the issues. 00:38:13.120 --> 00:38:16.000 Simple fact of the matter. 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:20.320 I would say first you want to look at how God has 00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:23.600 designed the system to work ideally. 00:38:23.600 --> 00:38:27.440 And we went over this in Stone Choir a little bit, and 00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:29.360 I've addressed it elsewhere as well. 00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:29.680 But 00:38:30.640 --> 00:38:33.200 if you look at the way God designed the system, and I'm 00:38:33.120 --> 00:38:36.560 just going to speak about Europeans at this point, because talking about 00:38:36.560 --> 00:38:39.520 the third world with all of the of the inbreeding and other 00:38:39.680 --> 00:38:42.000 problems is a whole can of worms I just don't want to 00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:42.720 get into. 00:38:42.720 --> 00:38:45.920 And it's not relevant, quite frankly, to answering the question for this 00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:53.040 audience. With regard to marriage, you're going to look at the way 00:38:53.040 --> 00:38:56.160 God has designed the system and the best indicator we have for 00:38:56.160 --> 00:38:58.240 that is peak fertility. 00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:01.600 Because children are a blessing from the Lord. 00:39:01.600 --> 00:39:08.640 Marriage is partly, not even necessarily primarily, but partly for the creation 00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:12.240 of children, the propagation of the species. 00:39:12.240 --> 00:39:15.040 So what is peak fertility? 00:39:15.040 --> 00:39:20.880 Peak fertility for white populations is essentially third or fourth cousins. 00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:24.320 Now, some people hear third or fourth cousin cousin and they think 00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.960 ah I don't want to marry my relative. 00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:31.280 Okay, your third or fourth cousin is pretty distant. 00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:35.360 I'll I could pull up a chart, I think, but 00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:40.160 let's see if I have a c a cousin chart. 00:39:40.160 --> 00:39:43.280 For those who aren't familiar with how this works 00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:48.960 So it sounds like you know, third or fourth cousin is closely 00:39:48.960 --> 00:39:50.400 related, but it's not. 00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:57.440 When you're talking about problems with consanguinity or inbreeding, whichever term you 00:39:57.440 --> 00:39:58.640 want to use for that. 00:39:58.640 --> 00:40:02.880 You're really talking about first cousins and a lot of places in 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:08.560 the Western world have banned first cousin marriage, and we should all 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:10.240 ban it, because it is not a good idea. 00:40:10.160 --> 00:40:12.480 that one is a bad idea. 00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:16.240 But when you get out to third or fourth cousin, you're not 00:40:16.240 --> 00:40:20.480 talking about any of those problems with being too closely genetically related 00:40:20.560 --> 00:40:25.040 or anything like that You're talking about the way God has designed 00:40:25.040 --> 00:40:29.840 it, because you are meant to marry people within your own nation. 00:40:29.840 --> 00:40:32.800 And by the time you start getting out to a certain number 00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:36.160 of cousins, you basically out to the edges of your own nation. 00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:41.840 And so you want to look for places where you can find 00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:45.920 someone who is that level of related to you to be a 00:40:45.920 --> 00:40:48.000 husband for your daughters. 00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:52.800 Now Now, historically, the way that that's going to work is that 00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:55.840 you're going to have this is probably going to be a little 00:40:55.840 --> 00:41:00.480 bit small on the screen, but I guess I will put a 00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:02.720 link to it in the show notes. 00:41:03.520 --> 00:41:08.240 But historically, with regard to trying to find a spouse for your 00:41:08.240 --> 00:41:11.760 daughters, you're going to have a lot of good options because you'll 00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:16.240 have extended family, you'll have family get togethers, you'll have all these 00:41:16.240 --> 00:41:20.720 opportunities in order to find someone who is compatible, and there's nothing 00:41:20.720 --> 00:41:22.800 wrong with talking about compatibility. 00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:25.280 Some of that grows over time, but some of it should be 00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:26.480 there at the beginning. 00:41:26.480 --> 00:41:31.440 You had opportunities to find compatible individuals for your daughters. 00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:34.800 That is somewhat challenging today for a number of reasons. 00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.760 One of the chief reasons is that most people have so few 00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:42.640 children, and so there are simply fewer individuals available. 00:41:42.640 --> 00:41:45.440 And there's also the issue of many of them have gone off 00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:49.440 to university and then they have moved away, they've gone out of 00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:52.720 state, they're five thousand miles away from their family, they're living in 00:41:52.720 --> 00:41:56.080 a foreign country, whatever it happens to be. 00:41:56.080 --> 00:41:58.480 That makes things more challenging. 00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:02.560 And so you're going to have to do the best you can 00:42:02.560 --> 00:42:05.600 with what is available to you. 00:42:05.600 --> 00:42:09.120 Part of that is going to be spending the time investing the 00:42:09.120 --> 00:42:12.880 time and the effort in simply having the connections that make it 00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:15.440 possible to know who is available. 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:21.120 Just knowing how many men are around who are the right sort 00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:23.840 of men and the right age. 00:42:23.840 --> 00:42:27.520 The age is, of course, broader for men than women, but part 00:42:27.520 --> 00:42:29.360 of it is building up those connections. 00:42:29.360 --> 00:42:33.200 This is something that historically was one of the duties, as it 00:42:33.200 --> 00:42:38.000 were, of women, because the women were the ones who kept track 00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:40.320 of what was going on in the extended family. 00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:42.400 And then the father, of course, was the one who had the 00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:46.560 veto power, the sign-off on okay, yes, you can marry my daughter, 00:42:46.560 --> 00:42:48.640 no, you cannot marry my daughter. 00:42:48.640 --> 00:42:51.200 But the women sort of kept track of that. 00:42:51.200 --> 00:42:54.960 That's something that we need to rebuild because we have allowed it 00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:59.040 to just completely atrophy, basically to turn to dust. 00:42:59.040 --> 00:43:00.880 It no longer exists in our minds. 00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:04.240 We don't even send holiday cards to people anymore, which seems like 00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:06.240 such a trivial thing, but it's not. 00:43:06.240 --> 00:43:11.360 It's sort of the m bare minimum level of maintaining that relationship 00:43:11.360 --> 00:43:13.520 with your extended family. 00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:16.320 You should be doing things with them when you can if they 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:18.560 live nearby. 00:43:18.560 --> 00:43:18.880 So 00:43:20.080 --> 00:43:24.960 given the challenges that we face, I think the first thing you 00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:30.160 want to do is identify the potential pool, and then from there, 00:43:30.160 --> 00:43:32.640 pick the best candidate for your daughters. 00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:35.680 But it's going to take some time and effort in order to 00:43:35.680 --> 00:43:37.760 identify that pool of men. 00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:41.760 Now, if you can't find someone who's within that ideal window of 00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:44.640 you know third to fifth cousin, whatever it happens to be, it 00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:46.640 varies a little one population to the next. 00:43:46.640 --> 00:43:50.240 But if you can't find someone who is within that? 00:43:50.240 --> 00:43:55.040 Just find someone who is of the same nation as you. 00:43:55.040 --> 00:43:55.920 That's fine. 00:43:55.920 --> 00:43:57.760 There's nothing wrong with that. 00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:02.560 And you're going to find plenty of those men around. 00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:04.480 Where are you going to find them? 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:07.760 Quite frankly, these days, actually, you're probably going to have an easier 00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:10.560 time finding men than women in the churches. 00:44:10.560 --> 00:44:14.160 Which is a different problem and a different thing to address another 00:44:14.160 --> 00:44:16.880 time, but there are going to be plenty of good men in 00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:22.400 the churches, in the good churches, particularly now that we have better 00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:27.760 churches starting up, and so those connections are being rebuilt, particularly in 00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:33.200 the actually proper traditional conservative churches that are now being started up 00:44:33.200 --> 00:44:37.440 in order to basically rescue people out of the shipwreck that is 00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:40.880 the mainstream churches as it were. 00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:43.440 So there's no easy answer really. 00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:46.960 There's no just, you know, here's where you find husbands for your 00:44:46.960 --> 00:44:51.360 daughters. That's not the world we live in, unfortunately. 00:44:51.360 --> 00:44:56.320 We face challenges that previous generations never had to face. 00:44:56.320 --> 00:45:01.360 There are fewer children, they're more spread out, many people have delayed 00:45:01.360 --> 00:45:04.560 marriage. There are some very real troubles, very real problems. 00:45:04.560 --> 00:45:09.120 But with regard to your daughters, the recommendation I would the strong 00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:12.880 recommendation I would still give is marry them off young. 00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:14.320 You're going to avoid a lot of problems. 00:45:14.320 --> 00:45:17.200 Now, when I say young, I'm not saying sixteen, so for the 00:45:17.200 --> 00:45:20.160 crazy people, I'm a Western European. 00:45:20.160 --> 00:45:23.760 The average age for marriage for women historically in Western European countries 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:26.080 was somewhere between twenty one and twenty four. 00:45:26.080 --> 00:45:28.080 That's what I mean by young. 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:29.680 Because that is 00:45:30.640 --> 00:45:34.960 old enough that you don't run into the the weirdness of marrying 00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:37.600 off your teenage daughter. 00:45:37.600 --> 00:45:37.920 And 00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:43.040 you also will run you will not run into the problems of 00:45:43.040 --> 00:45:45.280 having a woman who is in her late twenties 00:45:46.160 --> 00:45:51.200 or late thirties or worse unmarried. 00:45:51.200 --> 00:45:54.880 Because by the time a woman gets to that age, there are 00:45:54.960 --> 00:45:56.640 a lot of other problems. 00:45:56.640 --> 00:45:58.960 A topic for another time to get into that one because that 00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:03.040 one's sort of long and involved, but I think that's sort of 00:46:03.040 --> 00:46:06.960 the the short version of the advice in order to try and 00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:07.600 find 00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:11.520 proper Christian husbands for your daughters. 00:46:12.160 --> 00:46:17.600 You aren't going to find perfect men, and your daughters aren't perfect. 00:46:17.600 --> 00:46:19.840 You know that better than any other man on the face of 00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:23.920 the planet, undoubtedly, but you want to find them good spouses. 00:46:23.920 --> 00:46:26.080 And there are men still available. 00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:28.480 So put in the time and the effort. 00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:29.680 Build up that network. 00:46:29.680 --> 00:46:30.880 Have other people help you. 00:46:30.880 --> 00:46:33.200 It always helps to have more eyes on the problem. 00:46:33.200 --> 00:46:36.080 If you're the only one doing the work, the only one putting 00:46:36.080 --> 00:46:38.560 in the time, it may seem insurmountable. 00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:40.720 But if you get all of the old ladies at church to 00:46:40.720 --> 00:46:47.840 help, it's probably going to be a lot easier. 00:46:47.840 --> 00:46:52.720 Uh question about my favorite tank and words of encouragement to younger 00:46:52.720 --> 00:46:55.360 men. I think I will save both of those for next time 00:46:55.360 --> 00:47:00.960 simply because they are totally unrelated as it were, but asked as 00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:04.080 subpoints of a major question. 00:47:04.560 --> 00:47:07.840 What is with the music of the Stone Choir podcast? 00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:09.920 Does it have meaning or is it just crazy? 00:47:09.920 --> 00:47:11.920 Literally synths and sped up hymns. 00:47:11.920 --> 00:47:14.880 It is, in fact, basically that, yes. 00:47:14.880 --> 00:47:19.440 Now I picked them intentionally, I did pick them deliberately. 00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:19.760 And 00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:26.080 the information about the hymns is available on the Stone Cour Stone 00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:29.040 Choir website under the resources tab, so you can go and look 00:47:29.040 --> 00:47:30.000 at that. 00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.200 But I'm just going to plead that Germans are allowed to resort 00:47:35.200 --> 00:47:36.560 to electronica. 00:47:36.560 --> 00:47:42.560 That's going to be my answer for that one. 00:47:42.640 --> 00:47:49.600 Drink a little bit of tea. 00:47:49.680 --> 00:47:52.480 The next question, another question about marriage. 00:47:52.480 --> 00:47:57.120 Maybe sensing a theme, unsurprising given the current challenges of which we're 00:47:57.120 --> 00:47:59.200 all certainly aware. 00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:03.280 I'm really struggling with how to inform future spouse material on my 00:48:03.280 --> 00:48:07.120 beliefs. The last time I did it ended in her divorcing me. 00:48:07.120 --> 00:48:10.240 I know that they have zero political opinions with any weight, but 00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:14.400 issues like not allowing my future children to marry non-whites is a 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:18.720 real problem. 00:48:18.800 --> 00:48:19.280 The first 00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:25.760 sort of initial response to this would be: you don't need to 00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:32.560 inform your girlfriend, your fiance, your wife, about everything when it comes 00:48:32.560 --> 00:48:33.600 to politics. 00:48:33.600 --> 00:48:37.040 Because quite frankly, women shouldn't care that much. 00:48:37.040 --> 00:48:40.400 Women should be involved with other things in politics. 00:48:40.400 --> 00:48:42.800 Politics is a man's game. 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:43.120 And 00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:47.600 it is unfortunate how many women are deeply invested in it now 00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:52.080 partly because men have abandoned the field, partly because women are doing 00:48:52.080 --> 00:48:54.640 things they shouldn't be doing, but 00:48:55.520 --> 00:48:59.280 you just don't need to discuss everything with her. 00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:00.640 You don't. 00:49:00.640 --> 00:49:03.920 Just like you don't need to discuss everything about your job with 00:49:03.920 --> 00:49:04.560 your wife. 00:49:04.560 --> 00:49:06.640 You can leave some of that stuff at the office, as it 00:49:06.640 --> 00:49:09.520 were, whatever your office happens to be. 00:49:09.520 --> 00:49:12.480 So do you need to discuss it with her? 00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:13.680 Maybe think about that. 00:49:13.680 --> 00:49:15.840 Maybe don't bring up every topic with her. 00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:18.560 I'm not saying that you keep things from your wife, I know 00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:20.800 there are some women who will hear what I said and get 00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:22.400 all up in arms about it. 00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:25.680 Rather I'm saying they're simply things that do not concern women. 00:49:25.680 --> 00:49:28.000 And so they don't need to hear about them, they don't need 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:29.040 to know about them. 00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:33.920 If you want to discuss them, discuss them with your male friends. 00:49:33.920 --> 00:49:34.240 So 00:49:35.200 --> 00:49:38.720 that addresses sort of the initial part of the question, but then 00:49:38.720 --> 00:49:42.080 the weightier, the more important part of the question is 00:49:43.600 --> 00:49:49.440 really in essence, how do you manage to get your wife to 00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:53.600 agree with you on the major important issues so that you don't 00:49:53.600 --> 00:49:58.960 wind up with some enormous fight in the future over what you 00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:01.440 want to do with regard to your children. 00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:03.600 And that's a legitimate concern. 00:50:03.600 --> 00:50:04.240 That is 00:50:05.600 --> 00:50:08.400 Important, certainly. 00:50:08.400 --> 00:50:11.840 I think in part it's not going to matter. 00:50:11.840 --> 00:50:17.040 And the reason I say that is because there's not that much 00:50:17.040 --> 00:50:25.440 time left before things are pretty well decided in most Western nations. 00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:30.000 It's going to be very obvious, even to women who are not 00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.400 political and not involved in this stuff, just just how bad things 00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:40.400 are for the white population, and just how things are trending in 00:50:40.400 --> 00:50:42.960 basically every Western nation. 00:50:42.960 --> 00:50:47.200 And so you're not going to have to explain it to her. 00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:50.560 Because it's going to be extremely obvious. 00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:54.880 What you want to do is when she starts to notice those 00:50:54.880 --> 00:50:58.320 things, and she inevitably will notice some of them, not all of 00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:02.560 them, but some of them, you want to be there in order 00:51:02.560 --> 00:51:07.200 to help her through that, in order to help guide her through 00:51:07.200 --> 00:51:11.120 that and discuss these things with her and recommend 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:15.120 easily digestible resources. 00:51:15.120 --> 00:51:19.360 Don't hand her, you know, here's mine kamf. 00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:21.760 Maybe don't start there. 00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:22.240 But 00:51:23.520 --> 00:51:27.040 you want to be the one who is there for her when 00:51:27.040 --> 00:51:31.120 the world looks like it is all going to pieces. 00:51:31.120 --> 00:51:33.920 Because that's one of your roles as a husband. 00:51:33.920 --> 00:51:36.880 Your role as the man is to be the rock, to be 00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:39.920 the one who is firmly founded. 00:51:39.920 --> 00:51:42.240 You have to make her feel safe. 00:51:42.240 --> 00:51:46.640 And so if you start bringing up issues about how bad the 00:51:46.640 --> 00:51:49.440 world is that everything's falling apart and this is terrible. 00:51:49.440 --> 00:51:52.800 And if you do that, you're going to make her feel insecure 00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:53.440 and unsafe. 00:51:53.440 --> 00:51:57.120 You're doing the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do as 00:51:57.120 --> 00:51:58.480 a man. 00:51:58.480 --> 00:52:02.320 That is going to be disastrous for your relationship. 00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:05.600 What What you want to do is be the one who has 00:52:05.600 --> 00:52:10.080 the answers who can reassure her and tell her there is a 00:52:10.080 --> 00:52:15.840 right way, there is a correct way to work through these things. 00:52:15.840 --> 00:52:18.960 That's what you want to do, because that's going to give her 00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:22.400 that security that she needs, and that is going to make her 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:24.320 depend on you even more, which is a good thing. 00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:25.440 That's what she should do. 00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:27.840 That's what a wife is supposed to do with regard to her 00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:30.160 husband. So So 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:34.080 the overall answer essentially is 00:52:34.960 --> 00:52:39.040 don't run headlong into this trying to bring a woman up to 00:52:39.040 --> 00:52:42.800 speed with everything you believe about politics and society and race and 00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:46.560 all that stuff, that's a recipe for disaster. 00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:50.640 It's not what you're supposed to have in a marriage. 00:52:50.640 --> 00:52:53.760 We have this tendency in the modern world to try and teet 00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:58.320 try and treat a wife as if she's just another male friend. 00:52:58.320 --> 00:53:00.560 Your wife should not be your male friend. 00:53:00.560 --> 00:53:02.800 Your male friends should be your male friends. 00:53:02.800 --> 00:53:06.480 Discuss politics and all of these things with them. 00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:11.360 Go out to the pub, have a beer, discuss politics there, go 00:53:11.360 --> 00:53:15.280 home, discuss something else with your wife. 00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:20.240 She's not your male friend with whom you discuss these issues, but 00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:24.640 when she starts to recognize these things, when she starts to have 00:53:24.640 --> 00:53:29.280 concerns and worries and questions, be there for her to be someone 00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:32.480 who can answer them in a way that helps make her feel 00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:34.720 secure. You don't have to lie to her, you don't have to 00:53:34.720 --> 00:53:38.000 tell her that everything's gonna be fine, the world is great. 00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:42.640 You can be honest about the state of the world without making 00:53:42.640 --> 00:53:46.560 her feel like everything has gone completely out of control and is 00:53:46.560 --> 00:53:47.680 on fire. 00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.040 Because again, the last thing you want to do as a man 00:53:51.040 --> 00:53:54.240 is make a woman feel like she is not secure. 00:53:54.240 --> 00:53:58.480 She has to now there's a different relationship there with regard to 00:53:58.480 --> 00:54:01.040 her feeling like she's in a little bit of danger, but that's 00:54:01.040 --> 00:54:02.800 a different issue. 00:54:02.800 --> 00:54:06.960 With regard to this stuff, she has to feel like she's secure. 00:54:06.960 --> 00:54:08.480 That's your job. 00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:12.720 So don't run headlong into the wood chipper basically. 00:54:12.720 --> 00:54:14.720 You're not going to gain anything. 00:54:14.720 --> 00:54:18.400 She's not going to gain anything, and your marriage is going to 00:54:18.400 --> 00:54:22.960 suffer. So can you bring her along on some of these things? 00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:26.640 Absolutely. Do you want to bring her along on all these things? 00:54:26.640 --> 00:54:29.040 Absolutely not. 00:54:29.040 --> 00:54:33.040 I think that's sort of the basic answer to that question there. 00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:37.840 I see a a question that I can answer just quickly in 00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:40.800 the the chat caught my eye. 00:54:40.800 --> 00:54:43.600 Do I believe that we are limited to one hundred and twenty 00:54:43.840 --> 00:54:49.200 years? No, I think that when God says the days of man 00:54:49.200 --> 00:54:52.640 shall be shall be, and there are a couple different places it 00:54:52.640 --> 00:54:53.520 says that. 00:54:53.520 --> 00:54:58.480 I think that he's basically giving an average for what we are 00:54:58.480 --> 00:55:03.920 descending down to from what the ancient patriarchs were back when men 00:55:03.920 --> 00:55:10.480 lived for centuries obviously originally Adam indefinite lifespan. 00:55:10.480 --> 00:55:14.800 But I think it's saying where things are going to level off. 00:55:14.800 --> 00:55:16.480 It can get worse. 00:55:16.480 --> 00:55:22.960 Look at the say Australian aborigines, if you are so genetically degenerate 00:55:23.120 --> 00:55:28.240 that you have so many problems, such a cumulative mutational load, that 00:55:28.240 --> 00:55:29.120 you basically can't 00:55:30.160 --> 00:55:36.400 even hope to get to 85 unless you're some weird outlier fluke, 00:55:36.400 --> 00:55:39.280 then obviously you've fallen well below that. 00:55:39.280 --> 00:55:42.320 But if you don't have those problems and you have the medical 00:55:42.640 --> 00:55:46.320 interventions and various things like that, yes, I believe we could live 00:55:46.320 --> 00:55:47.600 much longer. 00:55:47.600 --> 00:55:50.800 I do actually, in fact, think that if we 00:55:52.080 --> 00:55:54.640 I'm going to say we could, I'm not saying we should. 00:55:55.280 --> 00:56:00.720 I'll get to that, but if we went sort of wholesale in 00:56:00.720 --> 00:56:04.880 on the technology to extend life, yes, I think we could achieve 00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:08.160 something approximating in definite lifespan because 00:56:09.920 --> 00:56:15.120 In so far as we are aware at this point, there are 00:56:15.120 --> 00:56:20.160 a number of big hurdles with regard to human longevity. 00:56:20.160 --> 00:56:27.120 One is that the systems for clearing out basically detritus in the 00:56:27.120 --> 00:56:31.120 brain aren't very good because they're fallen. 00:56:31.120 --> 00:56:34.000 It's not because God designed them poorly, it's because they're fallen and 00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:35.840 corrupt in a fallen world. 00:56:35.840 --> 00:56:39.040 And so after a while, stuff starts to build up in the 00:56:39.040 --> 00:56:42.160 brain, causes all sorts of problems. 00:56:42.160 --> 00:56:46.960 Contributing to dementia, Alzheimer's, all sorts of the things that eventually wind 00:56:46.960 --> 00:56:48.400 up killing us. 00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:52.800 But But there's that issue and then the other major one would 00:56:52.800 --> 00:56:57.040 obviously be the DNA tail, right? 00:56:57.040 --> 00:57:00.800 Because every time our cells replicate, they lose a little bit of 00:57:00.800 --> 00:57:01.360 that tail. 00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:06.560 It's basically a protective buffer Well, we do actually know how to 00:57:06.560 --> 00:57:08.560 restore that buffer. 00:57:08.560 --> 00:57:12.160 And so in theory, if we could chain a few things together, 00:57:12.160 --> 00:57:15.040 a number of different treatments, and we have some ideas how to 00:57:15.040 --> 00:57:17.200 wash some of the stuff out of the brain too. 00:57:17.200 --> 00:57:21.440 If we could get to that point, then theoretically we wouldn't have 00:57:21.440 --> 00:57:27.040 a biological, which is noteworthy, expiration date. 00:57:27.280 --> 00:57:33.760 I don't think psychologically we can make it much past like 150-180. 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:38.640 I think modern humanity would just kind of go insane after you've 00:57:38.640 --> 00:57:40.800 lived much longer than that. 00:57:40.800 --> 00:57:46.320 And perhaps it would be those of higher intelligence would go crazy 00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:47.840 sooner if you live that long. 00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:48.720 I don't know. 00:57:48.720 --> 00:57:52.000 I might lean that way a little bit, with regard to that 00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:53.680 being the case. 00:57:53.680 --> 00:57:57.760 So, yes, I think we could live longer. 00:57:57.760 --> 00:58:01.360 No, I don't think that we really can, because I think there 00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:04.800 are psychological limitations that we basically can't overcome. 00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:08.240 Unless you have that sort of person who's just happy to do 00:58:08.240 --> 00:58:12.080 the exact same thing day in and day out with no novelty, 00:58:12.080 --> 00:58:14.720 no change and no thought. 00:58:14.720 --> 00:58:17.120 That person maybe could live forever. 00:58:17.120 --> 00:58:19.360 But that's a different question. 00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:21.600 So So yes, the short answer is yeah, I do think that 00:58:21.600 --> 00:58:24.240 we could biologically live more than one hundred and twenty. 00:58:35.680 --> 00:58:36.560 Let's see. 00:58:36.720 --> 00:58:42.800 What is the next question here? 00:58:42.880 --> 00:58:46.720 I remember you speaking on how scripture says when you fast and 00:58:46.720 --> 00:58:50.000 not if in a stone choir episode. 00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.720 Could you consider going into fasting and when and how someone should 00:58:54.720 --> 00:58:57.280 go about it? 00:58:58.080 --> 00:59:03.840 Fasting is one of those practices that it has both a personal 00:59:03.840 --> 00:59:08.400 and a corporate dynamic or an element to it. 00:59:08.400 --> 00:59:08.960 And so 00:59:09.840 --> 00:59:15.440 personally, fasting is going to be a matter of your own personal 00:59:15.440 --> 00:59:19.680 praxis, your own personal practice of the Christian faith. 00:59:19.680 --> 00:59:24.160 So maybe you pick one day a week where you fast for 00:59:24.960 --> 00:59:27.360 all the daylight hours that day. 00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:32.400 Or you fast from evening the day before until evening the next 00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:35.120 day or the morning of the day after, whatever it happens to 00:59:35.120 --> 00:59:39.040 be. Or Or maybe it's every other week and you fast for 00:59:39.040 --> 00:59:40.880 a couple of days. 00:59:40.880 --> 00:59:46.160 The point with regard to fasting is that the time that you 00:59:46.160 --> 00:59:50.240 would have spent eating, and so if particularly historically this is more 00:59:50.640 --> 00:59:55.600 relevant because historically you spent more time on this because you had 00:59:55.600 --> 00:59:59.200 to prep everything from scratch after you went out in the garden 00:59:59.200 --> 01:00:02.880 and collected it, and you had to grind your own flour and 01:00:02.880 --> 01:00:03.520 all these things. 01:00:03.520 --> 01:00:08.880 So the amount of time spent on prep plus eating plus cleanup 01:00:09.120 --> 01:00:11.040 was pretty big historically. 01:00:11.040 --> 01:00:13.600 Unless you were a nobleman, of course, in which case you had 01:00:13.600 --> 01:00:15.280 servants do that for you. 01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:17.760 Which is effectively what we have today. 01:00:17.760 --> 01:00:22.400 Because you can go to the store and buy food that's pre-made. 01:00:22.400 --> 01:00:26.160 The point is that time that you would have spent doing these 01:00:26.160 --> 01:00:29.520 things, you dedicate to the things of God. 01:00:29.520 --> 01:00:33.200 That's the point of it being Christian fasting. 01:00:33.200 --> 01:00:38.160 Just abstaining from food isn't necessarily a Christian practice. 01:00:38.160 --> 01:00:39.920 Now it has health benefits. 01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:44.880 There are very real health benefits of fasting and the scientific literature 01:00:44.880 --> 01:00:48.720 has proved that conclusively at this point this point and they keep 01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:50.160 finding other things. 01:00:50.160 --> 01:00:51.840 So there is that element to it as well. 01:00:51.840 --> 01:00:54.640 And there's nothing wrong with doing something because it is good for 01:00:55.120 --> 01:00:57.600 the body, but also as a spiritual element. 01:00:57.600 --> 01:01:00.960 And that's certainly the case with fasting. 01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:07.200 So, when you fast is going to be a personal decision as 01:01:07.200 --> 01:01:11.360 part of your personal practice of the Christian faith. 01:01:11.360 --> 01:01:13.440 It is something that you should do. 01:01:13.440 --> 01:01:16.640 It is something that is part of the Christian religion. 01:01:16.640 --> 01:01:19.680 It is not something that is optional even. 01:01:19.680 --> 01:01:23.520 It is absolutely something that you should do. 01:01:23.520 --> 01:01:26.800 Now the corporate aspect, and I do think this is important. 01:01:26.800 --> 01:01:30.080 I think it's something that we've sort of lost along the way 01:01:30.320 --> 01:01:37.200 in our overreaction to correcting the abuses of Rome. 01:01:37.200 --> 01:01:42.000 I think that having national days of prayer and fasting is a 01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:43.200 good thing. 01:01:43.200 --> 01:01:45.520 I think we should return to having that. 01:01:45.520 --> 01:01:50.160 I think we should have periods in the calendar when we fast 01:01:50.720 --> 01:01:52.240 as a nation. 01:01:52.240 --> 01:01:55.600 I think that is something that is absolutely part of being a 01:01:55.600 --> 01:01:56.960 Christian people. 01:01:56.960 --> 01:02:01.360 Now Now, I don't think it's the sort of thing where you 01:02:01.360 --> 01:02:04.960 know you you eat fish on Friday or something like that. 01:02:04.960 --> 01:02:10.400 I think that's turning it into what is effectively works righteousness. 01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:14.560 That is making it into an observance of a ceremony for the 01:02:14.560 --> 01:02:18.560 sake of the ceremony, not for the sake of the thing that 01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:21.680 is the purpose as of observing the ceremony. 01:02:21.680 --> 01:02:26.080 So, like I said, you want to do this in order to 01:02:26.080 --> 01:02:28.400 focus on the things of God. 01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:30.880 You're not fasting just to fast. 01:02:30.880 --> 01:02:32.640 That's not the point. 01:02:32.640 --> 01:02:36.560 When you start having the sort of silly practices like, well, you 01:02:36.560 --> 01:02:41.360 can't have meat, but fish, fish isn't meat, or even some sillier 01:02:41.360 --> 01:02:44.160 options in some places down through history. 01:02:44.160 --> 01:02:47.040 I don't think that that's what we should be doing. 01:02:47.040 --> 01:02:52.160 But if we have, say, a three-day period in the calendar where 01:02:53.040 --> 01:02:56.720 except for of course pregnant women and those who are usually accepted 01:02:56.720 --> 01:03:00.080 from fasting because we recognize that there are some people who cannot 01:03:00.080 --> 01:03:03.440 fast. Diabetics can't really do the same things as others when it 01:03:03.440 --> 01:03:05.760 comes to fasting. 01:03:05.760 --> 01:03:08.880 They should look into some of this stuff though. 01:03:08.880 --> 01:03:12.640 Tangent. But we should have, you know, a three day period in 01:03:12.640 --> 01:03:18.080 the calendar where everyone fasts, the entire nation fasts, repents of our 01:03:18.080 --> 01:03:21.680 sins, and the sins of our fathers, because that is a Christian 01:03:21.680 --> 01:03:27.120 confession, focuses on the things of God, because God promises to hear 01:03:27.120 --> 01:03:31.040 when his people humble themselves before him and come to him in 01:03:31.040 --> 01:03:35.360 prayer. Fasting and prayer go together, and so absolutely it should be 01:03:35.360 --> 01:03:39.040 part of our national practice of the faith as well as our 01:03:39.040 --> 01:03:40.720 personal practice. 01:03:40.720 --> 01:03:43.440 But the personal aspect is going to be something that you have 01:03:43.440 --> 01:03:45.280 to decide. 01:03:45.280 --> 01:03:49.280 And there's nothing wrong with making it match your calendar and your 01:03:49.280 --> 01:03:51.040 family's calendar and things like that. 01:03:51.040 --> 01:03:54.560 Because certainly if you're married and you have children and things, you're 01:03:54.560 --> 01:03:58.720 going to have to work this around your family life. 01:03:58.720 --> 01:04:09.200 That's perfectly acceptable as a Christian. 01:04:13.760 --> 01:04:15.200 Well I can answer this one easily. 01:04:15.200 --> 01:04:17.280 Are you invested in the stock market? 01:04:17.280 --> 01:04:21.360 No. So that's pretty easy one to answer. 01:04:21.360 --> 01:04:25.840 Nice short answer for that one. 01:04:25.840 --> 01:04:30.000 I think the last question that I will do 01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:34.320 today, because I believe I'm right a little over A little over 01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:36.400 an hour, I think. 01:04:36.400 --> 01:04:39.680 Modulo that intro. 01:04:39.680 --> 01:04:44.080 What are your thoughts on Memento seventy? 01:04:44.080 --> 01:04:46.720 So I think what I will do is 01:04:47.920 --> 01:04:54.320 pull that up and we can look at it a little bit. 01:04:54.320 --> 01:05:01.440 So Memento seventy is actually quite related to the last question. 01:05:01.440 --> 01:05:02.400 It is It is a 01:05:04.480 --> 01:05:09.040 Christian men's group, I guess, as it were. 01:05:09.040 --> 01:05:13.760 I looked at it a little bit before I picked the question 01:05:13.760 --> 01:05:15.360 for this episode, but 01:05:18.960 --> 01:05:22.800 I have some serious misgivings about it. 01:05:22.800 --> 01:05:27.920 I don't necessarily have misgivings about the content because I didn't pay 01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:32.880 for it, so I don't have access to their various prayers or 01:05:32.880 --> 01:05:36.480 whatever it is they provide you with, devotional materials. 01:05:36.480 --> 01:05:40.800 I do find it weird that they have a mission statement 01:05:42.080 --> 01:05:45.360 and the word Lutheran never appears in it. 01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:47.760 Now I'm not saying that because I'm a Lutheran. 01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:50.880 I'm saying that because I look at the contributors and they're all 01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:58.320 Lutherans. I find it a little weird when men are something 01:05:58.560 --> 01:06:01.360 and sort of hide that in what they're doing. 01:06:01.360 --> 01:06:05.120 Now obviously they're clearly admitting to being Lutheran as it were 01:06:06.320 --> 01:06:11.680 in their bios here, but not having it in their other materials 01:06:11.680 --> 01:06:18.240 seems very odd to me, because if they are earnestly Lutheran, then 01:06:18.240 --> 01:06:21.520 certainly that is going to show up in their teaching. 01:06:21.520 --> 01:06:25.760 And I think they should be upfront about that. 01:06:25.760 --> 01:06:26.400 I also 01:06:28.400 --> 01:06:32.240 And I know some men are a little uncomfortable with this, but 01:06:32.240 --> 01:06:35.120 that's fine because they should be. 01:06:35.120 --> 01:06:38.800 I don't like that they're charging for it. 01:06:38.800 --> 01:06:40.720 I have no problem with 01:06:41.680 --> 01:06:45.520 these sorts of sites taking donations. 01:06:45.520 --> 01:06:48.000 There's nothing wrong with that. 01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:53.760 I do not like charging for Christian materials because I don't think 01:06:53.760 --> 01:06:57.280 they belong to the man, they belong to God, they belong to 01:06:57.280 --> 01:06:58.560 the church. 01:06:58.560 --> 01:07:03.440 If you are producing something that is consonant with the word of 01:07:03.440 --> 01:07:08.240 God, if you are producing something that is theologically and doctrinally sound, 01:07:08.240 --> 01:07:11.360 you should give that away for free. 01:07:11.360 --> 01:07:15.600 Because regardless of the ability of other men to pay for it, 01:07:15.600 --> 01:07:18.480 they should have access to it if it is sound. 01:07:18.480 --> 01:07:21.040 If it's not sound, you shouldn't have made it. 01:07:21.040 --> 01:07:21.680 And so 01:07:22.800 --> 01:07:26.800 I would just never charge for this sort of thing. 01:07:26.800 --> 01:07:29.200 I don't charge for any of the things that I do. 01:07:29.200 --> 01:07:31.120 I don't charge for this. 01:07:31.120 --> 01:07:34.960 I don't charge for the my my website. 01:07:34.960 --> 01:07:36.400 I don't charge for any of that stuff. 01:07:36.400 --> 01:07:38.160 Stone Choir is free. 01:07:38.160 --> 01:07:40.960 I know the p someone somewhere is gonna say, Ah, you have 01:07:40.960 --> 01:07:43.040 a ten dollar registration free on the forum. 01:07:43.040 --> 01:07:46.320 That's to cut down on spam because I can't possibly deal with 01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:49.200 the flood of spam any more than I have. 01:07:49.200 --> 01:07:52.160 And quite frankly, the majority of the questions that I've answered have 01:07:52.160 --> 01:07:53.600 not been submitted on the forum. 01:07:53.600 --> 01:07:57.840 They've been in the chat or on X or Telegram or various 01:07:57.840 --> 01:07:58.640 other places. 01:07:58.640 --> 01:08:01.920 And I've sort of collected them as I go. 01:08:01.920 --> 01:08:06.720 But I just don't think that you can charge for these things. 01:08:06.720 --> 01:08:10.320 I think that it is morally wrongful to do so, and I 01:08:10.320 --> 01:08:14.560 would go so far as to say that includes Christian books. 01:08:14.880 --> 01:08:17.040 They should be released for free. 01:08:17.040 --> 01:08:20.240 You can charge for the print version because there is a real 01:08:20.240 --> 01:08:25.040 cost attached to producing the thing, but the PDF should always be 01:08:25.040 --> 01:08:28.080 free. There should be a web version, something like that. 01:08:28.080 --> 01:08:30.880 That should be available. 01:08:30.880 --> 01:08:35.040 Because I just think that it's wrong not to have that be 01:08:35.040 --> 01:08:38.880 available. Because again, it doesn't belong to you. 01:08:38.880 --> 01:08:42.000 I don't know why it randomly decided to change the size of 01:08:42.000 --> 01:08:43.680 the browser there, but 01:08:46.240 --> 01:08:48.080 apparently it's just being uncooperative. 01:08:48.080 --> 01:08:51.120 Anyway, another issue that I had when I was looking at it, 01:08:51.120 --> 01:08:54.960 I noticed that when I pulled up how it works and I'm 01:08:54.880 --> 01:08:59.120 gonna try to get OBS to agree with me and stop changing 01:08:59.120 --> 01:09:01.360 the size. 01:09:01.360 --> 01:09:08.800 This is in theory something made by American Lutherans, American 01:09:08.800 --> 01:09:16.000 Christians, aimed at, I believe, American men, most likely between the ages 01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:18.640 of, say, twenty and sixty, right? 01:09:18.640 --> 01:09:19.680 Somewhere in there. 01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:22.560 One of the first issues they talk about is pornography, so you 01:09:22.560 --> 01:09:24.560 know, obviously younger men. 01:09:24.560 --> 01:09:27.680 OBS is just gonna keep changing it so I can't make my 01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:30.080 point because I want the picture there. 01:09:30.080 --> 01:09:31.440 They choose to use a black guy 01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:35.120 as their website image. 01:09:35.120 --> 01:09:37.840 I just find that fundamentally unserious. 01:09:37.840 --> 01:09:41.440 If you're going to target a particular group, show that group in 01:09:41.440 --> 01:09:42.320 your materials 01:09:44.160 --> 01:09:47.600 The same sort of thing when I went to buy a new 01:09:47.600 --> 01:09:52.160 sweater recently, and a bunch of the models for wool sweaters were 01:09:52.160 --> 01:09:56.960 blacks. I have never in my life seen a black man wearing 01:09:56.960 --> 01:10:00.480 the style of sweater I was trying to buy. 01:10:00.480 --> 01:10:02.160 It's just completely ridiculous. 01:10:02.160 --> 01:10:06.240 It shows not just a sort of fundamental unseriousness with regard to 01:10:06.240 --> 01:10:08.160 these men, but an evil. 01:10:08.160 --> 01:10:09.840 There's something wicked about it. 01:10:09.840 --> 01:10:12.240 There's something wrong about what they are doing. 01:10:12.240 --> 01:10:15.600 And so, no, I I would not recommend this group. 01:10:15.600 --> 01:10:16.960 I cannot recommend this group. 01:10:16.960 --> 01:10:21.680 And I say that while looking at some of these contributors, and 01:10:21.680 --> 01:10:25.200 some of these contributors aren't bad men. 01:10:25.200 --> 01:10:27.200 I'm not going to go through and pick out which ones I 01:10:27.200 --> 01:10:28.240 like and which ones I don't. 01:10:28.240 --> 01:10:31.920 I'm not going to do that here, but I am going to 01:10:31.920 --> 01:10:37.360 say that given the current state of the LCMS, particularly particularly the 01:10:37.360 --> 01:10:42.320 Pricidium so called which is the president vice presidents I am not 01:10:42.480 --> 01:10:48.720 going to recommend anything that has an LCMS president or vice president 01:10:48.720 --> 01:10:50.160 involved in the project. 01:10:50.800 --> 01:10:54.320 Because thus far I have not seen a single one of them 01:10:54.640 --> 01:11:00.720 stand up and do anything about the extreme wickedness that is infesting 01:11:00.880 --> 01:11:04.000 the Lutheran Church in America. 01:11:04.000 --> 01:11:06.560 And they are in a position of authority to do that. 01:11:06.560 --> 01:11:09.920 They are in the position of essentially bishops. 01:11:09.920 --> 01:11:13.280 There's some weirdness because you have president, vice president, and then you 01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:17.600 have district presidents, but at any rate, they have ecclesiastical authority, they're 01:11:17.600 --> 01:11:22.480 going to receive the stricter judgment, they haven't done anything to avert 01:11:22.480 --> 01:11:26.800 the problems, despite being warned repeatedly by many men. 01:11:26.800 --> 01:11:30.880 They continue to cover up problems, they continue to permit them to 01:11:30.880 --> 01:11:34.640 occur, and in some cases they are overseeing them and even causing 01:11:34.640 --> 01:11:37.680 them. And so, no, I can't recommend anything that has 01:11:38.640 --> 01:11:43.440 any LCMS vice president involved in it, because I don't trust a 01:11:43.440 --> 01:11:46.400 single one of them. 01:11:46.400 --> 01:11:49.440 Does that mean that the materials they will produce will all be 01:11:49.440 --> 01:11:51.440 bad? No, I don't think so. 01:11:51.440 --> 01:11:54.080 Some of them will undoubtedly be good. 01:11:54.080 --> 01:11:54.400 But 01:11:55.600 --> 01:12:00.080 again, they should be available for free if they're sound. 01:12:00.080 --> 01:12:04.480 Because Christian men should not charge for things that belong to God. 01:12:04.480 --> 01:12:08.160 And sound theology, sound doctrine belongs to God. 01:12:10.080 --> 01:12:13.520 This is one of those areas where 01:12:14.640 --> 01:12:18.480 just because you invested a bunch of time and effort doesn't mean 01:12:18.480 --> 01:12:20.080 you get a charge for it. 01:12:20.080 --> 01:12:22.160 You have no right to do that. 01:12:22.160 --> 01:12:24.960 And if you want to charge for 01:12:26.080 --> 01:12:30.560 your written works, whatever it happens to be, great, go write fiction. 01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:32.800 Go write nonfiction. 01:12:32.800 --> 01:12:34.240 Not theology. 01:12:34.560 --> 01:12:38.640 not Christian materials, not devotional materials, because those belong to God and 01:12:38.640 --> 01:12:39.840 to the church. 01:12:39.840 --> 01:12:43.760 And so you do not get to charge for them. 01:12:43.760 --> 01:12:46.800 So if they want to do this and they do a good 01:12:46.800 --> 01:12:48.240 job, great 01:12:49.120 --> 01:12:52.080 But they need to drop that introductory fee down to zero dollars 01:12:52.080 --> 01:12:52.800 a month. 01:12:52.800 --> 01:12:56.640 If men want to donate, fine, so be it. 01:12:56.640 --> 01:12:58.000 And you should. 01:12:58.000 --> 01:13:04.640 If you use the materials from some Christian teacher, you should donate 01:13:04.640 --> 01:13:09.360 something to that teacher because scripture is very clear, the workman is 01:13:09.360 --> 01:13:13.920 worth his wages, and those who teach the gospel, who preach the 01:13:13.920 --> 01:13:16.800 gospel, should make their living by the gospel. 01:13:16.800 --> 01:13:20.960 That doesn't mean that every man who teaches and preaches needs to 01:13:20.960 --> 01:13:24.400 be supported by the church at large, as it were. 01:13:24.400 --> 01:13:27.040 Because of course there are plenty of men who don't do it 01:13:27.040 --> 01:13:30.480 full time or whatever it happens to be. 01:13:30.480 --> 01:13:34.880 There's some reason they shouldn't necessarily be supported fully by the church. 01:13:34.880 --> 01:13:38.480 But at the same time, we've sort of lost this 01:13:39.440 --> 01:13:43.920 general societal sense of supporting things that need to be supported. 01:13:44.960 --> 01:13:48.800 Historically, many of these things would have been supported by the nobility, 01:13:48.800 --> 01:13:53.200 who would have been able to retain various individuals, including artists and 01:13:53.200 --> 01:13:54.720 things like that. 01:13:54.720 --> 01:13:57.840 It's the reason we have the great stained glass in the cathedrals 01:13:57.840 --> 01:13:58.800 in Europe. 01:13:58.800 --> 01:14:01.920 Those were not crowdfunded as it were, which is sort of how 01:14:01.920 --> 01:14:03.280 things work today. 01:14:03.280 --> 01:14:08.240 Those were paid for by kings and electors and great nobles. 01:14:08.240 --> 01:14:11.600 But that's not what we have today because things are not rightly 01:14:11.600 --> 01:14:16.400 ordered, and so we have to make do with what we have. 01:14:16.400 --> 01:14:22.400 And part of that is developing a culture, redeveloping a culture, of 01:14:22.640 --> 01:14:26.720 paying for things when we find them useful, even if there isn't 01:14:26.640 --> 01:14:28.400 a paywall. 01:14:28.400 --> 01:14:32.080 Just because you didn't have to pay to access it doesn't mean 01:14:32.080 --> 01:14:35.680 that you shouldn't pay for having had access to it. 01:14:35.680 --> 01:14:39.600 I can think of a particular concrete example. 01:14:39.600 --> 01:14:44.240 There is fairly close by to where I live here in East 01:14:44.240 --> 01:14:49.600 Tennessee, a particular driving loop out in the national park. 01:14:49.600 --> 01:14:53.600 It is called Cades Cove, and it's beautiful if you ever happen 01:14:53.680 --> 01:14:57.200 to be in the area, and it is not the height of 01:14:57.200 --> 01:14:59.760 tourist season you should do the drive. 01:14:59.760 --> 01:15:02.640 If it's the height of tourist season, block out six hours of 01:15:02.640 --> 01:15:05.520 your day you might literally be stuck in traffic that long. 01:15:05.520 --> 01:15:08.960 Not the point I'm making, but just a warning. 01:15:08.960 --> 01:15:12.800 At the entrance and the exit, there is a little box where 01:15:12.800 --> 01:15:15.520 you can give a little bit of money. 01:15:15.520 --> 01:15:17.920 And the reason it's a little box where you can give a 01:15:17.920 --> 01:15:20.400 little bit of money is because there's absolutely no signal there you 01:15:20.400 --> 01:15:22.480 will not be able to pay with a credit card or whatever 01:15:22.480 --> 01:15:23.600 it happens to be. 01:15:23.600 --> 01:15:27.360 There's not going to be Venmo at this point. 01:15:27.360 --> 01:15:33.360 But for those who are visiting the national park, this one doesn't 01:15:33.280 --> 01:15:35.040 have an entrance fee. 01:15:35.040 --> 01:15:38.480 There are no fees for anything except for you're supposed to pay 01:15:38.480 --> 01:15:41.120 for parking, but it's very loosely enforced. 01:15:41.120 --> 01:15:45.360 And so if you drive through this and you enjoy this beautiful 01:15:45.360 --> 01:15:48.400 scenery and and all of the work that has gone into that 01:15:48.560 --> 01:15:53.200 because there's a lot of time and effort and expense that goes 01:15:53.200 --> 01:15:55.200 into maintaining the national parks. 01:15:55.200 --> 01:15:58.240 And so if you enjoyed that, I do think that you have 01:15:58.240 --> 01:16:00.960 a moral obligation to put something in that box. 01:16:01.520 --> 01:16:05.200 Maybe you can only put five dollars, so be it. 01:16:05.200 --> 01:16:07.920 There's nothing wrong with putting what you were able to put. 01:16:07.920 --> 01:16:10.720 You can think of the two pennies with the widow in the 01:16:10.720 --> 01:16:12.080 temple box. 01:16:12.080 --> 01:16:14.480 I'm not saying give everything on which you have to live, of 01:16:14.480 --> 01:16:15.440 course. But 01:16:16.640 --> 01:16:21.440 we need to support these things because if we don't support them, 01:16:21.440 --> 01:16:23.920 what happens to them? 01:16:23.920 --> 01:16:25.040 They get destroyed. 01:16:25.040 --> 01:16:27.280 It's the tragedy of the commons or the tragedy of the anti 01:16:27.440 --> 01:16:33.280 commons, depending on the particular workings, in this case obviously the commons. 01:16:33.280 --> 01:16:33.600 But 01:16:34.560 --> 01:16:39.280 if you don't support these things, they don't keep going. 01:16:39.280 --> 01:16:42.400 They don't just fall out of the sky. 01:16:42.400 --> 01:16:46.640 Because with regard to say very useful resources. 01:16:46.640 --> 01:16:50.320 I'm not going to give a particular example because I'm not going 01:16:50.320 --> 01:16:54.240 to necessarily endorse anything right now, but if there are good Christian 01:16:54.240 --> 01:16:58.640 materials being produced, we need to support those Christian authors. 01:16:58.640 --> 01:17:00.880 I think they should give away their work for free. 01:17:00.880 --> 01:17:02.880 I think the PDF should be available. 01:17:02.880 --> 01:17:06.560 Again, you can charge for the physical copy because there's a real 01:17:06.560 --> 01:17:09.280 cost attached to producing that thing. 01:17:09.280 --> 01:17:12.000 But you should give away the electronic copy. 01:17:12.000 --> 01:17:15.760 But then men who use those materials who profit from them should 01:17:15.760 --> 01:17:19.360 support the men who created them because that enables those men to 01:17:19.360 --> 01:17:24.240 continue making those materials and it also fulfills the obligation that we 01:17:24.240 --> 01:17:29.360 have as Christians to support our Christian brothers, particularly those who are 01:17:29.360 --> 01:17:32.960 teaching and preaching because scripture is very clear. 01:17:32.960 --> 01:17:36.480 They are support they are supposed to be supported by other Christians. 01:17:36.480 --> 01:17:40.640 Now, again, if they're doing it part time, then yes they should 01:17:40.640 --> 01:17:41.120 work as well. 01:17:41.120 --> 01:17:42.880 They should do other things as well. 01:17:42.880 --> 01:17:46.400 But we do have that moral obligation. 01:17:46.400 --> 01:17:49.840 And it's something that has simply fallen away in our society for 01:17:49.840 --> 01:17:51.360 a number of reasons. 01:17:51.360 --> 01:17:55.440 Largely because of the just complete chaos we have today with so-called 01:17:55.440 --> 01:18:00.160 multiculturalism and all those other problems because we don't have the societal 01:18:00.160 --> 01:18:02.240 cohesion that we once had. 01:18:02.240 --> 01:18:06.000 But we can't allow that to destroy our own groups. 01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:09.840 Within our own in groups, we need to support people. 01:18:10.080 --> 01:18:12.160 Because that is vitally important. 01:18:12.160 --> 01:18:15.760 Because if we don't, we will lose access to the wealth of 01:18:15.760 --> 01:18:18.960 materials that we have today. 01:18:18.960 --> 01:18:22.560 And so I think that sort of both answers the question and 01:18:23.200 --> 01:18:26.160 goes off on a bit of a tangent, but one that I 01:18:26.160 --> 01:18:29.360 think that is vitally important to mention. 01:18:29.360 --> 01:18:32.240 And you know, it is the the giving season as it were, 01:18:32.240 --> 01:18:34.960 which I don't think there's anything wrong with the Christmas season being 01:18:34.960 --> 01:18:37.200 a season of giving. 01:18:37.200 --> 01:18:39.440 Gifts should not be the focus. 01:18:39.440 --> 01:18:41.040 Christ is the focus. 01:18:41.040 --> 01:18:43.040 We're in the si season of Advent. 01:18:43.040 --> 01:18:46.800 It's a penitent season, penitential season. 01:18:46.800 --> 01:18:51.520 But there's nothing wrong with having that focus on being charitable because 01:18:51.520 --> 01:18:56.960 charitable charity, being charitable, is indeed a Christian virtue and a very 01:18:56.960 --> 01:18:58.400 important one. 01:18:58.400 --> 01:19:01.760 Particularly care for the poor and less fortunate, which we Which we 01:19:01.760 --> 01:19:04.880 should certainly remember this time of year. 01:19:04.880 --> 01:19:08.560 And I guess that's a good way to close out this particular 01:19:08.560 --> 01:19:13.840 episode, particularly because there will be an episode next week, but it 01:19:13.840 --> 01:19:15.920 will not be Thursday because Thursday is Christmas 01:19:16.960 --> 01:19:19.280 and you should all be with your families. 01:19:19.280 --> 01:19:22.000 I'll be spending time with my family as well. 01:19:22.000 --> 01:19:24.720 And you should be doing that instead of asking me questions and 01:19:24.720 --> 01:19:26.480 listening to me answer them. 01:19:26.480 --> 01:19:31.360 I will be back on Friday, so I will the day after 01:19:31.360 --> 01:19:33.680 Christmas instead of Christmas. 01:19:33.680 --> 01:19:37.200 So will not be much delayed, but it will be slightly delayed. 01:19:37.200 --> 01:19:41.040 So thank you for those of you who submitted questions and for 01:19:41.040 --> 01:19:45.360 those whose questions I did not answer, I have written them down, 01:19:45.360 --> 01:19:46.800 I have a list of them. 01:19:46.800 --> 01:19:49.760 I will get to them as I can in the coming weeks, 01:19:49.760 --> 01:19:54.080 in the coming months, perhaps, because the list keeps growing rather rapidly. 01:19:54.080 --> 01:19:55.680 But again, thank you for your time. 01:19:55.680 --> 01:20:00.000 Thank you for submitting the questions, and I hope you all have 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.720 a wonderful evening, a great rest of Advent, not much of it 01:20:04.720 --> 01:20:08.720 left, but the balance of Advent, and Merry Christmas to all of 01:20:08.720 --> 01:20:09.840 you. God bless.