WEBVTT 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:12.560 It is the thirtieth of october twenty twenty six. 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:13.680 I am Cory J. 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.880 Mahler, and this is at any cost, and of course there is 00:02:16.880 --> 00:02:20.800 now a lawnmower going outside, but hopefully that will stop shortly, so 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:23.840 if the noise is a little too loud, let me know and 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:26.720 I will do something about it. 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:31.280 At any rate, the chat is working for my 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.920 intake system here, but not in OBS, so if you have a 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:37.200 question mark I will see it. 00:02:37.200 --> 00:02:40.160 If you don't have a question mark, hopefully the AI will catch 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:43.680 it. At any rate before I get into the questions, I will 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:48.080 go with housekeeping and some announcements first, really I don't think I 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:52.960 have any real housekeeping this week so I will just go straight 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:55.920 into a few announcements that I have. 00:02:55.920 --> 00:02:58.480 I guess the housekeeping could be that I am doing this a 00:02:58.480 --> 00:03:00.720 little bit early because I have somewhere to be in a couple 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.840 hours and I didn't want to miss it three weeks in a 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:07.360 row. So try not to miss it more than one week in 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:10.800 a row, but sometimes things come up and it's inevitable. 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:14.320 At any rate, for announcements, I really have three things that I 00:03:14.320 --> 00:03:16.080 would just like to announce briefly. 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:18.800 If you are in my telegram chat, you'll have already pretty much 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:20.000 seen these. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.040 So these will not be new to you. 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:25.520 However, let me go ahead and pull up 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:30.960 well that's not showing the whole thing. 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.680 I'll just go ahead and make this full screen for the announcements 00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:37.760 because you don't really need to see me while I'm announcing this. 00:03:37.760 --> 00:03:40.400 But the three things that I wanted to announce is that I 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:45.520 have two apps that I have made that are in open beta 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:47.040 as it were. 00:03:47.040 --> 00:03:51.520 They are we'll do this one first, Z Dossier and Z Diary. 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:56.080 This one is basically for keeping notes on your contacts. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:58.240 I've wanted this for years. 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:02.400 I've just never had the extra cash and time lying around to 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:06.160 start up a software development firm obviously I'm using AI to make 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:10.560 these things because I do not know enough programming to do it 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:15.360 myself. However, I know enough about programming to get it done well. 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:19.920 So I'll probably do a demonstr just a brief demonstration next week. 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:24.800 Hopefully I will do a QA next week because I'm actually personally 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.360 using this and so I don't have a device available to show 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:33.600 anyone right now because they all have my actual contacts on them. 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:37.760 I'm using the beta for what it intends for for what I 00:04:37.760 --> 00:04:39.120 intend it to be. 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:41.040 The other one is Z diary. 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.280 It is a location diary 00:04:44.320 --> 00:04:47.360 completely local, 100% on your device. 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:49.600 That's kind of the overarching goal here. 00:04:49.840 --> 00:04:52.800 I want things that don't have a bunch of third-party services calling 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:53.920 who knows whom. 00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:55.760 Instead, it stays on your device. 00:04:55.760 --> 00:04:58.400 And this is just so you can look back at where you've 00:04:58.400 --> 00:05:00.160 been on a particular day. 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:04.080 I had my own system that was doing this, but it was 00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:08.000 a little clunky and had occasionally some issues. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:10.960 It did basically it did back end calls from my iPhone back 00:05:10.960 --> 00:05:14.320 to a computer I have here at my house, and that didn't 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:19.200 always fire exactly correctly, so I made one that's 100% on device. 00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:22.480 I've been using it for a handful of weeks now and it 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:22.960 works well. 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:25.920 There are some rough edges I'd like to iron out with that 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:28.720 one first, but Z Dossier is pretty much done. 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:31.840 The third announcement, and some of you will have already noticed this 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:36.720 one as well, is that I built and launched a podcasting platform, 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:40.560 a hosting platform, not the other stuff. 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:45.360 The reason that I did this essentially is that if not for 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:51.120 the system that I basically designed for doing the hosting part of 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:54.960 Stone Choir, we would have probably had to have found someone to 00:05:54.960 --> 00:05:59.360 subsidize part of it because the bill would have been horrendous for 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:00.960 Stone Choir. 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:04.400 Because until fairly recently, you didn't have a lot of options 00:06:05.360 --> 00:06:10.320 for podcast hosting, and most of them charge on the basis of 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:14.000 bandwidth, download numbers, or hours. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.440 And basically that means that if your podcast become popular, you get 00:06:17.440 --> 00:06:19.760 hit with a huge bill. 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:26.080 We hosted Stone Choir basically using what Cloudflare provides, and so we 00:06:26.080 --> 00:06:27.920 were able to do that quite cheaply. 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:31.680 So basically I built the front end in order to have Cloudflare 00:06:31.760 --> 00:06:33.520 as the back end for it. 00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:33.840 And 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:38.480 I have actually had it online and been using it for a 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:39.680 number of weeks now. 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:45.520 It is currently what is serving Stone Choir, the podcast for confident 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:48.160 faith, so that'd be through the Bible in a year, the daily 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:52.720 devotions, the Lutheran lectionary, and also the podcast version of this show 00:06:52.880 --> 00:06:57.600 has been served from this platform for a number of weeks now. 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:01.440 So if you have a podcast or know someone who does, a 00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:02.320 good option. 00:07:02.320 --> 00:07:05.120 Doesn't charge you for bandwidth, which was the big thing. 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:11.520 Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited egress, so kind of removes that surprise bandwidth bill 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:14.880 you can get if your podcast becomes popular. 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:17.920 But that is pretty much all of the 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:22.880 housekeeping and the announcements, and so I will go ahead and get 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:26.800 into the questions because I really do have only about an hour 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:28.960 today. 00:07:28.960 --> 00:07:29.360 So let 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:31.360 me go ahead and pull up that first 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:36.400 question. The first question is similar to one that I've answered before, 00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:41.200 but it's worth commenting on because it is an important point. 00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:42.480 It comes up a lot. 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:44.960 And it's about strategy and social media. 00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:47.200 I'll extrapolate it out from just X. 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:49.520 Although I'm pretty much only on X. 00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:50.560 God be with you, Mr. 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:53.680 Mauler, I'm a longtime listener and enjoyer of Stone Choir, and at 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:56.960 any cost, the exegesis of scripture and theology expressed through you is 00:07:56.960 --> 00:07:58.160 price is priceless. 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.880 However, when I see posts from your ex account, I notice there 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:04.320 is a distinct shift of tone from your oration and writing, more 00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:06.320 polemical slash abrasive. 00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:09.760 It timic it typically draws the ire of other less blunt Christian 00:08:09.760 --> 00:08:11.360 nationalists, which I find amusing. 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.480 I want to ask, is the shift of tone on your ex 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:16.560 post by design, is it strategic? 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:20.000 I understand that engagement and building a following is a strategic boon, 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:23.920 and most of your statements unabashedly shove the Overton window, which assists 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:26.640 the broader pro-white Christian nationalist movement. 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:29.840 I'm curious as to how you view your part within the movement. 00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:32.480 Thank you for what you do. 00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:35.520 So the answer is, and I have commented on this before, yes, 00:08:35.520 --> 00:08:40.480 I engage differently depending on the platform, the audience, things like that. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.280 And this is something that we used to recognize as a society. 00:08:43.280 --> 00:08:47.040 It's fallen away a little bit, and this is unfortunate. 00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:50.640 And the way that I like to compare it is that we 00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:54.080 used to dress differently depending on where we were, what we were 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.080 doing, the audience, the company. 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:58.880 So you didn't dress this is still the case in a few 00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:00.320 places like the opera. 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:02.960 Most people don't show up to the opera in Bermuda shorts and 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:04.000 flip flops. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:04.560 Some people do. 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:06.480 I've seen that in LA. 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:09.200 That happens, but most people don't do that. 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:14.880 But generally speaking, as Americans, we pretty much wear short-sleeve shirts and 00:09:14.880 --> 00:09:16.560 jeans everywhere. 00:09:16.560 --> 00:09:18.080 Unless you have to wear a suit, right? 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.960 Unless you're in court, in which case the judge can throw you 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:22.880 in jail if you don't wear a suit. 00:09:22.880 --> 00:09:27.040 So the same thing is true with regard to how we behave 00:09:27.040 --> 00:09:28.560 and how we interact. 00:09:28.560 --> 00:09:32.320 You should behave and interact differently when you're out having a few 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:36.560 pints with your friends at the pub versus when you're in church 00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:40.640 or at the opera or in court or somewhere like that. 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:43.120 And I believe that is also the case with regard to things 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:45.200 like social media. 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:50.160 X is the sort of platform where unless you word things in 00:09:50.160 --> 00:09:53.440 a way that catches attention, nothing will ever come of it. 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:56.800 If I did not word the things that I say the way 00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:02.160 that I word them, then I wouldn't have 40,000 followers on X. 00:10:02.160 --> 00:10:03.920 That's just the reality of it. 00:10:03.920 --> 00:10:07.600 And so there is something to be said about effectiveness. 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:10.720 And so part of the way I interact is designed to be 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:13.200 effective, designed to elicit responses. 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:16.960 Without crossing the line into being false, I'm still very careful that 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:20.400 the things I say are in fact true, that they are worded 00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:24.720 in a way that isn't against scripture or any other form of 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:28.560 truth. But yes, I do calibrate the way that I say things, 00:10:28.560 --> 00:10:32.160 the way that I respond to the platform, to the audience, to 00:10:32.160 --> 00:10:34.080 the time. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:35.840 And with regard to 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:40.640 growing the audience, and then the last part of your question here, 00:10:40.640 --> 00:10:45.200 I have been capped at 40,000 followers for like 18 months. 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:48.320 So clearly they play little games with the platform, and I can 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:49.840 see the number of people who followed me. 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:52.480 I have a bot in the background tracking that. 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.480 And so I'm just capped at that. 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:56.000 That's what they've capped me at for right now. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:59.120 Maybe at some point they will unleash my account again. 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:03.600 That happens occasionally, I don't know exactly what's happening behind the scenes, 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.440 but that's how that goes. 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:08.480 Which is to say the platform is not neutral as was promised 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:10.320 when the ownership changed. 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:15.120 But with regard to how I view my part in the movement, 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:18.720 at this point really I act largely as an advisor. 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:21.440 I know most of the men who are leading various groups in 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:22.400 various parts of the country. 00:11:22.400 --> 00:11:23.200 I've spoken with them. 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:28.160 I've attended a number of Meetings, national conferences, things like that. 00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:30.960 I don't go to quite so many conferences as the Reformed, I 00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:34.880 know those are very popular over in Reformed land, but we Lutherans 00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:38.320 do occasionally go to those too. 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:42.160 I have no objections to being more involved in politics, and I'm 00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:45.520 certainly looking into that, and I think that that is something that 00:11:45.520 --> 00:11:47.040 makes sense in the future. 00:11:47.040 --> 00:11:48.160 We'll see how that goes. 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:51.600 Perhaps I'll have something to announce on that end in the coming 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:55.760 months. I won't put a timeline on that though. 00:11:55.760 --> 00:12:02.240 Question two mother and son relationship How should the mother, son relationship 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:05.840 be navigated as the son becomes a man, balancing the command to 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:09.840 honor thy parents with the importance of respecting male authority. 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:14.720 My five-year-old son already exhibits patriarchal behavior especially towards me. 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:18.720 Very interesting to see how it develops naturally without any instruction. 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:22.640 For clarification I mean the son honoring his mother as the parent, 00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:25.920 but also I am still a woman that must respect male authority. 00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:29.520 This is for when my boys are grown men. 00:12:29.520 --> 00:12:32.640 So yes, you are correct to recognize this is a balancing act, 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:33.600 right? You are supposed to honor 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:36.240 your father and your mother. 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:39.200 Yes, that does include if you are a male, if you are 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:41.520 a son, you must still honor your mother. 00:12:41.520 --> 00:12:44.320 Does that mean that it is the exact same as how you 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:45.280 honor your father? 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:48.320 The answer is no, because your father, at least while you're young, 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:49.200 is your head. 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:50.800 He's also her head. 00:12:50.800 --> 00:12:55.040 And so part of what it means to honor your mother, even 00:12:55.040 --> 00:12:59.680 when you are in fact older, is that you are ultimately honoring 00:12:59.680 --> 00:13:03.920 your father by honoring your mother, because by honoring her, you're honoring 00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:06.320 her head, which is to say your father. 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.800 Now, the place where this really gets complicated is when when you 00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:12.480 have when you're a widow, right? 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:17.120 If your husband dies, then the issue would be that the closest 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:20.880 male relative is the one who takes over that headship. 00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:23.120 That may very well be your son. 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:26.880 Of course, that's a bit different because if you're talking about a 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:30.800 five-year-old, you're obviously not 80-85 years old at this point. 00:13:30.800 --> 00:13:33.600 That's sort of far off in the future for you. 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:35.680 But that is something also to consider. 00:13:35.680 --> 00:13:39.600 Your son could foreseeably in the future be your head. 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.040 And then that relationship would change, but of course, that changes just 00:13:43.040 --> 00:13:44.880 naturally with age, right? 00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:46.240 We all recognize that. 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:49.280 The way that we interact with our mother and our father when 00:13:49.280 --> 00:13:52.320 we are twenty is not going to be identical to when we 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:57.520 are sixty, because then they're in their eighties or their nineties. 00:13:57.520 --> 00:14:00.560 For your son though, your son still has to respect you because 00:14:00.560 --> 00:14:02.320 you are his mother. 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:04.880 He is supposed to honor his parents. 00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:09.760 And yes, that relationship will change as he ages, because yes, at 00:14:09.760 --> 00:14:10.960 some point he becomes a man. 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:13.200 And it's this is not like a hard line. 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.840 This is not what we're going to say, oh, you know, eleven 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.720 or thirteen or whatever it happens to be. 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:22.480 Is there a point past which it would be inappropriate for women 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:24.960 to be teaching boys? 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:26.800 Yes, but that's a different thing. 00:14:26.800 --> 00:14:30.800 That's not exactly identical to a mother-son relationship where you have this 00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:35.440 explicit command from God, one of the commandments, that your son is 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:37.680 to honor you. 00:14:37.680 --> 00:14:40.880 So it is incumbent on him to do that at the same 00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:45.040 time recognizing that he is his own head at some point. 00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:48.720 Once he matures into a man from a boy into a man, 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:50.080 he is his own head. 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:53.440 He is responsible for himself after a certain fashion. 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:57.520 And so yes, he should still listen to his father certainly, because 00:14:57.520 --> 00:15:01.280 his father is still his father and should be advising him wisely, 00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:03.280 and he should still listen to his mother. 00:15:03.280 --> 00:15:07.040 It's not that women have no wisdom to share, it's that there 00:15:07.040 --> 00:15:10.640 is a different dynamic because God has made men their own head. 00:15:10.640 --> 00:15:15.120 Yes, you also have things like hierarchy in society, in the church, 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.520 you have kings, princes, those things. 00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:20.640 But a woman is never her own head, so the relationship is 00:15:20.640 --> 00:15:23.200 always going to be different there. 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:28.000 Now, you are married to his father, and so his father will 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.040 still be a man, he'll be your head, and so that is 00:15:31.040 --> 00:15:33.680 also part of that relationship between you and your son. 00:15:33.680 --> 00:15:37.040 Part of it is mediated, as it were, by your husband, because 00:15:37.040 --> 00:15:39.520 he is your head. 00:15:39.520 --> 00:15:43.280 There is also an aspect of it that as long as he's 00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:46.160 living in your house, right, it's good Right, it's going to be 00:15:46.160 --> 00:15:50.240 different because that gives you a certain sort of authority. 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:52.800 You're you shouldn't lord it over him, right? 00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:54.720 That's not the authority that it gives you. 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:57.440 But it is a different relationship from when he moves out on 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:01.120 his own, and particularly when he has his own wife and children. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:03.520 Then he's the head of his own household. 00:16:03.520 --> 00:16:08.240 So it's not so much that it's a relationship of hierarchy and 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.040 authority. This is a familial relationship. 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:12.240 This is a different thing. 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:14.240 He's supposed to love you as his mother. 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:16.560 You're supposed to love him as your son. 00:16:16.560 --> 00:16:21.440 And yes, he is still supposed to respect and consider your opinions 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.800 and listen to you as his mother, but at some point he 00:16:24.800 --> 00:16:27.120 is no longer required simply to obey them. 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:30.640 He takes them under advisement, he takes them into consideration, but he's 00:16:30.640 --> 00:16:32.560 not required to just obey what you say. 00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:34.720 The same thing is true with regard to his father. 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:37.840 If he is out on his own as head of his own 00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:38.240 household, 00:16:39.280 --> 00:16:43.360 his father no longer can command him to do whatever because his 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:47.040 father no longer has that kind of authority because he has become 00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:48.720 head of his own household. 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:51.280 So there are a lot of moving parts and there are a 00:16:51.280 --> 00:16:54.640 lot of wisdom calls, but most of this stuff is very natural 00:16:54.640 --> 00:16:55.680 to navigate. 00:16:55.680 --> 00:16:58.000 Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years. 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:00.640 We kind of know innately how this works. 00:17:00.640 --> 00:17:05.360 There are points at which boys become men. 00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:08.720 There are points at which they become a man such that they 00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:12.480 are self-established and basically when they're head of their own household. 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:13.600 That's the big thing. 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:16.720 If you don't if a man doesn't marry and have children and 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:19.520 all those things, then yes, he's still his own head. 00:17:19.520 --> 00:17:21.200 You know, I'm my own head. 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:23.360 I'm not I don't have a bunch of children, right? 00:17:23.360 --> 00:17:25.440 I have done God has not blessed me with a bunch of 00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.440 children at this point. 00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:28.080 However 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:33.200 There is going to be a difference in that relationship that will 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:38.080 change between your son and your husband when your son becomes head 00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:41.120 of his own household or when he reaches a certain age. 00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:44.800 But like I said, it's not a hard line because everyone develops 00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:45.840 differently, right? 00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:49.360 There are plenty of people who are very mature at fifteen, and 00:17:49.360 --> 00:17:52.640 there are plenty of people who are very immature at twenty-five. 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:55.200 That's part of the equation as well. 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:55.520 So 00:17:56.480 --> 00:17:59.760 your duty as a mother is to love your husband and love 00:17:59.760 --> 00:18:00.480 your son. 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:04.080 His duty as a son is to love his parents and obey 00:18:04.080 --> 00:18:05.280 them and honor them. 00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:08.240 And even when he no longer has to obey you you he's 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:13.840 still asked to honor you. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:19.840 Question three is a related question. 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:23.440 Actually going to swap these two around. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:26.560 Question three is about newlyweds. 00:18:26.560 --> 00:18:29.760 I have recently returned from a lovely honeymoon with my wife, in 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:32.960 a sense I feel like a spectator instead of being fully present 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.560 in the moment with my wife, is this a normal adjustment for 00:18:36.560 --> 00:18:37.200 a Christian? 00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:41.040 I feel almost a heightened sense of my own selfishness in wanting 00:18:41.040 --> 00:18:44.320 to preserve aspects of previous singleness. 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:46.080 I think that's just entirely 00:18:47.040 --> 00:18:50.480 normal. That's it's a big change, right? 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:55.600 Ha suddenly having another person living in your house and for whom 00:18:55.600 --> 00:18:58.640 you are responsible is a very big change. 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:01.120 Just like it will be a big change when you have your 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:02.240 first child. 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:05.840 So it takes time to adjust to these things. 00:19:05.840 --> 00:19:08.000 And I would say one of the best things you can do 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:09.920 is be intentional about it. 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:12.960 Don't think that all of these things will just come along naturally. 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:16.720 Many of them will, because many of them are built into who 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:20.160 and what we are as human beings, how God designed us. 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:26.640 But be intentional about bringing this woman into your life and including 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.920 her in your life, that doesn't mean include her in everything, right? 00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:34.240 I've spoken about don't burden women with the political. 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:37.920 Generally speaking, you should not be involving your girlfriend or your wife 00:19:37.840 --> 00:19:39.760 life in political stuff. 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:42.160 That doesn't mean you can't discuss any of it with her, but 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:46.800 it does mean don't come home and offload all of the politics 00:19:46.800 --> 00:19:49.520 or everything that happened in the office on her. 00:19:49.520 --> 00:19:52.720 That's not what that relationship is supposed to be. 00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:55.520 Go have a pint at the bar with your friends and offload 00:19:55.520 --> 00:19:56.400 it on them. 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:58.400 That's what your male friends are for. 00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.960 Different relationship with your wife. 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:04.000 Some things you don't bring home because it's not good for the 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:09.600 home. But do intentionally include her in your life in the other 00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:13.520 things. Recognize you now have this other person in your home, part 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:15.120 of your life, part of you, right? 00:20:15.120 --> 00:20:20.960 Because the two shall become one flesh, make an effort toward recognizing 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:24.800 that. And you don't have to be paranoid about this, right? 00:20:25.120 --> 00:20:27.280 Most of this will come naturally. 00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:27.600 But 00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:32.160 I don't think you have to worry about the fact that you're 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:34.080 aware that there's a major change. 00:20:34.080 --> 00:20:36.720 I think that's probably a good sign because it is a major 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:37.680 change, right? 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:41.920 If you go from a single man living by yourself, and we 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.840 all know how single men generally live, you're going to have a 00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:49.360 very different sort of day once you have a wife. 00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:52.000 It's a better sort of day because there are things that are 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:55.360 now part of your life that are good, things God designed you 00:20:55.360 --> 00:20:58.720 for, designed her for, that you now have that you didn't have 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:00.000 when you were single. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:02.640 So I don't think you have to worry about it. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:04.560 It's a natural transition period. 00:21:04.560 --> 00:21:07.680 I'm sure that things will be fine in, you know, weeks or 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:10.400 a few months, you'll accustom to it. 00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:13.600 And if not, ask a follow up question, but I think you'll 00:21:13.600 --> 00:21:18.560 find that you grow accustomed to it very quickly. 00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:23.200 Question four is, I guess, tangentially related, but 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:25.920 only tangentially. 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:29.360 Question about Friedrich the Great It seems to me that the assertion 00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:32.640 that Friedrich the Great was a sodomite is forced, as I remember 00:21:32.800 --> 00:21:36.720 he attempted to escape to England after the after his arranged marriage 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.920 to an English woman fell through in favor of a marriage to 00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:41.120 an Austrian woman. 00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:41.920 What do you think? 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:43.360 I think that yes. 00:21:43.360 --> 00:21:48.000 This is definitely one of those cases of historians trying to make 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.600 some historical figure, usually one they don't like very much, but some 00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:53.760 historical figure to be a sodomite. 00:21:53.760 --> 00:21:57.280 They do this all the time, and it's one of the reasons 00:21:57.280 --> 00:22:02.880 that male friendship has become so much trouble, such a a real 00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:07.920 effort in the modern context, in the modern world, because every time 00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:11.760 men act like friends with other men, they try to say, Oh, 00:22:11.760 --> 00:22:13.200 he's a homosexual. 00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.520 And they do the same thing with historical figures all the time. 00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:19.280 And I think Friedrich the Great is a great example of that. 00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:24.320 And I believe that Carl Radl on X has also done a 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:28.080 thread on Friedrich the Great, or at least he shared some resources 00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:30.800 on it, so I would search his timeline for that. 00:22:30.800 --> 00:22:33.280 You may want to search in both English and German. 00:22:33.280 --> 00:22:36.800 Just Friedrich de Grosse, it's going to be easy to find. 00:22:36.800 --> 00:22:39.600 But yes, I do think that's a case in which no, he 00:22:39.600 --> 00:22:42.880 was not a sodomite. 00:22:43.040 --> 00:22:49.280 Question five. 00:22:49.280 --> 00:22:50.480 Let's see. 00:22:55.360 --> 00:23:00.480 Going to look at the chat real quick. 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:04.640 Okay. Just making sure that that's working. 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:09.920 And checking OBS briefly because before I started up the stream, OBS 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:12.880 crashed on me twice, which was lovely. 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:16.320 I had to manually update it and then it didn't crash, so 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:17.920 I think we're good. 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:22.240 It's not using 40 gigabytes of RAM this week. 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.480 Okay, question about dead faith. 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:28.160 I guess a slight switch in tenor there. 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:31.520 You have discussed previously how hell is worse for someone who lived 00:23:31.520 --> 00:23:34.560 a long sinful life than for someone who lived a shorter one. 00:23:34.560 --> 00:23:38.240 I have tried to have living faith, but I have only ever 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:39.440 demonstrated a dead faith. 00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:42.560 I'm struggling to see a reason why I shouldn't just repent and 00:23:42.560 --> 00:23:47.040 die. Even if God rejects the repentance, hell won't be so bad 00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:49.200 as it otherwise would have been. 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:52.240 I am interested to hear your thoughts on this. 00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:56.240 So I know that this came from someone who did indeed ask 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:59.920 me to anonymize his account and so I assume there is a 00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:03.200 bit of a crisis of faith going there. 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.480 And that I'm not revealing anything in that it shows on the 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:09.680 public website the account's been anonymized. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:16.640 This is similar to fears about having committed the unforgivable sin. 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:20.240 If you can worry about it, you haven't f you haven't committed 00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:23.360 it. You have not committed the unforgivable sin. 00:24:23.360 --> 00:24:28.880 If you can worry about repentance and living out a life and 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:33.280 having a living faith and producing good works, then you have that 00:24:33.280 --> 00:24:36.480 faith, or at least you are oriented in the correct direction, you're 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:38.800 moving in the right direction. 00:24:39.040 --> 00:24:41.520 And so that's not a cause for despair. 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:45.600 The fact that you struggle with sin or even probably, I'm guessing, 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:48.160 fall back into a particular besetting sin 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:53.120 that's not a cause for despair. 00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:55.920 Is it a cause for standing up and trying again? 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:58.480 Absolutely. But that's the Christian life. 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:02.160 The Christian life is a matter of falling back into sin and 00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:06.320 then standing up, repenting, and trying again. 00:25:06.320 --> 00:25:09.200 Because we live in a fallen world. 00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:11.280 We are fallen flesh. 00:25:11.280 --> 00:25:15.040 We are tempted constantly by the devil, by our own flesh, by 00:25:15.040 --> 00:25:20.400 our wicked society, we are going to fall into sin. 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:22.800 You are not going to be able to resist every temptation. 00:25:22.800 --> 00:25:25.440 That is the reality of this life. 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.240 That is one of the reasons that we pray every single day. 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:30.800 It's one of the reasons you should pray the Lord's Prayer. 00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:33.040 Every time you wake up and before you go to bed, I 00:25:33.040 --> 00:25:36.080 would say also before and after meals, but at the very least 00:25:36.080 --> 00:25:38.560 twice a day, when you wake up and when you go to 00:25:38.560 --> 00:25:40.240 bed. Because what are you praying? 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:43.360 Forgive us our trespasses. 00:25:43.360 --> 00:25:46.400 Because you are praying for even the things you don't remember, right? 00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:47.920 Scripture is very clear on that. 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:51.360 There are sins you have committed of which you aren't even aware. 00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:54.640 God knows of them, and he has already forgiven them. 00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:57.200 You were forgiven all of your sins in your baptism. 00:25:57.200 --> 00:25:59.760 You're forgiven all of your sins every time you read about the 00:25:59.760 --> 00:26:04.320 forgiveness in Scripture, when your pastor pronounces the forgiveness, assuming you have 00:26:04.320 --> 00:26:06.560 a sort of church that does that. 00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:09.360 Some of the low churches do not. 00:26:09.360 --> 00:26:12.720 God is super abundant with his grace and with his forgiveness, so 00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:16.240 it's not a cause for despair or even really a cause for 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:21.040 worry. It's just a cause for trying again, recognizing that yes, you're 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:25.840 a poor, sinful being, but that is the entire reason that Christ 00:26:25.840 --> 00:26:30.240 had to come to earth, be incarnate, suffer and die, and rise 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:32.320 again. That's the whole point of the gospel. 00:26:32.320 --> 00:26:35.440 And so it's not a cause for despair, not even a cause 00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:36.160 for worry. 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:37.920 And I would say you do have a living faith. 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.280 You're demonstrating works in keeping with that faith. 00:26:41.280 --> 00:26:44.720 Because worrying about these sorts of things, even if I would say 00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:49.280 don't worry about them demonstrates you don't have that dead faith, because 00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:51.680 the dead faith wouldn't care. 00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:53.840 The same thing as the unforgivable sin. 00:26:53.840 --> 00:26:57.760 The person who's committed it wouldn't care. 00:26:57.760 --> 00:27:01.280 But by all means, feel free to ask a follow-up question. 00:27:01.280 --> 00:27:04.720 I guess again, I know I anonymize the account at your request, 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:07.280 but by all means you can send me a DM. 00:27:07.280 --> 00:27:10.720 That will still work on the forum. 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:19.120 And if not, contact me on X or somewhere else, of course. 00:27:19.280 --> 00:27:20.800 Question six 00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:28.080 In the twelfth century when King Henry I of England died, his 00:27:28.080 --> 00:27:32.720 heir apparent was his daughter Matilda, but her cousin Stephen of Bloy 00:27:32.800 --> 00:27:35.200 tried to overthrow her causing a civil war. 00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:38.080 From what I hear he did this because he did not want 00:27:38.080 --> 00:27:40.560 a female monarch over England. 00:27:40.560 --> 00:27:43.040 Do you think Stephen was justified? 00:27:43.040 --> 00:27:45.520 And then the reasoning is I know women in positions of power 00:27:45.520 --> 00:27:49.600 is not the Christian ideal, but I want to know how our 00:27:49.600 --> 00:27:53.360 way our way a how out of our way it is permissible 00:27:53.360 --> 00:27:57.440 to enforce a patriarchy and if a coup d'etat is justifiable in 00:27:57.440 --> 00:27:58.960 a case like England's 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:04.560 I won't comment on the specific historical case because I'm just not 00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:06.000 sufficiently familiar with it. 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:09.440 English history is not my personal strong suit. 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:13.120 So I will comment on the more general question, which is really 00:28:13.280 --> 00:28:15.280 probably the more important one here, right? 00:28:15.280 --> 00:28:18.080 Because really it's the application to our own time and things like 00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:21.920 that. And so the abstracted general question can then be applied to 00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:22.960 our time. 00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:27.840 So when is it permissible for Christians to engage in a coup? 00:28:27.840 --> 00:28:29.280 Even a coup d'etat, right? 00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:31.360 Which for those who don't know a a coup is an overthrow 00:28:31.360 --> 00:28:33.840 of coup d'etat is one that involves violence. 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:34.160 So 00:28:36.080 --> 00:28:39.760 the sort of foundational question is is it ever permissible? 00:28:39.760 --> 00:28:41.120 The answer is yes. 00:28:41.120 --> 00:28:43.680 There are times when it is permissible. 00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:47.920 And the question then becomes, okay, when? 00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:49.920 What is sufficient warrant? 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:54.240 What are the conditions under which we are permitted to engage in 00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:58.640 such actions as Christians Christians without running afoul of God's laws, right? 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:01.840 Because you can think of all the places we are admonished to 00:29:01.840 --> 00:29:02.800 obey the rulers. 00:29:02.800 --> 00:29:04.880 However, those places are also polemical. 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:09.360 Romans 13, right, describes the nature of a Christian ruler, the nature 00:29:09.360 --> 00:29:12.320 of a godly ruler, even if he's not Christian, at least being 00:29:12.320 --> 00:29:16.080 godly. And our rulers today certainly don't fit that. 00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:18.480 Many historical rulers did not. 00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.760 The example I've often used is that if you lived in the 00:29:21.760 --> 00:29:26.640 USSR, did you have a duty to be submissive to Stalin, to 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:27.920 the Communist Party? 00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:29.760 And my answer is no. 00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:33.760 You would have been fully justified rebelling against that, using whatever means 00:29:33.760 --> 00:29:37.600 were at your disposal. 00:29:37.760 --> 00:29:42.160 So we did touch on this in a Stone Choir episode. 00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:45.280 I've written about it, and I will include some of those things 00:29:45.280 --> 00:29:50.320 in the show links as well, the show notes. 00:29:50.320 --> 00:29:53.280 But yes, this is a wisdom call, right? 00:29:53.280 --> 00:29:57.040 This is one of those where you should be very certain of 00:29:57.040 --> 00:30:00.320 your action, of your actions before undertaking them 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:05.920 because there are places where obviously God commands us to submit to 00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:09.760 the ruling authorities, but that is not categorical. 00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:12.880 There are times where it is your Christian duty to rebel 00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:17.920 against the ruling authorities because they are not true ruling authorities. 00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:22.640 They are wicked usurpers and they deserve to be overthrown. 00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:26.400 Best case would be the communists and others like that, right? 00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:32.240 Someone who is actively persecuting the church and murdering Christians. 00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:35.440 I do not believe it would be wrongful to overthrow that man. 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:38.080 Now is it the place of pastors to do that? 00:30:38.080 --> 00:30:41.040 No, because that's the division right between the right and the left 00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:42.560 hand kingdoms. 00:30:42.560 --> 00:30:45.440 But it is the duty of some men, because some men have 00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:49.040 duties in the left hand kingdom to do these sorts of things. 00:30:49.040 --> 00:30:55.600 But again, this is one of the most difficult questions, wisdom calls. 00:30:55.600 --> 00:31:00.080 And I would say read the Magdeburg Confession, if you have not, 00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:02.720 your screen name on here is in German, so I think the 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:07.040 odds are higher than fifty percent that you probably have read it. 00:31:07.040 --> 00:31:12.400 But I think that the Magdebird Confession, our episode on violence, and 00:31:12.560 --> 00:31:14.720 some of the things that I've written, some of the essays and 00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:18.960 things like that are probably a good starting place for a fuller 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:21.280 answer to this question. 00:31:21.280 --> 00:31:27.040 But insofar as overthrowing a female ruler simply because she is female, 00:31:27.040 --> 00:31:29.840 I don't believe that alone would be sufficient. 00:31:29.840 --> 00:31:33.520 Because I think I think that the amount of evil that would 00:31:33.520 --> 00:31:39.840 be caused by overthrowing such a ruler would probably be more would 00:31:39.840 --> 00:31:44.160 probably be greater evil than just permitting a woman to reign for 00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:45.200 a period of time. 00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.320 Work I think the answer there would be working within the system 00:31:48.320 --> 00:31:51.840 as best you can to get a king on the throne, right? 00:31:51.840 --> 00:31:55.440 Maybe it's her son, maybe you have to suffer for a generation 00:31:56.480 --> 00:32:00.640 But if she's doing additional evil things on top of that, then 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:03.760 I think probably you have sufficient warrant, which is why I wouldn't 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:07.680 comment on the specific case because I don't know enough about the 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:09.760 actors involved here. 00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:15.040 But the foundational sort of baseline answer is that this is a 00:32:15.040 --> 00:32:18.960 wisdom call and it's a difficult one to make, but there are 00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:24.160 men God has equipped to make that call, and they will be 00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:27.360 called to answer for whether they do or do not act, right? 00:32:27.360 --> 00:32:32.160 Because action and inaction, basically the same thing. 00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:34.720 Because you're choosing not to act. 00:32:34.720 --> 00:32:42.320 Which is an act. 00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:43.680 Question seven. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:47.360 I can move to the chat now. 00:32:47.360 --> 00:32:52.800 Would you please share any details you'd care to about the local 00:32:52.800 --> 00:32:55.920 AI setup you used for the Septuagint? 00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:59.840 I'd love to hear about the workflow. 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:00.320 So 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:03.440 that would kind of be a long answer, but I can certainly 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:06.560 give uh a basic outline of it. 00:33:06.560 --> 00:33:12.480 I really have two systems that I use for translation work. 00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:14.240 Excuse me. 00:33:14.560 --> 00:33:18.480 The first system that I use is the fastest one. 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:19.600 It's a basic system. 00:33:19.600 --> 00:33:22.880 If I just have a chunk of some text that I need 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.440 translated and I've got it set up for a handful of different 00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:28.000 languages, mostly Latin and Greek. 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.200 But if I need just like a paragraph or even a page 00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:34.480 translated, I drop it into that system. 00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:37.600 And the way that I have that one set up is I 00:33:37.600 --> 00:33:42.160 have it very highly restricted as to which sources it is permitted 00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:46.400 to use in its understanding of the language and the context and 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:48.160 things like that. 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:50.640 And I've excluded all the modern stuff, right? 00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:53.520 I don't want any of that for at least Latin and Greek. 00:33:53.680 --> 00:33:56.720 I don't need any of that stuff. 00:33:56.800 --> 00:33:57.120 And 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.920 in restricting that, you get a lot of the way to solving 00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:03.520 a lot of problems. 00:34:03.520 --> 00:34:08.320 On top of that, I have given it a specific personality to 00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:11.680 play act as the personality, and I found that this does help 00:34:11.680 --> 00:34:14.560 with the AIs keeping them on the rails. 00:34:14.560 --> 00:34:18.240 And basically it's a philologist from a certain era. 00:34:18.240 --> 00:34:21.680 It varies depending on what exactly I want it to do. 00:34:21.680 --> 00:34:28.320 And with certain preconceptions, presuppositions, a certain personality, and so it's going 00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:30.800 to behave in a certain predictable way. 00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:32.160 I found that helps quite a lot. 00:34:32.160 --> 00:34:35.040 That basically serving as guardrails or you know the bumpers when you're 00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:37.200 bowling, that kind of thing. 00:34:37.200 --> 00:34:41.360 If you want the full system, the full system is significantly more 00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:45.040 complicated and much more intensive and is going to burn through your 00:34:45.040 --> 00:34:50.480 usage very fast, which is part of why I have only produced 00:34:50.480 --> 00:34:54.320 sort of preliminary translations of certain things, because it just eats up 00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:57.040 my entire weekly usage. 00:34:57.040 --> 00:34:59.280 And And I don't want to pay thousands of dollars to get 00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:00.640 it finished. 00:35:00.640 --> 00:35:05.600 So how that one works I'll explain it in a some detail, 00:35:05.600 --> 00:35:07.760 but not in full detail, because just it'll take too long to 00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:09.040 explain all of it. 00:35:09.040 --> 00:35:12.960 But the core concepts that you essentially want to follow are 00:35:14.560 --> 00:35:19.920 adversarial interactions between basically competing AIs. 00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:22.720 You do not want one AI to just accept what another one 00:35:22.720 --> 00:35:25.920 did. You want it to be adversarial in its assessment. 00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:31.200 You want to deliberately poison things at certain stages, and then you 00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:35.840 use other AIs to check, and if the check misses the poison, 00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:39.200 you throw out that batch because that batch was clearly not up 00:35:39.200 --> 00:35:42.320 to your standards, because if it had been produced up to the 00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:46.720 standard you set, the poison you deliberately injected would have been caught. 00:35:46.720 --> 00:35:51.280 And so in translations basically what you're doing is you'll have An 00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:52.720 AI produce the translation. 00:35:52.720 --> 00:35:54.000 This is a rough outline. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:58.560 And then you'll have a reviewing one insert something into that that 00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:00.480 is deliberately poisoned. 00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:06.080 A mistranslation, something that is inaccurate, you know, resorting to the Hebrew, 00:36:06.080 --> 00:36:08.480 if you only want the Greek, something like that. 00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:11.760 Although Iffy on whether you're not you want to play with the 00:36:11.760 --> 00:36:15.440 Hebrew at all, but you insert something that it should deliberately catch. 00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:19.360 And then the reviewing AI in the next step, if it doesn't 00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:22.400 catch that, you consider the batch to have been poisoned, you go 00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:26.080 back and revise the system because something is falling through the cracks 00:36:26.080 --> 00:36:27.600 somewhere. And 00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:32.800 you can also do this by having multiple AIs produce the initial 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:37.280 translations, you run comparisons on those with also the poisoning step right 00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:41.200 and then the check, and basically you synthesize those into your final 00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:46.320 product. I've got a system with basically all of these checks and 00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:48.720 balances and quite a bit more set up so that I can 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:52.880 start doing some translations of the Book of Concord, because unfortunately CPH 00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:56.560 has kind of dropped the ball on having certain languages available, and 00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:59.520 I would like to have those publicly available. 00:36:59.520 --> 00:37:02.000 Again, it's just a matter of usage why I haven't done it 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:05.600 yet, because it's just it's very token intensive. 00:37:05.600 --> 00:37:09.600 And the other problem I've run into is that for translating the 00:37:09.600 --> 00:37:13.520 book of Concord, I I can do the German, I can slog 00:37:13.520 --> 00:37:19.440 through the Latin, but if the target language is something other than 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:24.000 English or German, I need someone else. 00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:26.640 I need some other set of eyes for someone who's fluent in 00:37:26.640 --> 00:37:27.920 the language on it. 00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:30.880 And that is the other part of the system that I've been 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:33.680 doing, and part of the reason that it's so slow to produce 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:36.960 finalized translations of certain things. 00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:41.120 Psalm 1 is my final version because I had the AI do 00:37:41.120 --> 00:37:47.360 the work, run the analysis, and then I painstakingly stepped through every 00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:52.240 word choice and every line, and then the lines in context, and 00:37:52.240 --> 00:37:55.760 then the psalm in context to produce that final translation. 00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:02.800 So Psalm 1 on Septuagent lxx.confident.faith is my final translation 00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:03.600 of that. 00:38:03.600 --> 00:38:06.960 I don't think I'll change any words in that whatsoever. 00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:09.440 But that took a lot of time. 00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:14.720 So the AI produces a very good readable version. 00:38:14.720 --> 00:38:18.080 I wouldn't say that it is what I would consider a final 00:38:18.080 --> 00:38:21.200 version because I think that what we laid out in the episode 00:38:21.200 --> 00:38:25.760 on translating scripture is what it will actually take to produce that 00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:31.680 proper actual reading version that should go forward as the standard in 00:38:31.680 --> 00:38:33.760 English for a hundred years. 00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:37.120 Or maybe a little bit shorter because we have so many problems 00:38:37.120 --> 00:38:38.640 today that need solved. 00:38:38.640 --> 00:38:41.920 But The readable versions are perfectly serviceable. 00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:42.720 I use them. 00:38:42.720 --> 00:38:45.760 I'm using them for the psalm readings and the daily devotion. 00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:49.200 And the literal translations are great for study and the notes are 00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:50.880 great for study as well. 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:54.640 So it is a very good useful resource that I put online 00:38:54.640 --> 00:38:56.800 for people, and I'm glad that people are using it. 00:38:56.800 --> 00:39:00.720 For anyone who has not seen it yet, by all means go 00:39:00.720 --> 00:39:06.640 to lxx.confident.faith and the resources are all there. 00:39:06.640 --> 00:39:10.000 The other slight issue that you will run into and it's worth 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:13.680 mentioning, and I'm not doing it just because I'm an attorney, there 00:39:13.680 --> 00:39:15.440 are some copyright issues. 00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:18.480 Some of the materials are not in the public domain. 00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:21.040 You'd think, hey, these should no. 00:39:21.040 --> 00:39:23.280 It's complicated, right? 00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:25.200 IP law is always complicated. 00:39:25.200 --> 00:39:28.800 I have used mostly the suite translation because that one basically is 00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:33.680 just entirely unencumbered, other than some miscellaneous bits and pieces here, the 00:39:33.680 --> 00:39:35.920 apparatus, things like that. 00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.440 But if you can find them, use public domain text if you're 00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:42.560 planning on doing any of this, because that will protect you from 00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:46.000 potential copyright claims and problems like that. 00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:47.200 Which is unfortunate. 00:39:47.520 --> 00:39:50.800 like we've said many times before on Stone Choir, as I've said 00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:53.600 many times other places, this is not the kind of stuff that 00:39:53.600 --> 00:39:54.880 should be copyrighted, right? 00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:56.640 You don't get to pay Wall God. 00:39:56.640 --> 00:40:01.440 Unfortunately a lot of people think they can. 00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:03.680 Question eight. 00:40:03.680 --> 00:40:05.440 Long hair on men. 00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:08.320 I am not trying to be trans or something, just a style 00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:16.080 choice. Is this wrong slash sin somehow just past shoulders length roughly. 00:40:16.080 --> 00:40:18.240 Let's see. 00:40:18.240 --> 00:40:22.160 Obviously here we want to go to first Corinthians, right? 00:40:22.160 --> 00:40:23.760 So let me go ahead and pull up 00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:27.440 Logos here. 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:29.120 Where did logos go? 00:40:29.120 --> 00:40:32.080 There we are. 00:40:32.160 --> 00:40:36.640 Okay. So I won't read the the whole chapter because really we 00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:38.800 just want the the bit here at the end, right? 00:40:39.440 --> 00:40:42.480 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long 00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:45.520 hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has 00:40:45.520 --> 00:40:48.560 long hair it is her glory, for her hair is given to 00:40:48.560 --> 00:40:51.840 her for a covering, etc. 00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:57.520 And so the question really here is is this a universal principle? 00:40:57.520 --> 00:41:02.800 Is this something that is being commanded that you must never wear 00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:07.920 long hair because long hair is always disgraceful and you know and 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:12.480 I do have the I have pulled up the wrong logos window, 00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:14.640 so let me give you the actual logos window so you can 00:41:14.640 --> 00:41:16.000 see what I'm reading. 00:41:16.480 --> 00:41:17.360 There we go. 00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:19.040 That's probably more helpful. 00:41:19.040 --> 00:41:22.720 But as I was saying, I have pulled up the Greek word 00:41:22.720 --> 00:41:24.000 here, right? 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:27.840 Kama'o, which is indeed we're long here. 00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:29.680 So we can't play any games with the Greek. 00:41:29.680 --> 00:41:31.120 The Greek is very straightforward. 00:41:31.120 --> 00:41:33.440 It's wearing long hair. 00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:33.760 So 00:41:34.640 --> 00:41:41.760 yes, is there probably some societal context here, subcontext, of 00:41:41.760 --> 00:41:45.680 wearing very styled hair, the kind of hair you'd expect from a 00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:48.080 woman going to, say, the opera. 00:41:48.080 --> 00:41:50.400 We'll g use that example again, right? 00:41:50.400 --> 00:41:53.040 Yes, that's probably in view to some degree. 00:41:53.040 --> 00:41:56.720 But the verb does very much just say wears long hair. 00:41:56.720 --> 00:41:59.760 I'm going to go ahead and just bluntly say that no, that 00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:03.440 doesn't mean as a man you can't have shoulder length hair. 00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:06.160 As a man, should you have hair that's all the way down 00:42:06.160 --> 00:42:10.320 to your mid back that you perm and braid and no, because 00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:14.000 now you've The problem there is what you've done is you've gone 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:17.120 into the effeminate, which is something men should never do. 00:42:17.120 --> 00:42:20.960 You never engage in stuff that is effeminate in behavior that is 00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:25.360 effeminate. But just having longer hair no. 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:28.240 And one of the best ways we can answer that is just 00:42:28.240 --> 00:42:29.600 looking at scripture, right? 00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:31.520 What was one of the things you could do in Old Testament 00:42:31.920 --> 00:42:35.680 Israel? You could take the Nazarite vow, which was that you wouldn't 00:42:35.600 --> 00:42:37.840 shave your head for a period of time. 00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:42.960 So if a vow to God approved by God involved men having 00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:46.880 long hair, then obviously men having long hair is not per se 00:42:46.960 --> 00:42:49.360 something that is violative of some law. 00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.480 So no, you're you're allowed to have long hair, just don't do 00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:58.400 it in an effeminate way. 00:43:01.520 --> 00:43:02.880 Question nine. 00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:05.840 Do you have a preferred Lutheran liturgy? 00:43:05.840 --> 00:43:09.760 I am honestly not one of the what one might call a 00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:11.040 liturgy nerd. 00:43:11.040 --> 00:43:12.720 I'm not one of those. 00:43:12.720 --> 00:43:16.320 So So there are certainly men who get very, very into it, 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:21.600 but honestly, I think as long as it is traditional and doesn't 00:43:21.520 --> 00:43:25.040 have objectionable material, which is generally speaking most of the Lutheran ones 00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:28.560 at this point, the actual Lutheran ones. 00:43:28.560 --> 00:43:30.480 Use whichever one, right? 00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:33.040 I know there are people and I've looking and my book is 00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:36.160 here on the floor where I can't reach it, but the LSB 00:43:36.160 --> 00:43:37.760 is fine. 00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:41.600 You could use TLH instead, write The Lutheran hymnal versus versus the 00:43:41.600 --> 00:43:43.600 Lutheran service book. 00:43:43.600 --> 00:43:47.200 I'm not super invested in one versus the other. 00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:51.520 I think if people just use a liturgy, that's a huge improvement 00:43:51.520 --> 00:43:53.760 over what most churches are doing. 00:43:53.760 --> 00:43:57.120 And, you know, in in the future, sure, can we discuss which 00:43:57.280 --> 00:43:58.720 one is best and 00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:01.040 readings and all those things? 00:44:01.040 --> 00:44:03.200 And sure, that's work for for 00:44:04.160 --> 00:44:07.440 other men in the future when some of our larger issues have 00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:08.080 been solved. 00:44:08.080 --> 00:44:10.800 But by all means to date, just use the one that your 00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:12.000 church has. 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.120 And it's probably going to be TLH if you got a huge 00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:18.080 carton of used ones or it's going to be LSB if you 00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:19.200 ordered new ones. 00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:22.720 They're both fine. 00:44:22.720 --> 00:44:26.560 And yes, I know people get weird about which divine service setting. 00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:27.600 Whichever one. 00:44:27.600 --> 00:44:28.640 They're fine. 00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:31.600 If you have a favorite, great. 00:44:31.600 --> 00:44:35.600 That's I mean it's better to have feelings, sentiments about the liturgy 00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:37.600 than to not want liturgy at all. 00:44:37.600 --> 00:44:40.560 But as long as you're following that liturgy, I think that you're 00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:42.800 doing something better than what most Christians are currently doing. 00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:45.680 It's on the right the right tract the right track and I 00:44:45.680 --> 00:44:47.920 just don't have really a dog in the fight. 00:44:55.680 --> 00:44:59.200 Question ten. 00:44:59.200 --> 00:45:02.400 A friend of mine told me that Lutheran theology leaves little room 00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:06.640 for asceticism, and that works are just as important as faith. 00:45:06.640 --> 00:45:10.320 Quoting Matthew eleven twelve to me, how should I respond? 00:45:10.640 --> 00:45:14.160 So if he's telling you that works are just as important as 00:45:14.160 --> 00:45:18.720 faith, the well the answer there, the Lutheran answer there, is extremely 00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:20.560 easy, right? 00:45:20.560 --> 00:45:25.280 You're saved by works, but they're Christ's works, not yours. 00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:28.400 Because you can't be saved by your own works, because your own 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:30.320 works are finite. 00:45:30.320 --> 00:45:34.000 And the debt of sin is infinite, and so no matter what 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:36.720 you do with regard to works, it will never be sufficient to 00:45:36.720 --> 00:45:37.520 save you. 00:45:37.520 --> 00:45:42.080 That's your friend is mixing up justification and sanctification. 00:45:42.080 --> 00:45:46.720 In justification, we're talking about monogism: God is the only actor, it 00:45:46.720 --> 00:45:50.400 is only Christ's sacrifice that saves you. 00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:54.400 And then once you are renewed, which is say once you're justified, 00:45:54.560 --> 00:46:00.160 same thing, then in sanctification, you cooperate with the Holy Spirit. 00:46:00.160 --> 00:46:03.280 Then it is indeed sacrificed synergism, and then your good works are 00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:07.200 part of your sanctification, and a living faith produces good works. 00:46:07.200 --> 00:46:10.560 That doesn't make works equal to faith. 00:46:10.560 --> 00:46:14.480 Faith is still the thing that is absolutely necessary. 00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:18.320 Works must flow from a living faith, but the faith is indeed 00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:19.840 more important. 00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:26.640 However, when it comes to asceticism, right, let's see, Matthew eleven, verse 00:46:26.640 --> 00:46:29.680 twelve. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom 00:46:29.680 --> 00:46:33.360 of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force. 00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:33.680 So 00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:38.560 I'm not one hundred percent certain which argument your friend is trying 00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:41.040 to make, so I would say maybe ask him to clarify that 00:46:41.120 --> 00:46:44.560 and then I will reply to whichever exact argument it is that 00:46:44.560 --> 00:46:47.040 he's trying to make. 00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:47.360 But 00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:52.080 is there room for asceticism in Lutheranism? 00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:57.280 The answer I think is yes, but within reason, right? 00:46:57.280 --> 00:47:00.560 This is something that this is going to be more over in 00:47:00.560 --> 00:47:03.040 Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox territory. 00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:07.920 Where they're so big on work salvation that they think that going 00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:10.880 out into the desert and retreating from the world is in some 00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:13.040 way going to make you holier. 00:47:13.040 --> 00:47:16.240 And the reality is it's going to make you worse. 00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:20.000 Because how do you serve God? 00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:21.680 God doesn't need your works. 00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:23.120 God doesn't need your money. 00:47:23.120 --> 00:47:25.680 God doesn't need your sheep, your goats, whatever it is. 00:47:25.680 --> 00:47:28.400 God has never needed anything from a human being. 00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:30.560 God will never need anything from a human being. 00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:33.840 And so the way you serve God is by serving those who 00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:36.400 do have needs, by serving your neighbor. 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:40.080 And what can you not do when you retreat out into the 00:47:40.080 --> 00:47:43.600 desert and seal yourself away from your neighbor in society. 00:47:43.600 --> 00:47:45.600 Well you can't serve your neighbor. 00:47:45.600 --> 00:47:50.720 So no, I Lutherans do not believe in monasticism or anything like 00:47:50.720 --> 00:47:51.680 that. Certainly. 00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:55.440 We very strongly condemn that system because it's a wicked system. 00:47:55.760 --> 00:48:01.360 It tries to substitute works for Christ's work, and it also leads 00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:04.400 to all sorts of problems of which we are all aware. 00:48:04.400 --> 00:48:08.320 The they were so well known and in even that day so 00:48:08.320 --> 00:48:13.760 heinous that in the book of Concord, Melanchthon declines to describe the 00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:17.520 problems because it would have been considered improper even to name the 00:48:17.520 --> 00:48:20.160 things that were happening in the monasteries at the time. 00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:22.320 And they haven't gotten better. 00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:26.720 So it it's just a recipe for disaster, right? 00:48:26.720 --> 00:48:30.160 Don't monasticism is not a good thing. 00:48:30.160 --> 00:48:33.040 Does that mean that asceticism is always a bad thing? 00:48:33.040 --> 00:48:37.040 It depends on what you mean by it, because recognize all the 00:48:37.040 --> 00:48:42.400 places that Scripture praises food, including bread and wine, including alcohol. 00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:45.920 Yes, alcohol is praised in Scripture as a gift from God. 00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:50.080 If you reject all of these things, right, then 00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:52.480 what are you doing? 00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:54.000 You're rejecting the good things of God. 00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:57.520 And actually, you could go right to later on in that same 00:48:57.520 --> 00:49:00.880 chapter because it says, For John came neither eating nor drinking, and 00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:02.240 they say he has a demon. 00:49:02.240 --> 00:49:04.560 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say look 00:49:04.640 --> 00:49:07.840 at him, a glutton and a drunkard, right? 00:49:07.840 --> 00:49:10.560 Well that's describing Christ what he did. 00:49:10.560 --> 00:49:11.920 Well what did he do? 00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:15.520 He ate with his friends, he enjoyed food, and he drank wine. 00:49:15.520 --> 00:49:19.600 So if you go so far with the asceticism that you are 00:49:19.600 --> 00:49:22.560 denying all of the good things that God created as part of 00:49:22.560 --> 00:49:28.240 creation for you to enjoy, then maybe you haven't necessarily gone all 00:49:28.240 --> 00:49:31.520 the way into sin, but you've certainly gone into foolishness, which is 00:49:31.520 --> 00:49:33.680 at least bordering on sin. 00:49:33.680 --> 00:49:35.840 So is it important to control the body? 00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:36.400 Of course. 00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:38.480 You have a place where it says I discipline my body and 00:49:38.480 --> 00:49:39.840 keep it under control. 00:49:39.840 --> 00:49:42.560 That's an important part of what it means to be a Christian. 00:49:42.560 --> 00:49:46.560 So fasting is part of what it means to be a Christian. 00:49:46.560 --> 00:49:49.920 Do you fast until it harms your health? 00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:52.160 No, because that would be unwise. 00:49:52.160 --> 00:49:54.240 Do you reject all food? 00:49:54.240 --> 00:49:54.960 No, of course not. 00:49:55.680 --> 00:49:59.840 Do you s think that you're justified because you eat only fish? 00:49:59.840 --> 00:50:01.200 And I'm not making that one up. 00:50:01.200 --> 00:50:04.080 There's a group within the Roman Catholic Church that does that. 00:50:04.080 --> 00:50:07.840 No, you don't do that, because then you are taking away from 00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:11.440 Christ, his glory, and his works, and you're saying, I'm going to 00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:12.720 be saved by my own works. 00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:14.560 And guess what happens when you do that? 00:50:14.560 --> 00:50:16.880 That's called apostasy. 00:50:16.880 --> 00:50:21.680 So, if your friend has some specific argument with regard to 00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:27.840 asceticism, then by all means I would be interested in responding to 00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:32.480 that. But I think the general rule is just that sure Lutherans 00:50:32.480 --> 00:50:37.680 don't reject it, just don't take it overboard. 00:50:37.680 --> 00:50:40.160 And that is sort of a general rule when it comes to 00:50:40.160 --> 00:50:41.440 Lutheran theology. 00:50:41.440 --> 00:50:45.520 Lutheran theology a lot of times is navigating that sh the straight 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:46.720 and narrow. 00:50:46.720 --> 00:50:51.040 And that's why we're so fond of using the metaphor of falling 00:50:51.040 --> 00:50:51.840 off a horse, right? 00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:54.240 Don't fall off the left or the right. 00:50:54.240 --> 00:50:57.120 You don't benefit anything by pointing at the guy who fell off 00:50:57.120 --> 00:51:00.240 the left side while falling off the right side yourself, or vice 00:51:00.240 --> 00:51:09.200 versa. 00:51:21.600 --> 00:51:22.880 Let's see here 00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:27.680 I will go few more questions. 00:51:27.680 --> 00:51:30.320 I have uh appointment I have to get to and have a 00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:31.600 little bit of driving, but 00:51:33.600 --> 00:51:38.800 someone asked me what my opinion is on Poland's ongoing crisis. 00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:40.960 I don't think I will number this one 00:51:41.840 --> 00:51:45.680 because I don't really have an answer because I have have not 00:51:45.680 --> 00:51:48.960 been paying that much attention to whatever Poland's ongoing crisis is other 00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:50.560 than being Poland. 00:51:50.560 --> 00:51:50.880 So 00:51:52.080 --> 00:51:55.760 I don't have a a firm opinion on whatever is being referenced 00:51:55.760 --> 00:51:56.400 there. 00:52:03.920 --> 00:52:06.320 Question Well that didn't work. 00:52:06.320 --> 00:52:08.400 What happened here? 00:52:08.400 --> 00:52:11.920 Oh my as I tried to click the question my board refreshed 00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:13.600 and I tapped a different thing. 00:52:13.600 --> 00:52:15.280 There we go. 00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:16.240 Question 00:52:19.440 --> 00:52:22.400 My board number is off now because it counted that last one, 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:23.600 but this is question 11. 00:52:23.600 --> 00:52:26.000 I will just have to remember that. 00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:28.240 I will have to fix that after the stream. 00:52:28.560 --> 00:52:31.920 Do you think it is possible this is question tw question eleven, 00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:34.400 do you think it is possible to have a pan Nicene Christian 00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:38.640 nation instead of a pan Protestant or a single denomination being enforced 00:52:38.640 --> 00:52:40.720 by a future Christian government? 00:52:41.680 --> 00:52:45.760 I've sort of answered this one previously, and I think that probably 00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:48.320 what we are going to have to do to avoid conflict, and 00:52:48.320 --> 00:52:50.480 I think it's the best way to do it, just so we 00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:52.720 don't shed our brothers' blood, right? 00:52:52.720 --> 00:52:55.200 That's we should always try to avoid that. 00:52:55.680 --> 00:53:01.200 Federalism in the sense of I won't use the Latin because there's 00:53:01.200 --> 00:53:05.680 no reason, but the faith of the ruler is the faith of 00:53:05.680 --> 00:53:06.720 the land. 00:53:06.720 --> 00:53:09.200 So the ruler of a region 00:53:10.080 --> 00:53:13.280 chooses the religion of the region, which is to say he chooses 00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:15.600 the denomination or the tradition. 00:53:15.600 --> 00:53:19.280 And I'm not saying every region has to have a king because 00:53:19.280 --> 00:53:21.760 maybe they want to have some slightly modified version. 00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:26.560 I think it should be something in the aristocracy monarchy family. 00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:31.360 I don't believe in democracy, certainly representative so-called government. 00:53:31.520 --> 00:53:34.800 But I don't think that it would be wrong to have what 00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:41.200 is effectively an empire with things that are devolved to the local 00:53:41.200 --> 00:53:46.560 level. So this particular region, whether it we call it a state 00:53:46.560 --> 00:53:48.880 or whatever else, is Presbyterian. 00:53:48.880 --> 00:53:53.440 This one's Anglican, this one's Lutheran, this one allows several. 00:53:53.440 --> 00:53:56.400 I think that's probably the best way forward just because we have 00:53:56.400 --> 00:53:59.680 so many different opinions, and getting everyone to agree is going to 00:53:59.680 --> 00:54:01.440 be impossible. 00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:07.040 So work with what we have instead of trying to aim for 00:54:07.040 --> 00:54:10.480 the perfect and letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:12.160 Or at least the good enough. 00:54:12.160 --> 00:54:14.880 But yes, I think that the bare minimum is that you have 00:54:14.880 --> 00:54:19.680 to confess the creeds, because otherwise you have departed from the faith. 00:54:19.680 --> 00:54:20.960 Right? That's what we say in the creeds. 00:54:20.960 --> 00:54:22.080 That's what we all what we believe. 00:54:22.080 --> 00:54:25.760 If you confess the creeds, you believe that to redeem reject the 00:54:25.760 --> 00:54:27.760 creeds is to depart from the faith. 00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:29.840 And so that is certainly the minimum. 00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:32.080 And that's all three creeds. 00:54:32.080 --> 00:54:37.040 Because obviously the Athanasian with regard to Trinitarian theology is important because 00:54:37.040 --> 00:54:38.800 Unitarians are not Christians. 00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:43.120 Neither are Mormons, so all three creeds, the Apostle, the Nicene, and 00:54:43.120 --> 00:54:44.880 the Athanasian. 00:54:55.760 --> 00:54:58.160 Some of these questions are going to have to wait for next 00:54:58.160 --> 00:55:00.000 week because they are longer questions. 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:01.840 I know that my backlog is growing. 00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:05.040 I I go through these and triage them after the show. 00:55:05.040 --> 00:55:06.080 I will get to them. 00:55:06.080 --> 00:55:07.520 I have them stored. 00:55:07.520 --> 00:55:10.080 I just may not get to them this week. 00:55:17.120 --> 00:55:21.120 I really want to address this one about the Septuagint in Genesis, 00:55:21.120 --> 00:55:22.160 but it is a longer one. 00:55:22.160 --> 00:55:24.480 It is going to take 20 minutes and I know it, so. 00:55:41.040 --> 00:55:43.280 I'll go ahead and answer this one because I sort of already 00:55:43.280 --> 00:55:48.000 answered it, but question twelve here. 00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:51.360 Have you considered using the LLM as a judge pattern to reduce 00:55:51.360 --> 00:55:55.760 seepage of rabbinic influence in the Septuagint Confident Faith Translation, which I 00:55:55.760 --> 00:55:58.560 don't have a name for it yet, but I guess that's sort 00:55:58.560 --> 00:56:00.560 of a fine one to call it now. 00:56:00.560 --> 00:56:02.320 I have been using that, yes. 00:56:02.320 --> 00:56:05.040 That is similar to what I described. 00:56:05.040 --> 00:56:06.160 I've been using 00:56:08.240 --> 00:56:10.800 really it is a Essentially what I described earlier. 00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:17.280 I've been using a limited corpus and then the personality settings, adversarial, 00:56:17.280 --> 00:56:23.280 and very explicit instructions never to use anything derived from so-called Hebrew 00:56:23.280 --> 00:56:26.720 or rabbinic sources sources. 00:56:26.720 --> 00:56:30.560 And like we outlined in the episode on translating scripture, that's absolutely 00:56:30.560 --> 00:56:33.920 necessary for a proper translation of scripture. 00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:41.120 Question thirteen 00:56:46.640 --> 00:56:50.560 What should the relationship between the Reformed and the Lutherans ideally be 00:56:50.720 --> 00:56:52.320 in your view? 00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:57.120 I think that ideally we are Christian brothers who disagree on some 00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:01.440 key parts of the faith when it comes to exegesis. 00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:05.840 And I do believe that the Reformed are Christian, at least many 00:57:05.840 --> 00:57:06.640 of them. 00:57:06.640 --> 00:57:09.200 I won't say all of them, because I think that they're Lutherans, 00:57:09.200 --> 00:57:10.560 so-called, who aren't Christian as well. 00:57:10.560 --> 00:57:13.840 So don't think that I'm picking on the Reformed in that. 00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:18.800 But obviously yes, we do staunchly disagree on some things, and I 00:57:18.800 --> 00:57:22.160 think that we have to be able to worship in our own 00:57:22.160 --> 00:57:25.200 way, because it would be to violate our own conscience to do 00:57:25.200 --> 00:57:26.880 otherwise. So So 00:57:27.840 --> 00:57:32.160 again, I think that essential federalism approach is going to probably be 00:57:32.160 --> 00:57:34.240 what we have to do in the US context. 00:57:34.240 --> 00:57:37.440 Again, I think that it will be up to different territories. 00:57:37.600 --> 00:57:39.200 This is something that can be devolved. 00:57:39.200 --> 00:57:43.040 And so maybe there's a territory that permits several different churches, or 00:57:43.040 --> 00:57:46.640 there's one that says if you're here you're Lutheran. 00:57:46.640 --> 00:57:49.360 I would prefer to be somewhere that is Lutheran. 00:57:49.360 --> 00:57:53.120 Because I believe that is correct and I think that God blesses 00:57:53.120 --> 00:57:59.920 people who pursue the faith correctly and faithfully and earnestly. 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:02.160 And I think that the way that you have to do that 00:58:02.160 --> 00:58:07.040 is not violating your conscience by being unequally yoked, in this case 00:58:07.200 --> 00:58:11.440 not with unbelievers, but with those who do not believe the same 00:58:11.440 --> 00:58:13.760 things you do with regard to the faith. 00:58:13.760 --> 00:58:18.240 Because the differences between the Reformed and the Lutherans Well, again, I 00:58:18.240 --> 00:58:21.680 don't believe that they destroy the faith of the reformed. 00:58:21.680 --> 00:58:26.240 I don't believe that the differences are trivial, because we disagree on 00:58:26.240 --> 00:58:30.800 the nature of election, which is how one is saved. 00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:34.640 We disagree on the nature of Christ's presence in the supper, which 00:58:34.640 --> 00:58:36.320 is a core part of the faith. 00:58:36.320 --> 00:58:40.880 It's one of you can number the sacraments various ways, but one 00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:45.600 of the two main sacraments, right We disagree to some degree on 00:58:45.600 --> 00:58:49.200 baptism, not as much on that one as the Lord's Supper, but 00:58:49.200 --> 00:58:51.680 we disagree on core parts of the faith. 00:58:51.680 --> 00:58:54.960 And those disagreements are not going to go away anytime soon. 00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:58.960 We have been debating each other, arguing, yelling at each other for 00:58:59.040 --> 00:59:00.560 500 years, right? 00:59:00.880 --> 00:59:06.560 So I think we should probably continue debating these issues, continue refining 00:59:06.560 --> 00:59:07.280 our arguments. 00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:11.600 I think that's fine, but we shouldn't be fighting with each other 00:59:11.680 --> 00:59:13.920 considering considering each other enemies. 00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:18.480 We're Christian brothers, we just have different views, and yes, that will 00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:21.360 probably mean some degree of separation. 00:59:21.360 --> 00:59:23.520 We had that historically to some degree, right? 00:59:23.520 --> 00:59:27.920 There were Largely Lutheran areas in Germany, and then there were largely 00:59:27.920 --> 00:59:31.760 reformed areas in certain countries in some parts of Germany as well. 00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:37.040 So there's historical precedent for doing things that way. 00:59:37.040 --> 00:59:43.520 But the overarching answer I would say is that conflict, particularly conflict 00:59:43.520 --> 00:59:49.360 that spills over into violence between Christian brothers, should be avoided unless 00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.880 it is absolutely unavoidable, and I don't think that it is ever 00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:54.240 absolutely unavoidable. 00:59:54.240 --> 00:59:57.600 I think that there are always ways that do not require that 00:59:57.600 --> 01:00:01.600 step. 01:00:07.280 --> 01:00:12.880 Question fourteen. 01:00:12.960 --> 01:00:15.760 Do Christians have any duty to participate in voting? 01:00:16.000 --> 01:00:17.040 I live in Texas. 01:00:17.040 --> 01:00:20.160 My fiancé and I have chosen to abstain from voting due to 01:00:20.160 --> 01:00:22.960 dis dissatisfaction with the Republicans. 01:00:22.960 --> 01:00:26.080 Both of our families disagree with this decision and say we ought 01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:29.360 to still vote Republican as the lesser lesser of two evils, my 01:00:29.360 --> 01:00:32.480 father compared it to choosing not to tithe because you disagree with 01:00:32.480 --> 01:00:38.160 how your church spends. 01:00:38.160 --> 01:00:41.360 I would say first my issue would be that I don't one 01:00:41.520 --> 01:00:47.040 hundred percent agree with your father's contention with regard to tithing. 01:00:47.040 --> 01:00:49.680 Because I think that you are required to tithe. 01:00:49.680 --> 01:00:50.400 I do believe that. 01:00:50.400 --> 01:00:52.320 I think that you are required to give ten percent, but I 01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:55.920 don't think you're required to give 10% to your church. 01:00:55.920 --> 01:00:59.120 If your church all of a sudden decides it's going to send 01:00:59.200 --> 01:01:03.440 80% of its budget to Africa to build wells or you know, 01:01:03.440 --> 01:01:06.480 whatever, whatever nonsense it is this time. 01:01:06.480 --> 01:01:10.000 I think it's perfectly acceptable to take one hundred percent of your 01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:13.360 tithe and give it to a different Christian ministry that is actually 01:01:13.360 --> 01:01:17.360 doing good like it should, instead of preferring the foreigner and the 01:01:17.360 --> 01:01:20.000 alien and doing that sort of thing. 01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:20.960 So do you have 01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:23.200 do you have to tithe? 01:01:23.200 --> 01:01:25.040 I think the answer is yes. 01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:27.200 Do you have to tithe to your church? 01:01:27.200 --> 01:01:29.040 I think the answer is no. 01:01:29.040 --> 01:01:32.560 And so that sort of modifies his argument there, right? 01:01:32.560 --> 01:01:35.360 Because do you have a duty to vote? 01:01:35.360 --> 01:01:38.400 I think that the answer is yes, there's a general duty to 01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:41.840 vote, but I don't think it's an absolute duty to vote. 01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:47.360 Because insofar as we have the power to vote, that means that 01:01:47.840 --> 01:01:51.280 we have been devolved some small say in how the country is 01:01:51.280 --> 01:01:52.400 run. And so 01:01:53.280 --> 01:01:57.200 given that we have been granted this power to have a say, 01:01:57.200 --> 01:02:00.800 we do have a duty to exercise it with wisdom. 01:02:00.800 --> 01:02:04.880 But I don't think that always means that you must vote, because 01:02:04.880 --> 01:02:07.680 sometimes wisdom says to abstain. 01:02:07.680 --> 01:02:12.560 And in the case of Texas, I'm not sure that right now 01:02:12.560 --> 01:02:14.880 really your vote is going to do anything, honestly. 01:02:14.880 --> 01:02:18.720 It's not quite like what I had living in LA, right? 01:02:18.720 --> 01:02:20.560 I lived in LA County. 01:02:20.560 --> 01:02:23.040 I may as well have written in Mickey Mouse, right? 01:02:23.040 --> 01:02:27.040 Right, the only person was ever going to win in LA County 01:02:27.280 --> 01:02:30.560 was the Democrat or someone worse. 01:02:30.560 --> 01:02:30.880 So 01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:35.280 I did vote in California, and certainly I would vote for the 01:02:35.280 --> 01:02:39.040 governor because sometimes the governor would actually be a Republican and he 01:02:39.040 --> 01:02:40.480 wasn't always terrible. 01:02:40.480 --> 01:02:43.280 Arnold, for whatever else you can say about him, wasn't the worst 01:02:43.280 --> 01:02:46.320 person in the world when it came to certain issues. 01:02:50.800 --> 01:02:53.840 But I do think there is a degree of wisdom. 01:02:53.840 --> 01:02:58.320 And incidentally, when it comes to you voting and your fiancé, the 01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:01.600 woman is supposed to vote however her head tells her to vote. 01:03:01.600 --> 01:03:04.000 So once you're married, your wife is supposed to obey you with 01:03:04.240 --> 01:03:06.240 regard to voting as well. 01:03:06.240 --> 01:03:12.240 But I do think that generally you vote, but you vote in 01:03:12.240 --> 01:03:16.480 the elections where your vote actually is going to do something. 01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:21.360 Are you required to vote for the lesser evil 01:03:22.560 --> 01:03:26.880 simply because it is supposedly the lesser evil? 01:03:27.120 --> 01:03:30.320 I don't know that I would say there's a categorical requirement to 01:03:30.320 --> 01:03:30.960 do that. 01:03:31.200 --> 01:03:34.560 And I think part of the reason I would say that is 01:03:34.560 --> 01:03:37.200 that it's not always possible to make the call what the lesser 01:03:37.200 --> 01:03:38.880 evil is, right? 01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:41.360 And the Republicans aren't always the lesser evil. 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:43.680 Think what's going on in Ohio right now. 01:03:43.680 --> 01:03:46.400 Voting for Vivek is not the lesser evil. 01:03:46.400 --> 01:03:49.360 And so voting for the Republican is not the lesser evil. 01:03:49.360 --> 01:03:51.760 Abstaining is the lesser evil in that case. 01:03:51.760 --> 01:03:54.720 I would not vote if I were in that state right now. 01:03:55.040 --> 01:03:59.280 I'm in Tennessee, so the Republican is going to win regardless, particularly 01:03:59.280 --> 01:04:00.880 here in East Tennessee. 01:04:00.880 --> 01:04:04.400 But though I do think that it it is a matter of 01:04:04.400 --> 01:04:07.840 wisdom. And I don't think that as a Christian you are conscience 01:04:07.840 --> 01:04:12.240 bound always to vote, and I certainly don't believe you're conscience bound 01:04:12.240 --> 01:04:14.240 to vote for the entirety of the ticket. 01:04:14.240 --> 01:04:16.720 By all means go and vote for local stuff though. 01:04:16.720 --> 01:04:19.520 Local stuff, your vote counts for much more, you have a much 01:04:19.520 --> 01:04:23.280 greater chance of affecting something, so don't just totally abstain. 01:04:23.280 --> 01:04:25.920 Vote for the things where your vote has a chance of actually 01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:27.280 doing some good. 01:04:27.280 --> 01:04:30.240 Which that's a general rule I tell guys all the time. 01:04:30.240 --> 01:04:33.440 The local stuff, you have a much higher percentage chance of actually 01:04:33.440 --> 01:04:34.880 influencing the outcome. 01:04:34.880 --> 01:04:38.080 A lot of those local races sometimes are decided by five, six, 01:04:38.080 --> 01:04:38.720 seven votes. 01:04:38.720 --> 01:04:41.600 So maybe it depends what part of Texas you're in, right? 01:04:41.600 --> 01:04:44.400 If you're in Dallas, it's won't be decided by five votes, but 01:04:44.400 --> 01:04:46.320 by all means vote for that stuff. 01:04:46.320 --> 01:04:50.800 You are not conscience bound to vote for every single thing on 01:04:50.800 --> 01:04:51.840 the ticket. 01:05:02.160 --> 01:05:05.440 I have a lot of questions pending and I am not going 01:05:05.440 --> 01:05:10.080 to get to all of them. 01:05:10.080 --> 01:05:12.400 Okay, I'll let's see. 01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:18.560 Question fifteen fifteen. 01:05:18.560 --> 01:05:23.120 How do you deal with a being terrified about failing in one's 01:05:23.120 --> 01:05:28.560 duty to God slash not honoring one's vocation or caring for family, 01:05:28.560 --> 01:05:33.280 etc. And B God's clear prohibition against anxiety. 01:05:33.280 --> 01:05:37.200 I know God promises to provide, but also God works in time 01:05:37.200 --> 01:05:40.320 through means, so if I am those means, then it is on 01:05:40.320 --> 01:05:44.240 me to provide and that overwhelms me. 01:05:44.240 --> 01:05:47.920 I think the way to look at that is at the end 01:05:47.920 --> 01:05:49.920 of the very same passage you referenced, right? 01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:52.720 What does Christ say at the end of that passage? 01:05:52.720 --> 01:05:55.280 Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 01:05:55.280 --> 01:05:55.600 So 01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.320 get up each day 01:05:59.280 --> 01:06:05.280 and put in sufficient effort and the rest is in God's hands. 01:06:05.280 --> 01:06:07.440 There's only so much you can do in a a given day, 01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:11.920 right? I have an absolutely endless list of to do items. 01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:14.080 I will d I will be dead before I finish all of 01:06:14.080 --> 01:06:18.480 them. It doesn't really worry me, because I get up, I do 01:06:18.480 --> 01:06:21.680 a sufficient amount for the day, which doesn't mean work yourself to 01:06:21.680 --> 01:06:22.240 death, right? 01:06:22.240 --> 01:06:24.160 There's still things that God wants you to enjoy. 01:06:24.160 --> 01:06:27.520 I've got a teapot over here, take time for breaks and things 01:06:27.520 --> 01:06:28.640 like that. 01:06:28.640 --> 01:06:33.120 And recognize that ultimately all of it's in God's hands, right? 01:06:33.120 --> 01:06:36.800 Unless God bless the house, those who built it labor in vain. 01:06:36.800 --> 01:06:41.200 Unless God watches over the city, those who watch over it watched 01:06:41.200 --> 01:06:42.160 over it in vain. 01:06:42.160 --> 01:06:44.240 It is in vain that you wake up early and go late 01:06:44.240 --> 01:06:46.960 to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, right? 01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:52.000 It's very clear that regardless of what happens, it is all in 01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:52.720 God's hands. 01:06:52.720 --> 01:06:54.160 Does that mean that we do nothing? 01:06:54.160 --> 01:06:54.800 Of course not. 01:06:54.800 --> 01:06:58.960 You recognize that, you rightly recognize that there are things for us 01:06:58.960 --> 01:07:01.520 to do, and you should do them, and you should be diligent 01:07:01.520 --> 01:07:06.080 in your tasks, and you should learn and grow and try and 01:07:06.080 --> 01:07:08.480 achieve things in your life. 01:07:08.480 --> 01:07:11.200 That doesn't mean that you should be anxious about it. 01:07:11.200 --> 01:07:14.400 Anxiety does nothing for you, right? 01:07:14.400 --> 01:07:17.520 Who by being anxious can add one hour to the span of 01:07:17.520 --> 01:07:18.320 his life? 01:07:18.320 --> 01:07:19.840 No one. 01:07:19.840 --> 01:07:23.520 You have no control over these things ultimately. 01:07:23.520 --> 01:07:27.280 And that isn't it's not nihilism or anything like that. 01:07:27.280 --> 01:07:29.840 It's just recognizing that everything is in God's hands. 01:07:29.840 --> 01:07:33.360 And so as Christians, we can be secure because we know that 01:07:33.600 --> 01:07:38.000 God will God will bless our efforts, and God will intend all 01:07:38.000 --> 01:07:40.800 things for the good, and the outcome will be for the good 01:07:40.800 --> 01:07:42.720 of those who trust in him. 01:07:42.720 --> 01:07:44.960 And so we trust in God. 01:07:44.960 --> 01:07:47.600 And we trust in God because he is the one who chose 01:07:47.760 --> 01:07:48.560 us. We didn't choose him. 01:07:49.360 --> 01:07:53.120 Now if we chose him, that's that's not great news because if 01:07:53.120 --> 01:07:56.560 we had to choose God, then it's incumbent on us, right? 01:07:56.560 --> 01:07:57.600 Well, was I good enough? 01:07:57.600 --> 01:07:58.640 Did I try hard enough? 01:07:58.640 --> 01:08:00.560 Did I choose strongly enough? 01:08:00.560 --> 01:08:02.960 Did I all these things, all these worries. 01:08:03.040 --> 01:08:05.040 That's not what Scripture says. 01:08:05.040 --> 01:08:08.080 Scripture says that we love God because He first loved us. 01:08:08.080 --> 01:08:09.520 That's the whole point of election. 01:08:09.520 --> 01:08:13.200 This is incidentally tying back to the Reform versus the Lutherans. 01:08:13.200 --> 01:08:15.360 The Lutheran conception, and I will say it is the one in 01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:19.040 Scripture, I'll just be blunt on that, is that election is gospel. 01:08:19.040 --> 01:08:22.960 Election's great news because God chose you, God loves you. 01:08:22.960 --> 01:08:25.920 Your name was written in the book of life before the foundations 01:08:25.920 --> 01:08:27.360 of the earth were laid. 01:08:27.360 --> 01:08:30.320 So So, yes, there's stuff to be done here in time. 01:08:30.320 --> 01:08:32.320 There's a lot of work to be done here in time. 01:08:32.320 --> 01:08:36.560 Like I said, my to-do list is insane at this point. 01:08:36.560 --> 01:08:39.280 But it doesn't worry me and it shouldn't worry you. 01:08:39.280 --> 01:08:44.080 Just wake up, put in an honest day's work, and leave the 01:08:44.080 --> 01:08:44.960 rest to God. 01:08:44.960 --> 01:08:46.400 That's really all there is to life. 01:08:46.400 --> 01:08:51.440 People want to make life so incredibly complicated when in reality, life 01:08:51.440 --> 01:08:53.360 is pretty simple. 01:08:53.360 --> 01:08:58.560 Wake up, eat, enjoy your time, have some tea, have a beer, 01:08:58.560 --> 01:09:03.200 whatever it happens to be, put in your honest day's work, read 01:09:03.200 --> 01:09:05.360 scripture, pray, go to sleep. 01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:06.960 Pretty simple. 01:09:06.960 --> 01:09:07.440 So So 01:09:09.200 --> 01:09:12.560 yes, I recognize that anxiety is a very real thing, and I 01:09:12.560 --> 01:09:16.880 recognize that the current world in which we live is a bit 01:09:16.880 --> 01:09:19.200 of a dumpster fire to be 01:09:20.640 --> 01:09:24.000 sort of to have an understatement of things there. 01:09:24.000 --> 01:09:27.680 But just because our world is currently a mess doesn't mean that 01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:31.280 God isn't still on his throne, doesn't mean that he isn't still 01:09:31.280 --> 01:09:34.560 one hundred percent in control, or that his plan has gone off 01:09:34.560 --> 01:09:36.160 the rails. 01:09:36.160 --> 01:09:39.600 He's still in charge, he still cares for us, and he is 01:09:39.600 --> 01:09:40.800 still watching over us. 01:09:40.800 --> 01:09:45.680 So when you have anxiety, focus on God, pray the Lord's Prayer, 01:09:45.680 --> 01:09:50.160 and read the passage of the scripture that comfort you, whatever passages 01:09:50.160 --> 01:09:51.760 those happen to be. 01:09:51.760 --> 01:09:55.440 For many men it's the Psalms, for some men it's going to 01:09:55.440 --> 01:09:57.520 be Ecclesiastes or Job. 01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:00.080 You may not be the kind of man for whom Ecclesiastes and 01:10:00.080 --> 01:10:01.680 Job are comforting. 01:10:01.680 --> 01:10:04.400 If not, that's fine, read other passages. 01:10:04.400 --> 01:10:08.400 But many men have found comfort in those as well, recognizing that 01:10:08.400 --> 01:10:10.480 God is always ultimately in control and 01:10:11.600 --> 01:10:16.400 despite how bleak human life may look at times, everything turns out 01:10:16.400 --> 01:10:20.000 for the good of those who are called according to his purposes. 01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:49.200 I think I will answer this one and make it the last 01:10:49.200 --> 01:10:52.240 one. I'm going to do sort of Do sort of a a 01:10:52.240 --> 01:10:56.000 cursory answer here instead of the full deep dive, because the deep 01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:58.160 dive honestly is about four hours. 01:10:59.440 --> 01:11:00.560 Question 16. 01:11:00.560 --> 01:11:03.280 What do you think about the claims that Matthew, Mark, and Luke 01:11:03.280 --> 01:11:06.640 are all consistent with each other, but John deviates from them in 01:11:06.640 --> 01:11:10.240 huge ways and is also much newer so less reliable. 01:11:10.240 --> 01:11:14.000 This is something that has been recognized by Christians, theologians, and others 01:11:14.240 --> 01:11:15.840 from the very beginning. 01:11:15.840 --> 01:11:19.920 That's what we call the first three the synoptic gospels, because they 01:11:19.920 --> 01:11:21.600 are a different thing. 01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:27.600 The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are giving a narrative of Christ's 01:11:27.600 --> 01:11:33.280 time on earth, of his ministry and surrounding facts. 01:11:33.280 --> 01:11:35.600 John is doing something different. 01:11:35.600 --> 01:11:40.480 John is in essence a an early version of what we would 01:11:40.480 --> 01:11:43.120 probably call a theology textbook. 01:11:43.120 --> 01:11:48.000 It is approaching teaching the faith in a different way from how 01:11:48.000 --> 01:11:50.880 it is approached by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 01:11:50.880 --> 01:11:53.120 And there's nothing wrong with that. 01:11:53.120 --> 01:11:57.280 God has just given us the truth in multiple forms so that 01:11:57.280 --> 01:11:59.680 we can understand more of it. 01:11:59.680 --> 01:12:02.960 It's kind of like repetition is one of the ways we learn, 01:12:02.960 --> 01:12:06.240 right? Another way that we learn is coming at an issue from 01:12:06.720 --> 01:12:08.000 multiple angles. 01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:12.240 Maybe the first approach doesn't really get it to stick in your 01:12:12.240 --> 01:12:15.440 mind. Maybe the second doesn't, but maybe the third does. 01:12:15.440 --> 01:12:18.320 And so God has given us different narratives. 01:12:18.320 --> 01:12:19.840 They are all consonant with one another. 01:12:20.080 --> 01:12:21.600 They don't conflict. 01:12:21.600 --> 01:12:26.320 But he has given us different narratives from different authors that emphasize 01:12:26.320 --> 01:12:27.680 things in different ways. 01:12:27.680 --> 01:12:31.040 And so we gain something from reading each one of the Gospels, 01:12:31.040 --> 01:12:32.160 including John. 01:12:32.160 --> 01:12:37.120 But yes, John is John is different, and you can recognize that 01:12:37.120 --> 01:12:38.960 from the very beginning of the book, right? 01:12:38.960 --> 01:12:40.640 In the beginning was the word. 01:12:40.640 --> 01:12:45.760 That's a very different way to start from the other gospels, but 01:12:45.760 --> 01:12:47.840 that's because he's approaching it a different way. 01:12:47.840 --> 01:12:51.760 And I think read it like it's a theology textbook, and you'll 01:12:51.760 --> 01:12:54.960 probably get more out of it, instead of reading it as just 01:12:54.960 --> 01:12:58.320 being sort of a a pure or a simple narrative, which is 01:12:58.320 --> 01:13:08.000 often, but not exclusively what the other gospels are. 01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:10.880 I think that will be it for this week unless I scroll 01:13:10.880 --> 01:13:13.040 and find one that I can answer quickly here 01:13:26.560 --> 01:13:28.320 I think I can probably answer this one quickly. 01:13:28.320 --> 01:13:29.600 So let's just do one more question. 01:13:29.600 --> 01:13:31.040 Question 17. 01:13:33.440 --> 01:13:36.000 Can I make a video game with Christian influence? 01:13:36.000 --> 01:13:39.280 How do I do this without blasphemy. 01:13:39.280 --> 01:13:42.160 And so the answer is that yes, I think you can do 01:13:42.160 --> 01:13:43.760 Christian influence. 01:13:43.760 --> 01:13:47.040 And the question then would be how are you splitting it, right? 01:13:47.040 --> 01:13:50.640 Are you taking the approach of explicitly Christian or are you taking 01:13:50.640 --> 01:13:52.000 the approach of Tolkien? 01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:53.280 Or of even C. 01:13:53.280 --> 01:13:56.320 F. Slewis, who is a little more explicit, but not entirely. 01:13:56.320 --> 01:14:00.880 So I think you can extract out the lessons of Christianity and 01:14:00.880 --> 01:14:05.840 the worldview and build that into a game or a fiction novel 01:14:05.840 --> 01:14:10.720 or anything like that, and still get through many of those lessons 01:14:10.720 --> 01:14:15.040 from Christianity in a useful way without being explicitly Christian. 01:14:15.040 --> 01:14:16.560 Sometimes I think that's more effective. 01:14:16.560 --> 01:14:18.000 I think the Tolkien or the C. 01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:21.440 S. Lewis approach is more effective than I I can't think as 01:14:21.600 --> 01:14:23.600 any of them right now, but some of the other authors who 01:14:23.600 --> 01:14:27.920 are very kind of weirdly explicitly Christian in their fiction universe, I 01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:29.680 don't think it's always as effective 01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:37.280 to try to take literal Christianity and inject it into a fictional 01:14:37.280 --> 01:14:42.000 world. I think that extrapolating out the lessons and the worldview and 01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:42.320 then using 01:14:43.280 --> 01:14:46.800 that is probably going to be the more effective and the safer 01:14:46.800 --> 01:14:49.680 route. Does that mean you can't be explicitly Christian? 01:14:49.680 --> 01:14:52.080 Does it mean you can't say that someone in your novel worships 01:14:52.080 --> 01:14:53.200 Jesus Christ? 01:14:53.200 --> 01:14:54.720 No, I don't think that that's the case. 01:14:54.720 --> 01:14:56.640 I think that you could do that even in a video game, 01:14:56.640 --> 01:15:00.000 right? But I think you're going to find that it is easier 01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:07.280 and more effective to take that sort of abstracted approach instead. 01:15:07.280 --> 01:15:10.640 But I think that I think that is going to be it 01:15:10.960 --> 01:15:11.840 for this week. 01:15:11.840 --> 01:15:14.480 I think I will try to go a little longer next week. 01:15:14.480 --> 01:15:16.480 This week I just have to get going. 01:15:16.480 --> 01:15:17.040 I have somewhere 01:15:17.040 --> 01:15:18.240 I have to be in a little bit 01:15:18.240 --> 01:15:21.680 here. But at any rate, thank you to all of you who 01:15:21.680 --> 01:15:22.480 submitted questions. 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:24.480 It's always good to be able to take this time. 01:15:24.480 --> 01:15:26.560 I'm glad that I was able to this week. 01:15:26.560 --> 01:15:29.680 I try not to miss two weeks in a row, but certainly 01:15:29.680 --> 01:15:32.960 I will as best I can never miss three weeks in a 01:15:32.960 --> 01:15:35.680 row, unless I'm you know, unable. 01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:39.360 If I'm in prison, then I have an excuse, right? 01:15:39.360 --> 01:15:42.160 But that is again up to God whether or not that sort 01:15:42.160 --> 01:15:43.120 of thing happens. 01:15:43.120 --> 01:15:45.840 But at any rate it is Friday. 01:15:45.840 --> 01:15:48.560 It's a little bit earlier this time because again I have an 01:15:48.560 --> 01:15:52.240 appointment so I had to schedule this a little earlier this week. 01:15:52.240 --> 01:15:55.760 So by all means go out and enjoy your weekend. 01:15:55.760 --> 01:15:59.360 It is of course Reformation Day today and tomorrow is the beginning 01:15:59.360 --> 01:16:03.200 of Al Hallowtide, well today rather is the beginning of all Halloween, 01:16:03.200 --> 01:16:07.040 otherwise known as Halloween, which is indeed a Christian holiday, so don't 01:16:07.040 --> 01:16:10.880 feel bad about celebrating that, touched on that in the last stream 01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:13.120 actually. So if you didn't hear that question, by all means go 01:16:13.120 --> 01:16:14.480 and listen to that. 01:16:15.120 --> 01:16:17.680 But that is it for me this week. 01:16:17.680 --> 01:16:19.440 Go to church on Sunday. 01:16:19.440 --> 01:16:22.080 Like I always say, get out and enjoy the natural world a 01:16:22.080 --> 01:16:23.120 little bit this weekend. 01:16:23.120 --> 01:16:25.200 It is beautiful outside right now. 01:16:25.200 --> 01:16:27.360 The leaves are all changing where I am, and maybe they are 01:16:27.360 --> 01:16:30.560 where you maybe they are where you are too. 01:16:30.560 --> 01:16:35.200 Go to church on Sunday, and until I see you next week, 01:16:35.200 --> 01:16:36.640 God bless. 01:16:36.880 --> 01:16:38.080 Yeah, to have 01:16:40.400 --> 01:16:40.480 a 01:16:51.520 --> 01:18:24.000 lot 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:24.320 Yeah, but 01:18:26.160 --> 01:18:27.520 it's a post no 01:18:34.000 --> 01:18:34.080 one.