Theology Expert: If Catholics Are Right, What Happens to Protestants? | Gavin Ortlund

- There's no hint of an office associated with Peter in the New Testament. It's Peter, the guy. - Every single time I open up my phone, I'm getting emails of when I'm coming home to Rome. Is it wrong that these people are kneeling at St. John? - I would say yes. - How do we deal with the Mary issue? - There's so many church fathers and other early Christian writers who seem to just assume that Mary was sinful. - I gotta ask this 'cause I wrestle with this a lot. - Let's say I die tonight and I'm a Protestant, but Catholicism is 1,000% true. Am I in trouble? - I think that. - Hey, before we dive in, if these videos have meant anything to you, if they've helped your faith or brought you closer to God in any way, make sure you're actually subscribed. A lot of people watch every single week and still haven't hit that button. It only takes two seconds and it helps us reach more people with the gospel. 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All right, let's get into this episode. What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bricecropper podcast. I'm Bryson. Hey, we have an incredible special guest. We have Gavin Orland on. Thanks for joining me. I'm excited to do it. Appreciate your work. This will be really fun to talk. One of the things that fascinates me about you the most is I just think you're brilliant. That's the word that comes to mind when I think-- I really am. I don't like to bring it all. I think, Tony said I'm just gonna-- You just keep ragging. This is the big encouragement thing. No, I love, I'm just so fascinated by like, there's so many people that I meet that I'm just like, you are a sponge of wisdom and you absorb so much. And the way that you spout off scripture and these quotes from church fathers. I'm like, dude, I'm just trying to figure out how to memorize three verses back to back. So I'm so encouraged by you. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate the work you're doing. I think a common passion we have is for evangelism. And just as we were talking a moment before we started, people are asking questions right now. People are curious. And so what I want to be is just a friend to people who are asking questions. I want to be an evangelist. I want to point people to Jesus. And I feel like I'm just learning as I go in the podcasting world. But I just think it's an exciting time to talk about the gospel. And that's what I want to give my life to. Amen. I feel the same way. You have a PhD in historical theology. You teach it at seminary and Christianity today even named one of your books as the book of the year. So if anyone doesn't know who you are, who is Gavin Orgland? Oh, man, like I say, what I want to be is known as someone who is a friend, who is loved by Jesus, who wants to direct others to the love of Jesus. A big part of my life is being a husband and father. So I have five kids ages four to 13. I miss them as I'm visiting out here in California and my wife esters my best friend. And then in terms of ministry, I mean, what I really am about is I believe the gospel is true. And I believe it is the answer to the deepest problems we have collectively in the world, but also personally. And I really believe being loved by Jesus and experiencing his, him as a shepherd over your life is the answer to everything. And I just think a lot of people need to hear that message right now. So when you say, who am I? I hope to be a messenger to ring a bell really loudly and say that. Wow. I mean, over and over and over. Jesus is real. He loves you with an enthralling love. And he can change everything about your life, taking you from the darkness to the light. That can be true for anybody. And I just want to tell people about that. That's who I am. But you were a senior pastor before you really focused on the ministry that you're doing now. What made you step away from being a senior pastor? Yeah, it was a confluence of factors at different levels. And I still have a role at our current church. I teach a seminar class, kind of like a Sunday school class, each Sunday, most semesters and help out with some of the teaching there. But to my own surprise, found myself drawn into the world of YouTube. And I found it's a way to meet needs. For better or for worse, probably mostly for worse, people go to YouTube with answers or with questions, looking for answers. And people go to podcasts and people go elsewhere. And if nobody's there proclaiming the gospel, then we're in trouble. YouTube is not the only thing I do. I write and I travel. I teach at Phoenix Seminary Talbot. But it has become a part of my ministry. And again, the heart there is just wanting to bring gospel answers to the spiritual anxiety that's out there. And I think there are lots of opportunities. So yeah, the heartbeat of it all is just saying, how can I spend my life the best way? And not even knowing the answer to that, but just how can I follow Jesus step by step as I'm trying to do that? You do a lot of other stuff. You defend the faith in a lot of different ways. But you know, we're just talking a moment ago. Catholicism and orthodoxy. You're answering a lot of those questions. The one thing that has fascinated me so much is right now it seems like a lot of non-denominational or Protestant or evangelical Christians are leaving that and going towards orthodoxy and Catholicism. I mean, every single time I open up my phone, I'm getting emails of when I'm coming home to Rome, you know, all this stuff. I assume you probably do too with amazing conversations that you have, like, is that actually happening or people actually going more towards Catholicism or is it actually, why do you think that's a case? - I do think that is happening. How much it's happening is tough to gauge. It can be overblown just in the sense that some of these conversations happen over the internet and the internet is not all of life. And so it can create sometimes an impression that everybody's having this conversation or that. And it's not as far reaching as it can seem on the internet, on the other hand, when I travel and ask about things, I think this is a significant trend right now. It just seems 'cause I hear so much about people, whether it's Roman Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, or just anxiety within Protestantism, people having lots of questions about where they fit into church history, things that I don't think were really on the radar screen as much like 10 years ago, and it's just risen up. And I never set out to get into these things, but when you're doing ministry, some things just pop up and you find yourself drawn into them. And I've just sought to try to provide a voice that I hope is charitable and loving and recognizes common ground we have, but also is clear to articulate Protestant distinctives. I don't think it's wrong for Protestants to stand up and explain why the reformation happened, what it is we believe. And so I try to do that in a rigorous way, however I can. But yeah, I definitely think these conversations are happening. I mean, it's hard not to, you get those emails. Everybody, you know, it's out there, it's happening. But like, why do you think that people are so drawn to that? Do you think it's just 'cause it's like buzzing online? Do you think maybe that's been the grasp or do you really think it's a genuine curiosity? 'Cause at least for me, I remember growing, I'm from like a small town in Georgia. So it was like you were Southern Baptist, maybe Methodist, you had the occasional Presbyterian, but like pretty much everyone was like in this, you know, non-denominational Southern roots kind of vibe. And so I remember if I had a Catholic friend, it would be rare, or it would be a part of like, maybe they're ethnic heritage, and they were a large part of their ethnic heritage, just Catholic or whatever. Didn't really know anyone that was Orthodox growing up. And now I feel like left and right. People I know who were Protestant are just flipping a switch and this isn't that. Which, you know, I don't know how you feel about this. In my opinion, if it makes someone fall more in love with Jesus, I like want them to fall more in love with Jesus. I really have, you know, I have a ton of questions on that, but what do you think is so glamorous maybe about the transition? - Yeah, it's so hard to think this through, and I'll try to answer this question as best as I can, leaving allowance for all the diversity of factors in every case, right? Because every story is different. I don't want to highlight a trend, and then people to feel like I'm stapling that onto every different story that's out there, you know? But I do think there's a genuine anxiety about our place in history. And I sense this a lot, especially from young men, just this sense of where do I fit in? Where do I belong? And then maybe underneath that even, what is it that is really stable? What's the solid rock I can stand on? And people are looking for that. And I think sometimes we can even look to church traditions for that sense of stability, you know, because the world feels so chaotic these days. And it's not just Christian traditions where you see this dynamic. It feels like people are looking for something that's not gonna bend with the times that stood the test of time that feels ancient and rigorous. And I think my heart in my defense of Protestantism really at its rock bottom isn't that, oh, I just really care about this little niche theology issue. It's that I want the ultimate need of someone's heart for stability and for rooting. to come from the gospel itself and I think your wonderful instinct of just wanting to support whatever promotes love for Jesus. In my opinion, that is itself a fairly Protestant mentality because Protestants do put less emphasis upon one particular institution and that's one thing I value about Protestantism, but of course many of our friends and other traditions can teach us about this as well. So try to approach these conversations with an open heart and with humility to learn from the wonderful Christians and these other traditions. But at the end of the day, I do think there can be a danger in some cases of someone looking to make a change and it could even be a change from one Protestant tradition to another, something like this. We're the need in their heart and this doesn't displace all the tough theological questions, but the need in the heart is they're looking for something that I believe ultimately comes through the gospel itself. Now that doesn't take away, it doesn't invalidate every change and it doesn't answer every question, but at least the question to be asking at the front end, I think, it's a question I'm always asking when I'm interfacing with someone is have they discovered the gospel itself as the ultimate identity, the ultimate safety, the ultimate security, the ultimate grounding in the chaos of the world. And I hope that comes across the right way. That's just my passion for people to experience that. Maybe from a broader perspective outside of just Protestantism, Catholicism, orthodoxy, one question I've always had is what then goes from being a secondary issue to a major issue? And I don't mean just like, oh, do we believe in the, do we agree on the Trinity? Do we agree in the hypostatic union of Christ? Do we agree on the things? I'm talking like if someone thinks that, you know, if there's a tradition that believes salvation is faith plus, you know, kind of like the book of Galatians faith plus circumcision. And those guys at the Church of Galatia, Paul writes that letter to them. And there's going to be some dudes that are like, man, Paul's whack. I'm not agreeing with what he's saying. Would those guys then go to hell because they believed that? Even though it was like a, like do you kind of get what I'm saying? When does something cross the line of going, no, this is something that we would consider heresy? Yeah. Oh man. This is, so I have a whole book called finding the right hills to die on. That's trying to answer this really important question because this is, it's complicated. And I think it's wise to be circumspect and careful and sort of one step at a time, especially when we're talking about individuals, because ultimately, my, my conviction is that does come down to where someone's own heart is at toward God. And we don't see that. But when it comes to theology, I mean, I think the part of this that we do need to be clear about because of books like Galatians is that it is at least possible to have a Jesus plus gospel, Jesus plus, whether it be Jesus plus circumcision or Jesus plus fill in the blank. And all of us can be, can be drawn into that. And so I think a book like Galatians is in our Bible for a reason to help warn us against that. It's Jesus alone. He is that, solid rock. That's my, that's why I'm trying to relentlessly beat this drum about the gospel. And in my book, we'll talk about, I just want to make Jesus so unavoidable in every situation, in every, in every conversation. I learn about that from my Christian friends in all kinds of different traditions. I learn from them. But the emphasis of my ministry is let's just relentlessly bring things back to the gospel. And yeah, it's Jesus alone. And if we add to the gospel, we're actually taking away from the gospel. When it comes to, you know, speaking on theology, I mean, we have councils for a reason. I mean, these guys were fighting off her. It takes left and right like back of the day, which is awesome. You know, one, I think one of the pushbacks that Protestants get is the idea of solar scriptura that we believe that scripture is the only infallible source. And I, you know, I've heard people say, Oh, you reject church history. I obviously love church history. You do too. If anyone watches your videos, they'd be like Gavin loves church history. But they say, but they say that, you know, solar scriptura can't be true because it's not found in the Bible. What, what, how would we respond to that? What, what is kind of the wrestle with that? And the balance of, no, we respect church history, but also. Yeah. I think it helps you, you defined solar scriptura perfectly just there, speaking of the only infallible rule. It doesn't mean it's the only rule of any kind. And it is not the idea that you have to have an explicit proof text for everything you believe. So when people say, so let's scripture is not in the Bible, therefore it's self-defeating, I would push back to say, it doesn't need to be explicitly there. And if you just read Protestant confessions of faith and historical statements about this topic, they talk about good and necessary consequence from scripture. We can deduce things from scripture. The deduction that leads to solar scriptura is simply, God has more authority than any other person. Therefore his speech has more authority than any other speech. Church councils are wonderful. We have to have them. And Protestants have had, you know, in each different Protestant tradition, we have standards that come from confessional documents. So for me as a reformed Christian, if I were to deny the Trinity, I would be barred from the Lord's supper at my table. And I would lose my ministerial credentials. So those are authoritative over me. They are also not the speech of God. And we believe scripture is the speech of God. So I think solar scriptura, though it is often, and let's blame ourselves, we Protestants often speak about it or practice it poorly. But the basic idea I think is noble. I think it is true. I think it is good. I think it is very modest and reasonable to say, let's let what God has revealed be the ultimate North star. And let's keep ourselves accountable to that. Because as Protestants, while speaking for myself, I do have concerns that when you make church councils or other church functions of some kind infallible, then they become irreformable. And they're a functionally put at a similar level description. And now you can be yokes to something. And I think this is similar to what Jesus is opposing in Mark chapter 7 when he's saying you nullify the word of God. And they could have said, oh, where's the verse? His opponents could have said, where's the verse in the Old Testament that says? The scriptures are above our oral traditions or something like that. But they don't need to be a verse like that because it follows as a deduction from what the scriptures are that they're the very words of God. And the words of God have authority over even those valuable and useful products of church history. I think, wow, that's interesting. Because when I was doing the, I was reading a lot in church history probably like a few weeks ago, just like the development of the church and looking at all that stuff. And they're like some, there are some, I mean, growth is just a part of life for like adaptations. I think, you know, like, I guess what I was looking at was when elder, the word, the same word for elder and overseer, it went from being interchangeable to then they just made like bishop a separate role. And then the bishop kind of absorbed teacher prophet apostle. And then they started, there was, it seemed to be like a little bit of this like, as you're going before you get to the council of Nicea, like the bishop progressively began to gain more power and like an overwhelming amount of power. And it got to a point where we're going, oh, is there maybe some checks and balances on balance there? And then that's where I would go, okay, maybe it's not, I guess where do you, where, where would someone then draw the line on growth and adaptation? Because one of the pushbacks I just get just having conversations with even non-Christians is, oh, well, that's just your interpretation of scripture, hermanutics and the way that you interpret it. And so just because Sally over here says is more progressive in their thinking and they say, well, this is better or even when it comes down to the church, how the church grows in adapts and say, well, this is how we interpret this passage. Like, what is the line of interpretation when it comes to scripture or history and things like that? Yeah, boy, these are such good questions. I mean, I think for the church offices point, I think you're right that it's undeniable we see an evolution and growth in the church in these various offices and other functions of the church. I mean, it's even a long time before you get at canonical councils into church history. And a lot of that has to do with the Roman Empire and how things are unfolding. But not just bishops, then you get archbishops and cardinals and archdeacons and either is development in church offices. And I think my defensive Protestantism on this point would be to say, Protestants historically have taken church councils extremely seriously. And it is not fair to Protestants to act like, well, you know, every individual Protestant is their own authority just calling everything again, the moment I deny the Trinity. And that's just one example of a doctrine. The moment I do that, I'm barred from the table at my church. And that's why I'm under that system of doctrine, same with my ordination vows, which I took seriously before the Lord. And Protestants have always taken that aspect seriously. But I think also, you know, there is this dynamic where you're in a conversation with someone, anybody can always say, well, that's just your interpretation, right? That's just, but I do think that's a human dynamic that is hard to fully overcome. Sometimes if I may say this with love and respect for my friends in different Christian traditions, I think sometimes their systems oversell a solution to that problem. As though in this context, you know, we solve the problem of interpretation, but I've been in a lot of dialogues with my wonderful friends in these traditions where the same kind of questions come up. And even like how do you interpret? Magisterial teaching 800 years ago versus now. Oh my goodness, there's such a kaleidoscopic range of answers to these things. So some of, I guess, that's not really a jab or a criticism. It's just an observation that some of these ambiguities that are just human issues are there across the board in all of our traditions. But the Protestant emphasis is not it's just up to you and your Bible. The Protestant emphasis is our authoritative creeds and confessional documents are still themselves fallible. And therefore they're reformable in light of scripture. They're not at the same level as God's word. And the heart of that is God is spoken through the scriptures. Christianity is a revealed religion. We have to be accountable to what God has said. And what do we do as Protestants when we find particular dogmas or doctrines in another tradition that are obligatory? You have to adhere to it. It's infallible teaching. And yet you're in your conscience as I am. You're not persuaded. It's true. And that's the dilemma that you face. And one of the things that I value about Protestantism. But hopefully there's some nice things I can say about these other traditions too as we keep going here. I'm being awfully defensive of Protestants. No, I mean, it is fascinating to me because I think, well, you know, I got the chance to sit down with Trent Horn, which I love to. And I think he's awesome. And he's so, so smart. Just respect him a ton. And you're right. Like when you hear more of maybe for a lack of better terms, the systems and church authority succession and all these things. And you go, okay, like there seem, these seem convincing. It does not kind of throw your brain for a loop, especially maybe even outside of just like outside of just, you know, other Catholic perspectives. When I go to the Bible museum in DC, my brain gets thrown for a loop when I'm looking at some of these old texts where I'm like, some of them do include the duro canonical books. Some of them don't. And I'm like, so what there could be one older that does include it. And then I'm just like, I'm thrown for a loop because as a Protestant, I don't, I don't necessarily like, you know, for like, I don't dog on the duro canonical books. It's just I don't find myself picking them up as much. And yeah. And is it, I guess is it possible that we have a fallible and fallible canon? Like is that bad that we could have that? I've done a lot of videos on this because this is I think is a really good objection to Protestants and to challenge us with. And I do think there are some answers to this. I would say, and I've defended this, that yes, the process by which the church discerned the books of Scripture is a fallible process. Now the reason I say that is twofold. One is I think that's how what we call the Old Testament was received by the people of Israel. They didn't have some infallible edict that said it. And yet Jesus held them to the law and the prophets or in Luke 24. There's a reference to the threefold law, Psalms, and writings. I can't remember the exact terms, but it's a tripartite. But at any rate, Jesus held people to the scriptures of his day. And that was the case without some infallible verdict. Similarly in the early church, the way the New Testament canon, at least, was sort of finalized. Maybe around 4th century at the end of that process. It wasn't through an ex-Cathedra statement from a pope or an ecumenical counsel. And about the Old Testament, there were disputes for a long time. And so if people say, oh, you Protestants have a fallible canon, my response is most people have always. And that is not necessarily an incoherent idea. It's a fallible response from the church to what God has revealed, recognizing and discerning the voice of God in these texts. And there are criteria that the church has used to make those distinctions. But I completely agree with your sense of, boy, there's a lot to criticize about contemporary Protestant practice, where we have not set up our people for success. We've not trained them in church history. They've never read the Deuteronological books. There's a weakness right there. We've gone from, they're not at the same level of Scripture, to, we've completely avoided them in many cases. And that's unfortunate. And so I understand a lot of these talking points that come against us have a lot of force because of those factors, even if I'm not ultimately persuaded that, oh, yeah, we need to leave Protestantism. I think there's a lot of good self-examination that is appropriate for Protestants right now. Because a lot of times, I think Protestants have also been fighting other battles. We've been facing secularism, for example, like from 1990 to 2020, 40 million people left the church. That is a huge amount. So so much of Protestant public witness has been on evangelism, on apologetics, and those things. In response to this increased interest in church history, one of the things I love to encourage Protestants to do is to take seriously some of these really good objections and then go back to our own roots and read what like the 17th century scholastic Protestants had to say about them. They were pretty good. They were pretty good theologians. And there's a lot of answers. We're just not aware of. Well, I think one of the things that I get intimidated by if I'm being completely honest is the research aspect. And it's not so much the reading. It's more so how do I know what I'm reading is true? I mean, I'm a big fan of Logos, big fan. I use them all the time, which is great and stuff like that. But if someone like isn't using, you know, maybe a like a software or something like that, or maybe the resources are condensed down and maybe more trusted, like when I'm researching just general topics online, I'm having to dig and dig and dig to finally actually find good stats, good statistics, and even separate from just reading on church history and old church documents. Finding statistics can be hard. I feel like Pastor has a statistic for everything, which is so funny. How are you going about your research to discover these things? It's a really good thing to wrestle with in the age of the internet where sometimes you'll read something, especially in the age of AI, where sometimes you're wondering, "Can I trust what I'm reading right now?" You know, I love to encourage people to read books. Preferably ones, especially if you're like doing academic research, books that have a legitimate publisher, and maybe they go through a peer review process, and don't rely just upon the internet and especially on podcasts and YouTube. Check what you're doing by reading. And the encouragement there is, it's not as intimidating as you think. Books, you can build habits for really getting into books, even historic books, like I mentioned the 17th century, Protestants, Galactic Theologians, Lutherans, and Anglicans, and Reformed. Most of us probably feel like, "Well, that's going to be really hard to read and hard to get into." Some of these books are actually easier to read than we expect. Another thing I'd like to encourage people to do is always hear from both sides of an issue. I think one problem we have is we just listen to our guy, right? Like, we get, that's my guy, and I'm just going to defend my beliefs by listening to him. And I would love to be a part, and this is why I appreciate whether it's Trent Horn or we mentioned Matt Frad earlier, these other Catholic friends where we can disagree, but I still respect them personally. And I would say, for to hear the Catholic side of this or whatever, go listen to them as well. And to be in an age of civility where we encourage people to really listen with charity to different perspectives, and then use their critical thinking. And the last thing I'd say is, the Holy Spirit is our dear friend who dwells within us. And he will help us. And as we have a humble heart before God and ask God to guide us, I know this sounds kind of simple, but if we're just looking to the Lord and saying, "Guide me. I'm seeking your truth. I need your help. I do believe we can trust that he's going to help us along." The Bible says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." So even in our studies, I think we can consecrate that to the Lord and say, "I'm using my mind to seek the truth. Lord, would you meet me in this process?" Hey, quick pause. If you've been feeling that pull to take in the next step in your education, listen. The four years you spend in college can determine who you become for the next 60. That's worth being intentional about. Whether it's finally finishing a degree, going deeper in your field, or stepping in a ministry, I want to point you towards a sponsor, Liberty University. Liberty's built for people with real lives and real schedules, and it's all from a Christian worldview. So your faith isn't something you leave at the door. You can actually pursue that next step without putting the rest of your life on hold. I actually went through Liberty myself and the flexibility is what made it work for me. I could keep building my career and my ministry while I earned my degree, and the professors genuinely poured into me instead of just handing out assignments. So if you've been thinking about it, go to Liberty.edu/brice to learn more. And when you use that link, Liberty will waive your registration fee. That's Liberty.edu/brice. All right, back to the episode. You know, first time in three talks about it in the last days, you know, people are going to love doctrine that tickles their ears. And I think one term that gets thrown so loosely around is false teacher. I feel like everybody's a false teacher now. This is by the internet. I mean, everybody, every time I open up the internet, it's like, man, somebody's been labeled a false teacher. And it can kind of seem intimidating and not necessarily in like, oh, I believe everything that I see online. But it's just, yeah. Well, well, if everybody's being labeled a false teacher, or who do you trust? What's the difference between Guess I want to know how do you spot a false teacher because I know I'm young. I'm 22 and I've passion for talking about Jesus and I know that I've unintentionally probably slipped up and said something that was incorrect. I know I don't know probably I definitely have done that. You know how do you discern oh someone just had a moment they falsely taught something that can they can repent and turn from versus false teacher. This is such an important question and a practical one and then needed it. And as you say I mean I've been called a false teacher and it is tragic how casually that can be thrown around. On the other hand there are there is such a thing as false teachers we do need to be aware of. I think two things help me as I think this through for to answer your question of how do you tell a false teacher. One is doing what I mentioned earlier is theological triage. Of course we're not going to be experts on that but even just being aware of this that not every doctrine is the same ranking and then we're studying and this is actually a huge thing I try to do in my videos is I'll take a topic and I'll say here let's triage this. Let's try to say is this a first rank issue is it second rank is a third rank because I actually think that's a huge need in the moment we're in right now based upon the mood of the world. A false teacher is not someone who is incorrect on a on one or two second or third rank issues. So a false teacher is not someone who well I disagree with them on baptism or something like that the mode of baptism that's an important issue but that's not a first rank issue and boy that might seem basic but I've learned you know we it never it never hurts to keep circling back to that and teaching our people to think in terms of triage. So that's one thing is a false teacher is someone who is teaching first rank errors. They're not just someone well that's my dear Christian brother and I just disagree on the interpretation of scripture about something they're teaching errors that undermine the gospel itself. I think that's how the New Testament typically uses that terminology and the second thing that I look for is a lack of repentance or a hardheartedness. It's one thing if you make a mistake and then you say I am so sorry and you are teachable and you correct the mistake and you make repairs who hasn't made a mistake in what we say and we are all growing but false teachers are often hotty they're often un-unteachable, un-correctable, unaccountable and so when you've got a combination of unaccountable not open to pushback and disrupting the first rank issues that's where I think this rhetoric needs to be applied and really fits. Can a second area or third or tertiary issue become a first rank issue if attached to something like salvation or you know I think it kind of goes back to what I was asking earlier about the if someone says faith plus some right like would that then become a first rank issue because they're taking you know I don't know circumcision which we you know we could say well let's just use baptism spiritual circumcision if someone said faith plus does that then make it a first rank issue because for a tradition that believes faith plus baptism to them that's a big deal like that's a that is a big deal on like it on on their perception. Yeah yeah yeah I definitely think the the second rank and third rank issues can become first rank and that all of this ranking should take into account every factor for the spirit with which the view is held the purpose to which it is deployed so for example let's take the millennium of revelation 20 yeah I don't think that itself is a first rank issue but if someone came along and said well you have to believe that we are currently in the millennium of revelation 20 right now or you cannot be a member of our church and we're saying you're a heretic and they start attaching that level of importance to it well now you've just cracked the the you've gone way up on the triage rank yeah but now okay so let me ask you this can someone agree on the first rank second rank third third rank issues and still be a false teacher agree on them so I mean like not any like like okay like they let's say first rank second rank third rank um but could they then be a false teacher in that way because when I read like false teacher is a wolf in sheep's clothing mm-hmm I go okay like yeah they're probably going to say some stuff that tickles people's ears obviously that's the case we see them first in a three but I'm like could they could they be unlike unto so undercover that it's so hard to tell yeah yeah I see what I think I see what you're asking this is tricky because yeah this is the hard thing about false teachers they say a lot of true things intermingled with whatever the errors may be I think we have these different categories false teacher and wolf are slightly different categories interesting and how do you differentiate those in my mind a wolf is someone who's devouring the sheep and the false teacher is someone who is leading a stray hence the word teacher there but you could be a wolf and have totally perfect theology but because of moral failings you could be a bully you could be a fraud financially you could be stealing you could be immoral in other ways and unfortunately we have to be honest that we see pastoral abuse that happens so there's not just one way that we can that that a person in the name of Christian ministry can do incredible damage to the body of Christ in other words it's not like everyone who is deeply immoral isn't necessarily also with bad theology and so yeah I think you can get a perfect theology but because of issues of character we put in the category of wolf so we would say probably that a wolf is more in the unrependence in category per se because I think I think I love that quality you said like a hard and hard unteachable both are definitely probably going to fall into that category whether you're falsely right wolf but it seems to me that the wolf is more someone who you know their intention is I'm just going to do this for money or I'm not I'm going to be dishonest with my money I'm going to take more than I should or I'm going to misplace it you know or maybe it's even moral you know drug addiction behind closed doors alcohol addiction and I don't know I think so and I would even use the word wolf so carefully to to to specifically identify someone who is damaging the sheep of Christ that's what that term connotes this idea of your your eating sheep yeah and so there could be a pastor who's very immature very sinful very selfish but not even a wolf their foolish they might be disqualified from pastoral ministry but the term wolf has this specific reference so there's lots of different ways we can fall short boy isn't it so bring the talk about this yes it is because I'm just like I get so like I don't know I guess not even just for my sake like I just mean others I've always just been so hesitant to be like oh that guys exactly that guy so because well first I know what it's like and you you've even mentioned you said I've been called a false teacher like I and I always want to be like a teachable correctable like hey if something's wrong but I I've just always been so hesitant because that is a big claim to make about somebody exactly that guy's like you're attacking that dude's character what he does behind you're making an assumption about what he does behind closed doors and like bro you saw a 30 second video clip of this guy which which is so fascinating to me but I I guess on the long along the lines of false teacher false profit what what qualify someone to be a false profit is that even something that we see nowadays well I'm a continuationist in my view of spiritual gifts and so I believe in the gift of prophecy same and today and so if someone is claiming to have that gift but is speaking falsehoods and is leading people astray from the gospel that could be a category for which that term would apply but they but how how would you deal with that instead of Old Testament stoning how do you deal with that guy yeah these Old Testament verses are not applicable in the new covenant directly so good to know right if we clear up nothing else in this podcast we can get that one out there just stone the guy that told you when the rapture was happening exactly yeah no we want to be I mean even that's the other thing is I love what you said a moment ago whatever category we're dealing with here let's be slow to get there like let's escalate to that point not just jump right out of the gate with these severe labels and it may there may be lots of situations in life in life it seems to me where you might have really strong disagreements with someone and you might say you know here's why I disagree here's why I think their view is damaging but I'm still not going to call them a wolf because a wolf is someone who devours the sheep and if we look at the way the New Testament uses these categories it's for severe extreme situations now they they're those do exist and that's where and it's it's a thankless job but there are some people who do in a godly way we have lots of people who are you know have discernment ministries that are just recklessly attacking other ministers it's a major problem there are some though who who appropriately use those terms and there are times to do that yeah do you think that I guess I'm on this like false profit like I'm thinking profit because I mean in times it's obviously a big conversation right now big I think I mean it's always going to be big it's evergreen topic scares people are again and I get it but I just put it in the thumbnail and we'll get more views that kind of thing yeah that kind of thing which is like I don't know my stance has just always been we've always been in the end times ever since crisis has sent it into heaven like nothing new under the sun and just because the now river dries up doesn't mean that's going back next weekend, but on the prophetic side of it, I mean, obviously, and maybe we're going to get into more revelation, which I'm sorry if I'm pulling the end of this, but this almost, this, this, this, this missatialism idea that we're all going to be caught up in the sky has really inflicted this. The rapture's going to be this day. So be ready and like, sell your belongings left behind kind of vibe. And I just remember I watched this guy last year, Australian young man, who was so sold on the rapture happening. I think it was like September 20, something. And he made documents, hold during if him selling everything he had and getting people ready. And then that day came. And then we all went to sleep and woke up the next day. And he went online. He apologized. He was like, guys, I'm so sorry. Repented. And I'm like, wow, I respected that. A week later, he had a new date. And I was like, no, dude, bro, like we were not for all we were this close, this close. And I'm just like, how damaging is that? Is that like, are we like that kind of like false prophecy? Yeah. Yeah. Is that how damaging is that? Where do we fall in the category of like, is that just emotional high versus he's claiming profit? Yeah. You know what breaks my heart the most about these scenarios and we've seen so many of these in church history. Sometimes people get a huge following predicting the day, the rapture or second coming will happen. It comes and it goes and you think, okay, we've learned our lesson. But unfortunately, we keep doing this. But what breaks my heart is the human heart must be aching for something that makes us there. We're looking for we need a hope, right? Yeah. We want to look ahead to something and say, this world is crazy. I need a transcendent anchor and it's something beyond this world to look ahead to. And my message to people is not just defensively to go against an over focus on the rapture or thinking predict the date, but it's let's replace that with the true hope of the gospel. And that would include the second coming of Christ. We don't know the date that it's going to happen, but it is going to happen. And that can meet that need in our hearts. And that's what I want to say to people is just think about it every day. You know, when you start off your day, just think about it. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again and just calibrate your heart to that of fresh. And you'll be less tempted to over focus on the rapture timing. If that is like your buoyant hope sustaining you moment by moment. In regards to like maybe in times and fear, I'm definitely afraid of planes. It is definitely a control issue. So I hate the turbulence. Like I think I'm better than the 30 plus year experience file and I can take over up there. And if I'm being completely honest, like, I'm that guy that the second I sit in the seat, I like repent five times, you know, because I'm like, I'm like in this moment of fear. And I think, you know, take my, you know, my nuanced moment and just apply it to maybe it's in times for someone. Maybe it's Sunday morning before church is like their thing. Is it wrong? This is something I've just like tried to wrestle with. Is it wrong that in moments of fear, you kind of like double down out of fear on something like repentance? Is it wrong? That's obviously not the only time that I'm repenting. But you know, there's just something about that moment of like, Oh, I'm afraid, I'm fearful. I can just make sure I'm good. You know what I mean? Kind of thing. I know exactly what you mean. I've had times earlier in my life. I've done enough public speaking now that I don't get that nervous, but I've had times earlier in my life when I was nervous, I was like, you know, you feel that deep, dark anxiety like God helped me. And that will, that, that feeling definitely drives you to God. Yeah. And I, when I've learned to do with that is, you know, absolutely repent in that moment. But also part of the repentance can be, Lord, help me to keep a soft heart before you tomorrow morning after this is over, help, help what I'm feeling now to sort of get in my bloodstream and help me to keep a repentant heart before you, even when I'm not nervous. But I think so to try to take that moment and almost receive it as a teaching experience to say, yeah, this and, and actually, if this doesn't sound too intense to say, maybe even thinking of these as little anticipations of ultimately when we stand before the Lord. If there's ever a feeling of nervousness, it can remind us we're going to stand before God. So, so that's sobering, but then the good news is those in Jesus, if we've trusted in Him, we're clothed in His righteousness. We don't need to be afraid of that experience. Yeah. But it is good to have a trembling before God and something that I wrestle with, you know, kind of going back to maybe authority and church history, the Pope's a big deal. And just the way Catholics interpret, I think it's Matthew chapter 16 and all in the Bible. It's a rock. I will build my church. I mean, the magistrate, I mean, that they read that through is Peter's the first Pope. And from what I understand, the Protestant perspective is no Christ is that rock that we build off of, um, that, you know, that's, I haven't fully been convinced that Peter's the first Pope. Like that's just like where I stand, I'm just trying to, I kind of really want to talk about the Pope because he, he fascinates me. And I, I mean, I'm trying to feel how to navigate this honestly because I, I, you know, sometimes I don't want to accidentally say the wrong thing and, you know, people get upset. But I, you mean people get upset on the internet when you say the wrong thing? Really? Well, I can't believe it. Yeah. I know that's the first. Yeah. And I know that's the first. I, you know, I guess just the thing that blows my mind is like sometimes historically, I mean, even look, for example, Pope Leo reading the Filio Quay, he did a different thing this year. And like, as I'm like, okay, if the church, according to the Catholic perspective has this infallible authority and they can disagree even on the Filio Quay, what they include and what they don't include, I'm like, what should, how should we view the Pope as a Protestant? What is the case for Matthew 16, just kind of like that whole thing? I, I just want to be so cautious because the way I view it and I genuinely mean this to the most honest humble, just like, I'm like, yes, I respect him in the way that he gained authority in the Catholic church. I love it. But I'm like, also at the same time, I'm like, he is a guy. And I want to respect, I respect him and I just don't know how to navigate the relationship that we should have for the Pope as a Protestant. You know, I, I'm trekking with you. This is a huge area. I think the first thing just that is never hurts to come back to is for our Roman Catholic friends and those viewing this video right now. We can approach them with a disposition of love and humility and respect to learn from them. They have a very rich and noble tradition. And I think we can make this appeal that they could understand that either way this matters. If the Pope is the pastor of the entire church and that's a divinely ordained institution, that matters. If that is not true, but it is claimed to be true, then that matters. So you know, it's okay for us to take this seriously, come to a conclusion and argue for that conclusion and live in light of that conclusion and not act like, oh, it's no big deal. This is a big deal because of the level of authority being claimed. And so I'm not, I've learned to just kind of lean in to my Protestant identity on some of these issues and say, I'm not ashamed to be a Protestant and come to the, the conclusion of Protestants about the Pope. That would be, we don't agree that there is this office going back to Peter. And it looks to me in Matthew 16, that what is happening there is there is Peter's confession of Christ. Jesus asked them in the plural, who do you, plural, say that I am, Peter speaks on behalf of the disciples and he confesses who Jesus is, who are the Son of God. And then in response to that, Jesus gives this blessing upon Peter and the way many of the church fathers, including a gustant of hippo, interpreted this is, this is Peter representing the church in this act of confessing Christ so that the meaning of the rock, it is Peter in this confession, but it ultimately is oriented on to Christ. And I would just point out, and this is why I'm one reason I'm a Protestant is that there's no hint of an office associated with Peter in the New Testament. It's Peter the guy, okay, there's nothing so what, what the Roman Catholic view would have to say either they are or in some other way is Peter is the rock as the holder of this office. And that is what I think is lacking in the New Testament. In fact, I think it takes a long time into church history depending on how you define long. It takes time. It's not even like it's right out of the after the New Testament in 90 AD. It takes a while before you get the idea of a petrine office, specifically associated with the city of Rome. And so that that I think is what ultimately later develops, but I don't actually believe that's what's going on in Matthew 16 that there's this one office of Peter as the first of the bishops of Rome. I think that is more an apostolic confession that is being responded to by Christ with those words. And I actually can appeal to some pretty great church fathers like Augustin to that end. So that's how I view that passage as a Protestant. Well, then where would the papacy begin if not with Peter then with who? It depends upon upon when, how you define that and it, I often use the word accretion, which people, oh, man, people sometimes react strongly to this word, but it just means that's like a slow buildup, a gradual development. Something that's very hard to say when an accretion develops or when it begins, because it's slow. And so the question among historians is, at what point do you have, first of all, a single bishop at all in Rome, let alone a single bishop who's the pope, just a single bishop at all of any kind. And that is a disputed question. And you will find even Roman Catholic historians like Francis Sullivan wrote a book. He's a Roman Catholic historian and he's summarizing the state of scholarship. And he's saying, most scholars recognize that's into the second century before you get a single bishop. That's what Sullivan argues. Then you go to, when does that single bishop have the qualities that Vatican one speaks of and has associated with the pope? So the ability to teach in an infallible way, supremacy over the entire church. And I think a good case can be made that those are qualities that slowly come about over time, rather than going back all the way to Peter himself. Another Catholic perspective I get really stuck on are, it's, it's Mary, Saints, things of that sort. And the reason I get stuck on it is I did a, I went to Mexico a couple years ago, not into a major city. I was in, you know, a random one off city. And I went into this beautiful Catholic church up in this city. And I walked in and they had icons of the Saints, not even like picture icons, I'm talking statue icons of the Saints and people were writing prayers on these like bracelets and hanging them and kneeling before them and, um, especially Mary, especially Peter and especially Paul, um, and then I saw a couple of people in front of, uh, John. And I just remember looking at that going like, man, like I want people to kneel at the feet of Jesus. And it just, and I, I understand that I think a big Protestant misconception is that they're worshiping Saints, which I think just like, you know, take two Google searches and it's not necessarily worship. So I do want to acknowledge that like I don't, but I just remember seeing that and going like, man, that makes me, makes me feel a little off for sure, if I'm being honest, um, and you got a great video on the Saints that I, that I, that I loved, I just, is it, is it wrong that they're doing that? And I'm not trying to like box you in like a bad answer and just like I'm, I'm, is it wrong that these people are kneeling at St. John and hoping that will answer their, their prayers or pray on their behalf for these things or pass the word along to the Father and it's a great question. And this is, uh, to go back to what we were saying about solo scripture and the priority of what has God said, this is where I want to put the focus in thinking this through. It doesn't matter what I think, doesn't matter what any other one individual human being thinks. Ultimately, we want to know what God says. And that's what, that's the noble heart at the Center of Solar Scriptura. You know, we just want to have a system of check and balance is upon these developments that happen after scripture. And I made the case that I don't think we have a good biblical foundation for the practice of praying to heavenly beings, whether angels or saints in heaven. And I, uh, with, you know, I, I, as much as I can, I try to listen to the pushback. I can't watch every video, but I try to listen for sure. Um, and I try not to be dismissive, but I really am persuaded that that is correct. I don't see in scripture any examples or exhortations onto this, nor do I see that in that immediate period after scripture. And so I've used the period of about 200 years. And I've argued that it's in the third century, late third century, when you first see unambiguous evidence of prayers and even then they're very modest. It's writing on the wall, but so no bowing necessarily, but, um, to, so to answer your question, I, without, I always try, I think being clear and candid is a good thing in these conversations and just being really honest. And so I would say, yes, I don't think we have any divine authorization for that practice. I don't think that's how God's people were instructed to, to act. Um, I don't think we have any divine warrant for believing with confidence that particular persons in heaven, be they an angel or a godly saint who has gone there, now we want to honor them. We want to follow in their example. We do believe in the communion of saints, but that particular people in heaven hear my particular address, even a mental address. This is what is sometimes believed is that basically they can hear my thoughts somehow. I don't think we have any divine warrant for that. And I guess I share, you mentioned feeling a little bit, a feeling of discomfort about that. I mean, I guess the question I would put to my friends and these other traditions who disagree with me and think this is a good practice is, can you tell me when something would push the envelope too much? Can you tell me when you, when it would cross a boundary? I know of course they have their system of worship and veneration are distinct. The challenge is that those are different terms, but sometimes they look pretty similar. Yeah. And in the New Testament, we've got people bowing down to an angel, bowing down to an apostle and they say, don't bow to me. Yeah. Bow to God alone. And so I think, I guess I would just without any sense of enmity toward those who disagree, just want to hold fast to what I believe is the truth. And that is that what God would have us pray to him alone, we should ask for the intercession of others, but we don't have any confidence, God's not revealed any mechanism of communication from earth to heaven to heavenly beings other than God. And so we want to just pray as God taught us, we want to bow as God taught us. And I think we'd be naive to not be aware that there can be a danger of what the Bible calls idolatry, which is not necessarily bowing down to a statue, but it could just be something becoming more important to you than God. Yeah. I mean, that's a real danger. And I have heard of this, that you'll have many places in the world where there are people. And this is not official theology, but the street level practice can become, you're actually praying to marry more than you're praying to God in terms of the amount of time and the feeling of warmth and safety that is there. And I do think that it were perfectly in our rights to say, that is not good. That is not what God would want. And I just would want to defend a Protestant concern about that. I guess, you know, when I'm looking even at the, you know, from going from the garden to the law, Ark of the Covenant and Tabernacle to Christ himself, to now Holy Spirit can literally live in us, it's just hard for me to imagine that, oh, you can also go through a middleman like to throw one up to me. I'm like, well, I feel like God went through all this effort to create a bridge straight to him. And like, I'm going to take that bridge every time. But even even with Mary, like something I know about Mary being full of grace, this idea of like sinlessness and Mary, I definitely want to know a little bit about that because something that, and just, and please educate me, the way I've just kind of understood this was like Jesus being born fully God and fully man, like he did it in herit sin through Joseph and Mary conceiving together the Holy Spirit for lack of better terms. The Holy Spirit basically impregnates Mary, Jesus is born versus his other brothers being conceived through actual sexual activity. Does it, would that mean that if she's considered full of grace, like when I hear full of grace, I'm like, oh, sinlessness is applied, no one is sinless except Christ. And I go, go down this rabbit hole that's deeper than just like Catholicism. I'm like, so if she was full of grace, does that mean that somebody else can, you know, then become full of grace or ultimately be sanctified before death and sanctification isn't just a process. It can be a moment like that's kind of where my brain goes. How do we, how do we deal with the, the Mary issue? Yeah. I think so for Protestants, one thing is we always want to be careful not to overreact. So we want Mary is an amazing woman of God to start with. We could all agree on that. So I always try to approach these conversations. As much as I'm defending Protestantism, I try to do it in a way that doesn't unnecessarily break relationship or give offense, so that means I'm always trying to speak honorably of Mary. She is such a model of faith for us. And Protestants sometimes maybe have overreacted and not being quick to say that. Also the phrase that she is the mother of God or the Theotokos, the Godbearer is something historically Protestants have totally been on board with. Because that's just meaning Jesus is God. And so that, that is another area where Protestants sometimes have overreacted and that's at the Council of Ephesus there of a Caminical Council very early. But I think where my concerns come in, and the words full of grace to me have a little different meaning than sinless, where with our Roman Catholic friends, there are other three dogmas after Mother of God are her perpetual virginity, virgin ever virgin, her immaculate conception, meaning she's born free from all sin and the stain of original sin, and then her bodily illness. assumption to heaven that she was translated bodily into heaven. And those would be other areas of concern for me as a Protestant where it's not really even about Mary for me at that point. The concern that comes in is these are claims that I don't believe have good historical evidence. I don't really believe that Mary was assumed to heaven. I did look into that. I think the first testimonies we get of that among Christians are many hundreds of years into church history. And it's just and routinely the people translated to heaven are spoken of as Enoch and Elijah, Enoch and Elijah for like three, four hundred years. And then this slowly starts to come in from the first text I can find this in is in a heterodox text in the mid-thirth century probably book of Mary's repose. And that's that's hasnostic leanings. It's it's very much outside of the church. And so some scholars say fifth century is where the idea of Mary's bodily assumption is really getting traction within the church late fifth century, which is very late. You think about that. So and then similarly with the immaculate conception, I just think there's so many church fathers and other early Christian writers who seem to just assume that Mary was sinful though a great woman of God. She did need to be forgiven of her own personal sins. I've given examples like John Chrysostom, sermons where he's referencing Mary's vain glory in the commentaries on and homilies on John 2 and on Luke chapter 2 sometimes as well. So these are areas where I have a concern that Roman Catholic teaching by making these things infallible and obligatory is yoking people's consciences to things that just aren't true. And that's a issue that comes up with Mary here. I really want to go into a little bit about when I'm thinking I'm the you know when I hear sacraments people talk about the Eucharist a lot in confession and I bet you get a lot of those questions. But I really want to hone in on like the sacrament of marriage like marriage and union and sexuality because it seems like I from what I'm observing there is a war on sexuality in my opinion in culture today. And just I've been to countless pride parades interacted with a ton of people part of the LGBTQ community and or trans people and all these other things and there just seems to be this war on who gets to define love what sexuality is what marriage is okay. And you know I how are you wrestling with that in the 21st century? I mean they're especially in the past couple yours seems to be a rise of gay feelings that are as it really trying to fight this hard and there's like probably a handful I'm thinking of right now. But I just like how are we fighting the current? How do we deal with this idea? Like you know I know we were talking a little bit earlier about you know first ranked second ranked third ranked issues and we're talking a lot about theological but now we're getting even just on like not that it's not theological but we're just talking about like okay moral issues now we're talking about sexuality. I don't know can someone be gay and be Christian? So this is this is huge I'm glad we're getting into this this is like one of the biggest questions in our culture and since I was critical of our Roman Catholic friends earlier let me just say this is an area where we can learn from their tradition because Roman Catholic theologians have developed so much about the body and sexuality and I really admire some of their theologians working in this area we can learn a lot from them. I would say that these issues are so first of all ethical and moral issues can become first rank I believe and I would say that I agree with you there's this massive upsurge of I think I'm gonna I'm gonna just say it as candidly as I can I think in the in the category of Romans chapter one of a rebellion against the creator and his design for us. Now in the way that I think about this I make a distinction in my mind when I'm pastoring or evangelizing a person who is open to God but struggling with sexual sin but for example they may be a Christian and they may be have a soft heart and they are drowning in shame and guilt about that I really want to take a different approach to encourage and equip that person and say here's how Jesus can help you move forward in your life that is very different from some of this very aggressive cultural pressure against us where the biggest thing we need is prayer I really believe that the simple prayer your kingdom come your will be done on earth that is is in heaven oh man what a comfort to be able to go and pray that I mean even how could we live in this crazy world if we didn't have these words as it is in heaven if we didn't know that God in his order is unperturbed by the troubles of the world thank God for that and so we can lean into these challenge and pressures against us maybe it will mean persecution for some of us sometimes to just hold fast to what Christians have taught about these matters we want to do so with love we want to do so with grace interpersonally but I think Christians also need to be clear and say this is what God says and then to lovingly call for people to repentance in the name of the gospel Jesus Christ died on across he rose from the dead he will forgive you of everything I don't care what you have done his nail pierced wrists will reach out and hug you and pull you in but we do need to repent and that means submitting to God's design and that is the path of life and flourishing and I think Christians need to be bold need to be clear about what that pathway is and that is a counter cultural difficult message and that is sexuality is just for marriage but to tell people also hey by the way that's where joy is that's where flourishing is and God is not holding out on you that is his design and a way I can try to make the appeal in a winsome way is to say sexuality and love go together and love is more than just a feeling love is a covenant and so I try to make that appeal to people but yeah this is an issue I don't think we can avoid this one this one's going to come up yeah I agree and I think something that's been maybe like and maybe I'm getting a little personal here and it's not even just the sexuality conversation it could be the abortion conversation it could be honestly it can even we can even go down the rabbit hole of like you know but maybe what people consider political issues the state of the east right now all these things that I mean I'm 22 I'm not going to have the answer to everything I totally recognize that especially political issues I'm like the worst at those but me too but I'm like I'm just like yeah I get I go bananas on those I just don't know but I guess what has been so heartbreak for me there are first of all praise God for the people that will stand firm on truth the pastors the leaders of angels that do so I have also just found as of lately I've had a ton of people a ton of opposition my way for standing on these issues and no and I know other leaders that won't say things on these issues yeah and it just breaks my heart because there's a part of me that's like I don't want to feel like I'm the scapegoat to be like the oh well Bryce is the messenger for this right now it's like we'll let him deliver it or not even just me another guy like we shouldn't just like one guy speak on a difficult issue and be like well he's doing the job so I'm going to omit out of not saying anything right and in my mind omission is a strong endorsement for that behavior because we have influence in other people's life set you know evangelist A or pastor B over here isn't going to interact with and I think that has been so heavy on my heart because I don't want not even just for my sake I just I'm in this boat like I just care about truth and I know that I could be wrong on stuff I do but I don't want that like to get me in this weird like oh like place where I'm like oh meeting out of sharing the gospel because I'm you know still learning new things and researching here and blah blah blah and not afraid to say I don't know either but I think that's been something hard especially with the sexuality conversation like out here in LA I mean there's a ton of pastors who are just day affirming and trans affirming and all these things and when we go to the pride parades the amount of booths and churches and quote unquote pastors and reverends that are out there that are a part of these days that are in gay marriages and things like that and it's very interesting to me and when I when I even get asked that can you be gay and Christian in my mind and I'd love to hear what you think about this and my mind the way I approach that as I say well to me that doesn't exist because if someone is following Jesus they're going to have self-control on their sexuality whether they're gay or straight like if someone is straight and they're not in a marriage like you ought to have self-control before marriage and what you act on and how you treat people and then if you're if you're gay you're just insane from same sex acting acting on that same sex attraction so in my mind when when someone has asked me like can you be a gay Christian and my mind it's like well that doesn't exist but that's because like I'm not defining you on your sexuality as a believer do you kind of see what I'm saying I'm tracking with what you're saying and God bless you in your efforts to be faithful in this area when you see it's especially painful when you see other Christians who are not or who are quiet and you can feel kind of lonely and you can feel kind of isolated and that's hard I agree with you I think if someone is professing the name of Jesus but openly flouting biblical standards that have been universally adhered to by all Christians everywhere until very recently so that would be you know with my mind goes to 1 Corinthians 5 where where it speaks of no one who lists all these sins. says you will not inherit the kingdom of God. But then he says, but you were washed. So again, there's hope for everybody. The gospel message is for everybody. Every single person, no matter what the sin, we can be forgiven. And there's a difference when you admit God's standard and then repent and acknowledge, I've fallen short of this. So if I say yes, this is what God's word teaches, that is true and I'm a sinner and I've sinned in it. There's a very different scenario than if you are openly embracing an ideology that does overturn a historic Christian standard. And I think on this issue church history really is also waiting in addition to scripture because the modern West has gone in this very unique direction. This was not a conversation ever anywhere in Christian circles until now, very recently. And so humility before human history should also encourage us to say, why are we assuming that the modern West and our intuitions today are the right ones? And so, yeah, but I think we do need just to be clear about we want to be compassionate. I think some people think to be compassionate, we need to compromise the standard. But I would say compassion actually requires clarity about God's standards. Because if we leave people in ambiguity, I mean, here's the thing, it's hard enough to follow Jesus already. It's gonna take everything we got. Let's not make it any harder by introducing ambiguity about what the Lord calls us to. And again, I think the historic Christian position universally has been that sexuality is for only the context of marriage between one man and one woman. I love how you said the clarity thing because even now that I'm thinking about it like yes, there's a lot of opposition, but also a lot of places and people and rooms that I've talked to, they're asking the hard questions because they do want a clear-cut answer. They want someone to give them a clear-cut answer. And I think it's because they're tired of maybe people or videos beating around the bush a little bit, even if they don't agree with the clear-cut answer, they want to hear an answer. And I'm even thinking back here in California, West Hollywood is like the really big LGBTQ area. And we're out there doing some ministry one night on a weekend and this guy ran up to me and he was like, I'm openly gay, quotes all the passages about homosexuality to me. And so he explained these to me, I really want to know. And he was like super understanding. And I just remember being like, okay, I got rejected probably 10 times before this guy. But like the one dude, he was ready. And so even those guys that rejected, I kind of maybe you've seen this too, like the people that are pushed away, they got a lot more going on in their heart than just their sexuality that makes someone a rejected and maybe the sexuality conversation is the scapegoat. So well, I'm not believing in him because of love. And it's like, well, maybe there's a lot of other stuff underneath the layers or the iceberg. But like, that was just like a clear cut. Like, hey, this guy wanted it or on, you know, sometimes other people that we talk to, which is really fascinating. - Yeah, and I, the biggest passion of my life right now is evangelism and sharing Christ with people. And I think we serve people well when we're really clear with what the gospel calls for people. Like you think of the rich young ruler. And it was hard enough for the rich young ruler already to give up everything and follow Jesus. But it would have been even harder if Jesus had been ambiguous with him about what he calls him to. And with this man you spoke to, I think there's a ton of people who actually are open to the gospel to some extent because they feel at the end of their rope, they feel like they don't have a hope in their life. But actually, they want a straight answer. And they're actually not gonna be as offended as we might think. And we just need to shoot straight with people and not, as you say, beat around the bush. - Well, speaking of like, you know, social media being used to push doctrine and stuff like that AI has become a surge. And I would love to know your thoughts on AI, how you think Christians should use AI. I think one of my, I'm actually not the biggest advocate for AI personally. I'm not like totally against it. But even before AI, I've just seen how I'm having to rewire my brain to consume longer material just because of short form content already. Like people don't mean it's like they need a five second hit or like they just, it's gone. And I've just never been the biggest advocate for it even being a Gen Zier because I see so many people. I know that are literally losing critical thinking skills because of AI and it scares me. - Me too, it alarms me too. And I don't know how, I mean, just to be completely honest, it is very alarming. It is a form of technology that is new. I have smart friends who say, you know, the printing press, radio, TV, internet, all these technological leaps forward. AI is more than any of those. And I don't know whether that's right or wrong. I'm not an expert on this topic, but it is alarming thinking, how is this going to change the world? Economically job disruption, what you just said is a huge one for me. The loss of critical thinking skills, which are cultivated through writing and through reading. And you take writing and reading out of a society which AI will reduce the need for that. And therefore, a lot of people are just not gonna do that hard work. Another area that concerns me is people turning to AI for therapy and companionship. From 2025 to 2026, the top 10 reasons people used AI changed a little bit. And there were some alarming ones in there. But the number one in both years stayed the same. That was using AI for therapy or companionship. So a lot of people are going to AI to receive counseling, to receive emotional comfort and things like that. - That's just so funny to me, 'cause I know that AI is an algorithm. So like if I, I can just like picture someone being like, I just cussed out my girlfriend. Like, did I do something wrong? And I was like, no, it's not your fault. And it's like, dude, well, like you just like, you know, you did something wrong. I watched Tony Robbins did an interview with Steven Bartlett on Diary of a CEO. And he was really big on like, people find meaning and purpose in jobs. And if AI's taking people's jobs and like people are gonna lose a lot of meaning and purpose, which you and I would say meaning and purpose comes from Jesus. But I do think that there is a sense of satisfaction that like just doing work for God, like knowing that, hey, I'm using my guest for God's glory. Like that's amazing. - Right. - I am scared of that. But even on the companionship thing, I remember being really young and TLCs and my strange addiction was out. And a dude had a romantic relationship with his car. And we would look at that and go, that's insane. Well, now people are having romantic relationships with AI. - Yeah. - And that doesn't seem as crazy the guy with the car as the AI does, but the root issue is the same. So how, I guess like, what is the, what should be the correct approach to AI then? 'Cause I love using it to cite sources and it helps me pull stuff. And that's not the only way I cite, but it's a nice little quick like, can you pull up 10 sources and let me check it out? - That's the thing that is so hard and I wrestle with this as well. It is really amazing technology that is really useful for certain purposes. And so I'm not an advocate of no use of AI. I think there are some good uses, but I don't have a full answer to this. I just think this is an issue. I think all of us are gonna need to wrestle with and my encouragement for Christians would be let's think through two things. Number one, let's think through personally. What is my own personal policy about AI? Maybe write it out. Well, if we just drift into something, it probably won't be as good as if we intentionally sit guard rails at the, and so just thinking that through. And I've said the same thing about social media to think through our policy on social media. And then I had another thought, oh, loneliness, let's try to be a countercultural force against loneliness. So I think loneliness is huge right now. People are turning to AI because they don't have deep friendships. And where can we, as the people of Christ, create environments where people can come in and experience fellowship and be known, how many young men in our culture, for example, don't have anyone to sit down with and share their heart and be prayed for and share what they're struggling with, and receive encouragement and be affirmed as a man by another man and a completely appropriate way. So many people never get that. They've never had a dad to really do that. And they're just, so if we can push against that, that's why I always say, for all the problems in the world right now, we have some really cool gospel opportunities. And I want to share the gospel with people, but also something like this, encouraging healthy, deep friendships is such a cool opportunity right now. That is such a good point. It's not even thinking back, like I started following Jesus on Christmas break my junior year. And I remember for like a solid two and a half years, I really looked for like a mentor and community. And even now church hopping has become really popular, which like that's a whole nother thing I want to get into with you, I think that there's some more, you know, loose ends on that. But just that, I'm like, man, if I would have had access to AI then, like my walk, which Jesus might look completely different, I would probably be deep in analysisism and some other things if my mentor was Chad GVD on Christianity. But that was, that was even such a hard find if I'm being honest. So I think what you're making is a great point like mentorship and church leadership and all of these things, which going into the church hopping topic, like church hopping seems so popular now. And I've been super convicted the past two years on being committed to a local church, serving at my local church being plugged. again, because I think with this church hopping phenomenon, if someone were to be kicked from the church, it wouldn't matter. Because nobody knows them at their local church, they just go find another church. Whereas my understanding of the scriptures is if someone Matthew, I think it's Matthew 18, Matthew 16, 18, someone gets kicked from the church, it's a big deal, like your buddies are in the church, they know all your personal life and then you get kicked out of the church, that's a big deal. How should Christians right now, because I think we're in a pivotal moment in time where past couple of years, Christianity's been on this crazy rock it up. I don't think it's on a decline, but I don't think it's on this crazy end climb. I think at least what I'm gauging from Gen Z and just rooms I've been in with people my age, there's this weird middle ground where people don't really know what to do. Maybe the feeling is in his high, but they're not deconstructing. It's just kind of like, okay, like I'm kind of riding this, I'm letting the waves kind of toss me and turn me. I really want to see Gen Z encouraged in church. How can we see that? Yeah. I have the same passion as you. I want to see the same thing. I want to, what I pray for and what I want to give my life towards is revival and renewal and healthy church growth and people finding the gospel and it's, for all the problems of the world, it's an exciting time for that. I think being a member of a local church, taking the Lord's supper at the church regularly, being known at a church is a huge need. I think we want to encourage people toward that and encourage them toward that as an exciting thing. To be known, my daddy likes to say this, I really respect my parents, they've been great models of Christians for all my life. My dad always says that you can either be known or impressive, but not both. And it's better to be known than impressive. To really let people end your soul. I got under this when I was doing my doctoral work on Anselm, this medieval theologian and I was reading his letters and he's writing these letters to other monks and he's talking about how much he loves them and it is just amazing the language he uses. Talking about this ideal of having our souls united in friendship and it was a doorway into this larger question of I realized, oh, we've lost an account of friendship. In the modern west, we have exalted sexual and romantic love and that's where we put all the focus. But in the ancient world and in Christian context, friendship was actually, in some respects, the highest form of love of human love from one human being to another and you think of David and Jonathan. For example, in the Bible, and he loved him as his own soul and it's thrilling to think, what would it look like for young men and young women in Gen Z to start experiencing, to stepping towards that? I know that might feel overwhelming at first, but like really deep friendship love being known. You think of like, in the Lord of the Rings, the way Sam and Frodo really love each other? And it's like healthy, deep friendship. Could it be that in the church of Jesus Christ, we try to move towards that and invite people into that healthy, deep love? I think that alone would solve a lot of the problems of the world. The anxiety and depression, a lot of that is affected by loneliness and people not living in authentic community. And I say, let's pray for renewal in the gospel and let's also lean into embodied communities where we are in covenant relationship and church membership because with AI, with the internet, so many people are disembodied and it's just wonderful to go to an actual church service every week and observe baptisms and take the Lord's supper and just be there with people and be known. I also just love like lately, and I'm like saying this just from stuff that I've grown in, like I started getting to serve at my church. And I've just experienced this new beauty of Jesus that I haven't gotten to experience in a while just by like serving people that are walking in the door, getting to prepare his house. I don't know, there's just something about it, it's just so fun and I like, I anticipate eagerly Sunday because I'm like, wow, I just love doing this. And there's like the sense of joy and beauty I'm getting from Jesus that I don't just get being like an observer or like a like, you know, making the seat warm on Sunday. And I don't say that it's like, oh, I'm serving at my church. It's like, I don't get to serve every Sunday. The Sunday's I get to serve. It's just awesome. And there's something about, I just can't believe God would let me get to do something at his house. That is like, that is something that has been so fun for me. How do you serve? What does that look like? It just depends. Lately, I've been on the greeting team. So I love just getting to say, hey, to people, I mean, I love talking to people so I think it's a good way I can serve. But I've also just, you know, if I'm definitely in town the night before and they need, like if they needed help, I'll show up early and like help put bins up and set a banner up. And, you know, if they typically, when I get there, the chair is already set up. I don't mind setting up chairs. I just want to be a help and I don't, I don't know, it's not, it's not, I don't really care to, you know, I don't know, I'm just doing it more just to be plugged in and serve the body. And I think that, I don't know, I just care about the local church community and getting to know people and see them regularly and learn people's names and. Yeah. There's nothing like it. Nothing about a local church, I mean, I've heard it said, there's no hurt like church hurt. And frankly, in my own story, I know that it's hard when a church hurts you, but there's no healing like church healing. There's no love like church love when church is healthy. It is really special and it's like magic and that's how I feel at my church. I go there and there's just, I go to my church and I feel like God's building pieces into me that I didn't know we're missing and all of a sudden it's like, I'm singing or something and it's like, and just what a wonderful thing to encourage our listeners to say like, you can experience joy through being known and serving at your church that you won't experience any other way. No, you said church hurt, I definitely is a loose term, but you said you've experienced your own. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, whoa. Yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, I could rather, maybe rather than going through the full story of it, I could just share both my wife and I went through an experience that was so painful that it's one of those things you look back through, you know, I have no doubt we'll be, if Jesus doesn't return sooner and I'm 75 years old one day looking back and I'll, that'll be one of those moments in my life that immediately comes up is like, oh, that was significant. That marked us, that affected us profoundly painful. I think because of how beautiful church is, that when there is a wounding that happens, it is profoundly painful and that is why I, but there are, there are ways that I am glad that that has happened. And I know God is sovereign over those things and I see him giving, I'm one of the things I'm grateful for is it has given me empathy for people who maybe, I mean, honestly, some people they come to our church and you realize it took all their courage to be here. Yeah. And I know that church hurt can be an excuse like, oh, you know, I was, I was hurt by the church and you say, well, what was that? And it was like, well, they didn't do something I wanted them to do. Yeah. It's like, well, that's not a good reason to be mad, but it can be an excuse. But there are also unfortunately legitimate cases where there can be sin or dysfunction that really wounds someone. So yeah, I have a compassionate heart for someone who's going through that. What I would say to someone who's there is, Jesus will never treat you like that. If you were genuinely sinned against, that is not how Jesus will treat you. So don't let that sour you on Christ himself run to Christ who's so compassionate for people in that circumstance. And then also let's build healthy church cultures where people don't, the sheep don't get stomped on. Yeah. Either by sin or even just by dysfunction. Yeah. Speaking of courage, like to speak out, we, we have some members that support us in one of our members. His name's Jonah. He said that he's not a Christian, but he listens to a lot of this stuff because he's trying to actually understand it before he'd ever give his life to Christ. He's really doing his due diligence of like, of learning. And he's still not settled on whether Jesus is God. And he specifically wanted to ask you a question. And he asked, does God hear his prayers right now when he prays without being sure, does that mean anything? And that's from Jonah. Yeah. What a great question. And I'm sure many, many people watching this can relate to that, including those who know Jesus sometimes wonder about this. What I would want to say to Jonah is, thanks for the great question. And with all my heart, yes, God hears you. Not only does he hear you, you're praying to someone who is omniscient. He knows your heart better than you know it yourself. And then here's the wonderful thought. He loves you more than you even love yourself. He loves you with an infinite love, an omniscient love, a down to the roots knowledge of your heart. And he loves you more than words can possibly convey. And the most thrilling experience of your life would be to know that love, which we believe we can know because of Jesus and what he did for us on the cross, then also to the Holy Spirit's testimony of that in our heart. And none of us need to be a super-theologian to experience the love of Christ. We just need a humble heart to receive the Spirit's work in us. And I would just love to encourage Jonah, pray, and open your heart and ask the Holy Spirit to minister to you and to direct to your heart the love of Christ. But yes, God's, this is the great thing, something happens to our prayers on the way to heaven because of the sanctifying work of Christ, where we may not fully even know what we're praying for, and we may be stumbling over our words, but God hears us better than we intended. Because of his compassion and because of what Christ has done for us. So we don't need to be perfect prayers. God hears. I always feel that way. Sometimes like my prayers are very redneck. You know, like my that's mine. But that's just how I grew up redneck and that's just like how I was wearing my prayers like, man, God, I'm frustrated right now. You know, I'm just like, get angry. God hears the red neck prayers day. Hey, amen. That's what I'm talking about. I think, you know, even one of the like basic objections, this isn't something that Jonah said, but just something we're seeing today is that a ton of people are at or like saying, if God was real, well, he would absolutely make himself obvious. And you mentioned Romans one earlier, like God's divine righteous display it throughout creation, so that humanity is without excuse. And even when I look at the life of Christ, like Christ came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and they also killed him. So it's like to think that, hey, if Christ was here right now, then I'd believe. Right. What would you, what would you say to the person that says, well, if God was real, he would make himself more obvious to me? This, I think this problem, the problem of divine hiddenness is one of the most cutting-edge objections that we need to give more focus to. So in my book that came out last week, which you kindly put next to me here. Yes. I have a chapter on this. Chapter 11. And that's called, but typically this is called the problem of divine hiddenness. And this is a tough one. It's a good objection. But one of the things I say is, okay, how could God reveal himself to us? What would that look like? If we want it to be clearer, what would that look like? We start might say, well, maybe miracles, maybe writing in the clouds, maybe a booming voice and so forth. And one of the points I try to make in this chapter is, would it really be good for us to have all these miracles? Because when we look in the Bible, a ton of people who get miracles, like Pharaoh, harden their hearts. And there's a ton of people who will even say, if Christianity was true or if God showed up in my life, I still wouldn't want to believe. And what Christianity teaches is that we are all already in a kind of relation to God through our conscience. And so it may not serve that relationship to get total clarity about everything. Because actually the biggest need is not to have all of our questions answered. The biggest need that all of us have is our heart to be changed and to be led to repentance and softness of heart before God. And perfect clarity might not lead to that outcome. But the revelation God has given in Christ, I think, is perfectly suited to meet our real need. Because here comes a God who dies on a cross for us. And you've got God, the Son of God incarnate dying for us. If that doesn't pierce our hearts, what could? And so I think the way God has revealed himself in this partial failing, partial unveiling. He's given sufficient revelation of himself, but not as clear as it could be that might actually be best suited for our actual needs. So we're just trusting that how God has revealed himself is enough. Well, trusting that, and I would, the pastoral encouragement with this also is the Bible promises that those who seek God will find him. And so, but there'd be no point of seeking God if he was as bright as the new day sun. And you just look up and he's right there. But the philosopher Kierkegaard gives this great parable. And he says, imagine a king who falls in love with the poor maiden. And he realizes, I don't know if going up in my royal carriage to her front door and saying, I'm the king is the best way to start a relationship. How will I know if she's really loving me for me or because I'm the king? And so he doesn't know what to do for a bit. And then he comes up with the plan of disguising himself as a poor beggar or a poor person and living nearby and building a relationship with her while in disguise. And Kierkegaard says, that's the best way to build a loving relationship. And he uses this as a way to say, maybe the way God has revealed himself to us through our conscience, through creation, but ultimately through Christ is the best way to meet our real need and establish the kind of relationship with God that we actually need. I know your book is making a very big effort to answer a lot of those questions of people that are curious. Outside of your book, if someone came up to you and said, I'm doubting Christianity as a whole, what would you say to that person? I would love to ask questions. Francis Schaeffer, the great evangelist of many of a couple generations ago, used to say, if he's sharing the gospel someone for one hour, he'll take 50 minutes to ask questions, to draw them out, to understand. And I hope that God will give me the compassion of Christ for them as a particular individual, to not necessarily even know what I will say or do prior to asking the questions. Because everyone's story is unique. Ultimately, I want them to know about Christ. I want them to know, I never want to assume they know the gospel message, that you can be restored to the God who created you through Jesus by repenting and believing in the gospel. And then I want to just be their friend and say, tell me what's causing the doubts. Sometimes it's moral issues in the Bible. Those are really big right now. Slavery in the Bible, violence in the Bible. I have two chapters in why Christianity makes sense about those issues, because I see those causing so many challenges for people today. It could be other intellectual things. A lot of times it's just personal things. People just say, I just don't feel close to God. But whatever it is, I want to listen and then try to shepherd them. The great thing is, I believe there are answers. I don't think the we evangelists and we apologists are just without resources. There are some great reasons to believe in Christ. But that is not to say it's always obvious and easy. So the thing is with a compassionate heart, we want to direct people toward good answers. I'm hoping my book could be one resource in that way. Well, just knowing you and being blessed by you, I know it's going to be a resource that blesses people. I got to ask this because I wrestle with this a lot. Sure. Let's say I die tonight and I'm a Protestant, but Catholicism is 1,000% true. Am I in trouble? I think that the Roman Catholic teaching on that in as clarified in recent times, like by Vatican II, would be you are not necessarily in trouble, but that actually that would depend. And it would depend on various factors, one of which is your sincerity or heart. If you are sincerely Protestant because you believe that is true, that's going to be different than if you know this other thing is true and you're just stubbornly refusing it. So this is where I think, and so I'm thankful for that strand of teaching of Vatican II, which is itself consistent with how Protestants would often speak in that the institution you're under is not the ultimate arbiter for your salvation. It is the sincerity of your heart before the true gospel. So I would want to pastor someone toward that and encourage them that actually many Christian traditions are able to recognize that. Ultimately, what it comes down to is your heart before Christ and are you oriented under him in faith? And that's where I want to just relentlessly push people. Would you say that on the flip side, like if someone who is Catholic past the way tonight, and it's same answer on both sides? So I feel that way too, because I've see even the sincerity thing is so interesting because I'm a human and I strive to know Jesus every day, but I still do things in vain. And I still do things subconsciously or sometimes consciously, I make a decision riding a line and it's in vain. And you know, if like just knowing the human nature, that is something that I'm so afraid of if I'm being completely honest. I want to be so sincere. I try to be sincere in everything that I do. I also know I've made mistakes and I've made decisions in vain and I've done things in vain. And I know that even with ministry, you know, we can make thousands and thousands of podcasts and videos. And even if I think I'm doing something with a pure heart, I might get to heaven and God said, well, that one that you thought was for the pure heart wasn't totally. And I'm so afraid of that. I'm so afraid. I lay awake at night and I'll stare at the ceiling and I'll go, man, I know mistakes I've made before I was believer that I even still feel ashamed of. Like why do why am I the guy that has a podcast that is navigating hard conversations? Why am I the guy that, you know, is talking about Jesus when I know I'm making mistakes or I got frustrated at someone last night or I'm still making a mistake here, whatever I really have a hard time with that. I hear you. And I that all tracks many of us. I think we'll feel this. I mean, our sincerity is never perfect, right? Like someone once said, our very tears need to be washed and our very repenting needs to be repented of. In some respects, our efforts, our faith is never a perfect faith. And our condition of heart is is can we can always come back and examine it and say, oh, but what about this? And so I think when we speak of sincerity or we speak of faith in Christ, a wise pastor once said, for every one look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. And ultimately, it's not about even our degree of sincerity on a on like a spectrum. Now, when I say sincerity, I mean, we're not a full hypocrite, right? We're not like blatantly, you know, living a double life and lying about it in the, you know, but our degree of sincerity and our perfection of sincerity ultimately isn't even the answer there. Ultimately, it's Jesus himself. And when I am in moments where I will be exposed. experiencing things that make me relate to what you're saying, I would just come back to this again and again and say, Lord, get my eyes off myself altogether. I holy cast myself upon your mercy and you are so merciful and you are so kind that you can deal with me in all my mess. Every single wretched thing going on inside of me, I can just bring it before the cross and the empty tomb and say, breathe your life on me, fix me, heal me, save me. Most sincere prayer I've probably ever prayed in my life is just the simple words save me. And I say that to Jesus. And I think he hears that prayer. And so I just would encourage our listeners if they struggle with this. Don't look at yourself too much, examine yourself a little bit, but look to Jesus much more and just let your heart be full of him. You think of the Israelites going through the red sea on the dry land. Some of them might be tiptoeing wondering if the water is going to crash on them in any second. Others might be brazenly confidently going through, but either way, you get through your degree of faith, your power of faith isn't what ultimately saves you with the object of your faith. If you're putting your faith in Christ and if you're bringing those very struggles of am I sincere enough to Christ, he's such a perfect savior. He can even untangle our mess and send our heart straight. And so I just want to put all the focus on Jesus who's sufficient for all things. He's the perfect savior. When it comes to like reverence, I think that's something that I've seen just maybe a difficulty, especially not only in my life, but maybe more in like non-denominational circles is, you know, I don't necessarily think that the fog machine and stuff is bad. I mean, David would play a harp. I think music's great, you know, just because someone puts pad behind the ceremony, I don't think that's emotional manipulation necessarily. But like, that's one thing I really admire about my Catholic friends and Orthodox friends is their reverence for God. And something that I just noticed like at the beginning before we started recording, like when praying, like when we had done praying, I just, I opened my eyes maybe half a second before you did. And you can just like, sense the reverence. And maybe this is deeper than just, you know, that thing. I don't know. I just a couple years ago, I was really heavy into like, I tend to lean more charismatic when it comes to my views to the Holy Spirit and continuation is. And when it comes to prophecy and stuff like that, I've definitely become more conservative from when I first like really entered into that. I grew up around a lot of like really strict, reformed teaching and cessation is teaching, grown up. And then I just, I've kind of had the roller coaster of exploring every ounce of theology. And I don't know when my walk with Jesus right now, I feel so logical, like so logically hardwired that I either find myself turning so much to logic. And like, Oh, what Jesus would have done this or, Oh, this is what the scripter says, just it's easy to just like try to execute and execute and execute instead of like execution and like leaning on Jesus. So I go and God, do you have any other divine strategy for me in this area? And I think that even translates over into my prayer life, like my prayer life just feels very talking to a wall. And maybe, you know, I love being rewarded with feeling God's presence. But when my mind is so hyper fixated on this logic, it's like, I can't, I feel like I'm running into a wall a lot of the times. And that's been a really big challenge for me going from, you know, maybe two years ago where I'm like, I don't know, I'm swirling around. I would grab the ribbons. And, you know, I'm just like, you know, having the blast. And I would still do that today. But it would, it meant something different to me two years ago than it would now. I don't know. I'm really wrestling with that. I really have a hard time with that. Yeah. Yeah. I think I can totally understand what you're saying. Probably all of us who follow Jesus for any period of time will have these experiences where it just feels different in one season versus another. And sometimes we do feel like we've lost a sense of zeal or excitement. One thing that helps me tremendously is in my prayer life to first, okay. So first of all, to slow down and be less busy, I need that in my life right now. It's just Sabbath rest. And I think of the verse, I took some time off this summer. It was so good for my soul, time off of social media, time off of work, time with my family, time out in nature, and just retreating from the noise. But another thing is just in my quiet times, maybe trying to do less, trying to think less, and just trying to receive the love of Christ. And I would even say enjoy fellowship with Christ. I don't mean to cut you off. And you say, receive the love of Christ. What does that, what does that even look like? This came into my heart a lot in a video I did recently on all books in the Bible, Song of Songs, which is, you know, has always been interpreted as having reference to the love of Jesus and his people. And so, and, and Bernard of Clare Vaux, this great medieval tealogen preached all these sermons about how this message, this book is not just about human marriage, it's actually about the love of Jesus for his bride as well in all these complicated ways. But part of his sermons on that were just about the experience of the love of Christ. So what does that look like? I mean, it might just be on a random Tuesday driving home when I feel so ashamed and so guilty and so just overwhelmed with my own problems. And I feel like I have not been convening with Christ at all just to allow myself to really believe the gospel of fresh and to come to Christ. And maybe I need to repent for some things, but to recognize he is a jealous husband of my soul. He still loves me. His, I can never overestimate the love of Christ. He is, he is a, the love of Christ is there, there's just no language for it. It is just this all consuming power that overcomes all things. And so to come to terms with that of fresh and say, I've got all these problems, but I'm just going to believe by faith in the gospel with the Bible tells me and that Jesus still loves me right now. And then I'm going to allow him to minister to my heart. So if I'm lonely, I'll receive his fellowship. I'll just experiment. I'll talk to him. If I'm sad, I'll reorient my heart to hope and resurrection. If I am discouraged, I'll remind myself of truths of the gospel that encourage me. If I'm guilty, I'll experience and believe and invite my heart to believe that the gospel is still true. And I am clothed in the righteous robes of Christ, even if I don't feel like it. And just Joe, so the particular needs of my heart bringing them. And I think the Holy Spirit is our friend there to help minister the truths of the gospel to our heart. This is not a formula. And how do you look? I mean, I don't know. It's its prayer. It's, it, it, you got to be sincere in your heart. It can come through other Christians. It can come for me a lot of times worship music. I'll just go on a bike ride and just listen to worship songs and something happens. And I don't understand it. But the Holy Spirit is taking these words and he's just putting them into my heart afresh. But I think sometimes Christians we get dry in our relationship with Christ because it's all about asking for things and doing things. And we forget to simply receive his love and enjoy fellowship with him. And no, right now, I'll say this strong. I don't think this is too strong. Right now for every beleaguered Christian struggling, the heart of Christ tilts toward them with compassionate grace, his face toward you. If you could see his face toward you, it would have love, compassion and love, maybe sternness at times if needed, but love underneath that. And if you can believe that, you can keep going. The point about music is so interesting because even now I'm thinking like lately, I've been listening to, listen into like, I've been just like, I would hear like a random song on like TikTok. And it would be like a secular song that has like nothing to do with Jesus. But the lyrics would be like so powerful. And it would just make me think about Jesus like in this way. Like, just here, somehow, somehow some of these musicians that know how to articulate their feelings. It makes you just associated with Christ. They're just like, oh my gosh, I feel like this sometimes, but like, God, you just speak a new song. And like, that's so interesting to me. I love that you brought that up. Yeah, but I really appreciate you taking time to be with us today and answer all my wild questions. I love it, man. I know we just, we probably covered every topic under the sun and time. I would love for you to pray for our listeners watching and listening. I would love to do that. Thanks for the great conversation and people, the great work. Yeah, let me pray for anyone watching this. Father, thank you so much for the chance to talk with my dear brother. And we want to surrender this entire conversation to you and ask you to use it for your purposes. And we are very mindful that some of those who will watch this video may be in a tough place, in a dark place, asking deep questions. And everything that we've talked about here, we pray, we would all snowball together for them to then just have this experience of not just hearing about these things, but actually tasting of them in their own heart that you would draw near to them. You would minister to them. You would show them that you are real. You would show them that you love them and that they would experience the wonder of coming to know the God of all creation as their father through Christ. So we pray that you would make the gospel message of what Jesus did, very clear to hearts and minds of everyone who watches this and advance your work in their life. And we also pray for your kingdom to come and your will be done in this world as it is in heaven, as we have discussed other. Thanks for the wonderful conversation, and Jesus' name, amen. - Amen.