Radio Lux Lucet #21 Darkness for Light - Major League Baseball and the LGBT Agenda

Welcome to Radio Deluxe Lucid. I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me. Well, it's been a little while since I've done a podcast. I think about three months to be exact. I had a little bit of an excuse there for a while.

I had an extra busy time when I was at work. We had a big project at work and it was right about the time I started doing some of the podcasts back in May and we really got busy and I just had to put it aside for a few months.

We got through the difficult period and then it's like one of those things where you kind of get out of the habit of doing something and you want to get back to it but somehow you don't get around quite to doing it.

You know, things get in the way, this, that, and the other thing. So anyway, I get this message the other day from Tim Shaughnessy at Thorn Crown Ministries and he's like, hey, I miss your podcast. I said, well, you know, it's funny.

I've been thinking about going ahead and trying to get one done here soon. So anyway, this is the result of that. So if you don't like this podcast, you can just blame it all on Tim Shaughnessy. It's all his fault.

Just kidding about that. No, actually, I'm glad to do it and I'm glad to be back doing it. I look forward to being able to do some of these podcasts here on a regular basis. One thing I've been thinking about here recently is, okay, well, what story am I going to do?

Well, you know, a lot of times this summer and in August there's not much going on. There's actually quite a bit going on right now in the world of politics and economics and such like. And of course, this podcast, it's really kind of about the, if you will, the intersection of politics and economics and the Bible.

As I had mentioned on an earlier podcast, I am a scripturalist. That is, I use the method of approaching the Bible that was developed by Gordon Clark and John Robbins. And as scripturalists, one of the things we believe, one of the fundamental ideas that we believe, is that the Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth.

So when we go to look at the world, when we, you know, pick up the newspaper or maybe look at something online or maybe see a story on TV or what-have-you, we have to analyze what's going on in the world through the lens of scripture.

So, you know, one of the sort of the main thrust, the main purposes behind this podcast is to apply the Word of God to the stories that we see in our everyday lives on a regular basis. That certainly was my goal, at least, in doing this podcast.

And I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. And I had a story, actually, an idea for a story, just kind of hit me out of the blue just yesterday. I was at work and I turned on my computer, you know, booted up my computer in the morning, was getting ready to go.

And if you use a computer at work, you know, maybe you're like my company and we've got a homepage, sort of a default page that comes up. And that page, it's Microsoft News. It's a, by Microsoft News, it's a basically like a news aggregator.

It's just a, it's a web page. It's got lots of headlines drawn from a variety of sources and it covers everything from economics and politics and sports and, you know, the whole nine yards as far as, runs a full gamut, is like what I'm trying to say there in terms of the kinds of stories that it covers.

Anyway, there's this one particular headline caught my eye. And the headline was this, Daniel Murphy's message to gay Cubs fans. Oh dear, I hope you would root for the Cubs. Now, that caught my headline for a couple reasons, of course.

I've written and talked some about the the homosexual agenda. And I'm also a big baseball fan. I live in the Cincinnati area. I've been a Reds fan my whole life. So I've always loved Major League Baseball, love the Reds, big Reds fan.

I know it's been kind of brutal over the last 25 years or so to be a Reds fan. We've had a few good seasons in there, but there's been a lot of dry spots. Hopefully things are looking up for the team here.

But anyway, this isn't a podcast about the Reds. I just mentioned that just to say, you know, as I said, I've been a baseball fan really my whole life. And so I saw this story and it kind of caught my eye and I thought, well, let's let's take a look at this.

Now, one of the reasons it caught my attention was because the headline was about Daniel Murphy. Now, if you don't follow Major League Baseball, you may not know who that is. He is a pretty good pretty good ballplayer.

He's been a second baseman and the Cubs traded for him. In fact, he was playing second base. I was watching the Reds today. The Reds were playing the Cubs and he actually hit a home run against the Reds.

He's probably one of the better all-around second basemen in the National League and has played in Major League Baseball, I'd say, for at least the last five years, maybe longer than that. But he's had a well-established career at this point as a top Major League second baseman.

So anyway, he actually, as far as I'm aware, I think he came up originally with the New York Mets. He played for the Washington Nationals for a while and now he's with the Chicago Cubs. They traded for him.

I guess they're trying to make a push for the playoffs, which are going to be coming up in about a month or so. So it's kind of a late-season acquisition for the Cubs. So anyway, this headline, as I say, kind of getting back to it, it's Daniel Murphy's message to gay Cubs fans.

Oh dear, I hope you would root for the Cubs. So like I say, that's the headline that caught my attention. I open up the story and this is how the... I'll just read you the first couple paragraphs here.

Quote, the Cubs waiver wire acquisition of Daniel Murphy would be seen as the perfect type of transaction if all we saw were his numbers. Murphy has had a very hot second half, slashing his batting average of 342, an on-base percentage of 373, and a slugging percentage of 528 in the second half, having recovered from injury.

So he's had a really good year here since the second half, usually from the all-star break on. So he's had about a good six, seven weeks of baseball. Been pretty hot. Okay, the story continues. Quote, unfortunately, unfortunately, it says, unfortunately, Daniel Murphy is a person, not just his numbers.

And Murphy is on the record as, quote, disagreeing with, quote, the gay lifestyle. Comments, Murphy hasn't ever really walked back to any degree. Murphy was always going to be asked about those comments in Chicago, but when he got to the question today, it wasn't apparent that he expected it.

End quote. So that's the first couple paragraphs of this story. So this really kind of caught my attention. You know, you kind of see where the story's going, you know, in the second paragraph they begin with the term, unfortunately, Daniel Murphy is a person.

So it's unfortunate. Okay, so obviously the writer of this story, but it's a gentleman by the name of Jay Rigdon. Jay Rigdon doesn't much like Daniel Murphy. And we find out pretty quickly why he doesn't like him, and it's because Daniel Murphy had made some comments disagreeing with, with the gay lifestyle.

So anyway, this, this story really kind of hit me out of the blue. And I thought, well, you know, this would be actually a pretty good, pretty good podcast. So I did, did a little bit of research on this.

And what, what this whole story refers back to, it refers back to some comments that were made back in, in 2015. So it goes back about three years, with some comments that Daniel Murphy had made. And I'm going to read you those comments here in just a moment.

But one thing I wanted to say here is, I titled this podcast, Darkness for Light, you know, Major League Baseball and the LGBT Agenda. One of the reasons I called it Darkness for Light, I hope to kind of make that a recurring theme here on this podcast, the idea of darkness for light.

You know, we live in a time when it seems as though everything has been flipped upside down. And things that are good are considered evil, and things that are evil are considered good. And, and not only that, but, but this, this way of looking at the world, this perverse way of looking at the world, it has become enforced with, with some real rigor in the colleges, in the workplace, online.

I mean, we see, I've been writing a series on my blog, if you follow that, about, about social media. Deplatformed, I call that series. And, and it's talking about the, the attack on free speech in the social media.

And, and this whole issue surrounding, surrounding homosexuality is, is just one facet of that. And, and so I want to call this Darkness for Light. And it's just going to be maybe some one-off podcast examining certain aspects of how, how popular culture, the sort of, the anti-Christian popular culture that's out there, is really attempting to, and in some cases I guess successfully has, really kind of flipped reality on its head.

And, and of course the, the entire gay agenda is, is one such example. It's, it's absolutely astounding to me. You know, I'm 52 years old and, and I remember growing up and in a time when, when homosexuality was not considered normal.

And it wasn't that long ago, you know, it's, it's kind of funny because I sometimes sound, I feel like I sound like my, my grandparents or something like that. Why these kids these days, why they're, they're just gone completely crazy.

Well, you know, it's amazing. The world really has gone crazy. And, and it's kind of funny, you know, I look back in the 1980s when I went to high school and it's hard for me to believe I'd actually saying this, but it actually seems almost like, like father knows best or something like that.

It wasn't, I mean, we had, you know, it was sort of the post -60s kind of a culture. And I mean, you know, what was the saying back in the day, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Right. Um, that that's what they used to say.

And of course there were a lot of people who lived that lifestyle. I mean, I went to high school with a lot of people that, that lived that type of lifestyle. So, I mean, it's not as though it was Ozzie and Harriet or the, you know, the 1950s or anything like that.

I mean, there was, there was a lot of, uh, fair amount of debauchery in the culture, but you know, by comparison, say to today, you know, going 30, 35 years on, it seems almost downright innocent. And I never thought that I would say that.

So, uh, I'll have to say I've been a little bit surprised at the, uh, the degree and maybe the aggressiveness of, of the culture change that I've seen over, you know, just in, in my lifetime, which I don't think it's that long, but sometimes it seems like it.

Um, so anyway, you know, we, we live in a time when the, the LGBT, that's the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, um, agenda, political agenda is, is really in the ascendancy. And it's just amazing to me how aggressive it's gotten.

And it's gotten to the point now where if you criticize homosexuals, if you criticize anything that they do, uh, anything that they say anything about their, the choices that they make in their lives, well, you're a homophobe.

You're the one that has the problem. They don't have the problem. You have the problem. And that's the way this, uh, this particular story, that's, that's the standpoint. That's the slant. That's the, uh, the spin, if you will, on this particular story.

And this writer is Jay Rick, and he's very upset that Daniel Murphy has expressed himself as disagreeing with the gay lifestyle. So I thought I'd go back and take a look at, uh, and maybe share with you Daniel Murphy's original comments.

The, uh, now Daniel Murphy has, uh, it says that he's a Christian. I don't know Daniel Murphy, uh, but I'm going to take his word for it, uh, that he is in fact a Christian and the, uh, the comments that he may go back to spring training in, uh, in 2015, I found a story.

This is in, uh, on the newJersey .com website and they were, uh, they were covering the Mets. Um, Daniel Murphy played with the Mets at the time. And apparently the Mets had brought in a gentleman by the name of Billy Bean.

And, um, Billy Bean is, uh, is a guy who, uh, he became famous first, uh, in a book called Moneyball. Maybe you've heard of it. It was a book, uh, Lewis, Michael Lewis, I think is the author's name. It was called Moneyball.

And that book was actually made into a movie. Uh, Billy Bean was, was a major league ball player. He played for six seasons and then he went, uh, he became the general manager of the Oakland athletics back in the early 2000s.

And the, the reason he, he was the subject of this book and later on in the movies, because he did something fairly revolutionary in baseball. He was, as far as I'm aware of the very first general manager, baseball general manager to apply modern statistics to, uh, building a team, you know, up until that time, you know, baseball used a little bit of statistics, but it wasn't really in a, in a very systematic way.

And, and there was a whole body of statistics that's been developed, I guess, going back maybe to the 1980s, sometimes it's called saber metrics. And, and these guys that do these saber metrics analysis, they, it's, it's very complex, but what they do is they've, they've brought a lot more statistical analysis to baseball.

And what they've, they've shown is that, you know, certain things that were always kind of assumed to be true, maybe based on the statistics really actually aren't true. And so it's, it's given a general managers and managers, uh, some new tools to evaluate players and also in, in, in the way they even manage the game.

And you see a lot of that in, in baseball today, it really has changed baseball. And I think it's actually pretty interesting. And I think it's been, um, been beneficial, uh, to the game of baseball in many ways, but by kind of leaving that aside, that, that was Billy, Billy beans, main claim to fame.

And within the last few years though, he's became known for something else. He has, uh, actually been, uh, came out, uh, came out as a homosexual. Uh, I don't know exactly when he did this, but I'd say maybe within the last five years or so, something like that.

And, uh, he's now no longer the, uh, he's no longer the, uh, general manager for the Oakland A's. He actually serves as, uh, um, uh, can't find his title here, but something like an inclusivity or director or something like this for major league baseball.

So he actually works for major league baseball. And I guess, uh, when you say inclusivity, uh, that, that really apparently primarily means bringing in the, uh, the, uh, LGBT agenda into, uh, into major league baseball.

So the, uh, the New York Mets had hosted, uh, Billy B and I guess he had come and he had, had given a talk, uh, on the, at the New York Mets and a reporter at, uh, I guess in the, uh, reporter covering the Mets had, had asked Daniel Murphy some questions about this.

And this really is where the, uh, kind of the controversy, controversial, maybe put that in quotation marks. I don't think anything that he said was controversial. Uh, in fact, I think what he said was actually pretty, um, pretty diplomatic and, and I think pretty low key.

I'm going to read you, uh, read you, uh, what, uh, what Daniel Murphy said that that's caused so much consternation among the, uh, among the, uh, the great and good, the, uh, the movers and shakers in the, uh, the baseball world.

Here's what, uh, here's what Daniel Murphy said, um, talking about, uh, about Billy Bean and, and his, uh, his homosexuality quote, I disagree with his lifestyle. I do disagree with the fact that Billy is, is a homosexual.

That doesn't mean I can't still invest in him and get to know him. I don't think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect, getting to know him that I would say you can still accept them, but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 end quote.

And Murphy goes on to say, uh, quote, uh, maybe as a Christian that we haven't been as articulate enough in describing what our actual stance is on homosexuality. We love the people. We disagree with the lifestyle.

That's the way I would describe it for me. It's the same way that there are aspects of my life that I'm trying to surrender to Christ in my own life. There's a great deal of many things like my pride.

I just think that as a believer trying to articulate it in a way that says, just because I disagree with the lifestyle doesn't mean I'm never going to speak to Billy Bean every time he walks through the door.

That's not love. That's not love at all. End quote. So those were Billy Beans comment or excuse me, those were Daniel Murphy's comments. And I think as you can see from that, I was, I was actually, uh, I was impressed with, I mean, it was a very mature response.

I mean, he wasn't trying to throw bombs. He wasn't being, uh, being bombastic or, or trying to, uh, um, be really, uh, I don't know, preachy or maybe that's the right word. He was, he stated what he believed and I think he did it in a way that was pretty low key.

And I think very, uh, uh, I think showed some wisdom and some maturity, but, um, that doesn't really matter to our, our diversity commissars that we have today. Um, the, the way things are today, either you agree with the agenda that's being pushed by the LGBT folks and, and the other various, um, uh, liberal, political, economic, uh, liberal points of view, either you agree 100 with them or you are history.

I mean, there is no room for disagreement. I mean, it's, it's a, I mean, these guys are really the diversity commissars. And if you don't accept what they say, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks.

It doesn't matter how reasonable you may want to be, how mild you want to be, um, how conversational you want to be, how much you may want to reach out to somebody. Um, they basically want to give you a headache to me.

Um, if, if you, uh, if you cross their line, I mean, these people, they have, uh, they don't seem to have any mercy at all. And, and in reading through this article, kind of going back to the original article that I, I, uh, I started talking about when you read through this, I mean, the slant on Daniel Murphy is, is really pretty amazing.

I mean, they just, they just attack, attack, attack right from the, right from the beginning. And they say, unfortunately, he's a person. Well, I mean, that kind of sets the mood for the, for the, for the whole piece.

And, uh, and, and he goes on and, and, you know, the, this, this whole article, uh, and it's not that long of an article, but it's just, it goes on in basically the whole idea is that Daniel Murphy is a horrible person.

Daniel Murphy is a terrible person because he disagrees with the LGP agenda. And it's, uh, in the article goes on to talk about the fact that the Cubs, that they brought in, uh, that they brought in this player right before they have their, uh, their big, uh, uh, their big gay day.

Apparently they, they're going to be having a, uh, a, uh, it's called out at Wrigley. Uh, and that's something that's going to be held actually tomorrow. I'm recording this on August 25th. It's actually gonna be held on Sunday, uh, August 26.

It's called, it's called out at Wrigley. And it's, I guess a pretty big, uh, big deal. And in fact, it's some, it's, it's a kind of a gay day at, at Wrigley stadium and at Wrigley field, I should say.

And the, uh, the Cubs actually promote this. Uh, I was looking and I saw some, uh, uh, you know, there's some hats in this, you know, with a rainbow, uh, colored hats and, and this sort of thing. And the Cubs are not alone.

I, and I was, I didn't realize this. Uh, I did not realize that major league baseball teams were, uh, were having these, these kind of out days, these sort of gay days at, at the ballpark. And I found there's one article that said, in fact, 24 teams, 24 major league teams, uh, were having, uh, having these kinds of, uh, of, of gay days.

I didn't realize that they did that. So that was, that was kind of new to me. So, you know, what we see here is, is, you know, as a ball player who goes out and expresses himself, as I said, I think in a, in a pretty mature fashion and in a very, uh, most understated fashion.

And yet he, you know, three years later, he's still having these comments thrown at him and he's having articles written in, uh, in, in, in the mainstream press, basically saying what a horrible person he is.

Looking in here, there was, uh, another article that I know that I found here. Oh yeah. This, this one was, uh, this is an article on, uh, on Daniel Murphy. This is from, uh, from Yahoo news, you know, Daniel Murphy still doesn't get it.

Uh, that's, that's the headline and this is written by Craig, uh, Cal Catera for NBC sports. I'll just quote you some of this back in 2015, Daniel Murphy, then with the Mets got on some hot water when he decided it was his job to tell the world that he disagreed with major league vice-president Billy Bean's lifestyle.

Meaning of course, with Bean's homosexuality, he added, I don't think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. How generous says Mr. Cal Catera, uh, I guess, dripping with a certain amount of sarcasm.

Uh, and, uh, in the, this article actually goes on and it talks about Billy Bean's position. It says, uh, Bean, uh, I guess at the time was the ambassador for inclusion. Uh, and he, he actually congratulates Billy Bean for taking a diplomatic tact.

Uh, but of course he gives no credit whatsoever to, uh, to Daniel Murphy for showing a certain amount of diplomatic tact. I, and which, which I think he did. Uh, and yet, you know, the, the fact that he expressed his opinion that happens to go against the prevailing winds of the LGBT agenda.

Well, that's enough to get you, uh, you know, shuffled off to, I don't know, uh, I guess what inclusivity Siberia or something, you know, the gulags, whatever, your reeducation camps, you know, comrade, we have, we have great things planned for you, comrade.

It seems to be the message of the, uh, uh, the, uh, the press, uh, in, uh, in, in dealing with, with Daniel Murphy and, you know, some of this, this guy kind of got me to thinking a little bit, you know, of course, you know, as Christians, you know, how it is we, uh, you know, we, we act and speak when, when we're, we're confronted with this whole, uh, uh, LGBT thing.

And it's a real challenge, um, because, you know, there really isn't a third way, you know, there's not a way that we can dodge this, you know, there's not a way we can say, well, you know, um, you do your thing, we'll do our thing.

And, uh, and, uh, you know, everything will be just fine. You know, it'd be, you know, we can't do that. And, and I actually found a, uh, uh, I did find one story where, uh, where Billy Bean, um, had said in response to Daniel Murphy's, uh, comments, he said, well, you know, I appreciate the fact that Daniel Murphy spoke his truth.

You know, Daniel Murphy spoke his truth. You know, the, the, the operative word there is his. And I, and I thought to myself, when I saw that, I thought, you know, that, that is such a 21st century statement, right?

I mean, isn't that just the kind of thing that you expect to hear in our, in this day and age, you know, you've got your truth. I have my truth. You know, we all have truth, you know, truth, truth, truth, but because some truth is, is, is more important than others.

That seems to kind of be the thought behind that. And, you know, I got to thinking to myself some about, you know, again, you know, how do we as Christians answer these sorts of things? And, and, and I would say that, you know, some of that really depends on the circumstances.

You know, I, I don't know that there is, you know, when we're, we're confronted with, uh, with, uh, questions, you know, someone comes to you and asks you about, well, you know, what do you think about the, you know, the, uh, you know, having a gay teammate or something like this, you know, and as a Christian, I mean, if someone's an athlete or maybe you're, you're not an athlete, maybe this is something just comes up at work or, uh, maybe in some other, uh, setting, maybe that's not an explicitly Christian setting.

Now, how do we deal with that? How do we, how do we respond to something like that? Well, you know, as Christians, of course, we clearly know, you know, the Bible condemns homosexuality. I mean, that, that's not a tough question.

Um, you know, you know, what's the Bible stance on, on homosexuality? Well, it's a sin. You know, it, it, it's a sin and you don't have to be, you know, some, some theological genius. You know, you don't have to be Gordon Clark.

You don't have to be John Robbins or you don't have to be, uh, you know, Martin Luther or John Calvin or John Gill or one of these guys, you don't have to be some giant theological giant to understand what the Bible says about, about homosexuality.

It's very simple. It's a sin. Yeah. And those who practice that sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. You know, this, this, this isn't difficult. It's not hard. Uh, the Bible is not equivocal on this, but you know, the question is, of course, you know, as Christians, how do we respond to people?

And, and I think that, you know, that Daniel Murphy, um, I think what he said was, you know, as I said, I think it was very diplomatic. I think he was very, I think he showed a certain amount of maturity in what he said.

I think he tried to be gentle in what he said. Um, but I think he was also firm, you know, in fact, it's kind of interesting when you read through some of these articles talking about Daniel Murphy, they seem incensed, incensed, they're outraged at the fact that he has not ever walked back his statement, you know, and they seem to be perplexed by this.

You know, how come this guy hasn't walked back his statement? Yeah. Why, why hasn't he done this? Well, I mean, the reason is, is because he can't, you know, if he actually is a Christian, I mean, he can't come out and say, well, yeah, you know, that, that whole gay lifestyle thing, that's just awesome.

Well, it's, it's not awesome. You know, it's, it's not good. It's, it is not pleasing to God. Uh, it is destructive to those who practice it and, and they will in this life and it is destructive to them eternally unless they repent.

And, and, and that's, that's what the Bible teaches. But again, you know, how do we get back and how do we, we, we answer these things when it comes up? Well, as I said, I think it takes real wisdom. You know, how do we apply the Bible's teaching in our everyday life?

You know, there's, there's knowledge and then there's wisdom. You know, so there's, there's, there's two different, uh, those are two different but closely related things. You know, knowledge, when we talk about the knowledge of the scriptures, we talk about the, you know, the, the ideas, the propositions, the doctrines that, that are taught in the scripture.

But then the question comes up, okay, well, how do we apply these things to our lives? You know, to the situations that we run into, to the men, to the, uh, the circumstances in which we find ourselves, you know, we have to be able to apply the teaching of the Bible, uh, you know, not just on Sunday morning, but throughout the six days of the week.

And so how do we, you know, how, how would we answer something? You know, and it's probably not a bad idea to think a little bit about, you know, how you would talk to someone if they were to ask you a question, say about, well, you know, what would you think about a gay teammate?

Now, how would you answer that question? I think that that's a very good thing. Very, very good, uh, question to ask yourself and to consider. Um, one, one thing, and I just want to maybe talk about one option.

I mean, there, there are a number of different options and, and like I say, it depends, I think on the circumstances that we're faced with on how you answer a question like that. But one option, and I think this is an option that a lot of Christians maybe don't consider is the fact that you don't have to give an answer.

You're not always required to give an answer when, every time somebody asks you a question. Some of that really depends upon, I think, the motives of the questioner. And, and I would suggest that, that you can actually get some of that out of, out of, uh, the Sermon on the Mount.

Let me read to you, this is a little bit out of, out of chapter seven. I'm just going to read here, oh, uh, verses one to six of, uh, of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter seven. Judge not that you be not judged.

For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye. And look, the plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye. And then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Do not give what is holy to dogs. Nor cast your pearls before swine, as they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Okay. So what does, what does this have to say about, uh, about, uh, how Christians should deal with questions when they come up with a sort that say was, was posed to, to Daniel Murphy?

Well, one of the things, of course, this is that famous passage, judge not lest you be judged. Now that that's a course of passage that, that unbelievers like to throw up at Christians all the time. Judge not lest you be judged.

I think it's the only verse in the Bible. A lot of them ever know or have ever heard. Um, and of course, you know, Jesus is not prohibiting judgment. Uh, simpliciter that is, he's not permitting judgment, prohibiting judgment in every case.

In fact, it's impossible not to judge. We all have to be judged and we all will be judged. What this passage is talking about is you have to judge according to the proper standard. I mean, elsewhere in scripture says, you know what Jesus says, you know, judge with righteous judgment.

So, I mean, what this is really warning about is, is judging, uh, according to unbiblical standards. We have to judge according to the Bible. And, and Jesus goes on, he talks there, and I especially want to highlight verse six of chapter seven.

He says, do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under the feet and turn and tear you in pieces. Now, I think what this passage, and this is what I believe that Jesus was talking about here in this passage, or at least what I'd like to at least throw out for your consideration is, is I think what Jesus is saying here is, is you don't always have to give somebody an answer.

You know, we, we have that saying about, we talk about pearls of wisdom, right? Well, we don't have to give what is holy to dogs or cast our, our pearls of wisdom, you know, cast our scriptural beliefs, um, before, uh, before swine.

You know, there are people who come and you can see this some in the new Testament where, you know, maybe some of the Pharisees or the Sadducees come to tempt Jesus and they ask him questions and they don't ask him questions because they have a motive because they want to learn from him.

They, they, they, they have an ulterior motive, you know, their, their motive for asking him a question is not to learn, but it's to catch him in a trap, you know, catch him in a verbal trap and, and then go, I guess, and what, tattle on him to the authorities and, and, and get him in trouble or, or try to refute him or embarrass him, things of this sort.

Uh, of course it never worked, but I mean, that was their purpose behind asking those questions. Yeah. And sometimes people may ask us as Christians, uh, questions, not because they want to learn Christian doctrine, but because they want to, they want to get some red meat that they can use to, uh, to, to tear us to pieces.

You know, they, they, they want us to, to give them a quote that they can come in and beat us over the head with for years to come. I think that, that that also is, is, I think that's what Jesus is talking about here in this passage.

You know, we don't necessarily have to give somebody with ulterior motives an answer. You know, we don't have to give them the ammunition. Uh, we don't have to give them the bullets, uh, that they can use then to turn around and shoot us with.

So, I mean, I think at least in some cases, I think maybe the best thing to say as Christians is no comment. No, I'm not saying that in every case. I mean, there's a time where, where we do have to stand, but there are some times maybe when the best thing to do is just say no comment.

And so, I mean, that, that's something that, that is an option that's available to us, you know, as Christians. And I think that's something maybe that we can consider as, as maybe a, a, uh, uh, a tool in our tool bag when dealing with, with some of these, uh, these people who really do have a, a deep seated hatred, hatred for Christians.

And, and ultimately their, their hatred isn't, isn't of Christians. It's, it's really of Christ himself, uh, that, that they hate. Uh, and that's expressed in the, the hatred that they have toward his people.

So anyway, that about wraps it up for this week. Thanks very much for, uh, for listening in. I really enjoyed having you. I hope you, uh, got something out of this podcast and, uh, until next time we, uh, we talk again, may the spirit of truth guide you in all truth as you read and study God's word.