AD Speaks to Conley Owens About False Teachers and Money (Dorean Principle)

AD Robles

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00:02

All right, we are live. Thank you, Fran, for reminding everyone to hit the like button, because I'm the absolute worst at live streaming.

00:10

I don't remind anyone to click the like button. I don't remind anyone to comment. I don't remind anyone to share. So I appreciate that,

00:16

Fran. Thank you very, very much. We will just wait just a few moments for people to watch. But I don't know if anyone watched my show today, but I went outside just a moment ago to see what my chickens were up to and stuff like that.

00:31

And I'm like looking over my shoulder to see if there's bobcats around here. Connelly, I don't know if you saw my video today. I went outside to go fishing and I step outside,

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I look up, there's a bobcat six feet away from me, and I step back inside. I'm like, nope, not doing that.

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And I actually snapped a picture of it. And, you know, bobcats aren't that big, but very unsettling.

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And he was not at all impressed with me. He just stood there looking at me. So how long have you been in Vermont?

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I've been curious about this. Well, actually, so I'm not in Vermont anymore. I'm in New Hampshire now. Okay. But I've been in New England.

01:06

I grew up in New England, but I moved from New York for probably like, at this point, six, seven years, something like that.

01:13

Is it a fairly liberal area? Like I imagine it to be? Yeah, yeah.

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So I live in New Hampshire. New Hampshire is kind of in between. A lot of libertarians and a lot of very progressive people.

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But the town I live in is very progressive because it's like a college town, you know? So that usually influences things, you know, one way.

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Do you feel particularly called to that? Living in this kind of an area? Yeah, yeah,

01:39

I do. I personally feel called to live in a more liberal area. Well, you're spoiling the whole thing.

01:46

I got to introduce you first. Well, no, well, I will say those. I actually do.

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And I like it very much. I, you know, obviously there's things I wish were different, but I'm enjoying what

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I'm doing. So anyway, so here's, let's introduce this. So that way they know where you're coming from and why you said that.

02:05

So this is Conley Owens. And Conley Owens reached out to me, I don't remember how long ago, and he had this book that he was writing and he wanted to see if I would read it and maybe endorse it, which

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I did. And Conley, he is an elder at a Reformed Baptist church in Silicon Valley, which is why he asked me that question.

02:24

So I live in, I used to live in Vermont, which is like socialist paradise. And the only thing that would be,

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I think more socialist paradise would be Silicon Valley. So that's why -

02:36

Maybe DC, maybe, probably DC, probably DC. But anyway, so we're gonna talk about his book because I think you guys will be very intrigued by it.

02:48

And I told Conley right before we went live that I sold this as, you know, how he called every person who's ever written a book that's about Christianity a false teacher in the book, which is only a little bit hyperbole.

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Anyway, but we'll talk about that. And guys, if you have questions for Conley once he starts talking about it, feel free to comment them and I will try to get to as many as I can.

03:16

Can't promise to get to all of them, but I will ask him anything. He's not giving me any limitations of what I could ask him and what

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I could, you know, we could talk about here, but the book is called The Dorian Principle. Is that how you pronounce it?

03:28

I pronounce it Dorian, but it's obviously a transliteration. It's not - Yeah, it's a Greek word, right?

03:33

Right, yes. Right, so Dorian Principle. That's what the book is called. It just came out pretty recently.

03:39

It was published recently, right? Right, yes. Yeah, September 30th, I think.

03:45

That's awesome. Hold that up again. Yeah, sure. So the copy I had was black and white and that's way better.

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And I liked the black and white one too. It was kind of stylish. But the thing is, I actually don't have it to show you because I liked the book so much and I was so intrigued by what it said that I've given it to people to read because I was like, you need to read this.

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Like, I want to know what your take is. And I've given it to people that I respect their opinion because it's extremely controversial.

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Would you characterize it as extremely controversial? It should be. I'm surprised at how little pushback

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I've gotten. There's just a lot of things that have really surprised me about this. That's great. So when I was asking for endorsements,

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I geared up for rejection and sent out 120 emails because I thought no one's going to like this. And I was surprised that I actually got a few people who were willing to give it their stamp of approval.

04:34

Yeah, well, what's so amazing about it is because I'm reading this book and we'll talk about it in a second, but I'm reading this book and I'm like, you know, this all seems right to me, but like what

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I'm doing, if it's right, then I need to like repent of some things. Yeah. Which is a weird place to be, you know what

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I mean? Because, you know, I do appreciate so much what we say. So let's just get into it, right?

04:56

So let's stop beating around the bush. So in a nutshell, you know, Conley, if you can explain what this book is about, or, you know, however you want to start, just let everybody know what this book is.

05:07

Yeah, well, let's start off with the title, right? It's called the Dorian Principle and the subtitle is a biblical response to the commercialization of Christianity.

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So it is a responding to the commercialization of Christianity. Dorian is the Greek adverb that means freely.

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Jesus said in Matthew 10, eight, freely you received, freely give, you know, in the ESV it says you receive without paying, give without pay.

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And it's also the same word Paul uses in second Corinthians to talk about his preaching without pay.

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So here you have Jesus and Paul using the same word to talk about freely offering the gospel. So, but right after that in Matthew 10, eight, right after in Matthew 10, nine through 10, that's where you get the phrase, workers worthy of his food, which in Luke is workers worthy of his wages.

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And so how do you hold those two things together? How do you say, well, we should be giving the gospel without payment.

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And yet a worker should also be worthy of his wages. You know, he should be supported. How do you hold those two together? And a lot of people come up with these, frankly, very poor solutions that are these ethics of moderation, where they say, oh, you can receive as long as it's not too much, or as long as the person can afford it, or as long as you're not profiting, as long as you're not making more than what you put into it, or they come up with all these things that have nothing to do with the text.

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And so I distinguish between reciprocity and co -labor, where reciprocity is exchanging the gospel for money, and co -labor is being supported by those who would like to push this ministry forward.

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And that comes out many, many times in Paul. It comes out in that passage with Jesus.

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You know, Paul, a lot of topics, you know, the Lord's Supper, he's got half a chapter on that. Ministry fundraising is something that he talks about repeatedly, nonstop, whole chapters.

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You know, he says a lot about this. And then even John in 3 John makes a statement along those lines, distinguishing co -labor from reciprocity.

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So yeah, I absolutely think that ministers should be supported financially, probably a lot more than they are, but at the same time, it should be by co -laborers, not by customers.

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So let me stop you right there, because I've heard a lot of the lame kind of interpretations as well. I remember the one that struck a chord to me that I was like, oh, that makes sense.

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But like, it didn't make sense based on what was written. It would just make sense to me, my own heart, which we understand is desperately wicked.

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Who could understand it? But what made sense to me was somebody said, oh, you know, a pastor should make like the average salary of like the people in his flock.

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Like, so that's how much you should give him, like the average salary. So like, if he's in a blue collar area, he should only make this much.

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If he's in Silicon Valley, he should probably make 300K. Like, you know what I mean? I'm just joking, but you know what I'm saying? Right.

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So the point is like, I heard that and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, well, that makes perfect sense. But like, you know, that doesn't actually come from the text though.

08:04

No. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's a lot of Christian prudence around how much a pastor should make, but in a way, my book's not even addressing that, right?

08:10

It's not even addressing that. It's addressing where the money comes from, not how much it is. Right, but I remember hearing that, and thinking like, well, you just made that up.

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I know you just made that up, obviously. So the whole idea here is that, yes, people that are doing ministry, you know, gospel ministry, they should, of course, have their food.

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They should have their income, right? But, so this is the controversial part, where that income comes from and how it comes to them is very important according to the

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Dorian principle. Is that right? Right, yeah. So if you're engaged in ministerial reciprocity, where you're exchanging the gospel for money, that's forbidden by scripture.

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And so you have all kinds of examples of that. The example that you're giving, you know, someone who sells a book, right, who is saying that, you know, in order to receive this teaching, this explanation of the gospel or some other part of the

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Bible that, you know, relates to the gospel, because it's all about Jesus, that you have to give me money in order to receive it.

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You know, and you have this all over the place. You have it for seminary education, which once again is about the Bible. And you have it for, you know,

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I launched this book at G3. If you wanted to watch the live streaming at G3, it was $14 .99. You know, it's just a lot of very commercial ways of supporting ministry.

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And I get it, ministry should be supported, but once again, not by customers. Yeah. So I'll say just one verse to throw out there.

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Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2, 17, for we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

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And so, you know, a lot of people will use that verse to put down the peddlers of the word they don't like, but what about the peddlers of the word they do like?

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You know, I've got tons of people I like, you know, even you, right? Like - This is what blew my mind about this whole book.

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So I just want to stop you because I want everyone to know here that he's talking about me, for example, because I sell a book right now.

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I'm still doing it right now. And listen, calmly, let me just say this, like,

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I'm wondering if I should continue. You know what I mean? Like this is, I'm at that razor's edge right now.

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And it's primarily because of your book. But what he's saying is that we all can make fun of like the prosperity preachers and they sell a book and it's a stupid book and it's awful, whatever.

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Or maybe it's a decent book. Like some of these prosperity preachers, I don't know how well you know these guys, but like they put out a ton of material and some of it is very innocuous and pretty decent.

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Like it's not all awful, right? But they're selling these books. And it's so obvious to us that they're false teachers and they're in it for the money or some other reason.

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Nobody really knows what they're in it for, but they're making a ton of money. And it's like, okay, so we're easy to throw that under the bus.

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But what about the guy who's making a normal income or maybe just slightly upper class income off of selling books as well?

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Like why aren't we thinking, well, maybe that is along the same lines, not the same thing.

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Maybe he's not as heretical as Benny Hinn, but what is it about, where's the distinction?

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Where's the line, I think is what the book was essentially attempting to answer.

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Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's the text on the back gets at that, right? That, you know, it's easy to point fingers at the bad guys, but what about the good guys who are essentially doing the same thing, maybe at a different level of, you know, how much money they're making.

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But, you know, one person who interviewed me about this, he was pointing out that, you know, he tells his friends,

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Joel Osteen's a false teacher. Look, he's just trying to get your money, et cetera. But then he was thinking about it.

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He's like, well, what's the difference between him and R .C. Sproul? And he decided that, well, he's offering a better product.

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I'm like, I agree he's offering a better product, but the Bible doesn't say that you can be a peddler of the word as long as it's a good word, you know.

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As long as it's a good product, right? That's not enough. That's not the distinction the

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Bible makes. And I think people can tell from this conversation, maybe you can attest to it.

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The book is fairly charitable and it's offering of this ethic because, yeah,

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I get it. Like, I'm not saying that everyone's gotten this wrong for 2000 years and I'm getting it right.

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I really think this is a modern issue that's come out of the evolution of digital media and modern copyright, which modern copyright has not existed for that long.

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And so, yeah, I wanna offer people a chance to think for a second, have we just followed the model of the world?

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Do we need to look at this? And maybe I will be less charitable in 10 years after people have had a chance to think about this.

12:53

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being charitable with me because I think I told you, I called you, I think

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I insisted that I talk to you after I read the book. And I was like, this is like paradigm shifting stuff.

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Like I'm very discombobulated. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it's like your argument seems right to me.

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I'm not gonna lie. It seems very right to me. And I don't think that you're like the most cleverest argumentor.

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Like it's just basic scripture stuff. Would you agree with that? Like this is not a clever argument. Yeah, I had one church member as I was presenting this for the first time, he says, you know, like where's the line you would draw?

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And I didn't understand what he was saying for a long time, but he was basically saying like, this wasn't obvious to me beforehand.

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And, you know, but once you look at those texts, like the relevant texts and you have to answer, you know, what do they mean if they mean something?

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You know, the answer's right there. When you ask yourself, what does it mean that we have to give without pay and the minister's worthy of his food?

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You know, how do you put those together? You have to have some kind of answer. And, you know, just to throw out one other verse where I think states this fairly clearly.

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Third John seven and eight says, for they have gone out for the sake of the name, not accepting anything from the Gentiles.

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Therefore we ought to be supporter of people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. So there

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John's even making this distinction between reciprocity and co -labor, right? These missionaries did not charge the people that they're going to, therefore they're very commendable.

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We should be supporting them. We should be giving them money. So, okay.

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So let's just get super simple because we've been about 15 minutes at this right now. Let's like, for someone who's just joining right now or people who've been listening and haven't quite caught it, what's the basic principle?

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What is the argument? What is the basic principle in a step -by -step way that is as easy as understand as possible?

14:46

Like what is this story in principle? Yeah, I can try to find the definition that I wrote down here.

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Yeah, that'd be helpful, I think, because, you know, listen, I gotta be honest. I feel like this will get pushback from key people at high levels, but I think that the people in the pews are ready for something like this, but they need to hear it in an easy to understand kind of way.

15:09

Does that make sense? Right, yeah. So, yeah, it's the distinction between reciprocity and co -labor, like I've said.

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So let me define both of those and then I'll define the Dorian principle. So reciprocity is the bad one. Right.

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Co -labor is the good one. Yeah, exactly. So ministerial reciprocity, support material or otherwise given to a minister out of a sense of direct obligation for his ministry of the gospel.

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So if you feel like, oh, wow, this guy did something for me, I have to do something back for him. You know, you're not acknowledging that the gospel comes from God and that if you're giving to this person, it needs to be out of an obligation to God, not that individual.

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You know, and you see this in Paul's metaphors, right? He goes to the priests. How did the priests make their money?

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In 1 Corinthians 9, when he says, these people need to be, ministers need to be supported. When he appeals to the priests, he's not appealing to ones who are given to directly.

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They received the sacrifice and of the tithes. These were things that were given to God, not the priests directly charging as though it was due to them.

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You know, Hophni and Phinehas and 1 Samuel, that's what they try to do. They try to take the sacrifice before it's been given to God and they're guilty for doing so.

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Now, co -labor, the good one, says support material or otherwise given by man to a minister out of a sense of obligation to God to honor or aid in the proclamation of the gospel.

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Okay, so that's what happens in the weekly life of the church, right? We all contribute. You know, when the preacher is preaching, we're not paying him because he did something for us.

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You know, one of us has got to quit our job and like really devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

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And so we're all, you know, sharing in this task, some of us by giving of our labor.

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That's right. So, okay. So let me just break this down in an easy to understand way. So if I'm selling a book called

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Social Justice Pharisees, Woke Church Tactics and How to Engage Them, hypothetically, if I was selling such a thing,

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I could say, hey, I'm giving you this book and you owe me $15 for the book.

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That's reciprocity. That's the bad word. Or if I were to say, hey, you know,

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I have this YouTube channel that you really like. If you got value out of it, give me 10 bucks.

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That's reciprocity. That's also reciprocity, yeah. Right. So that would be exchanging money for something that I'm doing.

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It's gospel ministry. It's teaching from the scripture. It's, you know, whatever kind of teaching it is, it's something

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I got freely from God. And, or maybe not because our culture is so jacked up, I probably read a book that I bought from somebody.

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But anyway, the point is, it should be from God's word. I should have gotten it freely, but I'm selling it now to somebody.

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But what's not reciprocity is tithes and offerings at church where you're giving money to God because you, you know, you think that that's the right thing to do for God.

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Like you, you know, God has given you this ministry. He's given you this word and things like that.

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And you're paying to be a part of that ministry for other people, for your fellow, you know, congregations, for the people out there that maybe don't have the gospel, you're gonna send missionaries out there.

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You're joining in the ministry. That's not reciprocity. Or to go back to you as an example, you're

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Patreon supporters, right? So these are people who are coming alongside you, co -laboring. Now, I don't know if they get some special perk for doing that.

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So the perk would be reciprocity. But if there were no perks, it would be co -labor. Got it.

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Got it. And that one example you gave was very good. You were talking about, you know, you've seen this video, you like it, you should give me something.

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So a lot of people also think the biblical ethic is about whether or not it's voluntary. That's also, once again, not the concern.

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If people in Corinth, you know, they were trying to give the Paul voluntarily and he was refusing it.

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So it has nothing to do with whether or not the giving is voluntary. Right. So it's about what's exchanged.

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Because if something's exchanged, you know, ministry for money or food or whatever it is, that's reciprocity.

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And what you're saying is that that's not allowed according to scripture. Right. But it's actually more than that.

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Okay, go ahead. So one more. So one more, I had mentioned before, you know, something that people think, they think it's, well, if, you know, this person can afford it, then it's okay.

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You know, in second Corinthians 11, Paul says that he was willing to rob from the Philippians, you know, rather than, or from Macedonia, which is the

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Philippians. He was willing to rob from them rather than take from Corinth. Corinth was richer than Philippi for all, you know, for as much as we're able to account for it 2000 years later.

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And he was willing to take from the Philippians because they were co -laboring with him. That, you read the book of Philippians and the language of partnership is all throughout it.

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You know, he says no other church was willing to partner with me in the gospel in giving and receiving. So yeah, you see partnership just come out really strongly there.

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That's why he's willing to take from them. Now - Drew says, Eddie Robles needs a haircut like Conley Owens. Drew, I am incapable of having a haircut like Conley Owens.

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Just FYI. Go ahead. Nice. So to pull those two together.

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So that was the definition of ministerial co -labor and ministerial reciprocity. So to put those together into the

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Dorian principle, in the context of gospel proclamation, accepting support as anything other than an act of co -labor compromises the sincerity of ministry.

20:44

Right. And this is what Paul - So this is the plus because it's not just that it's not allowed. It's actually much worse than that.

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So tell us how it's worse than being a sin. Well, I guess that's not true, but you know what

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I'm saying. Right. So Paul makes it clear that, you know, his sincerity is on the line.

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That verse that I quoted from 2 Corinthians 2 .17. You know, we are men of sincerity, not peddlers of the word.

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I don't have an ulterior motive. You know, he says in 1 Corinthians 9, no one can rob me of this boast, you know, so that I'm doing this for this reason and not for Christ, essentially.

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You know, this is not God working in me, but me working for myself. There's a lot of other times where this comes out.

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1 and 2 Thessalonians both talk about this, that basically his sincerity is on the line. And for someone who reads the book,

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I've heard a number of people have skipped ahead and read the conclusion. And I think that's kind of a helpful thing to do because I do bring this point out really strongly.

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I did this as well, by the way. So go ahead. Yeah. So basically Isaiah and then later in Revelation talks about salvation as being the water that's offered without money and without price.

21:53

Right. And Jesus is that living water. He has to be offered without money and without price. And so the whole message of the gospel is built into its delivery as well, that this is being offered without money and without price.

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And the one who does not do that compromises the message by compromising their own sincerity of it.

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And just to quote the last thing that's in this book, I quote Micah 3 .11.

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Its heads give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets practice divination for money, yet they lean on the

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Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. It's a very clear verse, the people who would exchange their ministry, whether it be priest, prophet, or judge.

22:40

It's a contrast. Yeah. So, okay. So calmly, like, let me just get this straight.

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So you're a pastor from Silicon Valley. And what you're saying is that if the people that are selling books about the word of God, you know, what

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God says about Christianity, you know, things like that, like this is something they ought not do.

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Like this is actually something that's the sign of potentially insincere hearts.

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Is that what you're saying calmly? Yes. Yeah, I am. And like I said, you know,

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I'm saying this in what I think to be a very charitable way that I understand that, you know, they haven't heard otherwise, et cetera.

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But I'm hoping that, you know, as they read this book, as I see there's some very clear verses about this, this isn't an option.

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And one thing that came out in my studies is when I look at what the Bible says about false teachers, you know, we usually think of this

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Venn diagram of false teachers, you know, being, well, there's greedy teachers and false teachers, and sometimes there's this overlap, but well, you know, there's certainly a spectrum.

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The biblical view seems to be that a greedy teacher is a false teacher, and a false teacher is a greedy teacher.

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And this is supposed to be the mechanism by which we discern these things, right? In second Corinthians, Paul says that he will continue never receiving money from the

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Corinthians in this context of reciprocity, because he needs to distinguish himself from the false teachers.

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And you have verses like in first Timothy six, first Timothy six, three, it says, if anyone teaches different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, you know, it says he is puffed up with conceit, understands nothing, he has a healthy craving, et cetera.

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And then it says, he imagines that godliness is a means of gain, and then later, you know, love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.

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Paul says that if anyone, if anyone teaches other than Jesus, you know, they're a lover of money.

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And you look at Jesus and the Pharisees, right? The Pharisees were not the worst of false teachers, right? They had great doctrine.

24:47

And so - Very good doctrine in general, yeah. In fact, Jesus says, do what they say. Yeah. Do what they say, that's how good it was.

24:54

He's like, do what they say. Right, but they're the falsest of teachers because, you know, they're the truest in terms of doctrine, but they were the falsest in terms of, you know, their status before the

25:04

Lord, because of their approach to finances. Well, right, he said, do what they say, don't do what they do, because what they do is gather a bunch of money for themselves, is what they do.

25:15

Right, yeah, they had that ulterior motive in everything they did. So this is the Venn diagram. So he's saying that the

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G, that represents the greedy teachers. The F represents the false teachers. This is how we normally think of it.

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So there's some greedy teachers and some false teachers, and then there's some that are greedy and false.

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What Conley is saying here, guys, and listen - I can use the one in the book, if that helps.

25:39

No, no, this one's better, dude. What are you talking about? What he's saying is that actually it's one and the same.

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The greedy teachers are the false teachers, according to the Bible. And listen, guys, you don't have to take his word for it.

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Like he's got the scriptures in there and he's quoted a few here. And I think you need to get this book.

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By the way, you can't buy it. In case you were wondering, because as I read it,

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I was wondering the same thing. You can't buy this book, but you can get it for free. And anyway, so the point is, he's saying that this is a matter.

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This is why I sold it the way I did. I sold it as, he's talking about everyone who sold the book as a false teacher. And he's a lot more charitable than that because he's a charitable guy.

26:24

I mean, you kind of have to be when you're presenting something like this. When I'm condemning every single person in the church, yeah.

26:33

Yes, and I'm laughing here, but it's me too. I'm laughing, but I don't know why

26:39

I'm laughing. He's talking about me. Yeah, stop clapping. That's right, that's right.

26:45

Glad you got that. I appreciate that. That was my test to see if you were really a Christian. Anyway, but the point is though, that this is serious.

26:55

It's like, it's not, he's not like giving like this halfway argument here. It's like a total argument.

27:01

What he's saying is that if you're charging money for the gospel, this is you. And so you need to correct that.

27:08

Anyway, Conley, sorry to interrupt you, but were you saying something? I don't think so. Yeah, so let me ask you a question.

27:16

So there's a few things that I do that I know are off limits. So like the selling of the book, that's a no -no according to this principle.

27:26

So what about having this YouTube channel, right? So I do monetize my channel and I don't need to.

27:32

I just do it because why not? Is that Dorian principle kosher or not kosher?

27:40

Yeah, that's a good question. So there are a lot of finer points that, if I had all the time in the world,

27:45

I would get to those. There's a lot that I have trouble wrestling with myself and I don't have all the answers.

27:52

That is one where, if you have a page where you're saying, you give me views and then

27:58

I give you this thing, it does feel like it fits more into the reciprocity. Now on YouTube, now

28:04

I was thinking about that this morning on YouTube, because I was listening to a podcast that was talking about what YouTube has stated about its algorithms and whether or not they might be true on whether or not that gives you less views because they wanna show the ones that will be monetized, right?

28:18

And I don't know whether or not that's the case. YouTube says it's not, but if you suspect that's the case and you're doing it so that more people have a chance to see it, then like,

28:27

I don't know. Things get really confusing at that point and I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do claim to have a principle that hopefully someone else can be more consistent in applying.

28:38

Well, I mean, you don't have to have all the answers because, you know, and people often will try to get me because I'm a theonomist.

28:44

Some people think I'm not a theonomist and that's fine. I don't care about the term, theonomist not, I care about God's law, right?

28:51

I care about God's law. I care about the general equity of God's law, like a confession say. So people will ask me, well, what about this situation?

28:57

And like, I don't really know the answer to that situation. And they somehow think that that like means like the principle is wrong.

29:04

Like, well, no, I mean, you know, there are smarter people than me that need to figure that stuff out. I have a principle here, right?

29:11

I defer to God's law. I wanna apply the general equity of God's law. That's what I wanna do. Does that mean I know how it applies in every situation?

29:17

No, I don't, I don't. That doesn't mean the principle is wrong though. Right? All right, cool.

29:23

So let me ask you a question. So, and you might not have your answer to this either, but like, there's a lot of people out there, including myself, but I'm a small potatoes kind of guy.

29:32

Like I, you know, I don't, I haven't, I don't sell many books. Like I don't have a whole thing. So like, there are people out there that I love and probably you love too, that have, you know, ministries that sell tons of books.

29:43

They sell, you know, conference speaking gigs, you know, things they sell all kinds of stuff, right?

29:51

So like, what, what, how do they, what do they do? How do they, how they live? How do they, you know, earn an income?

29:57

Like what, what should they do? Right? Well, first of all, if that's, if that is valued by Christians and hopefully you can find ways of supporting it, you know, there are churches who value these things, you know, partner together, work with them.

30:10

And maybe it's something like Kickstarter or Patreon where you're funding things beforehand, instead of after the fact.

30:17

That's another thing too, is, you know, everybody is so used to this supply and demand model. If you've got this thing that has a limited supply and you give it to someone and they give you money back.

30:25

But if you have something with an infinite supply, you know, like digital media, then what do we do?

30:30

So we just slap the same supply and demand model on it and expect the economy of it to work the exact same way.

30:37

I think that's pretty problematic, but you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of benefits you get when you start engaging in co -labor rather than reciprocity, right?

30:46

If you had discerning Christians who had skin in the game, you know, giving to ministries, they would feel the obligation to pray for those ministries.

30:56

They'd feel the obligation to hold these ministries accountable and you just don't have that in the model that currently exists.

31:02

So the health of these ministries, even if financially it were to diminish some, and I don't think it would completely diminish, even if it were to diminish some, the spiritual health would grow.

31:14

Yeah, amen. So what you're saying is that the spiritual health and the, well, and frankly, the faithfulness would increase and that ought to be a much better indicator than, you know, revenues.

31:27

Right. And there's nothing wrong with making revenues. Like guys, you guys know I'm a capitalist. You know,

31:32

I try to make as much money as I can in an ethical way and I don't apologize for it.

31:37

But like what you're saying is that when it comes to gospel ministry though, faithfulness, and actually in your whole lives, faithfulness is more important than revenues.

31:44

Right, exactly. Right. Question, question. So this is a question from, but what does the

31:50

Bible say? He says, what about muzzling the ox that tramples the grain? Right, yeah, absolutely.

31:58

They should be supported. You know, I've stated that pretty clearly and Paul states that in 1

32:05

Timothy 5, 1 Corinthians 9, right, it comes out there. And so how is he to be supported is by reciprocity.

32:16

So yeah, you have that in the context of 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul is refusing money. He's talking about his right to it, but refusing it.

32:23

And so there's a lot that needs to be teased out there, but essentially he's refusing it because he cannot take it.

32:30

Like there is something wrong about him taking it. And so many people say that, oh, this is just Paul's personal policy.

32:36

Right, he's like way up here. He's like this Uber apostle, you know, and that's why he's doing that.

32:42

Right, and basically they end up taking the Roman Catholic doctrine of supererogation and, you know, without that word where, you know, well, he's going above and beyond what

32:50

God has required. We can't go above and beyond what God has required. He, there is something wrong about what he's doing.

32:56

So when he talks about the importance of ministers being paid, absolutely, I agree.

33:01

When he's talking about the right, I agree, but I don't think most people know what that means. You know, in that context, he's, so his ministry, he's using that as an illustration for 1

33:11

Corinthians 8 and 10, where he's talking about the food being sacrificed to idols and eating food sacrificed to idols.

33:18

And he says that phrase that people know from 1 Corinthians, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.

33:25

And just a few chapters earlier, he had used that same phrase to talk about, to talk about eating food and to talk about, he even uses it to describe sleeping with a prostitute, where he says all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.

33:40

Well, sleeping with a prostitute, he's calling lawful, but not profitable. So what he means by lawful is not permissible.

33:46

It's not like, oh, this is good enough, but then, you know, you could also go above and beyond and do this other thing. So he's saying that he has this stewardship.

33:55

It's a right of stewardship, where he has authority, but that doesn't mean it's permitted to use that stewardship any way he pleases.

34:03

You know, a father has stewardship, authority over his child to discipline them. That does not mean they have permission from God to discipline them any way they want, even if they have the authority, you know, to make those decisions and do that.

34:16

Yeah, no, I definitely hear you. Krom here says, nothing wrong with collecting money for hard work of writing a complete book.

34:23

Now, let me answer for you, Connelly, see if I get this right. There isn't anything wrong, so long as you're not saying,

34:30

I'll give you this book if you give me 10 bucks. Right. If you like the book and you wanna support more people getting the book, you can give me 10 bucks and I can accept it, but I can't charge you 10 bucks for the book.

34:41

That's what you're saying. Is that right? Right, yeah, and in the context of Matthew 10 and in Luke 10, where, you know,

34:47

Jesus says very similar things, when he says the worker's worthy of his wages, who is the employer of the worker?

34:53

Jesus had just talked about, pray for laborers to be sent out into the harvest and God is the

35:00

Lord of the harvest. So the employer is God who is the one who is to be paying them, especially when

35:06

Jesus says, give without pay. He says, don't take from these people. God will be providing for you through these co -laborers who will be sons of peace that you will be able to stay with.

35:16

So yeah, absolutely. Absolutely ministers should be paid, but they should be paid by the Lord, just like the priests where it's indirect from the people to God, to the priest, and not direct as though the gospel has come from me.

35:29

I'll ask another question related to this, but first I'll ask a question. I don't know if it's a gotcha or if it's a funny question, but it says, yo

35:35

Conley, how'd you afford them glasses? They were on like $40 glasses .com or something. Yeah.

35:42

He paid for it with his other job, the one that's okay to have reciprocity. Yeah, clear frames.

35:47

Yeah, so I work at Google. That's my day job for now, until they fire me over this whole vaccine mandate thing.

35:54

Allegedly they might. I mean, who knows? Yeah, I don't know. We got another email today that was pretty disconcerting.

36:00

I don't wanna switch topics too much, but. All my family members have gotten that recently. And it's just like, it's very stressful, but luckily

36:08

I'm so grateful and blessed to work for myself. But like, if I was in these situations, man, stress like city.

36:15

Anyway, but you gotta trust the Lord. This is, okay, so let me answer this one.

36:20

But to answer that a little more, I don't think that all pastors should be bivocational. A lot of people look at the title and they think, oh yeah, this is one of those guys that think all pastors should be bivocational.

36:28

No, for those who are not familiar with the London Baptist Confession, one of the things that adds to the Westminster Confession is the statement that pastors should be paid so that they don't have to engage in secular work.

36:39

If my church were larger, I would be definitely pushing them to pay me so that I could work full -time for them. Amen, amen.

36:45

Yeah, pastors should be full -time ideally. I'm so glad you brought that up because I've actually said many times online that I think that there are many advantages to being bivocational, but it's definitely not like there's this ideal over here.

36:59

I don't think that's necessarily an ideal. I think there are advantages in our society right now. But at the end of the day, like, yeah, you should pay your pastor, right?

37:08

Because you're tithing and you're giving these offerings for a reason. And part of the reason is so that God can give it right back to the pastor so he can do the ministry that he's called them to do.

37:20

Now, yeah, so that's a very good point. You're not saying that pastors need to be, they need to get their money from elsewhere.

37:28

No, they need to be well -supported in order to engage in hospitality, in order to not be distracted by secular things so that they can devote themselves to the ministry of the word and prayer.

37:36

And like Paul says, Timothy, a soldier doesn't get entangled in secular matters.

37:42

The pastor is a soldier that you want on the front lines doing the best he can. You ought to support him as much as you're able. So this is a good comment.

37:50

I'll answer this one too before you do. See if I got this. You know what I mean? I think I've got it. I don't know if it's reciprocity.

37:55

If I say, thank you, AD, I have your book. It's great. I appreciate it. Here's 15 bucks. Thoughts? I don't know if something is exchanged, it's always reciprocity.

38:04

So you're right. So if you got my book and then you said, hey man, this is great.

38:09

I want to support you. I want to support your ministry. I want to support what you're doing, whatever. Here's some money. No matter what the price, you could give me $1 ,500 and it wouldn't be reciprocity so long as I'm not charging you for the ministry.

38:22

If we're joining together in ministry, it doesn't matter how much you give. You give me whatever you want. You give me $100 ,000 and it wouldn't break this principle.

38:30

Is that right? Well, that phrase that I'm seeing right there, I appreciate here's $15. To me, that suggests reciprocity.

38:36

That's not like let me partner with you. I feel the need to give back to you because you did this thing for me.

38:42

Got it. So stop for a thing. I couldn't accept that based on that idea of like,

38:48

I like this, so here's some money. Right, yeah. The earmark is important. It should be language of partnership, not giving back, but I want to help you to keep doing this or I want to honor you and what you're doing.

39:01

Interesting. And once again, it's not about whether or not it's voluntary, right? So this is more than just semantics though.

39:07

So it's like, it's the whole like mindset. It's a whole mentality that bottom line dad here would be giving me.

39:14

So it's like, it's not that it's this thing is cool. I appreciate it. Here's some money in exchange for it.

39:20

It's like, man, I appreciate your ministry and I want to join you in your ministry.

39:27

Right, yeah. And when Paul is offered money and he refuses it, he doesn't say, oh, well, I won't accept it as, an exchange, but I will accept it for this other thing.

39:36

I mean, he goes out of his way, not even taking food from the Thessalonians, so that it's very clear what he is doing, that he is not taking anything from them.

39:46

I appreciate your patience here, because this is like, honestly, it is a matter of reprogramming your mind.

39:53

Like I didn't even catch that. Bain Mailer here said, it sounds like reciprocity to me. So he caught it right away.

39:59

I didn't. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Now, Paul does, it's one of the things that people need to resolve is they, you know,

40:08

I was talking before, like you've got these statements next to each other for Jesus, for example, and you need to figure out how they work together.

40:14

The same thing with Paul, because he refuses money in 1st and 2nd Corinthians and says he will never take money from them, right?

40:20

But then in both 1st and 2nd Corinthians, he uses the Greek word propempo to describe how he wants to come to them so that they can support him.

40:27

Propempo meaning essentially financially support him on his journey through Macedonia. And so he both times says, you know,

40:34

I'll never take money from you. Oh, and I also expect you to help me on my journey. So, you know, in an entirely different context, he's willing to ask for money, even willing to do so that they're giving until it hurts.

40:47

But in this other context, you know, he won't change up the language just so that, you know, to make it fit the, you know, his books or whatever.

40:57

But yeah, he won't accept food. So one application I make for people is, you know, weddings and funerals and biblical counseling.

41:07

You know, a lot of pastors charge to preach at weddings and funerals. They charge for biblical counseling. It's standard practice, yeah.

41:13

Right, but, you know, and if, or if a lot of pastors will say, well, I don't charge, but if someone offers, then

41:18

I go ahead and take it. I would say, you know, no, like I don't accept anything in exchange for this.

41:25

Now, of course, if they want to support the church, they can figure out how to do that, but that's different than, you know, in that context, than saying, oh, well, you know, you can give it to me in this way and I'll take it.

41:36

Okay, so let me, a scenario. And again, and if I'm being dense here, like, sorry, but like, this is paradigm changing stuff here.

41:42

So, you know, I'm at the funeral and, you know, the guy who's, you know, organizing it comes to me and says, well, thank you, pastor.

41:49

You did a great job. You know, here's 500 bucks. I have to refuse that. I have to. If that same guy, a few weeks later, gives $500 to whatever

41:59

Baptist church that I'm pastoring, I would never do that because I'm Presbyterian, but you know what I'm trying to say. But I don't have to reject it at that point.

42:07

He's figured out a way to support the ministry. And it's, you know, someone might say, well, that's kind of reciprocity.

42:15

He's doing it because he did the thing. So like, where's the line there, man?

42:20

Sure, so yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, so it used to be that when someone hands you money, they were actually like hands involved, you know?

42:28

That's right, that's right. Not anymore, man. Now you just tap phones. Yeah, now that everything's online,

42:33

I think it's just important that in the context of whatever, you know, tool that you use for giving, that, you know, you make it clear up front who should be giving and what you shouldn't be giving for.

42:45

Amen. It's easy to do it now. It's actually easier to do now. You can plainly say that we're not, we don't accept money for these reasons.

42:51

You could easily say that. Yeah, I don't think you need to police every single donation to figure out like what was the heart behind it.

42:58

But when it's obvious for all intents and purposes that the heart behind it was, you know, because you feel personally obligated instead of obligated to the

43:06

Lord, that's a problem and you can't accept that. Okay, okay. Let me ask you this, because a few people have made a comment that kind of alludes to this.

43:15

I don't know if they were driving at this or not, but I'm just gonna ask. So a false teacher is a greedy teacher, right?

43:22

And so there are many people that I would, in my opinion, would label false teachers that don't appear to be greedy.

43:29

So maybe they're rich, but they give a lot of stuff away for free. They give their books away for free. They give, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, whatever.

43:37

They give a lot away for free. So does it work in reverse where a not greedy teacher is a true teacher?

43:46

See what I'm saying? Yes, I believe so. So now the Bible speaks in absolutes that, you know, in practice things might be a little more nuanced in the way the

43:56

Bible frames it, you know, with a principle for us. But Jesus makes it very clear.

44:02

And in that passage I read from Paul, you know, he makes it clear that love money is the root of all kinds of evil.

44:10

Someone always has an ulterior motive if they are offering false teaching, right? There's always something wrong with the heart.

44:17

And if there's something wrong with the heart, that means they're not honoring God. And if they're not honoring God, they have some ulterior motive, just definitionally.

44:24

Now, what that is, you know, whether it be honor or something else, whether it not be strictly financial, sure, maybe it's not strictly financial, but there has to be something in the heart.

44:36

Wow, wow. So, okay, so what you're saying then is, and I have a comment here that I wanna address in a second.

44:43

So let me just make sure I keep it, okay. So, okay, so if so - If I can just say that real quick.

44:50

Yeah, I get that, you know, in practice, like I said, you know, there's a lot of nuance and gray areas.

44:59

Well, is this person being great? Because I don't think that everyone right now who's charging for a book is a false teacher. You know, I don't consider you a false teacher.

45:05

I just - I understand. And that's why I said it was hyperbole. Sure, right. But the

45:11

Bible is setting this up to be the primary tool that the Christian uses to discern false teachers from true teachers.

45:19

And that's why it's so important to recapture this because we don't have that tool right now, right? We're not able to look and say, well, is this teacher doing it differently than this teacher?

45:26

Like, unless they are, you know, selling prayers or, you know, selling you prayer cloths, like pretty much everyone's doing the same thing.

45:33

We need to recapture a distinction between true ministry and false ministry to give the Christian and the pews tools to discern.

45:41

I'm so glad you went there because what I think you're saying, and again, if I'm dense, man, feel free to call,

45:47

I'm not gonna be offended. I think I've established during this that I'm not gonna be offended by what you say about me.

45:52

But the point is, what you're saying then is like, we need to start doing this again so that it's easier for regular people to distinguish who's true and who's not.

46:02

Right, right. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. That finger pointing we can do for the really false teachers that have, you know, their jets and everything, you know.

46:12

They're saying, you know, give me $500 to sow the seed, get $5 ,000 back, all that kind of junk. We need to be able to do that for more than just them.

46:20

We need to be able to do that for way more than just them. And right now we can't because our true teachers are engaged in the same practice as they are.

46:26

Are doing the same thing. That's so powerful, man. It really is. It really is. And honestly, like with everything that's gone on in 2020 and 2021 and all the divisions that are currently kind of brewing in evangelicalism, like this kind of a principle could be so useful.

46:41

You know what I mean? For distinguishing and just being like, this is flat out. Like this is non -negotiable here.

46:49

That's why it struck a chord with me. And again, there's so many men that they would be breaking this principle that I respect so much.

46:58

And it's like, why don't other people respect it? Well, I don't know. I'm not saying this is the reason, but like maybe this would help.

47:04

Yeah. If more Christians had less of a tolerance for this practice, and I'm not suggesting people stop buying books or anything like that, that are on the other end, right?

47:14

If you are not a teacher, I'm not saying that you can't purchase. Buy a book. Yeah. But if Christians had less of a tolerance for that, right?

47:23

And they were more inclined to push back and ask teachers to start giving their teaching for free and to minister freely as Jesus called them to do, you would see the high rollings start to fade away.

47:34

Yeah. I think so. Because there'd be nothing in it for them. So Krom here said this, and I'm assuming this is a legitimate comment and sorry

47:44

Krom for even having to ask that because there's people that troll. I don't know. He says, sorry, I gave $500 to the man at his mother's funeral.

47:52

I don't think you need to be sorry. That's not, this is not for you. This is not for those that are buying books.

47:58

This is not for those that are buying tickets to a conference or whatever. This is for those that are selling these things.

48:04

Am I right about that? Yeah, I paid the guy who did my wedding. That was before I had any convictions about these things.

48:11

And now I don't know how exactly I'd feel about it, but I would want him to be supported.

48:17

He was my pastor, and I was already supporting him. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

48:23

And I think like, and I don't know if, you don't have to agree with this Conley, but there's a really good book that I've read and I forget which one it was, but it was

48:31

Gary North who wrote this afterwards in the book, and it was about bribery.

48:37

And it was a very controversial piece about bribery, how it talks about don't accept a bribe many, many times in the

48:43

Bible, but it actually never says, don't give a bribe. And so what he was saying was that like, it could be permissible if justice is being perverted and you know that if you give this guy a hundred bucks, justice will be done.

48:57

You know what I mean? Like, it actually could be permissible to do that knowing that you're doing it with a good heart and for good intentions.

49:04

Like, so I'm not saying that that's legitimate. I'm just saying like, it's along those lines where it's like, all these commands are for the one selling not for the one giving in the

49:15

Dorian principle. So I'm not gonna make you own the bribery thing, but what I will make you own is the Dorian principle. That's what's going on here.

49:21

It's about the one selling. Exactly. Yeah. You know, the one who ends up having to buy, you know, they're a victim and you can ask yourself questions, you know, in Christian prudence.

49:32

How much do I want to be complicit in the system? And you know, like personally, I don't, I have not bought

49:38

Logus because I don't want to, I don't want to support that whole money -making machine.

49:44

And that's a conviction of yours. I get that. Yeah, I get it. But I wouldn't, but at the same time, I'm buying tons of other material, right?

49:50

It's just like one particular tool that I get a little more flustered with than other things. But, and I've decided to pick this battle and not other ones.

49:57

Well, so a lot of battle, a lot of people have picked the battle of people that have copyrighted the

50:03

Bible. How do you feel about copyrighting the Bible? Yeah, it's a, it's a real problem. And it goes all the way, it goes all the way down to the manuscripts.

50:10

So you cannot, you cannot, you know, there's court precedent that shows that you can't copyright a mechanical reproduction of a public domain work, which is what, you know, photographs and manuscripts are.

50:23

But yet museums, because you know, their money depends on these things, they assert that they have these rights.

50:29

They send people cease and desist emails, all kinds of things. And, you know, other organizations like the

50:36

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, you know, they comply and don't make these images available because they want to continue having these relationships with these museums so that, you know, they can keep photographing books and collecting these manuscripts.

50:50

And then, so beyond the manuscripts, the critical editions that, you know, are formed out of the manuscripts, these are also copyrighted so that no one can translate them unless they, you know, get permission first.

51:00

And then, and then the final versions are copyrighted so that, yeah, if you want to use it in any significant context, you need to, you know, comply with what they say, or if you want to print it especially.

51:19

And a lot of people don't realize how far this goes. So for example, the

51:25

King James Version, not public domain, it's under the eternal copyright of the crown. And I think it's

51:30

Cambridge right now. You have to talk to Cambridge. If you're in the UK and you want to print it, they don't try to enforce it outside, although they buy international treaties probably.

51:37

They could, but they don't try to. I get you, I get you. Yeah, okay. So this is pretty crazy.

51:44

So like copyright, if you're - The Bible's not free. You think the Bible's free? It's not.

51:50

So, okay, well, and actually what you're saying goes beyond that. So what you're saying is like, if I'm copywriting my book, which

51:57

I did, I shouldn't. That's unacceptable. Right, so, well, first of all, so in the

52:04

US, and this isn't true everywhere, but in the US, the second you fix your ideas into a medium, it is copyrighted.

52:11

So it's not like you have to, you don't have to go register anywhere. Of course, yeah. A lot of people think that though, so I want to clarify.

52:18

And then - Oh yeah, I didn't register anywhere. I just, you know, I put the standard copyright, thing in the beginning of the book.

52:25

You know what I'm saying? Got it. So I guess what I'm saying is that everyone copyrights the immediate second they write something, right?

52:32

And so I'm not saying that you can't do it because you kind of have to by US law, but that the key issue with the

52:42

Dorian principle was about that sense of obligation, whether or not it's immediate. And you are, even if you're not requiring finances, you're still requiring something from somebody else.

52:52

You're requiring license compliance. Permission, compliance, whatever it is. Yeah, when you say you can't distribute it, you say you can't modify it, you can't translate it, is essentially, you know, the kind of things that people could do.

53:04

They could translate your book. You know, if you didn't have that thing there saying, oh, you got to talk to me first if you want to change anything, you know?

53:11

Yeah, interesting stuff, man. This is pretty crazy. So, all right.

53:17

So we're in a predicament here. You know, we've got tons of copyrighted books and we're all selling stuff and things like that.

53:26

And what you're saying is, I mean, and Conley, correct me if I'm wrong, but your wild idea here is to just actually give it away for free because you got it for free and trust

53:37

God with your living, with your life. Is that what you're saying, you wild, crazy psychopath?

53:45

That is what I'm saying. I'm certainly also saying that you should find co -laborers to partner with. And I'm not saying that you should work yourself to the bone when you don't have those.

53:52

You know, Paul, when he was, I believe it was Corinth, but he's in Corinth and he's making tents, right?

54:00

And then finally someone from Philippi shows up and he stops doing that. And what most people take from that scene in Acts is, oh, well, look, they came with support and now he's able to work full time.

54:11

So I'm not saying that, you know, you give yourself to ministry no matter what. You know, you should find co -laborers.

54:16

And when you don't, like it's perfectly permissible to not engage full time in ministry as I'm not even doing.

54:23

So, but yes, we should trust the Lord. We should be offering the gospel for free.

54:29

Conley, have you heard of Joel, is it Webon with Right Response Ministries? Have you heard of him?

54:35

No. Okay, so I did an interview with him and he's a solid dude. He's a reformed Baptist like yourself and all of that.

54:42

And he, I don't know if he'd be interested in this. I assume he would be at least interested in hearing what you have to say.

54:47

But he told me a little story. Someone had asked him at one point, like, you know, how do you balance, you know, your family with your ministry?

54:56

And he was like, well, I don't. I mean, I take care of my family and because I'm supposed to do that.

55:02

Like I've got my wife, I've got my kids. And, you know, I don't try to balance that with my ministry. I mean,

55:07

I've got my job and I've got my family. That's my number one. And it sounds like kind of like, that's what you're saying.

55:14

Like, it's like, okay, listen. So if you can't afford to go into ministry, you can't. Exactly, yeah.

55:20

And that's fine. And there's no shame in that. Right, right. Yeah, you don't have to come up with some way of funding it.

55:28

And yeah, that's one of the things I point out in the book. I have a whole chapter on para -church ministry and how that leads to temptation.

55:33

Because once you're ministering outside of the church. That was such an interesting chapter, by the way. Can you say it again? Para -church ministry.

55:39

What's an example of a para -church? So para, you know, Greek prefix, it means alongside of.

55:45

So para -church ministry is just a ministry that works alongside the church. So Campus Crusade, you know, your ministry isn't, you know,

55:51

I don't see usually church labels on it. That would be a para -church ministry, even though you're just one person. These different ministries that come alongside the church.

55:59

Ligonier, you know, you can name tons of these things. So as you're operating outside the church, you no longer have the regular weekly giving of the saints.

56:07

And so you have to come up with ways of getting supported. And so there are some legitimate ways to do that. And there are some illegitimate ways.

56:14

And there's just a lot of temptation to sell the word. Whereas there wouldn't be, if you are operating through the church, because the church already has a means of raising money.

56:24

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is amazing stuff. You know, in my opinion, like, you know.

56:32

So Conley, can I tell you how I feel right now? Can I open up to you a little bit? Sure. All right. There's been many times in my life where I hear a new idea, and it's not really a new idea.

56:42

It's just an idea that someone has, you know, not rediscovered, but kind of brought to my attention, let's say.

56:48

And I remember one time that this happened with theonomy. It happened with post -millennialism.

56:53

It happened with a variety of covenant theology, you know, stuff like that. And I remember there's been like these moments where I'm like,

57:02

I'm there, but there's some reason why I can't jump off the edge.

57:08

You're like, I know I need to jump, but I just haven't. That's how I feel with this.

57:13

It's like, not that I'm trying to jump off a cliff or anything, but like, I know that what I should be doing is over there.

57:19

And for some reason I'm hesitating. And I just have to think, Conley, if I'm being honest with you and everyone on YouTube, I guess

57:26

I'm being honest with, it's like, it's just that everybody is not doing this.

57:32

And it's like, it's very hard, you know what I mean? But that's no excuse, man.

57:37

That's no excuse. This seems right to me. And I think that the Bible verses, especially in the book, guys, if you have not been convinced,

57:44

I think that you should get a copy of this book and we'll talk about how to get it in a minute.

57:50

But, and hear his argument out because he's very logical about, you're an engineer, right? You're a software guy.

57:56

I am, yes. So obviously you've got a logical mind and a progression of how you think. So like, it seems right.

58:03

It really does. Like any advice for someone in my situation? Pastor, I know you're my pastor, but pastor, can you give me some advice?

58:12

Yeah, it took me a long time too. You know, wrestling, wrestling with the word. That's how I came to this position, wrote a book, right?

58:19

So I don't expect someone else to go about it much faster than I did. Hopefully a little bit faster since I've done the hard work upfront, but yeah, spending time in these passages and making sure that, a phrase

58:33

I use in the book is making sure that the sacred commands of ministry aren't compromised by some sacred cow of method.

58:43

Yeah. And that's what it is. This method that a lot of people use to raise money for ministry has become a sacred cow where you can't threaten this.

58:51

This is how we support this. I don't remember if I ever told you this when we spoke after I read the book, but I remember early on when

59:01

I left New York and I was in Vermont, the reason I left New York is to do a pastoral ministry.

59:08

And I did it underneath a fairly well -known author and conference speaker, you know what

59:13

I mean? And so he's selling books all day, you know, whatever. And I remember he was starting a blog or something like that.

59:21

And he asked me to write for it, which I was happy to do. And at the time he told me, it struck me as so weird, but this was totally normal, but it still struck me as weird.

59:33

He's like, well, you know, you obviously want to get your name out there. You want to, you know, and I remember thinking like, like, do

59:41

I want to get my name out there? Do I obviously want to do that? Like, that doesn't make much sense to me.

59:46

Now, given what I've been doing since then, like, excuse me if you don't believe me, but like the point is like at the time,

59:53

I was like, that's a weird way to put it. Like, do I, should I obviously want that? Anyway, that always stuck with me.

01:00:01

And when I, as I was reading your book, like that kind of resonated with me even more. So Conley, how do they get your book?

01:00:09

So there's a website. How much money can we give you? There's a website, thedorianprincipal .org.

01:00:15

Dorian is spelled D -O -R -E -A -N. And if you go there, there's instructions for getting a paperback.

01:00:23

There's also, there's a Kindle version. There's an EPUB. There's an audio book. If you feel like you've got too much to read right now, but you can spare time to listen to a podcast, then there's an audio book you can just subscribe to, like a podcast.

01:00:35

And you can just read it on the web too. So thedorianprincipal .org. And the publisher of this, First Love Ministries, they've been doing free book distribution since 2006.

01:00:45

And they also cover the shipping. So this is something they're very passionate about when they heard about this book and they realized.

01:00:51

They were all in. Yeah, they're like, wow, someone is, someone has captured, you know, our convictions.

01:00:58

They were like, Conley, I don't care if it's good. We're putting it out there. Just so happens that it is good. Yeah, they were pretty excited.

01:01:06

And so, yeah, I'm happy to be working with them. So question for that, because I might know somebody.

01:01:11

I have a friend. I might have a friend, Conley. You know, Kevtron Drift. So is charging for shipping

01:01:19

Dorian Principal valid or not valid? So once again, this is one of those finer points that I haven't perfectly settled on.

01:01:26

But when I think about it, I think about, first of all, Jesus, when he said, you know, give without pay, that was in the context of doing miracles, right?

01:01:36

He's empowering the disciples to do miracles and the miracles are not the gospel, but they attend to the gospel ministry.

01:01:41

Of course they do, yeah. And Paul in first and second Thessalonians, when he is going to the churches, he doesn't say, oh,

01:01:48

I won't charge for teaching, but you know, I will accept your food, right? He doesn't even take their food. So those two things lead me to think that even shipping is something that we should be offering.

01:01:59

Because if shipping is like, you know, to make the metaphor to Paul traveling on a ship, you know, he didn't charge people for his flight or anything like that, right?

01:02:07

I get it. No, I get it. Absolutely. I was just asking for a friend, Conley. I hope you understand. You know, you said something earlier

01:02:15

I wanted to respond to. You talked about, you know, some new idea. For those who are disinclined towards this because it seems like some new idea.

01:02:23

First of all, like I said before, I really think that this is something that has become a problem just in the past hundred years or so.

01:02:31

And secondly, it was a big deal in the reformation. I think the reformers thought like, this is what the reformation was built around, right?

01:02:37

Indulgences and Martin Luther responding to that. And he responded to it as much as he needed to.

01:02:43

You had an extreme. And so you don't need a nuanced response, right? And we're at a time where we need a more nuanced response.

01:02:49

And so I'm trying to provide that. And then in one of the chapters in the book,

01:02:54

I also cover some sub -apostolic documents. So sub -apostolic meaning right after the era of the apostles where you see that the church was practicing these very same things that I'm saying.

01:03:06

And they were considering anyone who's asking for money to be a false teacher. So this is not something new.

01:03:14

Yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up. Actually, I thought about that. I didn't write it down. One of the things that your book was really good at was talking about some of the history there.

01:03:21

And it's not like this long. I mean, show the book again. It's a small book. It's not, it's a quick one.

01:03:27

Yeah, it's only 130 pages or yeah, yeah. And I don't know if this is in the final edit, but it gives you an opportunity to skip if you have a good understanding of something, you can skip to this chapter or whatever.

01:03:38

But the whole thing is valid and the whole thing is worthy of reading. The history stuff was one of the things that made me feel more comfortable with it just because, yeah, you're right.

01:03:47

My alarm bells go off because this is the first time I've ever heard anything like this. And the same thing happened with me with covenant theology and post -millennialism because I had never heard,

01:03:56

I grew up in a different context. So I was like, this must be what heretics feel like when they're going into heresy.

01:04:02

You know what I mean? So, but seriously, you do a great job with the way you present this argument.

01:04:09

And guys, if this sounds completely wacky to you, I understand, especially because I'm selling a book currently and all of this kind of thing.

01:04:17

But I do, I just wanna stress that you should read this book and really kind of digest it.

01:04:24

Think about it, pray, talk to your pastor and all. Like when I told one of my friends about this book, he's like,

01:04:32

I gotta read that thing. I gotta read that. And I understand why, because it's like, it changes your whole paradigm. It really does.

01:04:37

Thank you so much, Connelly. Is there anything else that you definitely wanna get out? We've been at this for an hour.

01:04:43

Or anything else that I didn't cover? I think I've mentioned all the main chapters that I would wanna mention.

01:04:51

Yeah, I guess my final words would just be that, yeah, that we should trust the

01:04:57

Lord. You know, it's something that you brought out earlier, right, we should follow him to a T as much as we can and trust him to make good on, to reward faithfulness.

01:05:08

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, I was kind of being sarcastic about it, but this should be the least crazy thing that we've ever thought of.

01:05:17

If we agree, and I know that a lot of you that are watching this, maybe not be, they're not there yet.

01:05:23

But if you find out, you read this book, you find out that this is actually what the Bible teaches, regardless of how impossible you think going forward in your ministry will be, you just have to do it.

01:05:36

And God will provide, or he won't, and then you're out of ministry for a time, and that's

01:05:42

God's will also. And I know that we have the benefit of being reformed, so we know that whatever happens, like God's working it out for our good.

01:05:53

But I don't know, man, guys, Godspeed to everybody who's about to read this book, because I do think it's convicting, it is.

01:06:01

So thank you, Conley, for reading it. Any last words? I'm sorry. Yeah, I've already mentioned the website.

01:06:07

I'm trying to, I don't know if it's the best way these days, but I'm trying to build up a Facebook group. So if you're on Facebook, the

01:06:14

Dorian Principle Discussion Group, and if we can get enough people there,

01:06:20

I'd like to see how we can take this movement forward even more. Look, I'm not trying to get you fired or anything, but I would, if it were me,

01:06:29

I think that there's a harvest at gab .com that wants to hear this book, man.

01:06:35

Yeah, I've been trying to use Gab more, but it's hard enough to just give any time to Facebook, so give it to Gab also.

01:06:47

But yeah, I'm CCO3 on Gab, if people wanna add me. If people added me, I think I'd be more inclined to use it if I had people

01:06:56

I was interacting with. CCO3? Yeah, O, like the letter O. The letter

01:07:01

O. Yeah, it's my initials, because I have a suffix, right, I'm the third. So it's CCO3. Okay, cool. CCO3 on Gab, go be friends with him on Gab so he uses it.

01:07:11

I personally believe that, I don't know if you know Marcus Pittman at all, but Marcus and I are talking on Tuesday, and we're gonna talk about the harvest that's at Gab right now that is just ripe for the picking, we think, and it's being completely neglected by everyone in Big Eva.

01:07:26

So I think that there's so many people that need to hear this at gab .com right now.

01:07:32

So anyway, God bless you, Connelly. Don't log off. We're not gonna be live anymore, but thank you for joining.

01:07:39

And if you were expecting Reform Jellicle, sorry, we're not doing that show anymore, but this was definitely worth it.