Convictional Unity (with Matt Whitman of Ten Minute Bible Hour)

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me

So heavy And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

Calvinist if you're speaking So I mix a manly drink, Pepsi, shoe polish

And I hit the YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away

Oh, oh, oh, oh It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky Beers and bow ties

Laughs till sunrise It's your

Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky He's not like most

Calvinists He's nice Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience

And welcome back to Your Calvinist podcast My name is Keith Foskey, and as always, I am your

Calvinist Thank you for joining me for the show today And in just a few minutes, I'll be bringing in our guests

But before I do that, I just want to make a few reminders about the show Number one, we are a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church which is in Jacksonville, Florida If you are in the

Jacksonville, Florida area, please come visit us And you can learn more about us at sgfcjacks .org

Also, keep in mind that we are part of the Truth in Love Network There are plenty of other great podcasts on the network

And we'd like to point you to those brothers and point you to their shows One other thing

I have on me today is the shirt from our shirt store This is the, I hope it was a blast for you because it was certainly a blast for me, shirt

It's my little saying that I give out on our church soup episodes Some people thought it would make a fun shirt

And now that shirt is available at our spring store And the links to everything will be down below I want to continue to thank everybody who supports us over at buymeacoffee .com

And if you want to get a hold of me, send me a message at keithfoskey .com And we thank the brothers over at Fellowship Studios for putting together that website for us

That's a lot to say, but I want to make sure I say everything as we're coming into the show Well, guys,

I'm super excited today to welcome my guest He is himself a

YouTuber and has had a presence on YouTube now for almost a decade

He has over 250 ,000 subscribers, which means I walk into this breaking the 10th commandment automatically, right?

I'm already coveting his awesome YouTube presence So I'm having to repent before I even start the show

And I do want to ask him about that coveted play button Did he get that from YouTube? Because I know that's what you get

I think after you pass 100 ,000 subscribers, which is really cool He has over 400 videos And many of those videos have hundreds of thousands of views

And he talks about the Bible Isn't that awesome that he's reaching that many people talking about the

Word of God He's super talented And without further delay, let me bring him in and introduce him This is

Matt Whitman of the 10 -Minute Bible Hour Matt, thank you so much for being a part of today's show

Thanks, Keith That was all really nice I appreciate it, man Yeah, they give you the button, but I don't know

I don't know what I did with it It's somewhere, and I do have it And it did show up eventually And I really wondered how that would work

But that is a real thing, apparently I want to tell you something If I got that button, I would wear it around my neck like Flava Flav I would have it on a chain

Everyone would know I'm so vain I have to pray against my sinfulness every day

No, but man, I want to thank you for coming I know you're super busy And you're always putting out great content

And people don't realize how much work this is I mean, this is a job in and of itself

And that was one of my first questions I wanted to ask you You have such a huge online presence And you're putting out great content all the time

And I do think it is really great content Thank you Is this your main job? Or is this something that you do on top of another job?

And if so, how do you manage your time? That's just a YouTuber -to -YouTuber question

But I think it might be interesting for people to know Yeah, well, like you, I did the YouTube thing

While pastoring a church full -time for a long time Eventually, both were going so well

And I enjoyed both so much That I felt like I sort of needed to pick Just because there's only so much time in the week

And I thought, well, I've done church for a long time It was great Went well at the beginning Went well in the middle

Went well at the end Let's mix it up And do the internet thing full -time And so five years or so ago

As we're recording this I made that jump And I guess I miss a lot of things about church

Also, this has been a really fun changeup It's a different rhythm It's a different list of problems

Different list of opportunities But in terms of the amount of work

Good heavens, you're right It's a ton The YouTube thing was my really big project

And my really big focus for a long time And then I added over the years a couple of podcasts

And now my big project that most of the work goes into And where I connect with people the most,

I guess Is I do a daily podcast That is literally pick a book of the

Bible It's like drive time radio I say the 10 -minute Bible hour It's 10 minutes of content

There's some goofing around on the front end and the back end And as long as it takes to get through that That's how long it takes to get through that book of the

Bible So it took 800 daily episodes to get through Matthew And it's about the most fun

I've ever had doing anything like this So I got the YouTube thing Then I have the daily podcast

I just have to do it every day Go make the donuts And it's a blast And then I do a podcast with my buddy

Destin Who does YouTube stuff as well He does science and engineering stuff And we do a program called

No Dumb Questions That is two good friends talking about things In his science and physics wheelhouse

Or my history and philosophy wheelhouse And then we bicker like good friends And for whatever reason people like it

So that's the rundown And yeah, it's very full -timey

And that surprises me Because when I used to watch people make internet stuff I'd be like, well, this looks like they turn on a camera

And mess around But it's not that You actually have to think Or you say even stupider things than you otherwise would

So yeah, there's some effort that goes into it Oh yeah Probably my favorite show to make that I do

Is not so much the podcast Even though I do love and enjoy interviews like this But I enjoy my new show

It's called Church Soup But it takes so much time I'm only really able to do it about once a month

I don't know if you've ever seen it But it's like the SNL Weekend Update But it's about church And it's only usually about ten minutes long

But it takes me three or four weeks To write the content Because it's jokes, it's funny

If I did it once a week It would suffer in quality It would also take way too much of my time

If I wanted the quality to be up And as I'm in full -time pastoral ministry I just don't have time to do it And people are like, why don't you do it every week?

I'm like, because I can't I don't have staff writers Right, and that's the thing I did

I like doing some funny videos here and there And I've done a couple of press conferences

I did one with the guy who runs the Lion Death Pit From the court of Darius the

Mede And it was so much fun to write that And green screen it And act it

And get it just the way I wanted And then everybody's like You should do that all the time How?

I have kids, man Come on A huge, huge amount of work The one you did with Where you were,

Jim, from the office And you guys were saying Bible, bears, beats

I forget the But that was like five It was like five minutes It was very short

Not even five minutes And I was like, this is a lot of work Just cutting yourself into that That by itself

Dude, that's a deep cut I'm impressed That is way into the archives

Well done Very well done Well, like I said I've been boning up for this

But again, I've been watching you for years I've seen your stuff I'm very thankful again One, just for your demeanor

You know, you don't seem to be The kind of guy who's going around Punching people in the face Or looking to make enemies

You're trying to, you know Reach across the aisle While at the same time Holding some What I consider to be

Pretty strong convictions I remember when you You know, you talked about The different Bible translations And you were talking about Which ones, you know

Are more literal And which ones are less You know, more dynamic equivalent And those things And you know, you were talking about The King James Bible And you mentioned something

About the fact that, hey You know, there are people Who really hold to this And I understand But at the same time, I don't agree And the different things

It's like, you know Those types of things If we can say just that Hey, I understand where you're coming from But I don't agree

I understand where you're coming from I still love you But I don't I don't share that conviction Why can't we all be honest

And say that sometimes Instead of saying You're so wrong I want to punch you in the face And then I think

That's the way people do Well, I think that's a great That's a great question And I want to give you

First crack at it Why do you think We can't be honest Just about convictions

And things that we hold Without it automatically Being a fight Honestly, I think that We tend to be

Tribal and territorial That's my Sort of simple answer To that question I think people tend to Want to be

They want to insulate themselves So they don't have to answer Questions that are more difficult And if you stay within your tribe

You tend to only have to deal With what's within your tribe And so if I don't have to If I don't have to talk To the Catholic Or the

Eastern Orthodox person Or the non -Calvinist Or whatever Because I am a Calvinist And I'm pretty I mean, that's the name of the show

People know who I am Right there in the name tag But I Yeah, yeah Yeah, so But if I can't talk to somebody

Like Leighton Flowers And have a genuine conversation With a dude like that Somebody who I know Holds to You know, so many things

That I don't Then Where am I You know What Do I really believe

What I believe Or am I just willing Only to believe it Within the echo chamber Of my own group

That agrees with me Am I willing to go Outside of that So I think tribalism Tribalism and territorialism We gotta protect our sect

Is part of the problem And that's my thought Is I think that's what happens Yeah Yeah Yeah I think there's

An implicit Especially within Protestantism I think there's an implicit threat

That this is a zero sum game And Either my system

That makes sense to me Is comprehensively right And therefore

There is no other system That could be valid Or functional Theologically No other way to read

The Bible or the work of Christ That That creates a lot of pressure

And I think a ton of people feel it And even though Not all groups

But most groups Would say that Ultimately we're saved At the volition of God For whatever reason

For his glory For his inscrutable purposes But in his Ever correct judgment

He decides This is whose eyes I will open I mean it's just inarguable Even in the words of Jesus And Even in the first half

Of the book of Matthew Right out of the gate It's immediately obvious That Some eyes are opened

Why does he do that? I don't know Everybody agrees though That Almost everybody agrees

That the grace of God And the mercy of God Extended for no good reason Other than Here is my mercy

And I'm making it evident to you Is how this thing starts And that's at the heart of it Yet In lived experience

What I find Is that In The post enlightenment mind

Tends to think that Our correctness is really what Generates our right standing

Before God Right thought Right opinions Holding to the correct list

Of compatible ideas Is what makes our right standing With God happen And while I agree with that I mean the three fold test of Orthodoxy In first John Clearly involves

Receiving the gospel handed down to us And rightly understanding Who Jesus is And all of it

At the same time What if you get in an accident And your brain breaks? What if you were right about Every single thing

For nine days During your 39th year of life While you were on vacation

But then one opinion changed When you got home And had a conversation With a buddy over coffee And he was wrong

And you were only 98 % right From there on out Is that nine days

That you were right about everything Good enough to Generate the mercy of Christ To now activate

For the rest of your life Or did you need to die During those nine days So that I mean It's an absurdity

When you get into Ultimately our right standing Before God Is a product of 100 % correct theological understanding

Of course we aspire Why would I want to be wrong I mean if I'm wrong about something

I would want to Immediately change that Because we're talking about The God of everything And I want to repeat things

About Him that are correct I don't want to be wrong But in the process of Honestly working it through Sometimes we're going to be wrong

Which is why His grace is sufficient And ultimately Our right standing before God Is a product of His grace

And His character And His mercy And out of that Flows our minds

Starting to adopt Our eyes starting to be open To who He is And the more complex truths

About who He is But I think that part of the reason We can't be honest And we get fidgety with each other

And we descend into Nervous fighting Is because we fear

That if somebody else is right Literally our standing with God May be in jeopardy

Because that could mean We're wrong And wrong is the unforgivable sin And I just don't think that's biblical

I don't I think there is grace for my brain Trying hard and being incorrect Wow, that's good

It reminds me of something that R .C. said R .C. Sproul of course Who I'm referring to there

And he was He was asked the question Is wrong doctrine a sin? And he said he believed that it was

But he was thankful for the fact That God forgives sin And that he knows he's going to have

Some doctrines that are not correct He's doing his best As a theologian To try to minimize that But at the same time

There is There are certainly areas Where we're going to miss it And he was talking about I think in the context of His relationship with John MacArthur And how they share different views

On baptism And yet Can share the same dais During a conference

They can both stand together And preach And so the question was Well if his doctrine is right

Then your doctrine is wrong Is that doctrinal distinction Is that incorrect doctrine sinful?

And he said Well ultimately we would have to say You know it doesn't It's not It ultimately ends up being untrue

And therefore it's Yeah it doesn't You know Definition of sin is missing the mark Right? So yeah obviously

There's a sense in which it's sinful But it's not It's not an overt Active seeking to Violate God's will

You're seeking God's will You're just getting it wrong And so God's grace is

Greater than your failure In that moment And I think that's I think there's a blessing in that Being able to say that And Certainly an encouragement to me

Who I know gets things wrong I don't know if you've ever had to do this as a pastor I know that there have been times

Where I preached something And someone later came to me And showed me an error And I had to later

Go back before my congregation And say Hey I was wrong I missed this

Or what I said about this text I was incorrect I don't know if you've ever had to do that In your years as a pastor But I think it's incredibly humbling

Because you're the guy Who's supposed to get it right Like you're the guy Who's studied for all this time And yet you can still get it wrong

And yet I think it's good For the congregation to hear Yeah A couple of those

I can think of were Gross authoritative overstatements On my part about Things that never happened in the

Bible And this is the only place in the Bible Where we see this Well the only thing it takes to disprove that Is somebody walking up with a

Bible And being like what about this Well dang it And also why don't you find another church Where they like to be questioned

Because around here We have a doctrinal statement But in practice

Whatever the last thing I thought was Is the doctrinal statement You're gone No No none of that Yeah it's massively humbling

And one of the things I quickly learned Is I need to really qualify Or greatly reduce statements

That are drawn from my authoritative knowledge Of the Bible Making absolute statements

About what's in there and what's not It's a huge document I've read it a gajillion times And I keep missing stuff

I have the power of the edit On my daily podcast And I miss stuff

And I mean I had what Three chances When I prepared it

When I said it into the mic And when I edited it To get that right And I still didn't Come on man So yeah

Yeah missing happens It's just such a funny line I think you need to find a new church

You don't come up to the pope And correct me I'm sorry

Okay My friend How much tension in church To the subject we're talking about Is born out of that insecurity

How much of inter -christian hostility Is born out of insecurity

And I think so much of it Really does come back to that If our security is in 100 % accurate knowledge

We will never be on a firm foundation Firm footing with God Firm footing with each other

It's just too big The Bible is just long enough And big enough

That a lifetime doesn't quite get it done You went to school for this I went to school for this I've done this full time

My whole life And there's so much stuff I'm not even kidding dude There's so much stuff

That still just as I read Through the Bible Like a normal person Who reads through the Bible Because I want to How many times have

I been through it? And there are things in there Not like Oh that's a brilliant insight I'd never considered No there's stuff in there

Like really? That guy went down there To that place and said that? I don't even remember this anecdote I mean I probably saw

A flannelgram of this When I was in 5th grade And I still don't remember this It's such a big book

It is easy to forget things It is easy Very few people Can hold in their mental cache

The entirety of the history Of the church And the Bible And have that all

On their mental work table At the same time To be able to visually Immediately draw on those pieces

And compare and contrast And hold it all together In perfect harmony It's not even a matter of character

It's a matter of the limitations And fallenness of humankind That you're just going to be wrong

Even if you're morally impeccable Because of your brain So this is an expression

Of our imperfection And it's something That should not make us insecure

It should make it really easy To have conversations With other people And really easy to say

I don't know I know in broad strokes I know these basic truths That permeate all of scripture I'm always reading and learning

And listening to other people And trying to grow But you being right And me being wrong

Doesn't wreck God And it doesn't mean that my grandma Who thought what I thought And then died Is now in hell

I mean Pump the brakes here a little bit Do we trust the character of the

God On the other side of this Or do we not? And clearly There must be intellectual grace There must be forgiveness

For our limitations Or God would not have revealed himself In the way he revealed himself He would have gone

Way, way, way simpler With a way, way shorter book I don't know if you saw my face

I started laughing I had to back away from the microphone When you were telling that story And I have to tell A very quick personal anecdote

Because when I was in seminary I was teaching Sunday school At our church I've been in the same church Since I was seven I actually grew up in this church

The church sent me to seminary And then I became the pastor When our former pastor retired So I've been here for 37 years

I've been the pastor for 18 years Phenomenal Yeah, I'm praising God Because I hope to die here

I really do Not immediately But I mean Important caveat

Just a clarifier for the audience But when I was about 24 years old

I was teaching Sunday school And a lady in the Sunday school class Mentioned something about the she bears

And she was referring of course To the story of Elijah And the bears and the bald head But I had never heard it called

The she bears story And so I just like blanked Totally blanked I was like what are you talking about And another lady said

I don't want a teacher Who doesn't know the Bible And you don't know the Bible Because you don't know the story

Of the she bears And at this point I'm like Oh boy But I was just mortified

I'm standing in front of the class I have no idea What I'm whiffing on In this moment

Because I'm just I'm swinging And there's no I can't hit the ball at all And it took me a minute

To figure it out And like what is she referring to Because again I think that's the King James rendering

Is the she bears right Like you know Just the way it says it And it just did not resonate In my brain

And she thought I was The most ignorant fool And whatever

But I couldn't help but laugh When you And now all my And now I know I'm going to get a thousand

She bear memes On Twitter When people listen to this I'm going to get a lot of A lot of jokes about that Yeah I think

Christians Should be the kind of people That you feel okay

Being wrong in front of Like that's going to be An invitation to fun Like being

Like being wrong Is like putting the ball in play As you play tennis

Like how do you get the ball in play Ah throw out an idea Maybe be wrong about something It's an invitation

To hit the ball back and forth And there's nothing Boringer than one on zero tennis You have to have

Someone to play with To play tennis So you have to be nice You have to be gracious In defeat

And gracious in victory And also You know Hit it three or four times Before you ram it down The other person's throat

Like make it fun For all parties And I really think A lot of this conversation If you just follow the rules

Of a hit around in tennis It works pretty well That first ball in play Isn't a fight

It's an It's an invitation to play It's an invitation To hang out

Let's see where this point goes Let's see what parts Of the court we use Let's see what challenges This provides to our game

And I'm sorry you got yelled at About she bears I think is the point I'm driving at Yeah And I'm thinking

Of the tennis analogy I'm thinking maybe If we switch to a volleyball analogy There are some people Who just stand at the net And want to spike

Every time They're just always ready To you know Pull out the Top gun card And just jump up And you know

Cause that's the And of course I've just brought to mind Top gun And all those You know Volleyball Yes Oily men playing volleyball

There's a There's a picture for That'll be our That'll be our Thumbnail You wouldn't be

Playing volleyball That's perfect I will I will oil up And get a photograph

Over to you I'm looking around For my chest oil now And actually it looks like I've misplaced it We might have to do Something different That's such a pity

I I look like A Yeti If I take my shirt off So you You don't You don't oil up Fur Well the fur

Is resistant to oil It just beads And rolls off There's nothing That can be done It's unoilable Well I I have

Several questions I I'm so thankful For everybody On Twitter Who responded And one guy

I love He put the meme Of George Costanza Saying worlds Are colliding

Because it was You know you and I Coming together to talk I thought that was funny He was saying I look like George Costanza And I was about to say

Thank you sir What a handsome man I will take that Jason Alexander knows

How to get it done Yes Yes So In In these questions

Several of them Had to do with the name Of your show And I know people Are kind of just joking But how did you come up With that name

Because that's been the name Since the beginning right 10 Minute Bible Hour That's That was Yeah Yeah That's a great question

The name of my YouTube channel At present Is just my name It's Matt Whitman Home of the 10

Minute Bible Hour The Daily podcast Is What was

The original idea Of the YouTube channel So now The 10 Minute Bible Hour That is

You can't quite say I don't know if you can see it From there That is The daily Bible Straight up Bible content

Podcast When I started the YouTube channel I started working on that In 2014 My idea

Was That I was going to Pick a book of the Bible Whatever I was working on In church And do

Like a 10 minute ish Sort of Late show

Style Coverage of it Very quickly Without Any of the Application Just Here's the content

Of this part Of this book of the Bible And the reason is That I was pastoring A church

Out in Western Wyoming In the wild Just getting Toward Jackson And Grand Teton And Yellowstone I mean

A Home Depot run there Is Five hours Round trip And so In this church

We had Massively faithful Attendance But You have to shop On weekends

It's like It's the frontier You have to go Get supplies This is As remote As the continental

United States Is Just rugged Beautiful terrain And so The result is

If somebody attended At that church Two Sundays a month It was a pretty good Attender But they were

Totally plugged in If that happens In the Bible Belt You're like You're What's the term You use down there

You're backslidden Like something's Gone terribly wrong here And so The temptation

The natural thing to do then Would be to go Very topical So that It's not serial

And if people miss weeks It doesn't matter They can jump back in You keep attendance up Because nobody feels like They're missing anything

You can just pick up And every Every episode's a one -off That would be the temptation I don't want to do that I don't

I don't think That's what's modeled In the early church Or in the Bible For how you do this stuff

I want to pick books Of the Bible And go through it It eliminates my biases Whatever's next

Is whatever's next If I don't like it Or it makes me look bad Or I don't know The material as well

Well then you get to see me Not like it Or not know the material as well Or be uncomfortable It's fine

We just let the text Dictate what we talk about But you can't do that When people are only there

Yeah 35 Sundays a year So I started this thing That was just meant for my church

Where I'm sitting at my desk And we do a quick rundown And we joke about things And we keep it light

And we keep it fun And that tone is there Because Look We're not in person

We're not doing the application here I just need you up on the story And how we're approaching the text

And to have this common baseline of plot So it's almost like a Last time on the

Book of Acts Sort of feel To those videos Well after A few months of that I mean the numbers

Got to be way more Than the attendance of the church And then way way more

Than the attendance of the church And then it was really clear Nobody at church was using it anymore

And it was People who just wanted to go through The Book of Acts But It takes a long time to make videos

And write jokes And all of that stuff And so Pretty quickly it became apparent

That when I got done with series number one On the Book of Acts We were going to need to bump that over To some kind of Daily audio only

It was always meant to be a podcast So I got done with the Book of Acts I started doing other things That I was interested in Covering other topics

Going to visit other churches Things like that And we moved the Ten minute Bible hour thing

Tagline It's the Bible without the sermon Over to This daily podcast

And It's just that It's the Bible without the sermon So The result is that Tons of people

Of all different stripes Well Emphasis shouldn't have been on tons of people But People of all different stripes

Listen to the program There's a significant Non -believing contingent

Who listens Catholic, Orthodox Calvinist Not Calvinist Evangelical Even people who would be

Part of traditions that are Sort of para -Christian Listen to the program

It's overtly Credal, historical, orthodox Christianity In its approach But it's just Ten minutes of Bible And then we're done

See you tomorrow And hope you have a good day So It was meant to be

All the way back To answer your question A riff on the old timey Bible hours

That were on the radio And And now Earl and Charlene Duchesne Present The radio

Bible hour broadcast Of Bible radio hours On the broadcast network of Bible And then

They do the thing And it plays the music And I was trying to make fun of that And make it sound absurd

And now I just have to I've spent the last ten years Explaining the name I don't know I don't know what to do now

No, I think that's great I think that And And it makes sense And It's interesting

My show actually began Where so many began During COVID Because We weren't seeing each other

As often Even though we only took A few weeks off We did We did suspend Church Florida lockdown

And we suspended For a few weeks But we did Live stream stuff And then we started Meeting outside And then we started

Meeting again inside But it was only a few weeks But even in those few weeks It felt very disconnected Because no one was

Going to the stores No one was going to restaurants No one was going to People's houses So I just started Doing a daily

Bible reading And it Originally was called Coffee with a Calvinist That was the name of it Because every morning

I'd get up Get a cup of coffee And talk about Whatever it was I was preaching on Sort of like what you did So I get it I get it

You were trying to connect With your congregation And it led to something else You know And that's cool Yeah Well the other program

That I'm sorry That's a good way To characterize it Yeah Yep So the other thing

That a lot of people Asked on Twitter Regarding the names Is you said You have a

No dumb questions show And everybody wants to know What's the greatest Dumb question Because obviously

We know what you mean When you say there are No dumb questions The dumb question Is the question That goes unasked So what's the greatest

Question you've got On that show Not necessarily the one That you think is the dumbest Because we don't want to Call anybody out

Or make anybody feel dumb But what do you think Was the best of those And I know that's hard Because you know

When you make shows Each one's You feel good about But you know Which one do you remember The best I guess

Yeah and it's It's not really a Q &A Format show So there aren't a ton

Of questions To choose from The We do a thing On that show Called the twisted knuckle

And we haven't done An episode like this In a while But we have a fake bar Called the twisted knuckle And we put in You know

We've got ambient Sound and everything And From time to time People Mistake Our subreddit

For a place Where you just come in And blurt out Questions about things There's another subreddit

Called no stupid questions Where people do that And so even though It's a discussion About a given podcast

And episodes Of that podcast From time to time People just Wander in Out of the cold

And step Into the subreddit And just start Yelling random Questions How does a catalytic

Converter work What And all the You know You imagine The player The guy The piano

Stops and Everybody Glasses stop Clinking You're like well Okay I guess

We could cover that It's not really What we do here But sure So we've done A couple of episodes

A couple of episodes Like that But I don't recall The ridiculous questions

Off the top of my head Gotcha Gotcha Well I know that In looking at a lot

Of your videos It looks like That And I'm going to say this I'm going to try to Characterize it

But And you correct me If I say anything Incorrect Because I certainly Don't want to But you mentioned

A minute ago About you know Creedle Christianity Even though we would say There are things

That we can get wrong You do hold to Certain You know Foundational things The deity of Christ And things like that You mentioned

How 45 % of evangelicals Don't believe in the deity of Christ And how Disturbing that is

That was your most recent video Right I want those 2 % It's only Okay It's only 43 man

Like you make it sound Like it's a crisis So that's

And I do think There are those types of things We can rally around And say okay this is it And So Within Within that And saying okay

That would include Like your You know Roman Catholics Who would affirm those Creedle statements

And even the The Orthodox Who would affirm those Creedle statements And you've done some videos Where you've gone out

And you've met And you've gone into Cathedrals You've gone into Eastern Orthodox Churches What is

One thing That you During your time Prior to Expanding out

That you thought About And we're gonna do this Roman Catholics And Eastern Orthodox What's one thing

That you thought About Roman Catholics That And again I'm a Southern Baptist Well no

I'm not a Southern Baptist I'm a Southern And a Baptist Not a Southern Baptist So like I grew up in a town Where there was basically

You were either a Baptist Or you were not a Christian Like Catholics Were just like You know That church doesn't count

Right Like it's there But it you know So what's You know What are What's one thing

That you've learned Going to the churches Seeing the cathedrals Talking to the priests

I know you had A great conversation I was actually listening To it this morning With The theologian

Where y 'all were in The coffee shop Talking I forget his name Yeah Yeah So what's one

Major takeaway Oh man One Golly That's tough

Well you can feel free To do more than one I was saying A couple of good things All of the positions

Other than my own I discovered Through the process Of going around Other churches That all of the

Theological positions Other than my own Had been So Heavily Strawman To me

By being in my bubble By well -intentioned Very intelligent People That It was

Jarring To Actually Sit in the same space And get in the deep water

With someone Who had gone through The exact Same experience About me

And my convictions There were things In all of these Conversations Where I realized

That We were much Closer Than I had thought In terms of our assumptions And how we get there There were other things

Where I'm not sure The strawman Was strong enough For how much

I disagree with And How radically Certain groups Hold things That I just Do not see

So Every conversation I have There are a few moments That are shocking Jarring to me

Like wow I thought you would Dismiss that Particular thing As like a crazy Gossipy rumor

That outsiders have About your tradition But not only Do you think it You're doubling And tripling Down on it

Seriously Like for example With Catholics I fully expected To do

To bring up Indulgences In some of my Conversations And have them be like That is a cudgel

From the Middle Ages On our worst Day That Protestants Still beat us

Over the head with Nobody thinks That But they think it And it's

No You You can do Things Even You can give money

To the church To do some Clerical work Or paperwork Or something

And And many Catholics Believe that Is somehow Efficacious In Shortening An arbitrarily

Assigned Uh Number of Years That you spend

In purgatory I mean My friend I am I am A chasm Away from Catholics On their understanding

Of purgatory And indulgences And that the church Somehow in exchange For money

Would have the ability To affect that I thought Going into my conversations With Catholics That it would be like When Luther said

Why would the Pope Why if the Pope For The love of money Could set people free

From purgatory Would he not do it For the love of people I mean I fully expected

Like this argument's over Just do it If you have the ability To Reduce Their sentences

If you alone Have that power Per your election Do it

Come on They're suffering So So there were points like that Where I really was surprised

That Some of those old Reformation disagreements No they're still there

We just don't Talk about them anymore They're really still present Then there was other stuff

In talking with Catholics Where I'm like Wow If I hold one or two Of your basic assumptions

That I don't hold I totally see How your whole system works And how that would be

A 95 % Coherent read On the Bible And I I don't think anybody has

More than a 95 % Coherent read Every tradition Has a Fly in the ointment

Set of passages They all know what they are They're all sick of hearing those They've all

Got their deflections But ultimately Every theological system Has a handful of passages

That cause them to be like Yeah I know It's hard And here's a convoluted Ridiculous explanation

That I would never Allow you to use For your Difficult passages But we gotta use it

For ours to piece Our thing together And so With the Catholic conversations And the assumptions

About okay Well if there is Some kind of Visible window Or Can and string

Communication between us And Dead Christians From before Because we are to Understand Jesus' remarks

In Jerusalem As being God is the God of the living And not the dead Therefore interaction

With the dead Is possible Well Okay Then I kinda

Understand How Maybe They Would think a little bit

This way about Purgatory Maybe they would think This way about the imagery In church And the art About saints

Big fight With the east About icons And whether This is an image Of a saint

Or whether this is Somehow an actual Physical presence Of a saint Through art

The fights make more sense The hangups make more sense But I reject

Those foundational assumptions That Catholics have On a few points And so They hold up passages to me

And say Look obviously this What else could it possibly mean It clearly says

In John chapter 6 This is my This is my body

This is my blood And I'm like yeah But then it says That I'm the door And you know Is he

Literally a shepherd I mean I thought he was a carpenter I mean Metaphor is a thing But to them

With those assumptions It's absolutely affirming And clarifying And so So I've been astonished

By the passages That different traditions I'm using Catholics As an example Will go to That to me

I would never think of Supporting their thing Or being this Smoking gun And how can you

Miss it Verse But to them Given the handful Of assumptions That they hold

When they approach The bible That verse Clearly means Be Catholic Or you're outside The salvation

Of God He who does not have The church as his mother Cannot have God As his father And so What that did

All the way back To your question Is it brought me To a point of going Okay What are my

Smoking gun Verses for my tradition That I think makes A ton of sense That To an outsider

With a different set Of starting assumptions They'd be like Huh? And And that's been

Um It has really Sent me back To the text And has Really kicked my butt

To hang out With smart Competent people Who I can't Just write off As crazies Or morally deficient

Or intellectually Dishonest I still disagree But I've had to work Much harder To disagree

I like that phrase Um Disagree But work harder

To do so Right? That's That's an important thing To dismiss Is not the same

As to disagree When someone You know When I'm having a conversation With someone And I say Listen I know what you believe

And I still disagree With you Because some people I think genuinely think And I think this is The height of pride

Among all of us Is we think Well if a person Just knew what I know They would believe What I believe And I've often said

That's the height of pride If I say to someone If you just knew What I know You'd believe What I believe That's not true I can know what you know

And still disagree with you I can know what you know And come to a different conclusion And I'm guessing

You get this in the comments That there's a dichotomy That people like You and I Who Are Arrogant enough

Or foolhardy enough To think we should Record ourselves And put it on the internet And talk about God I mean It takes a certain kind Of personality deficiency

To even want to do that Or think it's a good idea And clearly you and I Both have that deficiency But one of the things

We get in the comment section Is the old dichotomy And the dichotomy

Of the comment section Is that If I don't think What the commenter thinks I must be One of two things

And that is Intellectually dishonest Or ignorant and dumb

They can't imagine The third part They can't imagine A trichotomy In which You and I I might have put

Tremendous effort Into listening And understanding Exactly what you think But I can't think something

I don't think No matter how much I'd like to not fight With you I can't think a thing

That I don't think I think the opposite of you And why is that Such an alarming thing

For everyone All of a sudden That's a wild thought

I mean Great thought But it brings me To something else I often tell people The difference between Like and love

Is that I'm commanded to love But I'm never commanded to like Because I can't really Choose what I like I like what I like Right I like vanilla

Not chocolate I like this I like that It's just what I like God doesn't tell me To like my enemies He tells me to love my enemies

Because love is verbal And it's action And I can do that Even if I don't like a person Right And the same thing You just said

I can't think something I don't think That's brilliant Like I can't think it Because I don't think it

I can't make myself think it Unless I'm convinced That I'm not going to think it

Yeah And This is going to tiptoe me Closer than I usually tiptoe

To any of this Sort of social commentary Subject matter But it's not just the church

Dude There is So you've got You've got a

Christian Fundamentalism That we are emerging from That dominated the second half Of the 20th century

Maybe the whole 20th century You and I are product of We're product of that era Of youth group

There's ups and downs to that The church is what it is So much of what's going on In culture right now Is a dialogue with the youth group era

Of Protestant and Evangelical Christianity Okay Cool That's one brand

Of fundamentalism Where you don't talk to anyone else You don't find out What anyone else thinks You make something that works

As long as we're in the bubble MySpace burst the bubble in 2004 And put us in touch

With everybody else all at once Unsupervised by our parents And we discovered Only a tiny percentage of people

Think the thing That I was told Everybody ought to think Uh oh And now you get The next 20 years

Of what the world has been There's a shock reaction To some of the fundamentalist

Religious tendencies That we had That we got away with Within the church That were lazy

In the era of youth group Christianity Not to say the youth group is bad I just haven't come up With a better name for that Now though The reaction

If I could just add a thought I say a lot of churches today Are the youth groups of the 90s

Those churches Those youth groups Just became churches And that's what we see In a lot of non -denominational churches

Is it's the same style of church Just grown up It's just 40 year olds Who want church the way it was

When they were 17 When they were 16 Bedazzled jeans and all Yeah Yeah Yeah and again I'm not necessarily saying

It's terrible or bad I'm saying bedazzled jeans Are terrible I am saying that Well Well Then don't watch my live stream

No I'm just kidding I doubt that So So you got The cure to weird

Isolationist fundamentalism Is not Another version of fundamentalism

As a reaction against it But that's what's happened So now we have A secular leftist fundamentalism

As a way to say We reject our old Religious More right leaning Fundamentalism And both are a disaster

Both are anti -social Both have sociopathic Tendencies Both are no way

To run a society And both Light the fuse On a long old Tiny cartoony

Time bomb That is going to go off When that fuse burns down The fuse burned down On our version of fundamentalism

In With the advent of social media In the early 2000's We weren't built for it We couldn't sustain it

It caused Absolute chaos Then And we're at the same point right now

The fuse is just about burned down On the new Secular leftist fundamentalist religion

It's The gig's up Nobody's charmed anymore It's not working

But one of the tenants Of both of those Fundamentalist expressions is You will think things you don't think

You will look at a thing And say that that thing Is a certain way in your brain And then with your mouth

You will say the opposite of that In order to receive acceptance Into this circle of people

You will think orthodox things For our recently created orthodoxy

Or you will be punished Socially in ways That you will find absolutely crippling

And it's exhausting It's a terrible way to live And the absolute gracelessness

Of the leftist fundamentalism That has dominated culture For the last ten years Is insufferable

And I'm sick of being told Hey we thought of a thing Last week that is now immutable

And timeless And that everyone must now think And say and pledge allegiance to Or you're a monster

When I just don't think all of it I think some of it But I don't think all of it And you're asking me to say

And think things That I can't I don't think it I don't

If you demand people Lie to themselves In order for acceptance to happen

You destroy the person You destroy the honesty And sincerity of the process You destroy the soft heart

That is willing to learn And that does That has the capacity For actual charity And understanding

With people they disagree with And before leftist fundamentalism Did it for the last ten years

Rightist Christian -ish fundamentalism Did it in the late 20th century

And at its worst Both of those things Demand the same of people In order to receive acceptance

You must say you think things You don't yet think There will be no process

There will be no time You have been told what the thing is Think it Well I don't understand it yet It doesn't matter

Think it To not think it is hurtful And a transgression Do you want to transgress?

Well then think the right thing And there's no respect In that system For people made in the image of God People made with a conscience

People who God clearly understands Go through processes

Get led through deserts And journeys And have conversions I mean there's

It takes a minute You got to be patient with people And demanding swearing fealty

To positions you don't think As a condition of acceptance Or being able to even be friendly

With someone else It's cruel It's antithetical to the gospel And you'll get fake converts

To your thing Whether it's secular fundamentalism Or religious fundamentalism But those converts will suck

And they will flame out And they will fail And they will not actually Move your thing forward There are no leaders

You've only picked off the weak Who are afraid to be rejected All the strong will just Keep their mouths shut

Or go somewhere else So one of the things That I have loved about Our era of the internet

And that I've loved about The opportunity to go around And hang out with Christians Who aren't like me Is I am getting

I am getting to meet A ton of people Who are extending me mercy In that regard I've met a lot of people

Who don't as well But I've met tons of Catholics And Orthodox And people more committed

To all of the tenets of Calvinism Than I am Who can understand That where we disagree

Is not spiteful I'm genuinely listening I'm genuinely I care Oh I'm thinking about it

I wouldn't want to be wrong But I can't think what I don't think So you gotta give me a minute And trust that I'm not trying

To put a thumb in anybody's eye I'm listening And I'm growing

I'm thinking about it And when you run into A bunch of Christians Who've been transformed

By the gospel in such a way That they have that God -like comfortable

In their own skin I mean God is the most Not insecure being

In the history of ever To have the first two people

He makes rebel against him Immediately And not flip out With a bunch of banter

And just clear the table With the back of his hand How dare you But instead to embark

On a multi -millennium Redemptive plan And to be mocked

Along the way To be disregarded To be rejected By your own people To have people claim one thing

And then deny you three times Two minutes later And to just persist He's so secure

In who he is And the people who I've met Who seem to be deeply touched

By his character And who imitate his character Have that same sense of security

They don't panic and freak out In the moment That there are people out there Who are wrong

They don't panic and freak out That they're talking with someone Who doesn't know all the things

Like they know yet There's just this patience And this long view to it This air of forgiveness

And empathy to it That I think we see In the character of God as well

Now ultimately God is judged His judgments are right It's given to Christ To judge the nations

And he will And he'll be absolutely correct In every single judgment But what an unbelievable

Amount of forbearance He has demonstrated And continues to demonstrate And I've Through the process of going around All these churches

I've met a whole bunch of people Who I think are theologically wrong About some things

And yet That very unique characteristic That trait

That is a mark of the character of God That you do not get in society I only see it coming from God I see it all over them

And it's challenging to me And makes me want to imitate that In them as they imitate

God So The truth is The biggest change for me In all of this Has not been

Now I like You know I like this point of Catholic theology more I think the

Orthodox have a point here Maybe I'll be Orthodox No, the biggest change for me is I am seeing

God Deeply at work in the lives of people Who don't believe what I believe But other historical

Credal Orthodox Christians And I want to Imitate the stuff

I see God doing in their lives And I want it to reflect on my character And I think God is using them

To make me suck a little bit less And I'm grateful I love that phrase

No, I mean it was very deep It was very heartfelt And I appreciate A lot of what you were saying

Just how it changes us As we As we are

Having to be confronted By Things that Many of our More recent ancestors

Weren't confronted with Because they weren't They weren't open up to a world That was larger than their community

Or maybe their You know Their denomination Or something like that Like I said I grew up in a town

Where you know There was First Baptist Church And then there was the Pentecostal Church And there was a Catholic Church But you know

That's where the non -Christians went I mean I'm just I'm not Just being funny

But this is the way It was It was expressed Right? You know But There is so much

There is so much Value in what you're saying And I hope people are listening And yet at the same time

Not saying that there aren't lines That have to be drawn You know Obviously Christ is a line Obviously faith in him

And those things You know There are standards And And I wouldn't ever want anyone to think

I wasn't saying that And I certainly don't want anybody to think I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth But one One The tagline of the show Is seeking

Superior theology And denominational unity One joke at a time Like that's You know And all three of those lines

Love it But But all three of those lines Sort of don't go together If you're seeking superior theology

Then you're probably not seeking unity Because like You think you're better But at the same time It's meant to point out

No We should all be seeking this The right thinking Right? Superior theology is not

Anything But This is what's right We want to seek what's right God's theology Think his thoughts after him

Kind of thing Yes And yet at the same time We want to do it By Learning as much as we can

And not automatically dismissing Those who disagree with us Because we could be wrong About some things

We could be wrong About some things Yeah And You and I are gunning

For the same thing The term that I use To express that Is convictional unity The In the 20th century

Ecumenicism The strategy there was Diminish How hard we believe things

In order to get along better The problem is That attracts people who Don't have

Much in the way of convictions And would rather Get along Than try to Use the

Lutheran phrase Confess back to God What God has confessed to us To use the Calvinist phase To achieve

Final ascendancy And superior theology You know The ecumenical thing

Was attractive to people Who were Ill -equipped And unwilling to To fight

But not fight in the mean way Like to argue But not argue in the argumentative way Like argue a thought

Work an idea out Put the tennis ball in play And hit it back and forth 40 times If you have to To really grind through an idea

I think that That 20th century ecumenical movement Was largely

Was largely just liberalism And liberalism not in the Slur kind of sense

But in the Nothing can really be known There is no truth

This fighting is silly And people don't like it It's bad for marketing And PR We just We shouldn't argue about things

Or hold these kind of convictions The convictions And the pursuit of convictions That's the problem Unity should be the central pursuit

And convictions are the hurdle We have to overcome There's no future in that That isn't going to work In the age of the internet

Either Because you can't help But think what you think And so Convictional unity means

Look I don't think there's a purgatory And I don't think that if there were a purgatory

That me making donations To a certain organization Would do anything to reduce The amount of time people would spend there

I just don't see it Why don't I see it? Well part of the reason I don't see it Is because I don't think

Peter dying in Rome Gives Rome some unique authority I don't think it It doesn't make me mad at Catholics That they do think it

I just Don't Think it I've tried to think it I don't I think what

I think Here I stand I can't stand anywhere else Maybe someday I'll be able to So the result is

I have convictions I can't not have them I can't pretend I think something different Than what I think But neither can all my

Catholic friends They think what they think for a reason And Maybe it just got imprinted on us

When we were kids And in that age where the ducklings Look at whatever duck shaped thing

Walks by them And they're like That is my mom And I am following that Look Yep It's possible that that's what happened to me

I'd like to think it's not And that it's a more thoughtful process But maybe I just Saw the duck of evangelicalism

When I was at the impressionable age And that's always what is imprinted on me And made sense Well why couldn't that be ordained by God?

Why would God not use such An impressionable age And a moment of Impression To make me a convictional

Christian For the rest of my life Maybe my Catholic friends Had the exact same thing happening Why would we cheapen that?

Okay Well if that's what God ordained In people's lives And that's what he used Then alright I can respect the convictions that we have

Even if the convictions aren't 100 % rational And we couldn't tell you Every single thing why And even if people

I disagree with Might happen to have a few good points Okay well these are still my convictions And I'm listening

And I'm being honest about it If we accept that about each other Okay now how do we have unity? Does that mean we just can't now?

We just can't have nice things? Because I think things And I can't not think them And you think things

And you can't not think them? I mean we're naming the exact same deity With these creeds We're reading the text

We're looking at the same passages here We are trying to honor the same God Three in one

We're trying to We're trying to Model our lives after Christ We're pursuing his kingdom

I mean We're doing so much of the same stuff Most of the people I disagree with Put a little bit more emphasis

On the authority of an institution than I do Or a little more emphasis On the authority of personal revelation

And opinions than I do I tend to be of The three threads of historical authority

I tend to be part of The Bible thread I think God ordained it Not the church

I think it's reliable and accurate It's all the things that It says it is And I think the character of God Is revealed not exclusively through it

But authoritatively through it So those are my convictions And that's where I'm going to lean

My Catholic friends Think the Bible is really important And they think the The magisterium

And the authority of the church Also carries an authority That is on par with that We're going to come to Some different conclusions

This isn't ecumenism That you're proposing This isn't ecumenism That I'm proposing It is convictional unity

When I understand And I can articulate Your position In a way that is flattering

And that is fair And that is how you Would articulate it And still reject portions of it

And you can do the same for me Now we have real unity Now we're actually

Standing back to back Now we can actually Move the gospel forward together Now we are in communion

Even if we don't Go to the same institution Or sign the exact same paperwork And that's what

I'm Gunning for With the videos I do And the internet stuff that I make I want to celebrate Each other's baptisms Even if we don't

Totally agree on what they do I want to take the table together Which is just absolutely

Odious to My Eucharistic friends But I still think we can I can't believe that That transformation happened

But I can believe That this is pointing To the exact same thing And take it as seriously As you're taking it

Why can't I stand next to you In some sort of setting And why can't Just even once We take this together

Convictionally Believing it does Different things Why can't we find a way To do that We should be able to Why can't we open

The scriptures together We should be able To do these things Why can't I root

For the success Of gospel oriented Credal historical Biblical churches Even if I wouldn't

Do it that way That's not ecumenism Those objectives that I have And those goals That's convictional unity

And it's always nice To meet people who Even if they might not Say it the exact same way

Or pulling in the same direction Yeah I actually have something That I say that surprises

People sometimes And I'd really like Your thought on this I know we're getting To the hour mark And I don't want to Keep you from your family

Too much longer But I do want to ask you This question Because I'm honest

When I say this to people I say I actually think Denominations are a good thing And this is what

I mean by that Okay so you agree And so people who don't agree Don't automatically dismiss

What I'm saying What I mean by that Is when we say denominations We're saying other

Christians Who see things differently Than we do Versus cults Which have denied

Foundational Christian doctrine And we would say There are groups That fall into those categories Which we cannot lock arms with Right?

And then of course And this is not Where we're going to Come to any conclusions today

But there is a big question About Roman Catholicism And the Gospel There's a big question About Eastern Orthodoxy And the Gospel Regarding specifically

Issues of the Reformation Has the Gospel been obscured And things like that And so there are questions

In people's minds But the whole idea Of denominationalism Is there can be people Who disagree with me

And yet at the same time I can still call them Brother in Christ And that's where The heart of it is

And I think that's good Because it allows for What you said Convictional unity

I can be a convictional Calvinist And still have unity With someone who is A convictional

Arminian So long as we are As neither one of us Are denying the Gospel And not just our understanding

But what the Gospel is In its simplicity That we are to Turn from our sin

To trust Christ To turn from unbelief And put our faith in Him And that His sacrifice Is in fact sufficient

To cover our sin And that we can stand before God Having been declared righteous

Because of what He did Those things I think Are so foundational And must be affirmed

And then after that You know we can Like you said I interviewed a group of Lutherans I do a show called

Bowtie Dialogues Where I wear a bowtie And I interview people And I like to interview Other pastors And they did tell me

That if I came to their church I wouldn't be welcome To be at their table And I said okay I said

I appreciate the honesty And I wasn't angry I wasn't you know I can't believe you'd say that No okay

That's kind of what I expected And one of the guys said Well you're not buying What we're selling That was the phrase he used

Because he says We believe something different You're not buying What we're selling And I was like okay I get it

But at the same time The reverse is not true If they came to our church They would be welcome

At our table Because we say If you believe in Christ If you're a baptized We do say

If you're a baptized believer You're welcome at our table And so you know As long as you're not

Under discipline At your own church That's one caveat we say If you're coming From another church And you're under The discipline of the church

Then we would honor that And say please don't partake Because you know

Before reconciling With the previous church Good wow Yeah most people Are so eager to grow

At any cost They don't say that But you should And you're right That's good So you think

Denominationalism Me saying that it's good Is actually positive Sorry I get distracted by You including church discipline

At another church As something that you communicate With communion Which I think is excellent

Yeah denominations are They're great They make you efficient

And effective The body has many parts It's okay This isn't People act like denominations

Are some kind of invention That happened after the bible That are a result of Christian failure

They're not The gospel was always meant To be infinitely translatable From the time

That the first elements Of the gospel Were revealed early on In the book of Genesis To Abram Look I'm picking you

Out of the clear blue sky Dude from whatever Modern day Kuwait And I'm going to be your

God You have to do nothing I'm going to do All of the following things Which is going to include

Making you a great nation And you're going to be blessed And also all the nations Are going to be blessed

Through you That is in the founding covenant Of the whole redemptive plan

Everybody's going to be blessed Isaiah and Zechariah Paint this beautiful picture Of the flawed people of Israel Taking the rest of the nations

And the kings by the hand And taking them up To the throne of God To show them this thing

And everybody You know eventually All the knees bow And the tongues confess This was always meant

For everyone It isn't a new testament Invention or innovation It was always meant For everybody

And the church gets going And we don't even get out Of generation one And we realize

Hey we're better If on this next trip Mark goes with you

And I go over here And you go over there Hey we don't even get to Acts Out of Acts 15

Barely the halfway mark Of the book of Acts And we got to form Some denominations We're going to have to have

An Antiochian An Antiochian denomination We're going to have to have A Jerusalemite delegation here

Denomination And we're going to have A version of Christianity An expression of the church

Born out of the synagogue Of the freedmen That needs to exist as well Because the gospel Has no trouble

Working with any of these Cultural sensibilities None It's just fine It's secure in its own skin

But to accommodate The weakness of humanity The gospel is perfectly designed Like a receptor site

In a protein To fit with anything Everything It's why it's gone global In ways that nothing else

Ever has or ever will We should celebrate The heck out of this my friend

This is a complete win Why would it make sense For me to absolutely

Kneecap my effectiveness By going to a church That stylistically

Culturally Is totally antithetical To who I am and what I do And we waste all of our time

Internally bickering about How to do this thing or that Why would I not go Align with people Where we acknowledge

Everybody else is slaying it We're rooting for all of you Tell us how we can support But when we partner up With this shared set of convictions

We kick butt And we're very effective And we don't have to waste time Redoing all the church councils

Every year Before we can pick What color carpet we put in Or before we can go do Some simple outreach event

We have unity It's ideological Theological unity It's stylistic unity

Okay, good That's good to go Now let's go take ground And do kingdom stuff Denominations done right

Are biblical And they free you up To partner with the right people

To maximize your effectiveness With this very limited Window of time you have In this world To be an ambassador of the kingdom

I don't like this Anti -denomination talk I think it's important It's good, it's ordained And it's something

We should lean into And enjoy and appreciate About each other more Awesome That was great

Brother, I'm going to do something With you real quick here As we begin to draw to a close Because again We're over the hour mark

And I could talk to you all day I really enjoyed getting to know you I hope you've enjoyed The conversation Likewise And I want to I have this little thing

I want to do It's just five quick questions And there really are Just quick answer questions Okay, I'll play ball Some of it's pop culture

Some of it's Some of it's a little different But I know I think you're kind of A pop culture guy

Kind of a, you know I've seen your Star Wars list And things like that And somebody did ask Why Solo was so low On your

Star Wars list Because of how not good it is Oh, awesome Okay Well, what was

I didn't see the list I only saw the question What was your What's your Because I'll tell you My number one If you tell me your number one

Yeah, I can do that Star Wars I mean, it's bounced around A little bit

But Here, I'm pulling it up So that I don't make any mistakes And be inconsistent in my answers And embarrass myself

Further than usual Number one is easy though It's Empire And I think most people agree Okay That's Yeah, I was gonna say

Okay, I agree I just want to make sure You weren't a heretic Because, you know Everything else

Everything No, give me your number two though This is where it starts To get interesting Spaceballs All right

You win Sorry Okay, now give me your list real quick So everybody can hear

Just run through your list real quick I don't have one in front of me Here we go This is Movies and TV shows

All Star Wars franchises Except the stupid ones That don't even rise To the level of cultural awareness Number one

Empire Andor Bad Batch Rogue One Clone Wars New Hope Return of the

Jedi Mandalorian But season three Almost deserves to be Somewhere else on the list Because it dragged

The whole thing down so far Revenge of the Sith Rebels Force Awakens Phantom Menace Ahsoka Attack of the

Clones Large Gap Kenobi Solo Boba Fett Giant Chasm Rise of Skywalker Last Jedi That's my list

I did see your list Because I remember The Giant Chasm And I agree A hundred percent I saw those in the theater

And wanted to leave So yeah, I'm good Good I would agree with most of that Some of that I'm a little

I'm not so much a Star Wars nerd I'm more of a superhero nerd If you can see behind me I got Batman I've got a I've got a three foot tall

Superman Statue over there I'm kind of a Very Seinfeld of you Yeah, so Yeah, oh man

Very much And I have a Seinfeld Seinfeld picture right there So Oh, okay It's all around It's a little bit bokehed out

But I can see it now So So what's the most grievous error On my list

Let's try out conviction I would Be here I I honestly I enjoyed

Phantom Menace Probably better More than you did So I would put it a little higher Not necessarily up At the top

But But your Phantom Menace was pretty low I really like I like the character of Darth Maul I don't think he got enough screen time

I don't think he had enough character development But I think he was a cool fighter And As a martial arts guy I've been I've been karate for 30 years

So Watching Watching him do karate was Like real Legit stuff

Was pretty fun Ray Park is his name Go ahead Darth Maul split too soon But you get more of him in the

Clone Wars Which is Which is nice As well I was really heavily influenced by The thinking of Red Letter Media And Their Mr.

Plinkett Star Wars reviews on YouTube Which I don't recommend to anyone You'll learn new swears

They're They're Quite potent But Man, the takedown they did

On the prequel trilogy 10 or 12 years ago I found those to be pretty compelling And it probably has an outsized effect

On my opinions That I should reevaluate At some point more fairly Gotcha Gotcha Real quick, five questions

What story from the Bible Would you make into a movie That hasn't been made yet? I guess this isn't too fast

That hasn't been made yet See That Yeah That adds to the toughness

Okay, I'm going to stall By saying the one from church history That I would want to do And that is I mean, there's this legend about The Venetians putting together

A squad of ninja monks To go and steal the body of Mark From Alexandria I want that movie

Like a heist movie In the Middle Ages With Venetian ninja monks

Stealing a corpse From the From the Bible Ah Man I'd want the juicy stuff

I mean, okay I'm sorry, I'm going to break the rules I'm going to answer the way I want to answer I would like an honest telling of Esther Esther is a gritty story

And the wiles And the attributes she uses To ascend to a position of power

And her initial refusal to help Before receiving a death threat From Mordecai A veiled threat

But it's there That makes the story so much better That she's not a Mary Sue She's not perfect She did not get there

By reading Jewish poetry To King Xerxes all night I mean

It's a little bit salacious Salacious on the front end And she matures as a character

Grows in She matures into the role of queen And deliverer of her people It's so much better Than these stupid

Family friendly sanitized versions I want the real Esther story

With grit I think it'd be great That's so funny Because one of my elders recently Said something very similar

In Sunday school He was just saying, you know Esther's not what you think And he sort of said a few Of the things that you just said

And a few people got a little Uncomfortable It's like, yeah It is uncomfortable

On that If I I don't want to answer every question Because I want to hear yours But just so you know

I'm doing it wrong I'm doing it wrong Give me time out Those would be my answers Mr.

Keith What would be your answer To those questions? I want a John Wick style version

Of the Levi and Simeon Revenging the rape of Dinah I want a

John Wick style version Of that story Where it's just two guys Revenging their Avenging their sister's rape

And tricking them Into the circumcision And then going in And just slaughtering everybody I think that would be a great movie

Oh, brilliant Yeah, I want to see that Your answer was better than mine I, okay And I would like to add to that That I would like Do you remember

What was that YouTube short film That came out like 10 years ago It's like a cobra

Lightning warrior He rides a T -Rex And they have Uzis Oh my goodness

It was funny It was delightful I mean, it was just All the ridiculous 80s tropes

And there's a side scroller Video game sequence Where he starts ripping the limbs Off of Nazis And doing splits

And spinning around I want that But with Samson And a donkey jawbone The side scroller 2D video game

With, I mean 12 out of 10 Level video game Gore and violence

Maybe even in a 16 -bit style That's what I want All right

These next few aren't Maybe aren't as fun But they're still good What's your favorite podcast I know you're a creator

But do you listen to anything What's your favorite Other than my show I know I'm your That's the right answer

I listen to I mean, this is embarrassing I listen to a lot of sports talk radio I like the narrative

And so There are a handful of shows That I enjoy that way I really like audio books

Audio books are my podcast I always have a book Queued up I'm always working on one right now

Anxious Generation By Jonathan Haidt Before that Joseph Heller's Catch -22

Never read that before And that is an absolute revelation That's as good a book As I've ever read Ever And I still don't know

What to do with it It's very rare that I laugh At a novel But that book Absolutely Killed me throughout

Just with the style And the pace So Yeah I tend to that way Which is dumb Because I'm a podcast host

So I should probably Listen to more podcasts I'm an audio book guy too though I just I just purchased

A program called Speechify Which is an AI reading program Which will read things That aren't in audio books

So like if Sometimes people will send me books That aren't published yet Because they want me to read them And endorse them And things like that And you can put it in It will read

It will read it to you In a natural voice Not some You know Robot voice Again Not a sponsor

What is it called? Speechify Speechify Speechify Is the name of the program That would

That application Right there That you just said You use it for That is such a better answer

Than the one I have For that particular request Because I just When am

I going to get to it And so I say yes And then I let people down This way I could Let people down less

That's great And it's a little bit There's a cost to it There's $140 for the year

But for me it was worth it $140 you know For the whole year That to me was worth the cost

Does it sound good? How's the delivery? I tell you what man It's great And I listen to audio books

All the time You're never going to have The exact you know Perfect of a person But it's as close As you're going to get

And you can have it cut out Like I don't know If you've ever listened To something that Like it tried to read

A URL or something That's in the book Or a footnote You can have it to where It automatically skips those

And that's what's great It skips past that And just gives you the content And it's great I'm listening to one right now

A brother wrote a book on anxiety And it's such a great book And I'm two hours

Into a four hour read And I've done it all in one day I did it two hours yesterday While I was driving Back and forth to the church

So it's great You clever man You've made my life better Thank you That's an excellent suggestion

Awesome Best sermon you've ever heard? That one might be tough

That is tough Okay I'll tell you one I don't even remember

Everything about it What I remember is this I was coming off of Twenty plus years Of pastoring churches

It was a good experience But it was hard I don't think people Totally understand How much that can

Twist up a guy It's an odd role I don't mean twist him up And make him evil I mean You're being a human

With people And also that gets evaluated At the end of every year By your elders To determine If you should be retained

It's just An odd Odd Place to live Socially And It can make guys

Weird After a while And it makes it very hard To go to church You don't Go to church

Like normal people Go to church So you sort of Are deprived Of that very life giving thing

For your whole career Unless you're very creative With your congregation And yes

This is me telling people On elder boards To be far more Thoughtful about this And figure out

How to make it So that your pastor Can go to church Because for the same reason That you elders Need to go to church

To be nourished By the word Your pastor needs To go to church But most pastors

Go their whole lives And they don't go to church That was eating at me When I was done And I got done

I dropped into Some churches I do the thing On the internet So that made it weird I didn't realize That doing this

Would screw up My ability to just Go to a church And now it's weird

And we gotta have Interactions about Things people liked Or didn't like That I said And that's weird

I didn't realize I'd be hurting myself In that way By choosing To do what I do here

So I was having A really tough time And I went to this Free Lutheran church

Got to know the guy Who pastors the church Just really impressed With who he is

His demeanor And one of the sermons Early on that I heard from him He was making the point

That the way God Has ordained things One of the chief ways

That the God of the universe Wants to serve people Like me

Serve me Is through the church God ministers to people

God serves It's a dangerous word But if you really think about it I think he's right to say it God serves lowly people

Through his church And I got all Kind of I had an intellectual And an emotional response to that And it just occurred to me

That I had served the church a lot And viewed myself As the one who was serving people

But really as an intermediary When I was getting anything right at all That was God serving people

And me playing a little role through it And now it's time for me To shut my stupid mouth And not lead anything

And be served by the God of the universe Even though it makes me uncomfortable Like it made Peter uncomfortable Getting his feet washed

Be served by the God of the universe Through taking the table And celebrating baptism And being nourished by the word

And being in fellowship With other believers Even when it's not easier I don't know why we're doing it

And maybe of all the sermons I've ever heard That's the one that I can recall That has been most needed

And most affected me And that's just here In the last few years Really important for me What about you?

You know what's funny is That's such a great answer And my typical answer that I say

Is the one that early on Really helped me the most Was R .C.

Sproul's On the holiness of God That just was always one That sort of helped me to understand Who I'm working for If you will

I'm working for the holy God of the universe Who's created all things By the word of his power It's just such a masterful sermon

And looking through Isaiah 6 That was always like This is who God is And it was helpful

But more recently And this has been within The last few months I was at a conference And one of the brothers there

Michael Schultz preached a sermon On how Jesus is casting out the demon

And he says Some demons go away And then they come back And the house is swept And the things are in order But it's empty

And so they come back And they return And he talked about how So often we renew everything on the outside And he was really kind of bringing to bear

The issue of the modern Like this whole reform movement And this whole new fundamentalism

That's out there And how we're cleaning the house up And we're doing everything But much of it is not being filled with the spirit

It's just adorning the outside With catechisms and all these other things But we're not really changing the inside And therefore we're opening ourselves up To be the next layer of bad fundamentalism

And man, that was powerful I said to him That's the best sermon

I've heard in a long time Just how dangerous it can be To clean the outside of the cup

But the inside of the cup not be clean And man, that was powerful And he's a good friend

I've had him on the show a couple times Pastor Michael Schultz Two quick things

Who's the best 80s show starring Co -starring a vehicle Best 80s TV show co -starring a car

Yeah, Airwolf A car, wait, you're changing it to car? You said vehicle I said vehicle No, I said vehicle

I said, yeah, you're right You're right I said car the second time Because I'm thinking of Knight Rider, of course

But you said a great one Dude, they put Jan Michael Vincent And Ernest Borgnine in a fake helicopter And then just had them fly to the same canyon

For whatever, three seasons And have the same dog Somehow they get into a dog fight Once a week

Forty times a year In the same canyon in Southern California And this doesn't raise any red flags for anyone

They just keep doing it Why are there Russian MiGs in 1984 In a canyon in Southern California On 12 consecutive weeks

That somehow can be tracked down by a helicopter And blown up This didn't even make the news

And it's Jan Michael Vincent Who's a looker And Ernest Borgnine Who's charming And I think even had a role as Cup In Transformers the movie

These are legendary actors And we're supposed to pretend Like this show just didn't exist

Plus a banging theme I'm sorry I know your question was meant to point me Toward vehicles that are

That roll on the ground But I got to go Airwolf That is so great Because normal acceptable answers are

You know, Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard A -Team, even Ghostbusters The real Ghostbusters TV show with Ecto -1

Mask, oh man, Mask was great But man, Airwolf is awesome

I got to give you props For pulling that one out Because I said cars I didn't even think You're right, that is excellent

All right, last one For you, what is the correct answer? Oh, for me?

I'm sorry I was a diehard Knight Rider fan And to this day

If I found a 1985 Trans Am T -Tops That was black and it was for sale I would buy it today

I would beg my wife To go into my retirement fund And I would ask her For however much money it was If it wasn't stupid expensive

I would drive it today And so I have never seen I've actually went on the marketplace

Like Facebook Marketplace Is anybody selling An 85 to 87 Trans Am? You know, and outside of that It would have been

Smoking the Bandits Trans Am Which is 10 years before The 75 Trans Am So either one

I'm a Trans Am fan I cried when I was a kid And Kit got put in that acid Oh man

His voice faded out Went away There's so many great scenes

In that show So many times Kit died And came back Yeah, well, you know He's a robot He'll be fine Okay, the voice of Kit though That's Mr.

Feeney From Boy Meets World, right? It's the same dude And I was so happy When I found out

That Lutheran satire That is actually how he says His last name His name's Hans Feeney So when I had him on my show

I did the Feeney call You know, Feeney That was great

Well done Very well done Last thing If you had to eat A chicken sandwich today Would you go to Popeye's Or Chick -fil -A?

This will get you in trouble We don't have a

Chick -fil -A here There's been a rumor Of its arrival for a decade It's been vastly overstated We do have a

Popeye's And what I would say about The Popeye's Here in Rapid City, South Dakota And the folks who run it

Is Bless their hearts Good stuff They are doing their

Their darndest They're trying To run a Popeye's It just Man, I keep supporting them

But If I could go to a Popeye's That is firing on all cylinders

I'm gonna take the Popeye's sandwich Gotcha If I have to go to the Popeye's Here in town

Well I believe better days Are ahead And I believe in the folks Over there And that someday

Things are gonna Gonna get right Good deal Two and a half stars

Would lightly recommend Awesome Well brother I wanna thank you so much

I've had so So great a conversation with you It's been so much fun I hope people really get A lot out of this

And the meteor stuff That we talked about today I think was really of value So thank you for bringing

Value to the show Thank you for what you do On YouTube I think it is great For people to see and learn And You're doing a good thing brother

So So thank you so much For coming on This was a lot of fun I would love to do this again Sometime I really really enjoyed

The conversation man Thank you Absolutely Praise the Lord Alright guys

Well I wanna tell you all again How much I appreciate you As an audience And thank you again For hanging with us

For the last hour and a half And If you're watching this on YouTube And you say Hey man I can't I can't watch

YouTube For an hour and a half But I can listen to it Remember you can always Jump over to our audio podcast It's on Apple, Spotify And all the other podcast places

Just look up Your Calvinist With Keith Foskey And you can find us there Thank you again for listening To Your Calvinist Podcast My name is