Can Christians Tolerate the "Furry" Community | Season 3 Episode 6

Bob and a pal. Welcome back. That's why we need him back. To the Point Taken Christian Podcast.

This is the podcast where we make and take spiritual and biblical questions and we chat them up.

And chat them up. Anna. Dude, Anna really dropped the ball on that one with her unsweet tea.

Wow. Okay. It's not unsweet. It is unsweet. I've had like, okay, look, I'm gonna try again. I put half and half, so a half sweet, half unsweet.

Half and half is for coffee. No. Yes, it is. This is half and half. This is classic glass, half full, half empty.

And you're the one who keeps drinking it and complaining about it. You know, that is true. Thank you for sharing. I had some of Lowell's coffee, but it was lukewarm and I almost

Jesus -ed it. Lukewarm. Okay. There it is.

It's a biblical reference. Can we try it? Can we try it again? Yes, sir. This is the podcast where we make and take spiritual and biblical questions and chat them up.

My name is Hunter. I'm the host of this podcast. To my right is the wonderful Anna, who's never dropped a ball in her life.

I'm perfect. Her glass is half empty of sweet tea. And to the farthest is our beloved, wonderful pastor,

Joe Siashev. And the crowd erupts that I am not hosting anymore. And I am one of them and so is

Anna. But then I said, Anna, can you do any better? She goes, absolutely not. We need a hundred back. That's exactly what happened.

Look, we want to talk about the crowd erupting. That phone looks girly. Oh, it's Anna's. I can't even get to the code.

I'm so sorry. Was there a code? You forgot the code? No, I can't get to the point where it asks. Oh, okay.

Well, that was my fault. Is that an iPhone? Android. Android. Yeah, so that's why I don't know how to use it. We want to talk about crowds erupting.

This episode is going to be, dare I say it, a hoot. Maybe even a hoot and a half.

What was that Facebook meme I saw? Hootin' is the gateway drug to hollering?

Yeah, I posted that. Hootin's the gateway drug to hollering. Listen, you guys clicked on this video, right?

You know what it's about. And maybe you shouldn't have, but you're locked in now. Pastor Josiah doesn't know what it's about.

I don't. This will be a pure reaction. Sometimes on this podcast we have opener questions and we talk about our week and how

God has blessed us. And that's something that I really enjoy. But you know why you're here for this episode.

Right. You know what we're talking about today. We need to get into this and we need to talk about this immediately.

But again, I don't know what it is yet. Now, Pastor Josiah is the one in the room that does not know what this is at all.

Okay. We all know in this room at least to some type of extent.

And just so everyone be aware, there's eight people in this room. I'm so excited.

And I apparently roasted him. And his exact phrase was, since you would have to be living under a rock to not know what this is, you can't do a reaction or be extremely sheltered and pastors just like dot, dot, dot.

Why would, why would it be? I believe I put like six dots. He put his fingers together.

Sheltered. I was like, crap. Hey, this is Pete, the rock I'm living under.

Guys, let's get right into this. Okay. Now we're going to take it seriously.

The funny part is watching our pastor be,

I don't know, sullied by this knowledge. Should we put a disclaimer on this?

If you have children around? Yeah. Okay. Listen, what we're about to be talking about is somewhat explicit and is certainly not wholesome.

So if you are the type that would like to, you know, shield children from this knowledge, take away every piece of internet that they have access to first and then don't let them watch this podcast.

Okay. Put your earbuds in because if they have a phone, they probably know it's something about this.

Okay. But pastor just side doesn't know. I have a phone. He uses his phone to text and watch

Yellowstone. Am I wrong? Those are two things.

I watch Yellowstone with my wife on the TV. Yeah. Um, well, I cast it from that.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's awesome that I got that. Okay, guys, this is a listener question that we have and we'll keep the name private.

I'm just going to I'm going to read this to you guys and talk about. Okay. Hello. Hello.

I've been watching your podcast for a couple of months now, and I think it's really good. Thank you.

We think so, too. I saw you guys had your email listed and want to ask you a question.

So I'm 18. I have this friend. She told me recently that she's this thing called a therian or a furry.

Now, I've never used the word therian. That one was actually new knowledge to me.

So I learned something there. I'm still not quite sure what it is. Well, do we have news for you?

But I asked my mom and dad about it. My dad said that it's something that sinners participate in.

And he's right. We'll get into it. All right.

I just loved that wording because that's exactly how I would have said it. I want to support my friend, but I don't know if it would be okay or not.

If you would answer my question, I would greatly appreciate it. Now, that's a very fair question. It's very awesome that you asked.

Okay. I can go ahead and short answer it for you. No. Okay. It's not okay to support.

Now, here's the why and how and all that. So for those watching that looked on your

YouTube page and you saw the word furry. We're going to put that in the title.

Good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Sure. Nick, there it is, bro. And you saw the word furry.

Now, I don't know if YouTube allows that. Can you spell it? F -U -R -R -Y. Okay. Okay. F -U -R -R -Y.

Don't show that yet. I love you, Anna. Okay.

Hold on. I want to get his reaction. Yeah. Once we've said what it is, I want you to show that to Pastor Josiah. Okay. I'm laughing already.

I mean, dude, he's about to. He's been gone too long.

Keep trying to get him. Who either saw the word furry in YouTube or that wasn't allowed.

You know, maybe we can use the word or something. You know, you might not know what it is.

Okay. So let me go ahead and tell you a couple of things and I can tag team with Anna on this.

A couple of things about our furry friends. All right.

So, Pastor Josiah, I'm going to talk directly to you. And you are going to be the stand in for every listener out there today.

Okay. Here we go. And I want to go ahead and apologize both to. This is the most preemptive work

I've ever seen for a definition. I would like to go ahead and apologize both to my God, my country, and my father for having this information.

Bet your dad would be so proud. Okay. So a furry, you know about bestiality.

Yeah, buddy. Yeah. Okay. Now, a furry is not exactly somebody like to be fair.

The fact that you use that as your starting point. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There has to be a basis. I have the mode for where we're going.

Yes. But there's a depth to it that you need to understand to get to our question. You need to understand what our listener's friend is really doing.

Right. So, it's not necessarily that they look at the family dog and say, nice.

You know, please tell me this isn't there for their hope. All right. Go ahead. It's not. It's not necessarily.

Now, there are exceptions to every rule. Maybe there are some who also are just straight up into real animals.

But a furry typically wants a humanoid version.

They want a person pretending to be an animal. Correct. Have you ever seen the movie? No, I haven't seen that.

No, no, no, no. You're gonna say yes to this. Have you ever seen the movie Zootopia? Is that the one where the

DMV is a sloth? Yes. Yes. Yes. That is one of their favorite movies in the world.

It's a bunch of humanoid animals. They want, you know, most of the time they're walking on two feet.

They have their abs and their pecs. The women have all the normal stuff. It's just they're covered in fur and they have tails, ears.

These are humans who want a human partner that looks like an animal.

Now, I want to go ahead and hit him with this flashbang of a picture. I think it's just perfect timing just to absolutely slap you on the side of the head with that.

Now, that pastor, that pastor is what they call a fursuit.

It's almost like a mascot. Y 'all aren't making this up. No. No, this furry costume. If you go to college today, you will see somebody wearing...

No, it's just a mascot now. No. It looks like a mascot costume, but people wear this. It's like a, almost like a cosplay thing.

Some people do it for sexual fetishes. Others do it as they identify as something else.

It's like they're... I'll tell you. No, I'll tell you the real word for it.

They will hire artists if they're not one themselves. I have noticed most of the sexually depraved have artistic ability.

I don't know if anybody else has noticed that. But if they're not already an artist, they will hire an artist and describe what they want to look like in this animal form for them to draw them for them.

And that is called their fursona. That's a real thing.

Not persona. It's your fursona. So, they'll have their fursona as their profile picture.

And then they'll get online and they'll role play with other people in a chat room.

So you know, you mean like these people are like barking? Yes. They'll do this,

Pastor. They speak in role play script.

My next question is how do you know this exists? I have a phone. Internet. Mostly, this is the most made fun of thing.

If you were to go to my YouTube search right now, you'd find some basketball highlights. Not on YouTube. You have to find screenshots of things on Reddit, Tumblr, Lord's sake, and all

Twitter or whatever. But most of the time, if you come across these chains of talking and all that stuff, you'll find it.

And then memes is huge. This is one of the most made fun of fetishes or whatever that exist.

All right. But yeah. And that's their fursona. And I've been to a Comic -Con, not the big one, but a small one in Arkansas.

Dude was just walking around full fursuited. There were two of them. And then some people like on college campus at U of M, I've been there and they will have the tail.

And I won't tell you how the tail is connected to them, but they have the tail. And and sometimes they'll just walk around with the paws.

You know, they not usually wear the helmet. You're not talking about like Go Tigers Go. No, I'm talking.

No, I'm I'm talking like I am a dog. Now, do you remember?

Do you remember? People tend to forget about this, but this is a real thing that happened a couple of years ago in the

United States of America. There was a revolt on the northwestern side.

I believe it might have been. I don't know if it was Seattle. Might have been

Seattle where they rose up and they created their own city called Chaz.

Yes. And they they were very liberal. They were against guns and everything, and they guarded their borders with guns.

And a whole lot of people were trapped. It was it was a few city blocks. Yeah, a lot of people were trapped in Chaz.

And one of the things that Chaz had was a furry dog park. Where you could go to the dog park in your fursuit and you could.

Doggy style in public. In your fursuits. But like we said, not all furries.

Have the sexual kink, if you will. Some of them for real. Some of them. Some of them like to just do it kind of like the

Comic -Con like you had mentioned. Some of them like to do it just as like you're dressing up. I mean, granted, I've never been to a

Comic -Con. But some people dress up like as one of the characters that they might like from a book or, you know, like anime, like whatever.

But these people like to identify as that, like have that as like an altered identity.

Basically, because there's not really like a source of media for furries.

So you're not going to find I don't think you're going to find somebody who's going to dress up in a fursuit that isn't doing it because they're attracted to that.

They're just not necessarily attracted to the family dog. I think, too, that it's kind of I mean, you're putting on a costume.

Yeah. So it gives you the option to hide. Yes, it's unanimous because I'm not unanimous.

Anonymous. Yes. My bad. Certainly not unanimous. This is anonymous. And, you know, when anonymity reaches away from the computer screen into public, dude, that's.

That's dangerous because it's already. So what part of that makes it sinful? OK, is it sinful just to dress up as answering our listeners question?

Is it just a sin if it's like the sexual kink or is it just as if it is sin?

Also, if they were to just dress up and like have that as like an alternate identity, that is a fantastic question.

I want to answer it so bad, but I think it would be so much better if we let Pastor Gosei speak on it first.

Do you need time to process it? No. It looked like you were so processing.

I'm having trouble taking this listener question seriously, but I'm going to pretend and give the benefit doubt that it was a serious question.

I'm saying kids these days are OK, growing with it. So that's what I'm saying. I said 50 percent chance somebody is just playing with us, which, you know,

I find very funny if you are. It makes for great content. Yeah, I like that stuff that I find very funny.

But if it's serious, you know, this is something that a whole bunch of kids deal with because a lot of kids are what we call iPad kids who were raised by the

Internet. Gen Z, like all of that. I mean, you see all of this stuff on the Internet. Well, then I guess we got to respond to it.

All right. Would you like first honors? I don't mind. Since you've gone through the most trauma today. Yeah, that was a lot, man.

He's like, you can stop scrolling. OK, and and the the question

Anna's raising in response to the question is, is that sinful? Is that right? Well, I know the answer.

The part of just having like the alternate identity is that sinful? OK, according to moving past the obvious sexual morality.

Yes, that's a given. Right. The answer would be yes, absolutely. Why? Human beings are created in the image of God.

And that is something that I don't think we understand very well. Creating the image of God does not mean that God looks like us.

That's not what we mean when we say we're creating the image of God. We are creating the image of God. First off, that as God is a trichotomy, so are we.

Mind, body, spirit, father, son, spirit. But more than that, of all of his creation, in all galaxies, in all the universe, throughout the planet, of all his creatures that he created, only one was created in his image.

Which is the ability to know him intimately and love him deeply.

To know him intimately and love him deeply. Only humans have that ability.

You know, Isaiah says that the trees clap their hands for God. But they don't know why they're doing it.

So the heavens do declare the glory of God, but they don't know why they're doing it. Lions do glorify

God, but they don't know how or why they're doing it. They don't know what that concept is. Humans are created in the image of God in that we can know him intimately and love him deeply.

That is a special creation of God. He has a blaze of miracles of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis.

I mean a blaze. Like, one sentence. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of stars are created in one sentence.

Right? And then he stops, and he stoops down, and he hand -forms man.

And breathes his life into them. That's about as intimate a creation as you can imagine.

When we say we are created in the image of God, we are able to know him intimately and love him deeply because we are created unique and special from all other creations.

So, that is why it would be sinful. Purposely or not, you are making a mockery of the image of God that you bear.

Every human being on planet Earth, believer or not, is an image -bearer of our

God. To downgrade yourself to something different and look, just a total side note here.

The Bible speaks several times about taking care of our animals and beasts, and all that stuff.

Don't muzzle the ox, watch trying to tread the grain. He who cares for his beasts. All that stuff.

But there is not an equality of creation. One creation, he said, subdued the

Earth. One creation, he said, the rest of creation answers to you. The fear and dread of you will be on each of them.

That creature is the one who has direct communication with God. So, to not to ramble any longer.

To make a mockery of that and pretend to be something less than that is a mockery of the image of God.

Very true. Boom. Pow. Boom bop. Bop. Be -bop.

Be -bop -boop. Be -boop -boop. Be -boop -boop -bop. Be -boop -boop -bop. Be -boop -boop -bop. Be -boop -boop -bop. Be -boop -boop -bop.

Be -boop -boop -bop. Be -boop -boop -bop.

Be -boop -boop -bop. I'm not going to recommend every friend I have to my boss to work with me. I'm just not.

And if somebody puts in their application and my boss says, hey, do you know this guy? And I'll say yes. Is it a good worker?

If I think you're not, then I would say no. Tell the truth. Yeah, because I'm not going to sign my name off on something that I cannot believe in or put right, you know.

So morally and ethically, biblically, if it is not sound, then especially to my friend,

I cannot sign off on that and say, go get them, tiger. You know, literally.

Stop. And here's why. Here's why, okay. Take, for example, fornication.

Okay, why is it a sin to have sex with somebody outside of marriage, right?

Why is it a sin for a man to sleep with a man or a woman with a woman? Why are these things wrong?

Because we are given sex with a definition, the same way we are given all things.

When God makes something, he makes it to be a certain way. For example, marriage is a biblical concept.

God made it. He made it with the definition one man, one woman under God. That is what marriage is.

Any other thing other than that, it's called a legal union. So gay marriage was legalized because people and people groups have taken marriage from the biblical concept because they realize, governments realize, hey, this really works and this can really help and can, you know, so for the overall benefit of this kingdom or this nation, marriage should be adopted into that.

And that has gone all the way up to the United States of America. So they adopt the term marriage.

But if two men are married, they're not, that's not a marriage. That's a legal union.

In the same way, sex falls under that category. It is between a married man and a married woman, as long as they're married to each other, under God, right, mirroring the love

God has with this church. That's what sex is. And anything outside of that is no bueno.

So, for example, covering each other in fur and pretending to be animals would not fall under that category of okay.

Pretty simple. I hope, we've said this before on this podcast, I hope everyone just heard how Hunter perfectly explained that, referring to marriage.

People react so emotionally and so much hostility when a

Christian says there is actually no such thing as gay marriage. Well, Hunter's exactly right.

It's not that we are saying the United States or Canada or England does not recognize gay marriage.

That's not what we're saying. That would be ludicrous. Obviously that's true. We're saying that the fact that government chooses to recognize marriage as something they deem beneficial to their society is acceptable.

Sure. But they are not even the arbiter of marriage. God is. Right. God predates the

United States of America. God predates France and England. If the government decided that marriage is no longer something they wanted to participate in,

Christians would still do marriage because it is a biblical mandate long before it's a governmental ideal.

That's what people don't understand. Even without the tax breaks. Exactly. That's why the government's like, yeah, sure.

Yeah. So there is no such thing as gay marriage because the government or polygamy or because the government is not the creator or arbiter of marriage.

God is. The fact that governments choose to recognize it for other gains is acceptable, but that doesn't make them the creator of it.

That's what Hunter was saying. I think he said it exactly right. Yeah. Going back on the listener's question, though, with her asking or with the person asking,

I don't remember if it was a girl or guy, should I support my friend?

You can still love your friend, but you don't have to support everything that you do. And that's one thing.

I mean, you know, I grew up with a friend of mine. He was gay. He still is gay.

And I think he's engaged and, you know, whatever. And I would tell him, you know,

I love you. But it's like as a Christian, like I don't I don't approve of that. And it's like and you can't get mad at me because this is what

Scripture says. And it's like and I'm going to do what is, you know, God calls me to do. And I'm going to be obedient to that.

But just because you don't support your friend in something like doesn't make you a bad friend. This could actually give you an opportunity to talk to said friend and like, hey, like what's really going on?

Like, why do you feel like you need this second identity to escape reality? Yeah. Like what's going on?

Let's get to the root of the problem. Makes you a better friend. As as exactly as insane as I guess

I'll use the word. This will be the first time this is passed through my lips. Yes. As insane as the idea of someone being a furry is.

Clipped up. It is not. And it's exactly right. No, you can't support that if you're a

Christian. No, that's a mockery of God. That doesn't mean I would not take that person out to lunch or invite them to my home.

Right. In certain circumstances or or or invite them to church or go to Greece.

That's that's not the question. Right. That's not the question. The question is a bad example there.

The question is. So so support and love.

If you love someone, you tell them the truth. If you love somebody, you tell them the truth.

Sometimes we use the word support as a euphemism for lie and let people be deceived and double down in the rebellion.

That's not what support is supposed to mean. Yeah. And I'll say this. When I was young, my dad taught me this.

I don't remember what he was about to give a testimony about this. No, no. When I was young, my dad taught me what a furry was.

And he said, son, sometimes you'll see these paws around the house for Marty.

Now, when I don't know what prompted this conversation, I just remember it because I was just like, oh, dang.

Because it kind of hit me with the reality check that sometimes no matter how blinded by society and your day to day routine and your friendships can make you, you have to remember that as a

Christian, you are required to hold a different level of righteousness.

And you have to draw a line. I'm very, very big on drawing lines. But these are these are things

I will not do. These are things I will never allow myself to do, even if nobody's watching. These are the things that if I do that, then

I am not a man. Just like I say, like my dad would tell me, a man is only as good as his word.

And that goes on to your what am I thinking of? If you're trustworthy.

Character. That's not the word. Integrity. There it is. Thank you. I was in my head. I was spelling it.

It started with an E. And I was like, that's not right. Yeah, integrity. But anyway, he was telling me. You can have atheist friends.

You can have friends that sin and do all these other things, but they can never be your best friend.

Your best friend cannot. Have. God not in common with you.

It's like your best friend. It's like iron sharpens iron. That's scripture. You need your best friend to be able to kick you in the butt and sharpen.

He said, if God is the most important thing in your life that you care the most about, how can you be best friends with somebody who does not share that in common?

And so I was just like, that reminded me and has helped me so much in my life.

Choosing and picking, you know, the levels of friendship I have with people. I can be good friends with somebody who's a furry, but I will never be very close, intimate friends with somebody who practices stuff like that because I can't because we do not share fun of them and just laugh at their face.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And I do that to all my friends, you know, who who have any eccentricity at all or even if they don't.

But I'm just like, I can't do that because they don't share my God with me.

So it's like maybe if you two are besties, you know, and best friends, that might be a chance to say maybe

I need to evaluate the level of friendship I allow myself to have with people who do not share my

God with me. But I would also. I'm not saying screw them. I'm just saying, you know. Well, and like I said earlier, it would be a good opportunity for that friend to show grace and mercy, you know, to the other and just be a witness, you know, to your friend who is.

I don't know what like how you would put it, just like being a furry, like dressing up as a furry, doing whatever. Yeah, but it's also and I just want to cover our bases here.

There's a difference between people who have shared, hey, I, I struggle with this or hey, like these are these are the things that I do behind closed doors.

What do you think? Versus the people who show up to school with, you know, the tail popping out of their pants and all that stuff and are openly practicing things as well.

So I feel like there is a level of witnessing that should be coming from you.

In other words, they should be able to see a difference in you. And if you don't know what to do and if you are having trouble wondering, how do

I how do I go about this? If I know that I can't support it, I know that I want to be their friend.

You need to make sure that they see a light in you that is different from everybody else that they see so that when you take those hard stances, you can fall back on everything else that they see out of you and stand on a solid foundation of look what

I did today, yesterday and tomorrow. Like you can you can know that this is the type of person

I am. And so when I make that stand, I can fall back on, you know, the beliefs that you've seen. Do we want to move on to the next?

Sure. Is that is that everything? Are there any questions? No, I think you've answered all of them successfully.

There's so much that I haven't said. You can stop. But you know, it's amazing that that feeling of that I had 20 minutes ago,

I didn't even realize that existed. The way this world's going, that will be true of all of us, not 50 years from now.

Yeah. One year from now. Yeah. We'll see. The Bible calls it inventors of evil.

Wow. Inventors in the last days, perilous, perilous times will come for men will be lovers of themselves.

Those who are inventors of evil. And I'll say just as clarification.

Current day furries or whenever they started really being a thing, didn't invent that when what he's saying is there are different ways to do the same sin.

Oh, yeah. Because just back in the old days, you can look back at mythology and the creatures that they'd create.

Oh, my God. Tell me exactly. Nobody thought, you know, and had and was just like messed up.

And just looking at those things, I guarantee that furries have been a thing for a long time.

Just in the 21st century, they said to me, we have the materials, you know, to take

Disney characters and do terrible things. I mean, some of the Canaanite gods, we talk about this in Sunday school.

Some of the Canaanite gods were half man, half fish or whatever. Merman. Yeah. Yeah. Dagon, the god of the

Philistines. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good point, Pastor.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have this video that we're going to react to and talk about to close us out.

And some of you need to step into blessing. And you do that with an act of faith.

Yes. Three hundred dollars. Why is that significant?

It's significant, number one, because it got your attention. And it's significant, number two, because that's what the profit got your attention.

First of all, the first thing I want to point out is significant because it got your attention.

Three hundred dollars. So imagine trying to convince somebody to give you three hundred dollars

U .S. cash. And you're going to say your number one most important point.

That number got your attention, didn't it? Like, that's a crazy amount, isn't it? Three hundred dollars. Three hundred, that's a crazy amount.

Is this a pastor? I pray not, but I don't know. Is there a name associated with this?

We can't see the monitors far away. We'll figure it out later. Keep playing this garbage. But if God spoke, you say, but I may not have three hundred dollars right now.

Well, what do you have? Do you have a hundred? Do you have a hundred and fifty?

Take a step of faith toward God right now. But everyone who wants to move to greatness, listen to the voice of God.

Three hundred dollars. That was the voice of God. That was the voice of God.

That was a lot more annoying than I expected. It says, like, great prosperity, all that. You can look at this on there. Okay, so I just want to make sure

I'm being fair. This is not in the context of he is in his church preaching to just his people.

This is a public. On TV, yes. A commercial. Yes. That's a commercial. And it's the greatness and the blessing for three hundred dollars.

You know what I kind of feel like? I got a message in the group, and I was just like, what is this greatness entail?

It's pretty vague. Well, you know what? I'm spending three hundred dollars. I want to know what I'm buying. This little commercial reminds me of, do you know those shows that only come on, like, certain channels?

But it's just these dudes, and they have an item on the spinny table, and they say, call now for this.

Oh, like the. And it really targets old people who don't really know any better. This is worth three thousand dollars.

And you can get it today for only two ninety nine. Ninety nine. Yeah. Little shopping channels. And they have all the, you know, gas station knives and bad jewelry trying to get money from old people for basically nothing.

That's kind of how I feel like this is. It's like, do you want greatness? You are great.

Three hundred. But if you saw on the bottom, like on the screen of that tick tock, it says we accept all major credit cards.

And this is a commercial for his, quote, ministry. Yeah. I mean, like ministry of what?

Greatness. That's what I said. What is the greatness? It says great prosperity. The two kings for it's the number two kings, number four ministry, the two kings for ministry.

So I very much would love to sit here and make fun of this guy for the next 20 minutes.

But let's go ahead and do this. Can somebody explain to me just for the argument's sake of somebody out there who says, well, why can't that be real?

Why is he not referring to Micah when he says that greatness will be given to you when you give your money?

Because didn't Micah not say we talked about it this morning, actually, which is really funny. Bring the tithing to the storehouses.

Test me. Just see if I won't open up the store gates and bless you.

Malachi did say that. That was not Micah, Malachi. No, you said Malachi. You did. Let's go with that because I'm 90 % sure

I said Micah. This happened last week, I'm pretty sure, too. But yeah, you said Malachi. Good job. It's an M. Well, because Malachi was teaching that.

He was first teaching that to the priests and pastors, as we read this morning. The example in Malachi this morning was that the priests were telling the people to offer up their offering and their tithes.

But then they, since they didn't have... And you remember when you were supposed to give your offering, you were supposed to give the best of what you have.

Well, since the priests did not have currency, did not have except what was given to them by the people, they were buying lame, blind, three -legged goats and sacrificing that that they could get for very cheap and then saying they were giving their sacrifice.

So the first immediate context of who that's talking about is pastors.

So in Malachi 3 .10, the immediate context is speaking to the priest.

You bring me that and see if I won't open the floodgates. Secondly, the only context, the only context that we see a collection being taken up in the

New Testament is in the local church. So if you want to ask for donations for your ministry,

I think that's totally acceptable. Heck, we would take that no problem.

But if you are saying that is what Malachi is talking about, if you're saying that's what

Paul was speaking to, that people from outside your congregation give to your ministry, that's fine, but that is not a fulfillment of what

Corinthians or Thessalonians or Malachi is talking about. And then finally, and most importantly,

God does not work in a quid pro... I can't say that word. Quid pro quo. Thank you, basis. God does tend to reward obedience and punish disobedience.

That's at his behest when he feels like it. We obey because we're told to.

And saying that you got some message, some vision from God that everyone listening should give $300 is just, it's baloney.

That's just untrue. God has already required from everybody everything they have.

So telling other people that you have a vision from God, that they're supposed to give this amount of ministry to you, or the famous old one was, if you call right now, we'll send you this pen.

If with this pen, you write a check to my ministry. By the way, even great people, if...

Let me argue strongly against naming a ministry after yourself. Just really seems like you're going to have a hard time with humility required.

Anyway, and you write a check with this pen, God will bless you surely. Where does it say that in the Bible? Where does it say that in the

Bible? Well, I looked this guy's website up. Yeah, go ahead. And so, on his homepage, this is rodparsley .com.

It says, receive the blessing of firstfruits. God has a perfect plan for your abundance and blessing.

And you decide whether you want to put that plan in motion now to increase you throughout 2023. If that guy really wanted to promote the biblical mandate of giving, he would have said in his commercial, he would have said in his commercial, if you'd like to donate to our ministries, you're more than welcome to.

We do this amount of things, and this is what we do with the money. But if that would keep you from obeying

God's commandment to give in your local church, then do not give to me. That would have been more respectful.

Even more so, I feel like the real danger is that he's trying to monetize God. And he's trying to monetize and sell blessings from God.

He's not even saying, we're going on a mission trip. He's saying, God will release his blessing if you give this money to me.

Now, just for the sake of context, we did not see his full interview or full commercial.

We don't know what happened before or after. So maybe he's saying, hey, let's donate to this or that. But the way he's going about it and judging on the website is all about,

I am trying to sell you greatness to carry you through 2023. If you send this money,

I am selling you God's blessings, as if he is the middleman who can give you God's blessings, but only if he receives the $300.

Yeah, you know what, our first presentation was best case scenario, giving him the benefit of the doubt. But you're right.

If he is saying that, yes, he is the one who holds the keys to unlocking the power of God's genie in the bottleness to give you the blessing, it's blasphemous.

Well, let me read the rest of this really quick. It says, how do you activate the promises? By bringing your firstfruits offering, a

God -established principle for your success every year at the beginning of the year.

And then he quotes Proverbs 3, 9 through 10. It says, honor the Lord with your firstfruits.

Yes, substance in the firstfruits of all your increase, so barns will be filled with plenty, and your presses will burst out with new wine.

But the thing is, going through this guy's website, it goes through his receiving this type of blessing and this type of revival.

So he talks about that. It talks about other ways of making money. Watch this. This is how it should go.

This is how it should go. You ready? Hey, if you want to give the Wynton Baptist Church the Point and Technique Podcast, you're allowed to.

We're going to do more stuff like this and get gospel out further. If you don't, keep watching. We don't care. There you go. Do you want to step into greatness?

I will shut this podcast down. $300 and Point and Technique Podcast will draw you a fursona better than any other fursona.

How did you do that with a straight face? How did you do that with a straight face? And it'll look like that's our model, but that with a dog.

Oh, you mean we'll sell them a shirt? No, the mannequin. The mannequin will be our model.

He has a name. Have you forgotten? Finnegan. Okay, because I did. Finnegan the model will be our

AI stand -in. We'll cover it with fur, put a tail on it, and $300.

Of course, we'll be doing none of that, just to be clear. Yeah. And then the storehouses will overflow with greatness.

That really brings it together. It does. Thank you, Finnegan. You know what?

And, of course, it's ridiculous, so we laugh, but. He sells DVDs and CDs and digital downloads, too, to go over this.

Well, thank goodness for the digital download. I mean, our pastor did this morning's sermon, so you can just watch it on free at YouTube.

You don't have to pay for it. That guy will stand before the throne room of God one day, and we'll be getting a rude awakening.

I hope he repents for that. His eyes are opened, his heart is opened, and he repents for that.

I hope so, too, that he didn't give all his greatness away. It's like the prosperity gospel that they're teaching, and it makes me sick.

It's like, you're not concerned about that. But, okay, my thing was, in our group message, I almost commented,

I was like, well, I'll just hold this for the actual podcast. It's like $300. If you can't do that, what about $100?

I'm like, you think if they can't do $300, they're going to be able to do $100? Why not just do anything you can?

Does that give you a less amount of greatness? He never went into that. I'm like, that's still a lot. But, yeah, what is the greatness? It's just so vague.

Granted, we didn't see the whole ad. You get $100 worth of greatness. Yeah, but what does that entail? It's like, am

I going to get less blessing because I'm giving less money? That's what it sounds like he is exactly what you're saying. Yeah, and I'm just like, that is so bogus.

You get a little bit of blessing. But what really got me is point number two. One, it got your attention.

And that's true. He really nailed us there. It did, yeah. Because he had my attention at $300.

But two, it's what the prophet of God said. Yeah, which prophet is that? I'm wondering. Was he talking about himself?

I don't know. I want to spy on the whole ad now. Best case scenario, he was talking about Malachi and just didn't understand.

Worst case scenario, he's talking about himself. You know what got my attention? He's talking about the prophet of God.

Oh, man. We have to find this hole. All right, now here. I'll tie it all together. If that's what he meant, he is a furry because he has.

Let me tell you why. Because he has sheep's clothing he is wearing over himself as a false prophet.

Oh! Never in my years. Never in my Christian years. Wolves in sheep's clothing.

They're furry. You're the greatest.

The greatest of all time. You're the goat. Oh! All right.

All these furry goats. Oh, my God. It's a wolf whose fursona is a sheep. Oh, my gosh.

This is the best day of my life. That's what Jesus said to mine. For sure. 100%.

He said, he really is a furry. Guys. I love it. This is probably one of my favorite episodes of the series.

I like the wheezy laugh. He's got an ab workout laughing so much. My cheeks hurt.

We missed you, Hunter. I missed being here. This was the greatest episode. Are you and Dalton wearing the same shoes?

I've been noticing it for 10 minutes. If you watch this podcast carefully, you'll see me looking at that half the time.

They're new. I got them for Christmas. What does it say? They're called On Clouds. I never heard of them before I got them for Christmas.

On Clouds. They were gifted to me. If you stood on a cloud, you'd fall to the earth and die. Because clouds don't have substance that you can stand on.

These were bought for me by my fiance's parents. Clouds aren't soft. They're very soft.

Those maybe. These are soft. They're not soft. Clouds are water. Guys, if you like this podcast and you learned a whole lot today.

Should we say share this video? Yes. Absolutely. The world needs to know. Guys. Share the video.

Like. Comment. Subscribe. Subscribe. If you have more questions. Drop them in the comments.

If you have more questions, drop them in the comments. Alright. If we didn't cover something you felt like you needed to cover. No, I think we covered everything today, man.

Or if you agreed or disagreed, let us know in the comments. You can also email us at listenpointtaken at gmail dot com.

That's listen with a t. Point taken. No spaces. At gmail dot com. You can also

DM us on Instagram. Point taken. Christian podcast.

And comment on the video, guys. But until then. Deuces. Deuces.

Deuces. He could sell not only the coffee that he's drinking, but the jeans. He's drinking them in.