WWUTT 2190 Q&A Made in the Image of God, Planning to Have Kids, Honor Father and Mother
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Responding to questions from listeners about what it means to be made in the image of God, how do Christian parents plan to have children, and various questions about honoring father and mother. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
- 00:00
- Does the Bible say that we all have been made in the image of God? How do Christian parents plan to have children?
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- And how long does the commandment, honor your father and mother, apply? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.
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- This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Be sure to leave us a 5 star review on whatever podcast app you like to use.
- 00:34
- Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. It should be at this point.
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- Here once again is Becky. Yay! Who hasn't been here in a month. Sorry, guys.
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- You enjoy your time away. Yeah, I did. You were traveling all over the Midwest pretty much during that time.
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- I was, yeah. It was a bittersweet, but yeah. Yeah. Because your grandmother passed away.
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- Got to see some family, though. Oh, yeah. And some friends. Yep. Annie went to camp. Yes.
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- Raised her own money. Yes. And did all of that herself, because God knows we can't afford it.
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- She was very responsible. Good. Yes. And had fun, too, I hope.
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- Yes. Having to raise all of that on her own. I think we covered some of it.
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- I don't remember. No, she had it all raised. Did she? Yeah. I was expecting to cover part of it.
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- So I know that I paid it, and then she gave me cash from the bake sales and stuff. So the cash she gave me, that was enough?
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- No. It was the rest of it's on... Oh, the cash apps and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say, because I didn't think
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- I got that much cash from her. Oh, no. No, you didn't. Not there. No, she did amazing.
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- That's great. Our responsible 16 -year -old. I know. Look at that. Praise the Lord. Well, we've got some questions here.
- 01:56
- Some of these questions I've sat on for a few weeks. Oh. Because they directly address you. I think that might have been uncomfortable for you.
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- Oh, man. That was a dad joke. You pulled a dad joke.
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- Oh, well done. Are you like one -sided now? That was very unlike you.
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- Generally, you roll your eyes at me for those jokes. I think I got a taste of my own medicine there.
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- There you go. And we've also got a voicemail. So, a reminder that if you want to send us a voicemail, just go to www .utt
- 02:35
- .com and click on the voicemail tab right there. And you can record it from your phone or your computer, whatever electronic device you're using to listen to us.
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- So, I finished up Psalm 18 last week without you. Yes. Let's jump into Proverbs.
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- Okay. We'll do some Proverbs here at the beginning of these Friday episodes for a little while. So, this is
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- Proverbs 1. We'll start right at the very beginning of Chapter 1. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.
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- To know wisdom and discipline. To understand the sayings of understanding.
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- To receive discipline that leads to insight. Righteousness, justice, and equity.
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- To give prudence to the simple. To the youth, knowledge, and discretion.
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- Let the wise man hear and increase in learning. And a man of understanding will acquire guidance.
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- To understand a proverb and an enigma. The words of the wise and their riddles.
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- And here's verse 7. The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.
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- So, you have those first six verses really there to tell you the importance of reading these
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- Proverbs. And acquiring wisdom and applying that wisdom. That's the six verses.
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- A good intro to Proverbs. And then verse 7 is really kind of the thesis statement to the rest of Proverbs.
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- The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord. Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.
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- So, we should fear God. And in fearing the Lord we gain knowledge and wisdom and understanding.
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- Because in fearing God we desire to know His word. As I've been in Isaiah. We haven't gotten to Isaiah 66 yet.
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- We're pretty close to the end of our study of Isaiah. But it's in Isaiah 66 too where it says.
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- All these things my hands have made. And so all these things came to be, declares the
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- Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit.
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- And who trembles at my word. That's a pretty good descriptor of having the fear of the
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- Lord. That we may acquire knowledge. We're humble before God. We tremble at His word.
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- And we know that it is the word that reigns over every other word. His word has authority over every person.
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- Whether they acknowledge it or not. But fools will spurn that word. They will despise wisdom.
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- They will ignore discipline. They will hate the one who gives them discipline. Instead of recognizing.
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- I've done wrong. That was a mistake. Here's the consequence for my error. A fool won't do that.
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- A fool will think that I need to get back at this person. Because they showed me that I was wrong.
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- Or afflicted me somehow. I don't know if you've ever remembered that attitude you had against your parents whenever they punished you.
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- Oh yeah, I was terrible at that. So we actually talked about that while I was with my family.
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- Really? Yeah, we talked about how I was as a kid. And mom's like,
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- We couldn't ever spank you hardly at all. It didn't do any good.
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- I'm like, yeah, I got mad at you for hurting me. It was your fault. You were a fool. Yeah, I was.
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- Totally. It wasn't my fault at that point. I was like, whenever you're training your dog and you have to discipline them right away otherwise they don't know what they're being disciplined for.
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- That was me. That was totally me. I had the attention span of a dog. It was terrible.
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- Because anytime that I was disciplined after the fact, it didn't matter. It was their fault for making me angry and making me uncomfortable or whatever.
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- And I remember that too. That being my reaction when I was punished by my parents. Not all the time, but most of the time.
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- Oh, mine was all the time. So with our children, one of the things that I have tried to do when we would discipline them would be to explain to them, listen, this was your fault.
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- This is not you got spanked and so I'm the one that afflicted you. You are bearing the consequence of the wrong action that you made.
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- So you need to learn from this and not do it again. I tried to explain it more to them so they understood they're the reason that they got disciplined.
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- It's not the person administering the discipline that has done anything wrong. Yeah, I remember those talks with my mom.
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- She would say the same thing too? She would say similar things, yeah. And it just, nope, it was still their fault.
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- Well, I hope it's taking effect. I hope they're not internally seething
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- Yeah, you'd say that. But I mean, really, I wasn't saved and so that's not my mind. It just, yeah.
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- But receiving the correction of the Lord, just like we should receive the correction of our parents.
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- Yes, yeah. For as Hebrews 12 will go on to tell us that the
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- Lord disciplines us because we are His children. If we were not His children, He wouldn't discipline us.
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- So important to hear God's word, be convicted by it whenever we do wrong, whenever we sin and we feel that conviction of the
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- Holy Spirit, not getting mad at God or our circumstances or whoever it was that caught us in our error.
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- Or trying to be sneakier the next time. Yeah, or make excuses for it. No, it wasn't really this, it was actually this.
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- Yes, excuses. That's a big one. I find myself doing that too. I'm like, wait, no, I need to stop that.
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- So the wise man will receive correction. That's something humbly we all need to acknowledge, we all need to recognize.
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- Well, this is the Friday edition of the broadcast and we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com
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- and like I said, there's also voicemail you can record either from your phone or your computer.
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- Go to www .utt .com and click on the voicemail tab there on the menu at the top of the page.
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- I've got one voicemail today. Awesome. The voicemail service that we use, I just noticed, numbers our voicemail messages.
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- So this is actually our eighth voicemail. Oh, cool. So since we started doing this, which was just a few weeks back, it wasn't that long ago, this is the eighth voicemail that we have received.
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- I've got something keeping tabs on that for me. I like it. Speaking of which, speaking of Proverbs and speaking of numbering things out.
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- Okay. So I'm attempting to still add to our website where I had the podcast archives.
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- Hang on, I'm trying to bring this up here. I don't have it labeled well. If you go to www .utt
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- .com and you click on podcast on the menu bar, which is right in the middle, it gives you a list, an archive list of past episodes and I've said before that I'm still working on that list because it takes a while.
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- I have to go back and individually find every single episode and link to it. Yes. Because Podbean, the service that I use for our podcast just doesn't archive very well.
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- So I'm creating our own archive and right now going through Proverbs so you'll notice there are 21 lessons thus far that are in the podcast archive for a study in Proverbs.
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- Nice. So I think I'll try to finish out Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.
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- I'll have those filled out, not Psalms because that one was big. We were in Psalms for like two years,
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- I think. Yeah, I think so. So I'll wait on that one, but then after I finish those four, I'll go,
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- I'll pull some of the New Testament studies and pull those into there as well. Thank you for your patience in building that because what are we at here?
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- Over 2 ,100 episodes? I don't even know where we're at. I don't know either. I'm not keeping track.
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- Yeah, 2 ,190. That's what this episode is. So that takes a while to build an archive of over 2 ,000 episodes.
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- Eh, you know. Thanks for having patience with me and I so appreciate that you go back and listen to those.
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- Yeah, definitely. That's one of the things I've noticed as I've been pulling up those old episodes. Like I haven't looked at that episode in a year or two and oh man, it's still it's climbing in listenership.
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- That's awesome. So yeah, you're going back and listening to old episodes. That's great. We're just trying to make that a little bit easier for you.
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- Okay, this first question. Some of these questions, like I said, I've been waiting on sitting on as I said a moment ago because I was waiting for Becky to come back.
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- So here we go. This is from Scott. He says, Gabe and Babe Firstly, I have to say how much
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- I enjoy the Friday Q &A especially when Becky's laughter or an incredulous comment makes an appearance.
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- You have been blessed as has she you can tell that you give each other joy and love just from the interaction.
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- I'm glad it comes through. And this is so much easier to do with you. Oh yeah.
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- You said that before. It takes me longer to do this when I do it by myself. I have a lot of stops and starts.
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- You don't notice that because I edit it very well, but whenever you and I are sitting here, I think we have like two flubs.
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- Yeah. Which will end up in the outtakes. Yes. Always. But other than that,
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- I mean you listen to an hour long broadcast and it took us an hour to do it. But not if I have to do it by myself.
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- It takes a little bit longer than that. It's a lot better when it's interactional. I can look at you and talk to you.
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- It would be hard to like be entertaining by yourself to yourself. I think
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- I can do it. I think I can entertain myself okay. I think I'm hilarious. Anyway, Scott says, to the question, what makes humans in the image of God?
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- Chris Roseborough of Pirate Christian Radio recently suggested that only Adam and Eve were created in the image of God with everyone else in Adam's image.
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- However, I'm not convinced as the reason not to murder is because we are made in the image of God.
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- Someone close to me suggested love when I asked them but it would not appear to be uniquely human.
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- Chimps and birds and dogs would at least appear to love their mate. Could it be that we are spirit which would imply angels also are made in God's image which although isn't biblical doesn't conflict with the
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- Bible my personal current thinking. Or could it be, to which you will disagree, autonomous free will.
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- The ability to choose to follow Christ or deny Christ. This would certainly be a unique characteristic.
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- Anyway, I look forward to catching up on the podcast as I was on holiday recently so a little behind. Obviously, we're a little behind too.
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- God bless you and your family as well as the larger family you serve in Casa Grand, your friend
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- Scott. Well, I appreciate your question and Scott, I have heard Chris Roseborough do this before.
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- Now, all respect to Chris Roseborough. I love his teaching, love his ministry. I think that he still reigns as having the best
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- Christian podcast name. Pirate Christian Radio. Yeah. It's kind of like he did it first and the best.
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- Yeah. Sorry guys, I got the best name. Whatever else you are going to be tinkering around with, we're living in the shadow of Pirate Christian Radio.
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- Especially an old radio guy like me. I can now say old about me, I think. Yeah, I mean, you know, to some.
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- I'm getting there. Over the hill officially. But anyway, looking at my history in radio and what
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- Pirate Radio was and stuff like that, that's the other cool thing about it. Yeah. And the logo and everything.
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- He just does that spiel very well. So I love Chris and I love the ministry that he's done.
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- I don't agree with him on this though, that only Adam and Eve were made in God's image. Everybody else was in Adam's image.
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- I know where he comes from in this. I get what he's saying. So let me kind of walk you through his argument.
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- I think I will represent this correctly. But if you go to Genesis 1 .27 and this is reading out of the
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- ESV. Genesis 1 .27 So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him.
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- Male and female he created them. So you have God made man.
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- He created man in his own image. And so Chris would take that as Adam was made in his own image or Adam and Eve is quantified by man but not all of mankind.
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- And I disagree with that. God created mankind in his own image. It seems awkward actually to read that as God created
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- Adam and Eve in his own image. That seems strange. So the word man is used there.
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- Adam which can also mean mankind. It could be an individual man or it could be mankind.
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- But it does appear to us to mean mankind. God created man in his own image.
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- And I take that from the statement that's made in verse 26. Then God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens.
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- So on and so forth. So that's clearly plural in the context.
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- It's not the singular Adam or even just Adam and Eve.
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- So God created man in his own image. That's mankind. That's the context. In the image of God he created him.
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- I think that's also plural. Male and female he created them. There's really nothing in this.
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- It's a poem. The way that it's structured. It has that poetic structure to it. There's nothing to this poem that indicates that only
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- Adam and Eve are being singled out here. It seems to be a poetic reflection upon the fact that God made mankind in his own image.
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- Which is therefore what makes our sin so blasphemous. It's not just disobeying
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- God. But we who were made in God's image are therefore made to reflect
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- God. We are supposed to conduct ourselves in holiness and in righteousness because God is holy and righteous.
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- And when we made in God's image do not do what is holy. We do what is unholy.
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- We do what is godless. We do what is sinful. Then we are blaspheming
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- God's image. Because instead of reflecting his glory we're reflecting our own glory.
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- We're exalting ourselves instead of God. Which is why it is so blasphemous for mankind to sin.
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- Why an animal can't technically sin. Or doesn't have the will to sin or the understanding of what it is that they do being against or contrary to their purpose and their order.
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- That makes sense. So that's kind of part of the argument though. Because if you go on in Genesis 5 it says right at the start of the chapter this is the book of the generations of Adam.
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- When God created man he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created.
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- So there you have that qualifier again. You have male and female he created them and named them man when they were created.
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- So again this is Adam used as mankind. Not just simply the male and not just simply
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- Adam. But then when you have verse 3 when Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him
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- Seth. So Chris takes that statement and he believes that all offspring then from that point on after Adam is in the likeness of Adam but mankind is not in the likeness of God.
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- I can see where he's coming from on that. Right. So that would be the argument. But in 1
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- Corinthians 11 7 we read the following For a man ought not to cover his head.
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- We talk about head coverings there in this portion of 1 Corinthians 11. A man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God but woman is the glory of man.
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- So there you have right there in 1 Corinthians 11 7 that man is the image of God.
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- It doesn't say Adam. It doesn't say just Adam and Eve. It says that man as though mankind is the image and glory of God.
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- But the woman now notice here in verse 7 the woman is not the image of man.
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- It says the woman is the glory of man. So I've heard some make this argument.
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- I don't know if Chris has made this argument or not. I'm going to go ahead and just kind of like throw another argument in there. I've heard some make the argument.
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- Let's just add to his questioning. We'll just broaden this out a little bit. I've heard some make the argument that Genesis 1 27 is only about the male.
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- Man was made in the image of God. Woman was not made in the image of God. And they will use 1
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- Corinthians 11 7 to support that argument. Because it says man was made in the image and glory of God.
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- But woman is the glory of man. But note that it doesn't say woman is the image and the glory of man.
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- All this is talking about the context of 1 Corinthians 11 is talking about headship and submission.
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- That's the context. So in verse 3 it says I want you to understand that the head of every man is
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- Christ. The head of a wife is her husband or the head of a woman is her husband. Technically, I'm reading this is the
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- ESV. The legacy says woman. The head of a woman is her husband and the head of Christ is
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- God. So you're talking about headship here and submission to that headship. So that men and women would understand their roles in the church.
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- That's the instruction that Paul is giving there. So since the context is headship, it would not make sense there for Paul to include man and woman made in the image of God because that's not the context.
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- That statement's true. Man and woman are made in the image of God. But that's not what he's talking about here.
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- So therefore in the order of succession in who was created first. So who is nearest to God in that order of creation.
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- Man comes first. Then the woman is made for man. And that is that's understanding the headship and the reason for a wife's submission to her husband according to that context we have there in 1
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- Corinthians 11 7. So a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and the glory of God.
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- But woman is the glory of man. And once again she's not the image of man.
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- She likewise is made in the image of God. As we saw that established in Genesis 1 and Genesis 5.
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- Now when mankind sinned something serious obviously happened there. We were separated from God.
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- For that statement to come about the way that it does in Genesis 5 3 that Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him
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- Seth. There is something that is not quite pure there.
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- Because Adam is a fallen creature by this point. Right. So the one that he fathers in his own likeness is in his sin nature.
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- So Seth has his sin nature. And Genesis 5 reflects that because you have the genealogy that comes with you know
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- Seth begat Enosh who begat Kenan who begat Mahalalel. And every one of those names that comes up it says he lived this many number of years and then he died.
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- Right. He lived this many number of years and then he died. So you're seeing the effects of the fall. Right. But just because it says there that he fathered a son in his own likeness named
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- Seth does not mean that Seth was not also made in the likeness of God.
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- But Seth is fallen. Right. Because he brought on the sins of his father.
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- That's right. So just like Adam who was made in the image and likeness of God Seth when he sins commits a sin against God a blasphemy against his image because we're not holy as we should be in the way that we're supposed to image
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- God. Right. So it's necessary to remember that. It's part of the reason why Seth dies. Not just because he's born in the likeness and the image of Adam but even because as one who is an image bearer of God has sinned and therefore is worthy of the penalty that comes.
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- But yeah I think that 1 Corinthians 11 7 pretty well secures for us that even we today are made in the image and the likeness of God.
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- We don't properly image God the way that we should because we have a sin nature.
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- Right. So it is being remade in the likeness of Christ that we are born again and we are growing in holiness.
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- We're growing in sanctification. Ephesians 2 10 for example we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which
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- God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. A lot of people take that verse to mean that every single person is
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- God's workmanship. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. That's every person. No. The context is specifically
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- Christians. That's who Paul is talking to. He's addressing the church in Ephesus. So we who are believers are his workmanship.
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- We have been brought into faith in Christ as stated there in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God.
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- So in this God has worked in us this process of becoming more
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- Christ like so we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. We're born again in Christ for good works.
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- So now being followers of Christ God has prepared these works for us beforehand that we should walk in them and only those who are in Christ can do those things.
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- This is the way that we are being remade in his image but specifically in the image of Christ we are made in the likeness of God.
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- We're being remade in the image of the God man Christ Jesus who lived a perfect life.
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- Colossians 3 is another good one there. Colossians 3 12 put on then as God's chosen ones holy and beloved compassionate hearts.
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- This isn't the right spot. Hang on. I was going to say where are you? Hang on. Let me go back a little bit. This is yeah here we are verse 9.
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- Colossians 3 9 do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
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- So we are being remade in that likeness and that image that we are supposed to have born from the very beginning but we could not have.
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- But it's tainted. Yeah. Because we're well because of our sinful nature. So we are now bearing the image of our creator we are bearing the image of the likeness of Christ as we are his workmanship so there are there's a
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- I guess you could say there's a yes and no to this. Yes it is true we are all made in the image of God.
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- Yes. Imago Dei and yes it is also true that we are made in the likeness of Adam.
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- Yes. We don't properly image God as we should but we understand from that that God is remaking us into that in Christ Jesus.
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- Amen. So thank you for your questions Scott and I hope that I represented
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- Chris's arguments well there also. Let me play the video that I did on what it means to be made in the image and the likeness of God.
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- Okay. So this goes back a few years. I remember doing this video in Utah. Oh wow. I don't know why that popped into my head but yeah
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- I was speaking at a church in Lehigh Utah and while I was sitting in the airport in Salt Lake City ready to come back to Kansas I worked on this video on what it means to be made in the image of God.
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- So here's the video and then we'll jump into our next question. In Genesis 1 26 -27
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- God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over all the earth.
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- So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them.
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- What does it mean to be made in the image and likeness of God? Often this is interpreted to mean that we look like God.
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- Surely you've seen paintings of God as an old man even wearing clothes. But Numbers 23 19 says
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- God is not man and Jesus said in John 4 24 God is spirit. So God has no human or even physical form.
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- Rather to be made in the likeness of God means that we are like God in the sense that we are interpersonal beings as God is.
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- We've also been given dominion as God has dominion to fill the earth and subdue it. Most of all being made in the image of God means that we are to reflect his holy and righteous character.
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- Animals cannot make moral decisions. It is for men and women to glorify God in righteousness.
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- Every person's life is sacred because we are all fellow image bearers of the one who made us.
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- When we sin doing what is contrary to God's righteousness we desecrate God's image. Romans 3 12 says together we have become worthless before God good to be cast into the flames.
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- But Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness and by faith in him we are being remade into the image of the
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- Son to reflect the holy and righteous character of Christ when we understand the text.
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- Alright here you go Becky you ready for the next one? Sure. Hello Pastor Gabe and Becky. I really hope
- 29:30
- Becky is on this week because this question involves her. I just want to first say how encouraged
- 29:36
- I always am by Becky. Me too. That makes two of us. By the example that she sets for biblical womanhood.
- 29:44
- I don't follow that example. Right now I'm just being goofy. Sometimes I can be bogged down by all the stereotypical expectations that are mainstream as of late but I am encouraged because it seems like Becky really exhibits godly modest character
- 30:00
- Christ likeness and goes about home making in a non -legalistic way.
- 30:05
- Am I reading that right? Yeah. A non -legalistic way but in a way that is under God's grace and his provision and has a good foundation of what he expects of her.
- 30:16
- Submitting to husband and training children. Obviously I don't know you all but that is what
- 30:22
- I perceive and just want to say I'm encouraged. Thank you. My question is can you all share any of your story about your journey with bearing children?
- 30:35
- You all have a big family of today's standards. I grew up with five siblings.
- 30:40
- We have five kids so this is still smaller than the household I grew up in but I get what
- 30:46
- Savannah is saying. It's big by today's standards but they are all a little spaced out. You can take that two ways.
- 30:56
- How did you all go about family planning? I remember you once saying we take them as the
- 31:01
- Lord gives and that stuck with me and encouraged me. Second, a conundrum I have thought about as I have learned about history.
- 31:08
- If a young girl gets pregnant and her parents are willing to support her through it but they are very adamant about giving the child up for adoption.
- 31:17
- Is the child who is still under their provision responsible before God to submit to her parents desires?
- 31:23
- Would it be sinful for the parents to not help raise the child? Thank you
- 31:29
- Savannah. Okay, let's go back to the first question first. These are two very different questions. Yes. But the first one is just simply to share our story about bearing children.
- 31:40
- She said that she's heard us say we take them as the Lord gives. How did we plan the children that we had space them out?
- 31:49
- And yeah, there you go. So how did we do that? As the
- 31:54
- Lord gave us. Yes, the Lord gave us. That was really good. I think the one period in which we were trying the most for a child was before Aria was born.
- 32:04
- So she was our third and we were trying for over a year. Like we really wanted to get pregnant again.
- 32:10
- But yeah, that was just the Lord's timing. So you have three years between her and Zeej?
- 32:17
- Almost four. Yeah, it was three and a half between Annie and Zeej and three and a half between Zeej and Aria and then a little over two years between Aria and Mariah.
- 32:33
- They've been the closest. And then four years. Yeah. For Mariah and Bubba.
- 32:39
- Really five. Closer to five years. Four and a half. Yeah, four and a half.
- 32:45
- He'll turn three. And then she's going to turn eight just like four months later.
- 32:53
- I don't want to spill out months. Yeah, maybe. I'd have to count them. So that's our biggest space.
- 33:01
- We thought we were done. We did. And the Lord gave us another one. Yep. But yeah, and that's been the way that it's been.
- 33:09
- We haven't really planned. We haven't tried to get pregnant. I mean, we did, but it wasn't like, hey, with this one we're definitely having a baby.
- 33:18
- Here's our window. We're going to have a baby here. No, not like that at all. We didn't plan when we moved to Texas.
- 33:24
- We were going to get pregnant right away, and yet we did. Now Annie, of course, is your biological daughter, my adopted daughter.
- 33:34
- Yes. So she was from a previous relationship that Becky had. She was two and a half when we got married.
- 33:41
- And I adopted her complete custody. What do you call that? Full custody? Yeah. So she's mine.
- 33:48
- Well, you adopted her. Yes. That's what that means. Right, right. Yeah. She's mine. The biological father is not in the picture and never has been.
- 33:56
- So she has always been my daughter, and she has always known me as dad. She is our oldest and our most mature.
- 34:04
- Yes. At every stage of life has been more mature than any of our other kids coming up after her.
- 34:13
- Aria's pretty close, though. She is, but she's extremely witty. Yeah, that's true.
- 34:19
- She's just very witty. I don't know that I would necessarily call that maturity, but she's very witty.
- 34:24
- She's smart. Yeah. Maybe needs to learn how—she needs the wisdom like we talked about in the beginning from Proverbs 1.
- 34:33
- Needs a little bit more of that. She can definitely get there, because she's very on point.
- 34:38
- But I don't know that necessarily is maturity. She might be too smart for her own good in some circumstances.
- 34:49
- Now, Zeej is every bit like me. Yeah. Through and through. Like, right now he's 13.
- 34:55
- He just turned 13. And he is exactly me when I was 13. Yeah. So, Becky, all the way through his life has been asking me, what in the world is he thinking?
- 35:06
- Yep, I did the same thing. I'm like, is he okay? Do we need to, like, go get him checked out or something?
- 35:13
- Nope, he's totally fine. I'm like, okay, you just let me know when he's not fine. Yeah. And personality -wise and interests,
- 35:21
- I was not like my dad. So, even though being his oldest son, I wasn't reflective of dad at that age.
- 35:30
- Mm -hmm. One of my brothers, probably closer to what my dad was like. Yeah. But it wasn't me.
- 35:35
- I was definitely more imaginative, more in my own world. Mm -hmm. Constantly going.
- 35:42
- Yeah. Your mind just constantly goes. I have just this ever -running soundtrack in my head.
- 35:48
- Yeah. Which I think, Zeej probably manifests that verbally more than I did. Yes. Well, I do know that the one definite planning, sort of, if you can call it planning, was that when we discovered that Aria's personality was so much like mine,
- 36:10
- I was very much determined she was not going to be the last child. Okay.
- 36:17
- Because as the baby of the family and with the personality that I have...
- 36:22
- She needed a playmate. She needed somebody to take care of in order to grow up out of that.
- 36:31
- Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So... So, yeah. And that's true. Becky's mom reminds us constantly of how much
- 36:38
- Aria is like Becky. Yes. So, I was probably one of the children that the
- 36:45
- Strong Willed Child book was written about. Okay. Like, as the example of, you know, you're pulling out your hair kind of thing.
- 36:55
- Yeah. That was me. Which, I got a funny story about that. You pulled out your hair? No, no, no.
- 37:01
- About the Strong Willed Child book. Oh, yeah? I toured a little bit with Ryan Dobson, who is the son of Dr.
- 37:07
- James Dobson. That's right. Who wrote the Strong Willed Child. Yes. And one of the funny lines he would have in his talks would be, yeah, but didn't your dad write
- 37:16
- Strong Willed Child about you? And he would say, no, that was about my sister. Yeah. Fair enough.
- 37:26
- So, yeah. And he did have some behavioral issues when he moved out of the home.
- 37:32
- But he wasn't that way when he was still living under Jim and Shirley Dobson.
- 37:39
- I still remember that. I still remember her name there. But anyway, yeah. So, yeah, you were probably the same as Ryan's sister.
- 37:47
- You were the girl. Yep. I was. That the Strong Willed Child was written about. I have a brother who was definitely very much the
- 37:55
- Strong Willed Child in our family. And my dad reflecting upon that said they knew before he was born.
- 38:03
- Like, in the womb it was just different. Yeah. And they could tell this one's going to be trouble.
- 38:11
- And he did turn out to be the most trouble. But, yeah, that's been our family planning story.
- 38:18
- I mean, when you go to the that, sorry for the lack of a better term, but the birth control section at Walmart, it'll say family planning on it.
- 38:30
- That wasn't us. No. We've never done anything to prevent. I think we've not really yeah,
- 38:39
- I mean, there's been I can't handle medicine very well, and so that in itself. Oh yeah, you've never been on the pill.
- 38:45
- We decided that before we even got married. Becky was never going to be on the pill. I mean, the pill's an abortifacient anyway.
- 38:52
- It is. And it's not healthy for women. We actually take a position very opposed to the use of the pill.
- 38:58
- Definitely. So it could cause an abortion without you knowing it. And it's just not like I said, not healthy.
- 39:06
- It's not a good thing for women. Yeah. It changes your personality. We've known a lot of women who said how much they just felt better when they got off of it.
- 39:15
- Didn't realize how much being on the pill, hormonal control like that was affecting their thinking, their mood, and even their personality.
- 39:23
- Yeah. So stay away from it. You know, there are some natural ways that you can go about still being able to be intimate as a husband and wife, and trying to not necessarily get pregnant.
- 39:36
- This is awkward though. I don't know that I've ever talked about this verbally before. Yeah. And that's all to tell you.
- 39:45
- We took them as the Lord gave them. Yeah. That's the way it's been. So there's been a few people that have made comments to us even since then of like, you could still have another one.
- 39:56
- Yeah, you're right. We're in our young forties. We could still get pregnant again. But just like with all the rest, it will be as the
- 40:03
- Lord gives. Yes. And we will certainly be overjoyed Oh, definitely.
- 40:09
- Should he decide to bless us with another one. Now, her other question, second, a conundrum that I just thought about is with regards to a young woman who gets pregnant, she lives with her parents, and her parents support her through it, but they want her to give up the child for adoption.
- 40:26
- Is the child who is still under their provision responsible before God to submit to her parents' desires?
- 40:33
- That's hard. I've not ever been in that scenario before. Yeah, I haven't either. I think that would really have to be a case -by -case basis.
- 40:40
- Definitely. Because what are you talking about here? Are you talking about a 14 or 15 -year -old that got pregnant? Or are you talking about a 20 -something that got pregnant?
- 40:48
- Right. And still lives with her parents? Like maybe she got pregnant by a man, or her husband abandoned her, or something like that, whatever it might happen to be.
- 40:57
- But she's 20, she's 21, she still lives with her parents, her parents want her to give the child up for adoption.
- 41:02
- I would say in that scenario, if it's going to be that in living with her parents, her parents are saying, you need to give the child up to somebody else,
- 41:11
- I would say in that scenario it would probably be better for her to leave. And even though it would be hard, it's better for her and for the child that they remain together.
- 41:23
- Unless it's just an incredibly difficult circumstance where there's just no way it would work.
- 41:28
- Yeah. And it would be really, really hard, even detrimental on the child, could be life threatening to both of them, perhaps.
- 41:36
- Then maybe in that circumstance, yeah, giving the child up for adoption. But like I said, that's a very difficult scenario.
- 41:42
- I think I would have to be in the midst of that, like maybe this is somebody in my congregation that I'm having to give pastoral counsel to in order to know what to say and do in that situation.
- 41:54
- I think it would be different every time. Yeah, and even then, right. I think depending on the people, depending on the circumstance, how you got here, what their future looks like, there's going to be a lot of different factors.
- 42:05
- If the baby's healthy, I mean, there could be many different reasons. Always on the side of keeping the child.
- 42:11
- Oh, yeah. So the only question here would be with regards to whether or not the child should be given up for adoption.
- 42:18
- Right. Yeah, it's an interesting question, Savannah. You can probably run through multiple different scenarios, but that's about the best that I think that I could give, unless you have something really specific.
- 42:30
- And in which case, you know, the advice that Becky and I generally give regarding that is...
- 42:35
- Ask your pastor. Yep, go talk to your pastor. Yes. This next one also has to do with parents.
- 42:41
- I don't have a name on this one. Maybe I didn't copy the name off of the email when I pulled it up. Good afternoon.
- 42:47
- Regarding Exodus 2012, honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the
- 42:54
- Lord your God gives you. I have some questions. Number one, is there a deadline on honoring your father and mother?
- 43:01
- For example, the woman I'm pursuing for marriage wants her dad's blessing. We've been waiting for several years.
- 43:08
- Number two, what are modern day applications of honor? And number three, how do you discipline adult children?
- 43:16
- Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a great Pauline letter greeting there.
- 43:24
- Definitely. Way to conclude your email. So first question, and this with regards to Exodus 2012, honor your father and your mother, is there a deadline on honoring your father and your mother?
- 43:34
- So how old do you have to be before you don't have to honor your father and your mother anymore?
- 43:40
- I mean, okay, so I'm thinking always. There you go. But what if they pass away?
- 43:47
- Then I still say that you must be honoring of their memory. Okay. Even if you are sharing stories and things like that of the way that you were raised, maybe your mom and dad made grave errors in the way that they disciplined.
- 44:03
- Perhaps they did not. They did not teach you the word.
- 44:08
- They did not teach you the gospel. You had unsaved parents. Even in that circumstance, you still want to be reflecting back on their memory in an honorable way.
- 44:17
- Right. It's not dragging them through the mud. Finally, they're gone and I can put them down. I can say all the things that I wanted to say.
- 44:23
- That's very self -centered. Definitely. And so still having a respect and a regard for the generation that gave us life and raised us.
- 44:31
- That's still important. Yes. You have. Exactly. I love the billboard that I remembered seeing, you know, about once or twice a week when
- 44:41
- I drove for the job that I did in Kansas, where it said smile, your mom chose life.
- 44:47
- Yes. That was my favorite one too. So you still have to remember that.
- 44:53
- You are alive today because your parents chose life and they are worthy of your honor and your respect. Several times in Paul's letters,
- 45:00
- Romans 1 being one of those places, 1st Timothy 1, and there's another one in 2nd Timothy, although I can't remember the chapter right off the top of my head, but Paul talks about a wicked and evil generation who are disobedient to their parents.
- 45:14
- And this is the mark of a rebellious generation. They don't have any regard for the previous generation and the wisdom that they did pass on.
- 45:23
- No matter what you feel about the previous generation and the errors that they made, they still passed on wisdom.
- 45:30
- Yes. They are still worthy of respect and honor. In 1st
- 45:35
- Timothy, when the Apostle Paul gives instructions to Timothy about how to be multigenerational within the church, you correct an older man as you would a father, and you correct a younger man as you would a brother.
- 45:48
- Right. Regardless of whether they are actually related to you. Yes. This is the way that we're supposed to have a respectful attitude toward the previous generation and even the next generation.
- 46:00
- Yes. Those instructions are there for us in Scripture to be multigenerational. So there's not a deadline on honoring father and mother.
- 46:08
- You still must honor your father and your mother, even if they are not with us anymore. But then the next part of that question, he gives an example.
- 46:16
- For example, the woman I'm pursuing for marriage wants her dad's blessing. We've been waiting for several years.
- 46:23
- This is a question that really your pastor is going to be the one that's going to give you the best guidance on this.
- 46:29
- Definitely. Because I don't know this scenario. Yes. I don't know her mother and father. I don't know her.
- 46:34
- I don't really know exactly how old y 'all are. Now, I will say and I may not be purely patriarchal in the way that I take this particular perspective.
- 46:46
- Okay. But I will say that I don't think that a woman is obligated to always have to have her father's approval before she marries the man that she marries.
- 46:56
- You want to get his blessing if you can. Yes. And you should desire it. But it doesn't mean that you have to have it.
- 47:05
- Right. In order for her to get married. True. I think as much as you want to be able to keep the peace between all of you.
- 47:12
- Because you're going to be not just with her, but even with her family for a long time. Yes. But there still needs to be that understanding of leave and cleave.
- 47:21
- So a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Well, she does the same.
- 47:27
- She leaves her father and mother and holds fast to her husband. So yes, you want to get his blessing if you can.
- 47:34
- But I'm not of the opinion that you always have to have the father's blessing. Yes. I've been engaged twice.
- 47:41
- Even before Becky, I was engaged to another woman. That relationship just didn't work out. But on both occasions,
- 47:47
- I still went to the father and asked for his blessing. And I got it both times, even though the first relationship didn't work out.
- 47:55
- But yeah, with Becky, I went to her father, Dan. And it was one day after church.
- 48:01
- We had been working at the church. And I actually sat down with both your mom and dad. Yep. And I said to Dan, I'm asking for your blessing that I might receive your daughter's hand in marriage.
- 48:11
- And his first response to me was, you know, she comes with a dog. I remember that.
- 48:20
- So he wanted to make sure... You had a child at that time. Yep. He didn't tell me that.
- 48:25
- No. He was sure that I understood a dog comes with you. I said, yes sir,
- 48:31
- I know. I know she comes with a dog. I think he already knew
- 48:36
- I adored your daughter anyway. That's what I was thinking too, yes. But I mean, to get your father's approval, your dad is looking out for the best for you.
- 48:46
- Yeah. They always want the best for you. There might be something that you're missing.
- 48:51
- There might be some disconnect. There might be just a personality clash. You have to figure out what that is.
- 48:58
- And then work through that. Because if you do want to marry her, it is important to keep relations well.
- 49:05
- Right. And at least, at the very least, where you're talking with one another and able to be in the same room together without arguing.
- 49:16
- Because then, you know, I mean, is she going to go visit her family by herself? Or how are holidays going to go?
- 49:22
- And that kind of thing. You want your children to have a good relationship with their grandparents? Yes, definitely.
- 49:29
- And if there's some sort of division between you and her father, then that's going to hinder that relationship. That's one of the things that I've so very much appreciated about the way that we've been able to bring up our children is knowing not only their grandparents, but their great -grandparents.
- 49:44
- Yes. Now, I did not have any more living grandparents on my side, with the exception of my grandmother, but she only lived a couple years after we got married.
- 49:52
- So there weren't any grandparents on my side for my kids to get to know, but they've been able to know both sets of your grandparents, which is amazing.
- 50:03
- And I didn't get that privilege, so I love that my children have gotten the chance to experience that.
- 50:08
- And you can see in Annie's life how much she loves and gets along with the older generation, because she's had that experience, not just with her own grandparents, but even with great -grandparents, which is fantastic.
- 50:23
- And of course, as we said in the very beginning, my wife's grandmother just recently passed away, so this is a harder conversation than I anticipated.
- 50:34
- But your grandmother was beloved. I was privileged to be able to speak at one of their anniversaries,
- 50:41
- Ken and Ruth, and I kind of led the dinner and the prayer and talked about how great an example they were in the many decades that they had had together, that we all had this example to look up to, and may that example continue through the rest of the generations of their children and grandchildren, and great -grandchildren.
- 51:04
- And I pray that it still does. So you still want to have that kind of connection with your parents, that your children get to know your parents, their grandparents, and God willing, even their great -grandparents.
- 51:20
- So as much as you can keep the peace between you, looking for that blessing, being able to find that approval from her father, do what you need to, that you're developing a good relationship with her parents.
- 51:32
- Yeah. Don't just get married for the sake of getting married, and yeah, whatever, he can just deal with it. Right. You want to, you know, it may involve a conversation in which you say, listen, we want y 'all to be involved in our lives.
- 51:45
- Yes. We're not trying to rebel against you. We want your blessing in this. Second part of this question, what are modern day applications of honor?
- 51:55
- So what are some ways that we honor our parents today? We just had your mom here.
- 52:01
- Yeah. She just went home on Tuesday. I'm not together yet. Go ahead.
- 52:07
- I'm sorry. Sorry for putting you on this spot. So modern day applications of honor, well,
- 52:14
- I mean, still being in communication with your parents is a big one. Yeah. And with communication, photos or face -to -face is better than just talking.
- 52:27
- Right. Talking is good, but and texting is, you know, it's okay.
- 52:32
- But that face -to -face and in -person is very important. We probably are more connected with members of our family than we ever have been.
- 52:44
- And I'm talking, I'm speaking generally because of social media. Right. But even, yeah, like you said, text messages and emails and things like that won't do as well as being face -to -face.
- 52:55
- If you can spend time in one another's company, that's most preferable.
- 53:01
- Yes. But even when your kids are talking on the phone or something like that, you want to have, you know, computer.
- 53:07
- Yeah. Tablet. Yeah. What do we have? One of those little apps for that. Yeah. The Echo devices.
- 53:14
- Yeah, the Echo device with the little tiny screen on it. Yeah. But the kids still have that, that they can communicate with their grandparents that way.
- 53:22
- Mm -hmm. Yeah, so communication is a big one. Don't just, hey,
- 53:28
- I haven't heard from my mom and dad in a while. I guess they're okay. You know, you still want to keep regular communication. Right.
- 53:33
- I remember growing up, my dad talked to his mom every Saturday without fail.
- 53:39
- Yeah. There was always a phone call with Meemaw and we were always going to gather around the phone and say hello to Meemaw no matter where it was that we lived.
- 53:47
- So we moved from South Carolina where she lived up to Pennsylvania and we still talked to her every
- 53:53
- Saturday. We moved to Kansas, still talked to her every Saturday. We saw her maybe once, twice a year, but that was about as much time as we spent together in person, but we were always communicating, always talking on the phone.
- 54:05
- Yeah. And apparently cards are still a big deal to the older generation. Yes. Like a big, big deal to have something in their hands.
- 54:14
- Handwritten cards, having the kids draw pictures. Yes. That is very important.
- 54:21
- Honoring would be like to not demean them and not talk down about them to other people.
- 54:27
- When you're giving the example to be as respectful as possible as if they were right there next to you in your conversation.
- 54:36
- That's a great way to put it. And I have never been disparaging of my parents online, in social media or anything like that.
- 54:44
- It's a popular thing to do. Yeah. Like rip on my parents. Oh really? Yeah. I've missed all that drama.
- 54:51
- Praise God. You'll find it on Facebook and Twitter of people. Oh, my mom and dad always did this to me.
- 54:57
- Especially among ex -vangelicals. Those people that leave the faith. Oh, okay.
- 55:02
- They are apostate. But the hip word for that is I'm an ex -vangelical instead of an evangelical.
- 55:09
- Okay. So the ex -vangelical crowd especially will rip on their parents for all of the horrible
- 55:14
- Christianity that they raised me in. Oh. Purity movement and making me listen to Christian music and rah rah rah.
- 55:23
- It's just their grumpy bratty attitude in the way they will talk down about their parents. That's a common thing to do online.
- 55:30
- So even in the way that you talk about your parents with other people, you should be honoring with your words. Just like we've shared before about the way we talk about each other.
- 55:39
- So whenever I'm not with you, I'm with other friends. If those friends start talking down about their spouses,
- 55:46
- I'm not going to jump in to start talking down about my wife. I'm actually going to elevate you in that situation to try to encourage them toward, listen, you're in a one -flesh union with this person.
- 55:58
- So you need to be building them up just as Ephesians 5 says.
- 56:03
- You're not tearing them down because that's tearing yourself down. So same with you.
- 56:09
- If you're with a bunch of ladies who start ripping on their husbands, Becky wants to start speaking positively of me to encourage them to think well of their husbands.
- 56:20
- That goes the same to be about your parents. And parents the same way. And in -laws. And in -laws, yes.
- 56:26
- Lots of in -law jokes out there. Yes. But yeah, I love my in -laws. So always great to have them around or when we get to go and visit.
- 56:35
- Yes. And then the third part of this question, how do you discipline adult children?
- 56:43
- Well, you really can't. Well, back to the honoring. Okay. Sorry. Modern day applications of honor?
- 56:50
- Yes. Yes. Would you consider taking care of them financially as part of or helping financially in some way?
- 56:56
- Yes. To be honoring? Yeah, that's definitely you know, definitely down the road as your parents begin to struggle and can't do it on their own anymore, how can you help provide for your parents?
- 57:09
- Yeah. Now the ideal situation, the ideal scenario would be that you bring them into your home.
- 57:15
- And so you are caring for them now as members of your household. Yeah. They raised you in their home.
- 57:22
- Yes. So the ideal thing would be that you are taking care of your parents.
- 57:28
- There are certainly situations and health concerns that make it to where perhaps your parents are better off at a facility where they can be watching and monitoring whatever health complications they might have to have.
- 57:42
- If that's a full -time job and you can afford it, then maybe they would need to be at a facility that can better provide for those health needs.
- 57:52
- Close enough that you can visit every day. Right. But yes. And certainly not getting to where you're just sealing them up in a nursing home and Right.
- 58:01
- Yeah, now I don't have to think about them. You definitely don't want to do that. But as they get up there in years, that's one way that we show honor to our parents is now it's our turn to take care of you.
- 58:11
- Just as you put up with me for 18 years. And I know that sounds very old school, but I think it needs to still be there.
- 58:21
- It needs to still be around because there's so many people. I worked at a pharmacy for a few years and there were just so many people that, older folks, that just needed help financially and they didn't understand their insurance and they didn't understand technology.
- 58:37
- I mean, there's just so many ways that their family could come together and help them.
- 58:43
- And so I think that's important. Right. And this is also, as you think about your own future, this is why it's important to have more than two kids.
- 58:54
- Yeah, that's true. Because your two kids are going to get married and they now have two sets of parents.
- 59:01
- So which one of those children is going to have to care for which set of parents when those parents come of age that they can't care for themselves anymore?
- 59:10
- You know what I mean? Yeah. So the more children you have, the better your chances of having children who are truly going to take care of you in those twilight years.
- 59:20
- Yeah. That's not the reason we have kids, of course. Right. But those families that limit themselves to just two children.
- 59:27
- Or one. Or one child, right. And this is the problem that's going on in Japan and China right now. Japan just had a low birth rate.
- 59:35
- China had their one -child policy. Oh, yeah. I remember that. So... I think they finally upped it to two.
- 59:43
- Yeah, right. But they're still having the problem of who's taking care of the oldest generation?
- 59:48
- Right. Because they only had one child. And now that one child has gotten married if they even could get married because the ratio of male to female...
- 59:58
- Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. There's way more men than there are women. Wasn't it because they wanted their name to keep going?
- 01:00:09
- And so they wanted to have the boys and not the girls? I don't recall the reason why. But, yeah. I mean,
- 01:00:14
- I know there is just a massive gender gap between there's more men than there are women.
- 01:00:20
- So there's not enough women for all the men to be able to get married of that generation. So now you have...
- 01:00:26
- If your child was able to get married and now how are they taking care of two sets of parents?
- 01:00:32
- Yeah. Oh, man. So that's the complication. It's a massive economic problem.
- 01:00:38
- That's what I was thinking. And anyway, all that to say that this is why it's important for us to have many kids.
- 01:00:44
- We read from Genesis 1 a little bit ago. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
- 01:00:50
- That's Genesis 1 .28 when you go on from verse 27. God intended for us to have lots of kids to fill the earth.
- 01:00:57
- And, of course, not everybody will be blessed to have that many children. But just generally speaking, this is what
- 01:01:03
- God had intended. And, yeah, there's 8 billion people on the planet. And you know what? There's still plenty of room on this planet for many more.
- 01:01:10
- Yes. Don't listen to all the doomsdayers out there saying that we're overpopulating. We're not even close.
- 01:01:17
- It's not anywhere close. This is exactly what God intended to happen in the earth that He made and placed mankind in.
- 01:01:25
- Yes. So, then, in that last part of the question I didn't get to, how do you discipline adult children?
- 01:01:33
- How do you discipline them? Adult children? Yes. Okay. I mean, really, the answer is you can't.
- 01:01:39
- Well, I mean, if they're in your home, that's different. But if they're living on their own, what, fatherly advice kind of thing?
- 01:01:46
- Yeah, it would be. Like a sit -down and a heart -to -heart. The same as that instruction that Paul gave to Timothy.
- 01:01:52
- You correct an older man as you would a father. You correct a younger man as you would a brother. And I guess in that way it's discipline.
- 01:01:59
- If you have members of your family that are part of the church and there's some sort of sinful thing that happens there, well, then they might be under church discipline.
- 01:02:08
- So there's discipline that happens in that way. But it's not like you can ground them or give them a spanking or, you know.
- 01:02:16
- If maybe you have a son who's in his young 20s, you find out he's doing things on his cell phone that are extremely unhelpful or unhealthy for him.
- 01:02:27
- Not just looking at things he shouldn't be looking at, but maybe playing too many video games or whatever else.
- 01:02:33
- Yeah. If you're paying his cell phone bill to then take that away from him and say, sorry, if that's what you want to do on your cell phone, then you're paying for your own cell bill.
- 01:02:42
- I don't know. He should be doing that anyway at that age. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking, too. Just kind of trying to come up with what would be some potential scenarios in which you might have to discipline an older child.
- 01:02:52
- I just, I don't know without more context, but I would say the best way is just to really give that heartfelt conversation and bring
- 01:03:04
- God into the conversation, too. And the Bible and instruction from the Bible.
- 01:03:09
- Right, because we receive discipline from the Lord. Yeah, really. And pray for them.
- 01:03:15
- Yeah. Definitely pray for them. Well, so going back to Ryan Dobson. Yeah. Full circle.
- 01:03:22
- When I was on tour with him, and he wouldn't talk about this all the time, but there were occasions in which he would share that as a college student he goofed off, his grades dropped, and his parents told him if you can't maintain this average, then we're cutting you off.
- 01:03:40
- Yeah. We're not paying for you to go to college and goof off. And so you won't get any more money from us if you're gonna make rent and get food, you have to go get a job and you have to provide for yourself in all of that.
- 01:03:52
- Yeah. And he said it was extremely hard for his parents when that day came that they had to cut him off, but they knew they were doing it for his good.
- 01:04:00
- Yeah. He said those were hard days, hard years that he had to do that, but he's very thankful for them and he learned not to take that for granted.
- 01:04:09
- Praise the Lord. Worked his way through college, and then his parents were willing to support him in his ventures after that.
- 01:04:18
- So, I remember him sharing that. There's some adult discipline for you. Yeah, there you go.
- 01:04:23
- I don't know that I ever had that streak. I know that my grades dropped quite a bit at one point, and my parents told me, you need to get them back up or...
- 01:04:31
- Yeah, straighten up. Yeah. And I did. So I never hit a point where I got cut off with my parents.
- 01:04:38
- I know there were times when my siblings were taking advantage of my mom and dad, and I wish that they would have cut them off, but they didn't.
- 01:04:44
- Yeah. And I even told my dad, you cannot let him walk all over you like that. I was just an idiot with how
- 01:04:50
- I spent my money, and I always, always was out of money at the end of the month, and I'm like, but I didn't understand what
- 01:04:59
- I was doing wrong. Yeah. Like, I mean, I had a general idea, but I didn't know how to fix it, you know what
- 01:05:06
- I mean? So I was just stupid with money. So I kept borrowing from mom and dad every month. I'm like, can you help me?
- 01:05:13
- They were so kind. They did, but they... I don't remember ever having conversations with them about, you know, like, why are you able to still buy clothes and, you know, still drive around if you're this short every month.
- 01:05:30
- There's something not adding up. How are you able to drive around when you're this short? Stop. Short of money.
- 01:05:38
- I guess fuel... You sit on a phone book. That's how you take care of that. Stop. We're from the age of phone books.
- 01:05:46
- Nobody knows what that is anymore. A phone book? What is that? Is that like a catalog of phones?
- 01:05:55
- It's like the history of phones. Oh, dear. A phone book. Well, we're really, we're past our hour now at this point, and we didn't get to our voicemail, but we'll hang on to it until next week.
- 01:06:07
- You can always send us an email if you like, when we understand the text at gmail .com, or you can send us a voicemail.
- 01:06:15
- Go to wwutt .com and click on the voicemail tab in the menu there, and record it.
- 01:06:22
- Get it to us that way. We love to hear from you. Literally hear from you. Not just by the emails.
- 01:06:29
- I feel like there was something else I was going to add in here, but I can't remember what it was. Our house in Texas hasn't sold yet.
- 01:06:34
- That was part of what you were doing on your trip, is even doing a little bit of work on the house. So continue to pray for us about that.
- 01:06:42
- Yes, please. And don't forget about the conference that's coming up in Vail, Arizona, which is south of where we live, about an hour or so.
- 01:06:51
- Yeah. It's August 8th through 10th. It's called Christian Responsibility in an Un -Christian World, and you can find out more information about that by going to vailvalleybaptistchurch .org.
- 01:07:03
- I think it just pops right up. Yeah, it's right there on the front of the page when you bring it up. Awesome. Andrew Rappaport, Kevin Hay, John Sampson, who's been with Alpha and Omega Ministries, Aaron Brewster, Dan Creft, Dominic Grimaldi, who's a friend of mine here in town,
- 01:07:18
- Jay Miller, who's a pastor of that church, are all going to be speakers at this event.
- 01:07:23
- If you want more information about that, if you live here in the greater southwest portion of the United States, and you are interested, then go to vailvalleybaptistchurch .org
- 01:07:33
- for the conference Christian Responsibility in an Un -Christian World. All right. Does that cover it?
- 01:07:39
- Did I get everything? I think so. Anything else I need to mention? I guess we'll just do a P .S. at the end if there's anything we need to add.
- 01:07:46
- Listen for the end of the theme. Maybe we have something else we gotta throw in there. All right, let's finish with prayer.
- 01:07:52
- Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have together, and I pray that of these questions that we have answered, that we are edified by what your word has to say, that we are encouraging of one another and building each other up according to this word.
- 01:08:07
- I pray for those that have asked questions about parents and parenting, that you would give us wisdom in these days, that we would be willing to receive instruction and even correction so that we may live our lives in a way that is reflective of Christ, and also looking out for that next generation, that we might bring them up in the training and the instruction of the
- 01:08:29
- Lord. Also, may we be humbled to recognize the previous generation, those that gave us life and raised us, and gave us instruction and opportunity and more, that we would honor their name, we would look out for them and care for them as they have cared for us.
- 01:08:48
- And may we in our churches show ourselves to be multigenerational. We care for one another no matter which generation we come from, recognizing that when we get to heaven, we will be in the midst of generations we've never even met.
- 01:09:02
- For you have children that have spanned all of human existence, that will join together in glory, singing the praises of Christ around His throne,
- 01:09:12
- He who gave Himself for us, who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins, who rose again from the dead, so that all who believe in Him will have everlasting life.
- 01:09:23
- We thank you for the life that we've been given in Christ. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Alright, here you go
- 01:09:37
- Becky, you ready for the next one? Sure. Hello Pastor Gabe and Becky. I always know,
- 01:09:42
- I guess I can't say it. I was gonna say, I always know, I guess that isn't necessarily true.
- 01:09:48
- The men will write it and they'll say, Gabe and babe. The women won't say that so much.
- 01:09:56
- That may not be true. I think there are some gals out there that like the Gabe and babe moniker too. Anyway.
- 01:10:02
- It's catchy. So hello Pastor Gabe and Becky. I really hope