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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

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Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

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Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.

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We have a rather recent question that was sent in to us. We thought it would be a good discussion to have between us and be able to apply from anyone who's a pastor, elder, deacon, or a lay person in a church, and we wanted to take it up and discuss it for your benefit.

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The question reads, should I be posting controversial things on Facebook as a pastor?

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Michael takes away. That's an interesting question. I could be absolutely off -base about this, but I imagine that the person who asked this question might not be a pastor, but they're like asking, is it appropriate for any pastor to be doing this?

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Just guessing there. So the interesting thing about posting controversial topics, you know, on social media, you know,

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Facebook, Twitter, etc., is that in general your space is limited, right?

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So you don't have any, you don't have as much room to nuance any kind of controversial issue, and this is basically what has replaced bumper sticker life, billboard life.

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We just have a small space, and we're going to say something of importance, and we're going to say it without a whole lot of context, and then watch what happens.

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So it's exciting, it's interesting, but there are so many different topics and subject matters that are considered controversial, and different people's range of what is controversial is different.

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So the question at some level is, should a pastor be posting on social media at all, right?

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Because it's going to be controversial to someone, somehow, some way, and this probably should be considered.

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The requirements for a pastor, the moral requirements for a pastor, the way he interacts with the public and his congregation, you would read about in 1st

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Timothy 3 or Titus and so on, is not actually that far different at all from the exhortations to the

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Saints about how they ought to live in Hebrews 13. There are so many similarities between the three passages.

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So we might expand this question, should Christians be posting controversial things on Facebook or social media?

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Because why would we single pastors out and say they shouldn't but others can?

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A pastor is not a political appointee that has to carefully mince and nuance his words to keep the larger audience, right?

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I'm not saying that the person who asked the question is saying that, but some people might have the idea that a pastor is essentially a religious politician, okay?

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And then there's the idea of what makes Facebook or social media different than the pulpit.

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I was struck by the language in the Constitution and bylaws of the first church that I pastored, and in the language it said that the pastor should have the freedom to preach the full counsel of the

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Word of God from the pulpit. He should not be restrained from preaching the full counsel of the Word of God in the pulpit.

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And I appreciate that. It gives me a little confidence, especially as a 20 -something year old, that I'm supposed to be up here,

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I'm supposed to be preaching everything in the Bible. Well, there's a lot of controversial things in the Bible. And when we try to make application, we're making application to where people are and what they're living through, what they're going through today.

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And there's a lot of controversial topics today. And people show up to church and they're wondering, how do

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I live and how do I follow Christ today? And so if we just simply open the

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Word of God in the pulpit, read through and talk about the original meaning of the original text to the original audience, and all ain't that sweet, then have we done due diligence?

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Have we used the Word of God in the appropriate way to, as Jesus said, to feed his sheep, to nourish his sheep, to tend his lambs?

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Is this true shepherding? Is this what we should be doing here? There are some people who do nothing but whatever the latest news story is that got the most clicks.

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We're going to talk about that and show video clips of that and I'm gonna riff on that for, you know, 25 minutes if I go long.

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And everybody's gonna be like, oh man, this guy is so relevant. You know, he's so trendy.

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No, that's not a good idea. But there is something to what Spurgeon talked about, keeping your eye on the newspaper in his day while you're preparing your sermon.

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Because where do people live? How do they need to be shepherded? This is like, this is paying attention to your flock. John Owen said that when the pastor is writing a sermon, it should be with both eyes on the people and all the heart upon God.

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If I'm paying attention to my flock, if I'm paying attention to the members of the church and what they're going through, then

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I will be talking about the things going on. And there's a lot of controversial things going on. Now, if I'm gonna do that from the pulpit and the sermons that I preach are going out to them and those sermons are going out

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YouTube, social media, so on and so forth, then what's the difference between that and making a post on Facebook?

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It just, well, there's no context to it and it comes off as harsh. Well, what do y 'all think about that? That's just longer form.

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Like, if you're posting the sermons, that's just longer form content. If you're putting on Facebook or wherever it is.

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We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

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You know, if there's a thought that's not obedient to Christ, that's fair game, baby. Yeah. But it's not to score points, to do a red versus blue thing.

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It's to render service to the Master. So, interestingly, sometimes people will get offended when they hear something, a short something or other, and like, well, you know, if you had taken more time, if you put this into context, if you had, so example,

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Matthew 15 verse 10. Jesus, when he had called the multitude to himself, he said to them, so multitude, this is mass media, social media of Jesus' day.

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He calls the multitude, says, hey, I got, you know, these are followers, right?

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Oh, yeah. They're subscribed. Oh, Jesus, Matthew's gonna say something again. Let's go, let's go hear what he has to say.

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So, he calls the multitude to himself. He says to them, hear and understand. Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.

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Now, that's short. It's pithy. There's not a lot of context that would fit on a

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Facebook post, that would fit in a Twitter or an X, whatever. And then, verse 12, then his disciples came to him and said, do you know that the

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Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Oh, yeah, they'd be offended because that was a short statement that totally undid everything they thought was important, and they were offended.

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And so, Jesus, of course, issued a retraction and an apology for being insensitive to, well, no, he answered and said, every plant which my

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Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. How's that for my next post? Here's my third post, verse 14.

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Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.

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So, at this point, there's three Facebook posts. Now, is Jesus being mean?

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Is he being cantankerous? Is he being ornery? No, this is the pitch that's being thrown. The pitch that is being thrown is all of these various legalistic constructs of Second Temple Judaism, this aberration, this unfaithfulness, these feckless leaders of Jerusalem, they are burdening men, they are sending people to hell, and this is the controversy of the day.

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And they're throwing pitches, and guess what? Jesus is hitting. He's swinging, and he's hitting. One time

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I was teaching in Sunday school, and we had somebody kind of stop our Sunday school class and say, why are we always talking about, you know, homosexuals?

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Why are we always picking on homosexuals? Why are we always talking about that? I said, well, that's the pitch being thrown. If the pitch was something else,

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I'd swing at that, but I only have two options. I can sit here and watch the pitch go by and not deal with it, or I can swing, and with the

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Bible, I've got a trusty bat. I'm gonna swing. So, if they want the topic to change, then why don't they throw something else?

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I'll hit that instead, but if that's the pitch being thrown, then I've got to swing for it, and the Bible is adequate for it.

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So, what about social media? What about, you know, things are happening? How do we make sense of this? Everyone's talking about it.

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It sounds like the question is saying you shouldn't take a swing there. Yeah. Out in public, stay in your lane.

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If you're a pastor, then just keep it behind the pulpit. That's where you should be taking the swing, not public platform.

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So, then, so you're getting to the nature of what is the pastor supposed to be doing? Mm -hmm. Fundamentally, something different than regular parishioners?

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Is there a clergy -laity distinction being made here? Am I supposed to stay completely non -controversial so that I can do better therapeutic sessions on Sunday?

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What's the point? Was Paul not supposed to go to the forum? Right. It was his custom to go there and swing that bat.

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Right. Yeah. So, when it comes down to it, should a pastor be posting controversial things on Facebook?

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Now, if a pastor is posting controversial things in the sense of I like to pick fights and get people stirred up and I like to be embattled on any given

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Sunday or I don't feel spiritual. Right. That's against what the scripture says about elders, overseers, pastors are not supposed to be quarrelsome.

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Quarrelsome is different than defending the faith because we're also supposed to rebuke those who contradict. Okay. So, being quarrelsome has the idea that you're always picking a fight with people about things that may or may not matter.

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Okay. But always getting into some sort of controversy. There are some men who are in spiritual leadership because they thrive on conflict and they're not afraid to get in conflict with people and it looks like bold courageous leadership but it's actually

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I don't feel spiritually alive unless I'm fighting. Okay. And that's not healthy at all. And there are some models and I've heard them being taught in seminary classes and Bible college classes.

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I've heard these ideas being preached at pastor's conferences and so on that the mindset is that of if people aren't angry at you in your church you're probably doing something wrong.

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What? You know obviously you can't be a people pleaser but you are to love people and shepherd people and help them.

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If you have the idea of well if people aren't angry at me then that means that I'm not being holy.

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That's a terrible mindset to have. And there have been some really sad cases I think where pastors get on to social media and they post stuff and go after church members or say negative things about their church or they say something passive -aggressive snidely referring to things going on in the church that everyone knows what they're talking about but they're not putting the details in the you know.

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How manly of them. Yeah to be specific about it that is of course. Sounds like slander gossip.

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Yeah that's ungodly that's ungodly. But if it's a situation such as something comes up about Revoice or MLK50 or something that happens with tyrannical government crackdowns or the whole hullabaloo about different corporations and the government schools trying to trans all the kids and so on.

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Yeah fire away say something like when blind leaders lead the blind they both end up in a ditch you know and you can write that out and if somebody complains you can give them the scripture reference.

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I think it's interesting to ask such a question in the therapeutic age. You mentioned that earlier where do

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I have to do I have to post something therapeutic everybody's looking for the the next post to be soothing to them or affirming to them in some sort of way whereas like I mean just under a couple months ago we had a hullabaloo on reform

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Christian Twitter of all places about posting Christ as Lord because some people might not have the right motivations when they post it and it's just it is a mind mind -boggling area to be in where like I assume people are gonna be offended when a pastor post something biblical from outside the church but now we're gonna say now people inside the church are saying hold on you can't say

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Christ as Lord in these situations because it's anti -semitic or it's bigotrous or whatever and I'm like and this is these are this coming from guys that like the

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Babylon Bee and it just blows my mind to think that anything is not controversial to ask them like and I'm not

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I'm not trying to you know badger the question asker but at this point you can go out and say anything because people are so worked up and they're going to find a reason to be upset with you they're looking for it yeah this kind of question

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I think is worth asking because you could see some bad examples and then you could see some some good examples but a lot of it depends on your starting framework how you're understanding what the point of social media is what are you trying to accomplish with it and do you understand the reason why the pastor is posting this why does he have a

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Facebook account and why is he posting this what is he trying to accomplish with it if you understand all of that maybe you'd just be in agreement with him but if you don't understand it and you see that oh that's that's unnecessary social media is for sharing pictures of grandkids or social media is to share recipes or social media is to share important information about you know unique opportunities or things like that and this is not the forum for for having debates in other words for some people social media is

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Thanksgiving dinner where all the weird sides of the family come together and they decide to tolerate each other for a meal and don't get too deep into the weeds and everyone goes home and you might talk about the zany uncle on the way home but you don't confront the zany uncle at the table and for some people social media is the

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Thanksgiving table and hey let's all get along let's all be at peace and then for other people they think of social media as the

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Thanksgiving table where all the different zany parts of the family get together and you hash it all out and you talk about that and you make fun of each other's shirts and and their political statements and so on so it's just different expectations

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I think how much of this is generational in that I'm millennial we're all either mid to top in the millennial generation

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I'm premillennial you're all right all right that explains a lot but we're cut we're if not the first kind of internet native group and for me it started out on the internet as just trying to have fun right like so so a lot of times when and nobody should ever go look at my social media you know just for their own safety but I I use it as a place that is kind of an outlet to be fun or funny or what

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I think is funny other people might not think so but a place where I think it's fun or funny and then get into like side things that really no one would ever care about except for myself and then

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I'm almost talking to myself on it and it's you it's used more I guess I don't know if that's therapeutic or not but it's used more as just an outlet to have a little bit of fun and sometimes that fun looks extremely controversial to everybody else and you know there's there's places to pare back certain things obviously but it's like the anti -fun police show up and pastor can't post anything now yeah well you had mentioned the people that are like if you if you're not being persecuted if people aren't mad at you you're doing it wrong but then there's the other side a pastor should not be quarrelsome but if you if you live in an age where if you say something it's going to cause a fight if it caused a fight you're therefore quarrelsome that can't be the mindset either well it one of the one of the concerns is that for some people some people listening to somebody preach if the pastor or if the preacher goes out of his way to make the application something that is fairly specific and direct to some some current controversial issue okay they find that off -putting and what they're looking for is some sort of timeless application some sort of general timeless taking of the text and putting it into people's lives concepts are fine getting to particular binds that sermon or that approach to something current and you you really ought not to be so focused on current ongoings we're here to hear something from the

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Bible we don't have to think about anything current we don't think about anything current politically in the current culturally socially none of that we're not here for that we're here to get something completely other than so when they take that standard and they apply it back to the prophets and to Christ and to Paul how does that work out for them it's so refreshing to think about all those problems they had so many years ago that aren't our problems yeah totally gone yeah but there's a grain of truth there where I can see that somebody is you know it's so engaged in fighting the latest battles that they're giving that the priority and perhaps even just doing it to look cool maybe it's kind of an immaturity factor and there's certainly pitfalls and dangers there as I preach through the

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Bible and teach through the Bible passage by passage text by text there are times where there's something current going on and I'm just not saying anything about it because there's not a whole lot in the text that actually gets there but give it a couple of weeks the

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Bible speaks to the entirety of the human existence I mean doesn't tell you how to sharpen the blades on your lawnmower but it does tell you what kind of approach you should take in that you know the attitude right the attitude you know the diligence the forethought the wisdom of it you know so on and so forth you know

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I bring alongside my son to teach him how I do it while I do it all these things are biblical ideas about it the

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Bible speaks to all of the human experience so we're whatever the current issues are we're gonna get there just by going passage by passage but there's always gonna be opportunity so if I go out of my way seemingly

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I'm not going out of my way I'm not going out of the way at the text if I'm going to try to make application of this if I've got you know we're in an election season right now this podcast will come out well after all of that comes to pass but at the time some folks are very much wrapped up in the doom and gloom the anxiety and the worry of what's going to happen on election day and what follows it and some people are already stocking their their doomsday shelters making sure that they've got gas and their generators getting ready for the fall of society okay now

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I don't I don't know maybe maybe some people have caught that bug in my congregation

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I don't know but in general there's going to be some kind of heightened concern anxiety and worry am

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I going to pretend like that's not happening or am I going to make application to try to help shepherd the sheep where they're at see to me by doing that I might be saying something controversial because I'm gonna bring up buzzwords and hot topics but it's gonna get everybody thinking and making application oh this thing that happened over here in the book of Acts or in the book of Isaiah this really helps me with what

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I'm gonna be thinking about Monday or Thursday or whatever when you were talking about the questioner the person posing the question an element of what the question maybe presupposes is a wrong conception of who

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God is and his character who Christ is and who his messengers are and what they should look like when you were mentioning the retorts the rebukes of Christ to his enemies the enemies of God I was reminded of Malachi that said who can endure the day of his coming hmm right and who can stand when he appears where he will be like a refiners fire and a launderer soap the messengers of Christ will be speaking the same thing by the

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Spirit we will testify of of him of his things so a messenger of Christ why would we not also expect to see them engaged in the refining of the earth hmm because of heat we don't want the heat we don't there's an uncom like when we're talking about like discomfort that's what

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I'm or the controversies I'm thinking these people are just comfortable with everything that is going to be talked about or preached about and with refining or cleaning there's abrasion there's heat there's all these factors in the actions that are gonna cause discomfort for people or hearers of those applications and that's that's usually where I see the motivations to avoid controversy is avoiding the refining or avoiding the discomfort yeah it's good to remember in the

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Sermon on the Mount when Jesus says this is how my kingdom operates in Matthew 5 verses 13 through 16 we have all those metaphors you are the salt of the earth you are the light of the world you're a city set on a hill let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your

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Father in heaven and very often these are the sentiments and the passages that people like look that's what

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Christians ought to be known for we ought not to be known for you know complaining about various hot topic issues the verses 13 through 16 in Matthew 5 that's what some people like that's what we should be known for that should be our identity but these verses follow

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Matthew 5 verses 10 through 12 which says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you and they were vile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you

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Jesus says this before he tells them you've got to be super obvious it's obvious when you have salt on your food okay it's obvious when a lamp is lit in a room it's obvious when a city at night has all its lights burning it's just plain and obvious the temptation is that we would seek to be non -obtrusive that we would be on the sly that we would be hidden that we would just blend in we'd be winsome so we would avoid so that we would avoid all of that reviling and persecuting but so Jesus is now blessed are you in the revolving to persecute you and it's like he follows it up by saying and by the way don't hide you've got to be out there you've got to be the salt and salt gets chewed up and you got to be the light in the middle of the room and you got to be that city on a hill that everybody knows where you're at it's an old

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Chinese proverb that says it's the nail that sticks out that gets hit so the question also has a presupposition in it should the pastor post controversial things who gets to define that word if it's the person that's that's upset by all of the things why are they getting to define what you get to speak on or what you don't get to speak on rather than the

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Lord commands us to speak on certain things whether they find it controversial or not well

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I move that the nominating committee put a chairman on the committee of committees who will propose a new committee concerning controversial social media posts and that they would filter all of that hmm it sounds a little bit like the you talked about it before the tyranny of the weaker brother just you know a touch

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I don't I don't know if that really applies but it sounds like it's in line with that yeah so in the wonderful interplay of the way that Romans 14 verses 1 through chapter 15 verse 7 is written when you start start to apply it who ends up being the weaker brethren brother in any one of these situations who ends up being the one who is the stronger in this situation so we would read it as okay let's say some member of a church not just a pastor okay but post something controversial online why did they do that why did they feel the need to comment about this why are they so worked up about this and somebody else comes along and they say you know what why is it even necessary you know okay who's the stronger brother who's the weaker brother you tell me is the weaker brother the one who was so offended by what was going on in society that he just had to post it and to not post would mean that he was going against his faith perhaps he's the weaker brother and the one who's like what's the need for this why are you even doing that that wasn't necessary he's not bothered about this issue in the culture like this other guy is maybe he's the stronger brother then and perhaps because he's in a position of rebuking this other guy for doing that feels the need to rebuke him well what is the instruction to the stronger brother in the text to bear with the weaker brother not bring them along but not for the sake of quarreling yeah and and not to have anybody go against their conviction which would be sin but maybe the one who posted it online is the stronger brother right and maybe the other one is the weaker brother okay well then how does that work right it's like well then

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I'll explain what I was trying to do there I'll try to help you understand what I was doing there and if you don't want me sending that content your way then you know we could have a little separation there and I you know if you don't be sending that stuff to you that's

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I don't want to I don't want to stumble you brother there's an attack there's a mute button for a reason yeah there's a mute button you're gonna follow and you know and it's okay yeah

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I'm I don't want to stumble you right if one family in the church just no alcohol at all and there's another family who has wine in moderation you know wine doesn't get served at the table when this family comes over versus another family where it's fine all right so we know how to do that let's do that all right well

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I think we covered that pretty well why don't we move on to our recommendations for this week Michael my recommendation is a book called the

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Dorian principle by Conley Owens it's actually published by first love publications and the publisher and the content of the book harmonized really well and they want to talk about not commoditizing the gospel about putting out gospel resources but not seeking to make it a commodity selling and marketing and trying to turn

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Christianity into an economic boon into a into a business model but really stressing the need that's developed from different passages in Scripture that when it comes to the ministry of the gospel even though ministers aren't supposed to be going around trying to gain direct payment for what they do there's also the principle that the laborer is is worthy of his wages and so the model in Scripture time and again is that gifts are given to God and that God supplies the needs of the laborers and so there is a giving unto the

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Lord and then the Lord is the one who supplies and there needs to be an apparatus that recognizes that and applies that in all

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Christian ministry it's a discouraging thing to see how much money it costs to go to seminary how much money it costs in order to gain access to certain ministry or resources and so on so forth it's money money money money money so so often money's at the heart of so -called

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Christian ministry and it really ought not to be so Dorian principle all right Chris what do you recommend for this week

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I was thinking about the heavens so got Psalm 19 verse 1 it says to the chief musician a song of David the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork

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I've been blessed by an application it's basically a map of the stars and because it's on the phone it can triangulate where you are and where you're facing so if you face south it'll show you what the sky shows then it also tracks like comments planets the moon mute there's a setting where you can put up the constellations and all those different things and it's 3d so it can actually show you what's below the horizon so what's coming in a couple of hours little little come up this one is free there's several free ones my recommendation is not necessarily the specific one but see if you can find an an app to go out at night and just become more familiar with God's creation looking at the stars looking at the planets and you see it in real time maybe get a telescope and look at them it's it's real awesome so my recommendation is kind of learning more about God's heavens specifically the stars at night amen

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Andrew it's interesting brother because whenever I stepped out today was a beautiful day here in Oklahoma I stepped outside and and I was just struck with just how beautiful it was outside and I remarked to my wife if what he has made if creation is beautiful how much more so is the

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Creator so thank you for that mm -hmm well on a different topic do you know how to manage your

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UTXOs properly what is a

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UTXO Andrew yeah it's an unspent transaction output and the reason why

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I'm referring to this is that for people who believe that Bitcoin is part of a stewardship for your home then you need to I've heard it said that it is money for adults so you need to learn how to steward it properly and for people who are dollar cost averaging into exchanging their currency for Bitcoin managing the size of your

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UTXOs and your transactions becomes very costly quickly if you have many different UTXOs which are like bills so if you had a dollar bill but it was only worth one cent every time

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I transact with that on the network it costs me more than if I were to have one big bill that is worth that one dollar bill was actually worth you know like let's just say a million dollars that has very very small fees associated with doing one transaction like billion dollar transactions six six bucks on chain on chain yeah on chain yeah so I found a resource which was very helpful it was it's a text -based resource it's a

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I'll make sure you have it in link in the show notes but basically it provides an outline what how you should think about it gives you a mental model has some pictures to help you reason about how to steward your money wisely and this this is gonna be different from family to family probably based upon how you're going to plan on spending those

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UTXOs in the future that's right so it really is learning what a UTXO is and how to consolidate properly for your family is going to be important so you really kind of have to learn the concept well right that's right there's there's different models the idea could be like you were a steward in the sense that you are going to just only be saving and that you're not going to be spending these

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UTXOs another model is that you're somebody who's a household who is transacting who is who is using it as currency to do your business and then there's also the business side for those who are in business and part of their stewardship is stewarding a business that's a huge difference whenever you have

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UTXOs that are small in size as far as the the SAT total yeah it's a huge difference so I would advise you if you think that Bitcoin is part of your stewardship learn about it know what it means to be a good steward

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I'm into that so recently I've been going through quite a bit of content where I can on Andrew Jackson the president the general and everyone's favorite

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Scots -Irish populist but it is extremely difficult to find a pro

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Jacksonian or pro Andrew Jackson content but I do recommend that you go out there and try to do it one of the places

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I've found is some of the writing of Murray Rothbard on Jackson and the second bank second national bank war his take on Nicholas Biddle the head of the second

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National Bank versus Andrew Jackson is actually a breath of fresh air coming from both men's sets of worldview and presuppositions as it is to money and how a nation ought to function with a monetary policy and also

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Jackson's a biography his his past is difficult to swim through with people who really just don't like him that a lot of the people that wrote about him ever have written about him just don't like him so finding your way through that can be difficult but there is a book called

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American Lion which the author is escaping me at this point but American Lion does a decent job at least giving the picture of what

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Andrew Jackson thought of himself thought of his family thought of what he was supposed to be doing in the White House it's actually a another breath of fresh air as to not trying to harp on what everybody harps on when they talk about Andrew Jackson I'm kind of passing all those things but actually dealing in and honing in on a lot of the things that were actually important to the man himself so that was a real breath of fresh air listening to that so try to find some pro

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Andrew Jackson by our biographical information out there and you will be pleasantly surprised so what are we thankful for this week

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Michael I am thankful for sleep I'm thankful for the gift of sleep I'm thankful for the the goodness of of sleep the reality that I can lay down and rest and give everything to God and know that it is right for me to rest that he is ever watchful ever wakeful ever strong ever providing that the needs of my family the needs of the church the needs that often occupy my attention and weigh me down throughout a day that it is the right thing to do to lay them all aside in thankful prayer and rest and know that God has it he's in control he provides and it's a statement of faith an opportunity to state my faith in a good and sovereign

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God every day amen Chris I am thankful for the patience and long -suffering of my wife recently

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I've been having some health flare -ups making it particular hard to get out of bed in the morning and just not feeling well at all and instead of nagging or pushing or complaining she's taken up my slack and encouraged me and tried to do things to to help me help my health and I'm grateful that God has given her to me and that I mean she's her own person and God has granted her wisdom and knowledge in how to help me specifically how to be my help and so I'm I'm grateful for her amen

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Andrew my wife and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary this past week and it's interesting to think because I I made a comment to my wife about how we as one flesh are older now than when we first became one flesh and just the things that have happened the passage of time it seems like it's been so long ago and yet I can remember it and I'm there instantly it's a gift that God has given to be able to remember these things but it's also a gift at the amount of time that we've been given together it's a it's a wonderful thing so I thank the

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Lord for that and it is not it is not we who built that house I thank the

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Lord for keeping us together and building us together amen to that I feel that one although I've only been married six years and not 21 years so I've got a way to go there man it's still the same thing though isn't it is it is yeah just it's gonna be great when

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I get there 21 years well I'm thankful for every single man in this room and anybody that has to do anything with this podcast like I've said in previous podcasts it's harder to leave home to come and do this because I've got more to do at home

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I've got more to love at home but I know what type of guys I'm showing up to to enjoy this time with to talk over the scriptures with during my day -to -day life right now

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I'm super busy I've got day job and then I'm working till dark on a part -time job for this season and a lot of times you know you're you're just alone with your thoughts your meditation what you're listening to if you have a chance to look at something like a text or something like that great but a lot of times that time is not there so being able to come here and discuss biblical things and I one of the things that I appreciate about you guys too is when we get to a question so we go straight to the scriptures but a lot of times we're just so distracted by what's happening in the scriptures that sometimes we forget about what happens at the question and that's great for me right because I'm like I'm trying to every now and then

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I'm trying to work this back toward the question but then I'm sometimes I'm like I'm just watching it go on and I'm like yeah this is good stuff oh what was the question again so I have to sometimes

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I feel like I need we need to draw back but I really do appreciate how we do get sidetracked with that type of a thing and I get to watch you guys do it or enter into it with you and Joel's over there making us sound way prettier than we are and every now and then

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Ryan has to put down a thumbs down like that's a bad idea don't go there and it's usually directed at me and that's great but no he doesn't but we