148: David Knight on What it Means to Be a Christian

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

The Father’s Glory, Christ the King, and the Local Church

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Introducing David Knight and His Ministry

All right, for the first time ever on the Ruled Church Podcast, we are talking from a brother from all the way over the Atlantic, David Knight. How's it going?

Alan, I'm so grateful to be connected with you. What a blessing this is. What an amazing thing Zoom is, right? To give us this opportunity, praise the Lord.

Yes, sir, and that is not a fake accent. He's not putting that on. That's the real David Knight. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Alan Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist church here in the little community of Perryville, Arkansas, and I'm talking David Knight. And David, brother, I'm actually not even sure your area of residence.

So I live in Eastbourne, which is just down the road from Brighton, which people might know because they've got a Premier League football team, in case anyone's interested in soccer over there. Yeah, so I'm about as south as you can get in the UK.

If you go any further south, you'd end up in a water on your way to France.

And nobody wants to end up, no, I'm just joking.

Okay, yeah.

So I could ask, my listeners probably get tired of this, but I always like to ask this question. Did you ever in your life, imagine that one day you would be a guest on the Ruled Church Podcast?

It's beyond my wildest dreams, Alan.

David, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do. We're going to get into your book, what it means to be a Christian today. That's why I asked you to come on. I read the book. I'm excited about it.

We've prayed for it.

So, but before we get to the book, why don't you tell us a little bit about who is David Knight? What do you do?

Yeah, thank you. Well, my name's David Knight, like you say, Alan. I've been married to my wife, Elizabeth, for 23 years. Together we have three sons, from 14 years old all the way up to age 20. So we're pretty experienced and we've got, being a parent all sorted now, we're experienced.

Of course that's not true.

We also have two dogs. I'm the founder, like you say, of Exposit The Words. That's the ministry that the Lord's really encouraged us with that's been going for about seven years now. And has been a real gift to me because it's enabled me to be able to make really great friendships with lots of people from all around the world, including yourself.

And then who I wouldn't have had exposure to or contact with, and without that platform. I was a full-time evangelist up until the end of last year for three years, working in the context in Eastbourne, in the Sussex in the UK, which is hard.

Lots of cultural Christianity, and which we're gonna be speaking about in a few moments. The moment, I'm in between two different things. I'm currently in a small Baptist church, just a couple of miles up from where I live.

They currently don't have a pastor, so I'm supporting them by preaching on a regular basis. But I'm also part of a small group who are praying and meeting regularly about potentially planting a church here in Eastbourne if the Lord wills as well.

So we've got lots of different things going on, lots of exciting things. And yeah, we're really blessed. I should also say as well, because I think it's really important. I've only been a Christian for 10 years, Alan.

Up until that point, I'm 46 years old now. So I lived without knowing the Lord for 36 years. And my upbringing was one of nominal Christianity. I used to be taken to our local Baptist church where the gospel wasn't preached from one week to the next.

But I used to go because they allowed me to play the drums there. My mum was a Jehovah Witness. And my life growing up was complicated. And my dad died 15, sorry, 20 years ago. And that led me to thinking that there's no way there can be a God.

And I really went off the rails really with regards to the Lord. And I'm just so thankful because the Lord saved me 10 years ago, Alan, when I just was not seeking the Lord at all. I was very antagonistic towards there being a God.

And I was just a recipient of his grace and his mercy being poured out in my life when I wasn't even looking for it. And as a response to that, I've been passionately, as passionate as I was trying to make arguments with Christians.

And prior to my conversion, I've been spending the last 10 years as a response to what Jesus did on that cross for me. I'm wanting to tell everybody about the good news of the gospel.

Amen, brother, that fires me up. That's very encouraging to hear. Our church, we confess the Second London Baptist Confession. And so we have some connections, I guess, and certainly some historical connections.

The history of that area of the world is pivotal to our history here in America, and even particularly our religious heritage. And I think about, and obviously it's not just the Reformed Baptists, but there are Reformed Baptists that directly link to the Second London Baptist Confession and who we are as a church.

And so I'm very interested about thinking through all that. And I guess, I'm not trying to give it away too much, I guess people probably already know, but would you say that the religious fervor or the doctrinal stance of where you live now is much different than 300 and 400 years ago?

Cultural Christianity, Revival Claims, and the Need for Gospel Clarity

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's just very, very confused, like it is where you are in the Bible. But Alan, I remember speaking to you a couple of years ago about this when you brought your book out,.

Yes, sir.

A Change of Heart. And you go out into the street and you're gonna get two very big reactions. Anybody who believes in an eternity, the huge majority of those people will think that they're on track to go to a heaven that they know very little about, probably on a cloud playing a harp all day, based on works.

And then those people that, or they think they've been too bad to be safe, but there is such a big problem. And even with those who go to church, there are so many churches that are just not preaching the gospel and are not teaching the Bible and have instead turned to compromise and entertainment.

And yeah, it's a massive mess.

Do the majority of the people around you, like for example, here, if you were to ask me, do the majority of people around me profess to be Christians, I would say yes.

We go door to door, we street preach, we talk to people,.

And 95 or more would say that they know Jesus or know the gospel or are Christians. I don't know what it's like there. Is there a lot of professing Christians?

Yeah, I remember you saying that before. Yes, absolutely. And it's one of the motivations for writing this book, Alan, is because it's becoming more and more of an issue. And certainly with the younger generation, and I'll tell you for why, and again, even this has been corrupted because there's a lot of people in England at the moment saying there's a quiet revival going on and they're seeing church attendance.

That's a metric that they're using. Church attendance means that there's a revival going on. But what we're actually seeing is political Islam on the rise in the UK. And therefore what's happening is the younger generation in response to that, those that are not happy with what's happening politically and culturally within the UK, without any understanding and with complete ignorance, they're thinking, well, a vote against Islam by default means that I must be a Christian.

So they're taking a position where on a ballot box or they would say I'm a Christian because I'm not a Muslim. They think there's two options, right? And because I live in a historic so-called Christian country, if that's even a thing, we can talk about that later, they would believe that they are a Christian.

And of course, we both know the dangers of that because when you're in the street or when you're doing door work, knocking on doors and speaking to people about the gospel and telling them about the importance of following the Lord, they will already tell you, I'm already a Christian.

And they are often the hardest people to reach because they don't see a need because they believe that they're already part of team Jesus or whatever it is, but they've been told that they are when they've in their mind, become a Christian without being born again.

So I guess that it's not a stretch to say that this is the foundation and motivation for what it means to be a Christian, the truth about the gospel and real faith. And it's gonna be published, exposit the word is you're publishing, is that right?

Yeah, exactly that. So we're basically self-publishing it via Amazon, you know, using, so it's gonna be on Kindle, paperback and also Audible as well.

So

And that could be ordered either. They could be ordered here too, US and

Yeah, absolutely. The best way of doing that is, you know, funny enough, exposit the word, I think only about 5 of our viewers and listeners are actually based in the UK. So I didn't wanna put the amazon .co .uk link on our channel because it's gonna mean it for you to order the book as an example, it will cost you like $20 postage or four times the cost of a book to get it.

So we've actually set up a website, which is exposittheword .com forward slash book. And then when you're on there, you can actually select your country and then it will allow you to be able to purchase for book through there.

But Alan, the real heart for this book is, I want this to be able to get into as many people's hands as possible and I don't want price to be an issue. So we've set the parameters on the book to be the cheapest it can possibly be, which means from a Kindle point of view, you can get this book for free if you're on Kindle Unlimited, whatever that means.

I'm not too sure. It's 99 cents if you haven't got that. The paperback version I think is gonna be about $5 or $6, which is the cost price and what Amazon charge. And then the Kindle, sorry, the Audible price will end up costing you one of your credits if you signed up to Audible and there's no extra charge on that as well.

So we really don't want price to be an issue. But yeah, the best place to get that book if you are in America would be exposittheword .com forward slash book.

Yeah, I will put that on in the show notes. So that should be easy. So, well, let me, I'm looking at the cover right now and I saw you show me just before we started. It just came in to you, right? And it feels something special about holding that for the first time, doesn't it?

Yeah, who did the cover?

So we, well, we did. Everything has been done in house. So it was really, I wanted, you know what I was saying earlier about the younger generation and being very confused. I wanted it to be a cover that was gonna really resonate with younger people.

So it's kind of an urban kind of looking setting, isn't it? With the cross high up and somebody walking, navigating, you know, on a journey with the cross there above them. And that was kind of the idea of the cover.

It's almost like a modern Pilgrim's Progress, you know, cover.

Exactly, yeah.

That's good. All right, so let's talk about, I read it. I loved the way that you had written. I loved, you know, just the style even. I don't know if what I read was actually translated into the book too.

I don't know if I was reading just something, an earlier copy or if that's how it went, but just like in the publishing world, it's called typesetting for those wanting to know, but just the way it was typeset and the questions and all those things.

Very, very well done. Of course, the content is great too. So you wanna talk about, you wanna talk about the book.

Yeah, thank you. So thank you so much. And I mean, thank you for saying that. The idea was, and I think in terms of all the feedback we've got so far, each chapter is quite short, isn't it? And there are these reflection type questions after each chapter where people, you know, can sit there and either ask themselves the questions.

I'm hoping it will be used in a small group environment as well, or even within, you know, sort of family worship settings where people can ask, you know, and challenge each other with the questions. We start off with almost three pre-evangelism chapters where people are, you know, we speak about the, you know, why is the world like this?

Is there any hope? You know, and are we placed no hope in the right things? And can the Christian message be trusted? And this was a little bit of an afterthought because I actually, originally, before I sent you the book, I went straight into the gospel and common misunderstandings.

But after my wife read it and I sent it to a couple of people, I was getting all of these different ideas saying, well, this will actually be really helpful. First of all, to meet people with where they actually are, because there are a lot of people at the moment, you know, with the way that the world is, and, you know, before you even get to the kind of place where you're potentially wanting to understand what the message of the gospel is and what the good news that Christianity and following the Lord offers.

And then what we do is we then, and this is very much born out of the three years where I spent full time as an evangelist in the streets and speaking to lots and lots of people. These were the 10 most common kind of reactions I had with regards to the Christian faith and more specifically around the gospel.

I don't know if you want me to quickly just list what those misunderstandings are and if we, you know, we might want to take a couple of them and speak about them, but we've already covered one, which is, you know, I believe I'm a Christian because I live in a Christian country.

You get that, I'm sure, Alan. You know, I'm a Christian because I live in the Bible Belt and everyone's a Christian here. You know, there's that. Yeah, no, that would be good.

To walk through those real quick, but I was just going to, let me interject here because like this came to my mind just to let the listeners know, like, this is a great, for all the things you mentioned, a great book, but also this is one of those books that like you have a coworker or you have someone, maybe a neighbor and this would be a great book to say, hey, could we meet Saturday mornings for coffee and go through this book with them?

I'm talking about for evangelistically, you know, so I can see it being used in that way. I think that would be a great idea as well, but yeah, let's walk through those misunderstandings.

Thank you, Alan. And do you know what? That's exactly where this is born out of because these were very real situations that I found myself in on a regular basis in terms of real conversations over a coffee.

So, and I've basically taken all of that experience and gone, wait, what is one book? What is a tool that I could give to people? And it's going to pretty much, you know, uncover all of the places that you can hide in terms of presuming an assumption around the Christian faith.

So the first one is I was born in a Christian country. And second, I was christened as a baby. And third, there was some sort of external decision in terms of either walking an aisle or raising a hand.

You know, a crusade, the amount of times I've spoken to somebody, you know, and they'd say, oh, I went to a Billy Graham crusade in 1985 and, you know, how that's great. And then you carry on talking about them and realize there's no living faith since 1985.

And they're still holding onto that as a reason why they believe that they're a Christian. Many ways to God. I mean, that would be a good one for us to maybe break down and speak about because here in the context of the UK, we see, and you'd probably see it on the news, the Church of England in terms of how they keep on bending the knee and, you know, as an example, a couple of weeks ago to break Ramadan, lots of churches opened up the doors to have a shared meal, an iftar meal with Muslims and share prayers.

And, you know, and there's this massive problem and where, you know, people just want to say there's many different ways to God and deny the exclusivity of Jesus. And it's crazy. Another misunderstanding in terms of, well, I believe in God, you know, I believe factually that there's a God and people thinking that that is enough or, you know, that is a Christian faith.

Another one is faith is a private thing in terms of, and we see this all the time, you know, how many times would you see on Facebook when there's a disaster happening in the world or somebody has become ill, a famous person, and then suddenly people you've known for 20 years have suddenly said, well, I'm praying and put the prayer emoji, you know, on Facebook.

And, you know, you won't see that again for another five years until there's another disaster. And it's like, I've got a God that I can get out much like it was in Rome in the first century, right? A God for everything.

I've got a God that I'll polish, you know, get out, polish up and pray to when there's a need. And then the two that we see so often, you know, I'm a Christian because I'm a good person. I live by Christian morals and, you know, I'm going to, I'm okay with God because I'm a good person.

And then the flip side to that, and it's why it's so important to listen when we are doing any work in evangelism because there's another type of person, less common, I believe, but people that believe that they're too bad to be saved in terms of, you know, God's grace isn't sufficient for the lives that they've lived.

So that's why it's really important when we're doing evangelism, just by the way that we have that conversation first, because if somebody already is in that place, we can't just assume that actually what we need to do is present the law and tell them that they're a sinner because there are some people out there that already know that and believe that they're too bad, you know, to be saved, which is a reason why we need to, you know, kind of have that conversation before talking about that.

Another one we see a lot is in terms of the gospel is some form of, you know, and certainly sanctification is some sort of works-based programme where there's just a misunderstanding of fruit and it can turn the gospel into a tag team event where, you know, thank you Jesus for saving me.

I'll take over the baton from here. And now I'm relying on my good works and my sanctification as to the reason why I'm a Christian and remaining to be a Christian. And then of course, the other one, and these are, as I'm saying these, Alan, I can imagine you're going, yeah, this is happening where I live.

Because the 10th one is the one that I know we both share, which is the most popular one. You turn on any so-called Christian TV channel or you look on the best-selling charts for books, it's for prosperity gospel where God is treated like a genie and God is here to serve me and to bless me and to give me my best life now.

And we of course know that the shipwreck that that leaves people in as well. So there are the 10 common misunderstandings that we speak about in the book.

Shared Confusion Across Cultures and the Visible Church

Yeah, you know, you and I are separated.

By thousands of miles,.

But we have a shared union in Christ. But it's interesting, isn't it, how unbelievers have a bit of a shared union in the fact that the way that their loss and lostness, if you want to use that word, rebellion against our good and gracious King, it manifests itself in similar ways culturally, even though we're in two different countries.

There's lots of similar, all those things that you walk through, and I want our listeners to know too, is that this isn't, if you just think, well, this book is just kind of dealing with people in the UK.

Not at all, because as I was reading, and even as you're listening, hopefully you're hearing this, this is hitting a point right here at home.

Brother, because of your audience as well, I mean, I listen to your podcast regularly and I'm thankful for it as well. And I know your love for the local church. And I think something that you do really well, and it's often not really spoken about within church, is differentiating between the visible church and the invisible church.

And we know there's a massive difference, right? And we don't, we have to recognize that when we are out speaking to people, all they, they can't see the wood for the trees. All they can see is the visible church.

They don't know. Much like us, if we was to talk about Islam, it's very unlikely that me and you would be able to start talking about what the Sunnis believe or what, within their camp, what the nuances are.

So when people, when we're speaking to people, they'll put into the basket of Christianity, Roman Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, the prosperity gospel, anything else that calls itself Christian would all be put into that basket.

And I think we are a time, and I heard you say recently in one of your podcasts, like this isn't a game. We are not playing a game. You know, and in the pulpit, there is an absolute need for precision in terms of, you know, I'm sick and tired of going to a church and there would just be these, this general assumption that everybody, because they are sitting there on a Sunday morning is a Christian, and there's no distinction between, you know, made between if you're born again and if you're not.

And all of the promises that are found in Christ are just liberally scattered, you know, to anybody who's hearing. And of course, this is a huge, huge problem because this is a huge stream that's feeding into the church, right?

In terms of the visible church, because what's happening is, and this is the journey that's happening here in the UK, and I know it's probably happening in a lot of churches in America as well. You go from being a visitor to everyone being really excited because we've got a new visitor and making that person feel really welcome.

And that's, of course, that's great. You know, the motive of that is great. They're then assimilated into the church. And over a period of time, when they're hearing the promises that are found in the gospel without telling them that they need to repent and put their faith in Christ, there's just an assimilation, an assumption that they are a Christian.

And of course, given enough time, and that person not personally dealing with their salvation, dealing with the Lord themselves personally, we live in a congregate, many of our churches are congregational.

So over a period of time, those people end up who are not born again, end up going into church membership. They end up governing the church. They end up preaching. And this cycle just repeats over and over again because there's just not a distinction between the visible church and the invisible church and a call for sinners to repent and put their faith in Christ and the importance of people needing to be born again.

That's so good, brother. I appreciate that. In fact, one thing about the book, too, is highly quotable. Great little one-liners. You do a great job with that, brother. But one of the things that I pulled out and shared on social media is this quote from the book.

Jesus never invited people to follow him quietly from a distance. And I think this kind of goes together with what you're saying. So Jesus never invited people to follow him quietly from a distance. What do you say in there?

Following Christ Openly and the Need for a Visible Local Congregation

Well, because it's just so safe, isn't it, to, again, if we just look at what I was just saying in terms of evangelism has become, rather than me personally sharing the gospel with someone and telling them their need for Jesus, instead it's become, I'm gonna invite you to church on Sunday so this is my pastor's job to teach you the gospel.

Well, there's a massive assumption there and also a massive problem because most churches here in the UK, you could invite your friend to come to church for the next 15 years and they're never gonna be told the gospel, right?

So that's not gonna work. And there's this safe place where people are quite happy to tick a box on a ballot or apply cultural Christianity to themselves without dealing with their sin, without understanding the holiness of God and the fact that, and again, the visible church just plays into this trap all the time because when we see evangelism on YouTube, Alan, what do we see?

Somebody will go up to someone and say, oh, God loves you and has got such a great plan for your life and maybe does some sort of healing. The fact of the matter is, and I remember you talking about this when we spoke about your book a couple of years ago, we are born enmity with God.

Our biggest problem is we do not have peace with the holy living God of the universe. We are born in that situation. But most people go around thinking, oh, I am a child of God and God's my best friend.

And there's this false peace because people have convinced themselves this is what Christianity is. People are happy to follow Jesus from a distance because it's safe. But the truth of the matter is, if you understand the gospel, you will flee and you will run to Christ.

You won't wanna be at a distance because the Holy Spirit within us, we wanna be there side by side with Jesus. We couldn't get any closer to him because he is our Lord and Savior. And it's just a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel and one that leads to apathy.

And again, it's really dangerous.

Well, I was thinking about that too in that quote. It just got my mind going. But this is the necessity of, if you're following Jesus openly and closely instead of quietly and from a distance, then there is going to be that, as much as a danger of letting false converts in, there's the opposite encouragement that those who are in Christ are going to seek to be part of a visible local congregation.

Right, right.

And Alan, the biggest struggle with writing this book, because we deal with the common misunderstandings, then we talk about what the gospel is. And then, of course, I wanna then talk about what it means to be a Christian in terms of, okay, if you've been born again, what happens next, right, in terms of what does a Christian life look like?

And of course, I know how much you love the local church. I do as well. But I was really wrestling with the fact that this book is gonna go, hopefully, to every country in the world. And I can't just blanket tell people, well, now you've read this book, you've been born again, just go to your nearest local church.

Yeah, that's right.

Right?

Because I'm gonna be feeding them to the wolves, most likely, in a lot of contexts. Somebody who's very dear to me, who I love dearly, a Christian who I know who lives in another part of the UK, she has been looking for a local church for three years.

And every Sunday, drives to a different location, and cannot just find one that teaches the Bible. And for me, and again, like we said about Muslims and not being able to differentiate seeing the wood for the trees as to what they mean.

I could say about the local church, someone go, I'm gonna go to the local Jehovah Witness congregation, or the local Mormon church. So again, I tried putting into the book in terms of what does it mean to go to a, what does a biblical church look like?

But it just shows you the mess that Christendom is in, the visible church. And we can't just be blasé around, this is, it's just so sad, but we have to nuance the church in terms of, well, yeah, the church is so important that there's also this corrupt element that isn't actually the church.

It might be the church that the world recognizes, but it's actually corrupt, it's apostate in many ways.

Relocating for a Healthy Church and Guarding Against Consumer Christianity

Over the last couple of years, we had two different families that decided to move to the area because of the church. And we're a small church, brother, but it just, it kind of blew my mind, but it's really, Americans don't, particularly don't think of it this way.

They move locations because they think about first the job.

Or the proximity to the kids,.

Or maybe education, college, something like that. They move to the location because of those things first, and then they hope, if they can, to find a solid church. Well, I've known several, we had one brother that was driving over an hour for a while and they ended up moving to a different state, but that just doesn't always work.

And it's got me thinking about the priority of a good, solid church is worth relocating for sometimes. And of course, I don't know about the situation in UK. I imagine, I don't know, brother, for sure, but I imagine in some ways it can kind of be worse, more sparse with finding a solid, not a church building or whatever, but actually finding a church that actually cares about these things that we've been discussing.

I don't, 100%, it's so encouraging to hear that that is a priority for some people. I just love that. We then have to protect our own hearts because I don't know if you know who Simon Cowell is.

He's a, do you know who he is?

We expect that guy, yeah. So you can end up kind of with that kind of heart going into a church, thinking, you know, there's, because the consumer church, you know, we can end up going to a church thinking, oh, I don't like this, I don't like that.

And of course, the priorities are biblical. It's not even about worship style or anything like that. That's a secondary thing. We can, you know, we can deal with that. If a Bible is being taught, you know, and all of the things that we would hold so dear without compromising what the real Christian faith is, right, and yeah, I mean, what an encouragement for you that people are willing to move to be a part of your church family.

I just, you know, praise the Lord for that, I know.

What Success Looks Like for an Evangelistic Book

Well, brother, I know we've kind of hit all over the place. A couple more questions I do have for you. One is, and maybe we've kind of answered this, but what do you hope, you know, you wrote this book, in your mind, what will be, what will make it successful?

So like what metric would you hope to see to say, okay, it was successful?

Yeah, sure. Good question. I don't know if you guys have the Alpha course in America. It's very popular here. And so is Christianity Explored.

Okay.

Which of these courses that people put on, you know, within the church. And it's quite possible, again, it's another stream that leads into the church where people can have the idea that they've been on one of these church courses, you know, through attendance, they've been assimilated into the church and they have been somehow a Christian without dealing with their sin and without being born again, right?

So my hope is that this book will end up being used by pastors to give to people who have gone through these courses where people that are attending churches and, you know, visitors, where people can then give this book.

And like you say, say, look, read this book, and then, you know, let's meet up for a cup of coffee. If there's anything in this book that resonates with you, any of the misunderstandings that you feel that you're wrestling with, let's have a cup of coffee and have a conversation because I'm hoping it would then allow for that conversation to flow easier because it's almost exposing what those potential risks are.

And it would make the conversation a little bit easier. In terms of the metric, I'm just so thankful that the Lord has, you know, allowed and given me the health and the time to be able to write this book.

And, you know, it's like everything, brother, like when you're doing your podcast and when you're preaching, you know, we just want to be found faithful and obedient to that work. And then kind of, we want to then just leave it there and have an open hand with it, right?

In terms of whatever the Lord's going to do with it, we are thankful. And it's hopefully a tool that will be used, but, you know, whatever it is, even if it helps one person, then I don't know, I'm thankful for that.

The Audiobook, Production, and Low-Cost Distribution

I see, I think we mentioned it, or if we didn't, we need to mention it, but there's an audio book version. And how did, is that through the Amazon? You can get the audio book?

Is that?

Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, the downside to that is it's me reading it,.

Alan.

So if people already had, you know, had enough of me talking for the last half an hour, you know, you might not want to listen to any more with my accent. But yeah, so basically, you know, we live in a world, don't we?