What would Jesus' disciples be like if they existed today?

All right, all right, all right.

Hello, Anthony, how are you?

I'm so good. How are you?

I'm so good. I'm really excited for the conversation today. It's gonna be a little different, but for everyone listening, I've got Anthony Russo on the podcast who is the founder, the leader, the creator of The Bible is Funny on Instagram.

Anthony, what do you have to say for yourself for such a hilarious Instagram account? Making fun of the Bible, how dare you?

Yes, The Bible is Funny, I love this project so much. I've been doing this for a long time. I've lost you on that question for just a little bit, so I'm sorry if I didn't respond to something prior to this.

It's okay, no, it worked out.

But yeah, The Bible is Funny is a project I started a long time ago. It's a combination of two of my great loves in this life, which is comedy and the Bible and my faith. So how could it be better? But yeah, it's funny.

Early on, we got a lot of comments about like, you need to, like, the Bible isn't funny and that you need to be, like, this is disrespectful and blah, blah, blah. And so we have some parameters by which we operate.

You know, the Bible is never the, like the Bible is never the joke. It's not like the butt of the joke is the Bible. And there are accounts, I'm sure, that take that approach to this type of content. But for me, it's always been born out of a place of like, I love the Bible.

The best way I've been able to explain it to people is like your siblings and how you relate to your parents. If you have a good family dynamic, I know not everybody does. But like, you love your parents, but you and your siblings make fun of them.

Like you poke fun at them. You notice things about them because you know them better than anybody else. So, you know, they do this goofy dance when this song comes on, or they mispronounce this celebrity's name every time they try to say it.

Like, you know this thing so much that this is like an outpouring of your love for the thing. So I never, to me, the aim is the opposite of disrespect. It is just to say, this is how I love this thing.

This is how I operate with all the things I love. I point out the funny stuff about it because that's the way I'm built. So yeah, that's the brief history of the Bible is funny.

That is so well said. I was just thinking of all the inside jokes I have with my parents at this moment. Like we make fun of my mom's laugh at this moment that just like, when you make fun of someone's laugh, it just makes it so much worse because they keep laughing and it's just so much funnier.

You can't stop. You can't stop.

Yeah, it's the best.

No, that's awesome.

But I think another funny thing about your podcast is you make fun of Christian movies, which I've had that conversation with a couple of people on here. It's not that they're bad movies, but like there's so much room for improvement.

And I think that you do it really well on like, come on guys, like I see what you're trying to do here.

Yeah, well we always start the podcast by tipping our cap because it's a, you know, you do a podcast, I do a podcast. Podcasts take a lot of work. Like you have to skip, you and I have been trying to schedule this for a while.

Like it just takes work and time and energy and effort. So when we set out to do that part of the project, I was like, I'm not gonna engage in something that's just relentlessly ripping people for exerting creative time and energy into creating a thing.

I just don't like that as a practice. So we always say our motto on that podcast is we consume and discuss. So they have created a movie, we have watched it, and now we wanna talk about it. And we always try to lead with movies, a big undertaking and all those things.

But yes, Christian movies are their own kind of animal. We've had some that were surprisingly entertaining and good and like caught us off guard. And then we've had others that were tough to watch. But yeah, it was very fun.

I secretly love doing that. My Tim, who I do all the podcast stuff with, he's not as big a fan in his heart. But for me, I watch Christian movies all day.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I heard your last episode, it was on like, is heaven for real or heaven is for real, I think.

We haven't done that one yet. We're like moving towards that one. It's been on our list. But yeah, we haven't gotten to that one yet. I want to, I haven't seen that. And I heard a lot of my friends saw it.

So I'm curious about that one. What did we do for our last one though? Now you got me thinking. I don't, oh, we did. Christian Mingle was our last one. We did it for the holidays. So

Like the dating app or is that a movie?

Yes. The answer to that is yes. So the dating app kind of funded a movie that was then turned into like this hallmark Christmas movie called Christian Mingle. And it was a treat, it was a Christmas treat for us to end 2023.

Okay, maybe I'll check that one out if it's still on Netflix. Where is that even hosted?

Where do we watch that? Might've been on, a lot of these end up on Tubi. We're a big Tubi. We shout out Tubi a lot. Some of them are just on YouTube. But yeah, Tubi, I think is where that one was off the top of my head.

Okay, shout out Tubi. If anyone's gonna log in, let me know. Because I definitely don't.

Completely free. You don't have to share accounts on Tubi, which is nice. You do get a lot of ads though. So buckle up for those.

Just one long commercial with a little movie in between.

A lot of commercial breaks. I don't hate them. I'm on record saying I don't, a little bit of commercials, I'm fine. Great scene. I don't like to pause. I feel like that's inefficient. So you're giving me an opportunity to get up, get a snack, use the restroom.

I'm okay with the occasional. Tubi, it's a lot. Tubi, you're in for a lot of commercials. Because it's free, but.

I love this. So glass half full. Like that is just. Everything you just said is so optimistic.

Yeah.

That's right.

You like Christian movies? Love them.

Love them.

Ads, love them more.

Love them. Give them to me.

That's awesome.

I love that attitude. All right, well, maybe if people are listening, you're probably like, what is this girl who's confusing Christian talking to a guy who just finds the Bible funny? But today's gonna be a totally different vibe.

And I think that if any new Christian is entering the Bible, you should enter it with one foot in a bucket of humor. You really should kind of look at the Word and wonder, how is that maybe received? Was there maybe a moment of chuckle?

And especially out of context, when we don't examine it or have somebody that explained the history of that moment or the geographical location. Yeah, I think that maybe in that moment, we'd understand it.

It would be realistic. It wouldn't be funny. But for us today, looking at the Word, it's quite funny. And I especially think it's funny if we imagine ourselves as one of the disciples and how that might've been.

If I was a disciple of Jesus at that time, I definitely would be just as confused as they are. And I think the Bible actually does a pretty good job of showcasing their confusion because the disciples were young men that were thrown into a huge world-changing thing with one guy and it was recorded.

And I think that it's kind of like a reality show where they're like, what is going on? And they're just throwing their whole life towards this guy who was saying some wild things. I sometimes think of Jesus when we'll talk about a verse where it's like, hey, Jesus, why do you speak in parables?

And he responds in the longest way possible. It's like, ah, that's just Jesus. You know, what do you, that didn't, okay. You know, like, did that explain it? I'm kind of more confused now.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, it's, the disciples are like my favorite part when, so the project of the Bible was funny, was like reading through very, very slowly and just kind of like examining all kinds of different parts and definitely the disciples were one of the biggest ones where stuff was just like jumping out at me when I was doing the reading part of the project that was like, oh my word, I've never noticed this before, just how kind of like bumbling they are in most of these stories.

And like you say, I like what you said. I want to just reiterate it. I mean, to me, it's not even just humor. It's just that there's a humanity to the Bible. Like there's a lot of focus on the divine elements, the holy elements, which are rightfully so, but there's, these are humans engaged with the story.

That's what's so beautiful about it. Like it's humans interacting with God and then you get these stories. In the Old Testament, they're dealing with the God of the Old Testament that there is leading, walking with them in the wilderness and those kinds of things.

And then in the New Testament, we have Jesus walking here amongst us and people are interacting with God. So it's such a natural place of like, well, of course, they're going to mess up. Of course, they're not going to understand everything.

And of course, stuff's going to be funny because that's just the base. That's by premise. That's a funny premise. Like God is walking amongst us. And then a bunch of like goofball humans are tagging along for the ride.

Like obviously this is like a premise for a comedy. So there's going to be parts of that. And I definitely think you're right in that it enriches your experience of the Bible. It fills in all the details and it allows you to see more clearly how connected it is to your life when you allow the humanity of it to also be in there and be present.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

The Disciples' Confusion Around Jesus' Teaching

Even right now I'm thinking like, man, I should have prepared a little bit more for this podcast. I should have done X, Y, Z. And it reminds me of this verse. I'm going to use that as a segue. To John 4, 31 to 38.

So they're sitting with Jesus. And the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, rabbi eat something. And he said, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Which is a pretty wild response. And then they say, the disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food?

And then he goes off on my food is something you don't know. It's ripe for harvest. It's eternal life. But I totally relate to a disciple being like, wait, weren't you supposed to order the Uber Eats?

Like who got him Uber?

He doesn't have a phone.

Right.

Oh yeah. Like you say, a lot of us, our interactions with the Bible, we've been like preached from it. And so we go right to the spiritual implication of everything. But 100%, these are like, some of these guys are fishermen.

Like if you're on the boat and you're like, hey, you want to get some food? Nobody responds with like, this sort of like mystical, like really thoughtful response. It's going to be like, yeah, man, food, good, eat belly.

Like, and so now they're dropped in with this guy who's going like, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. And they're like, okay. Like, I don't, I don't, where did it, how do I have the food?

Who has access? Do we, did somebody have a key to a cabinet? Like, I don't, yeah. It's so, it's so, and then, and I think sometimes I love in the Bible when it chronicles that being their response, because you're like, oh, it must mean this like super spiritual thing.

And it's like, no, their response too was like,.

Uh, what?

Like, I don't know what that means.

So human of them.

So human.

Of course I don't know what it means. And he's using these, Jesus is using these as teaching moments, which, which, cause he was so patient with them and always teaching them things. But yeah, definitely.

You're like, that's, that's what you're, that's, that, that would be our response. If we were there too, we'd be like, oh, so I guess you're not in on the order. Guess I'll count you out for the pizza.

Do you want the pizza or do you not want the pizza? I don't know.

These dudes weren't chosen because they were like the sharpest, but they were, that's neither here nor there.

They're perfect for their role.

But yeah, yeah.

Like they weren't sharp. They weren't like the wisest men that were chosen to follow them. They were just regular, regular old shmegular fishermen who were doing their best.

Well, I think they were, they lived in the practical, like they lived in the, they had very practical lives. They were not, you know, in the, in the line of like the Pharisees or the priests or those, they weren't in that place.

They were in the place everyone else was. Like they were in the, like we do practical things. We have jobs. We do this, that, and the other. And so that's the space where we live. We're not always looking for how the book of the law connects to every single thing we interact with all the time.

They just weren't living in that space. So yeah, Jesus gets dropped in, who is like the completion of the law. Here he is. He's like all God right in front of him. And they're just like, but we have to eat though.

So let's make sure we take care of the food.

You have food? It's like Lord of the Rings when he's like, well, what about breakfast? You know, like I'm thinking logistically about my meal plan, man. I know we're returning the ring, but are we eating yes or no?

Right.

There's another passage. Pretty sure it's Jesus. Who's like, don't worry about what you're going to eat or don't worry about what you're going to wear. Look at the lilies of the field and how they're dressed better than Solomon's splendor.

And that like, don't worry about what you're going to eat. I know, again, I'm with the disciples on this one. I'm like, that's literally all I think about. I just finished a conversation with my wife about our dinner situation and how it coordinates with T-ball practice tonight.

I'm thinking about the next meal midway through the meal I'm currently eating. So I get the disciples here.

I'm at breakfast thinking about dinner.

I'm not eating as much at breakfast if I'm excited about lunch. The whole meal situation is forefront of my mind at all times.

So like, I'm not worried about it.

Because I know I'm going to get it.

Because that's all I'm focusing on, God. So what do you mean not worry about it? That's driving all my primal instincts today.

That's the right take.

You're not worried about where it's going to come from, but I am worried about it. Like I need to prioritize it. We need to talk about it and we need to figure out if I need a snack between now and then.

I definitely have friends and siblings that like the day needs to be planned around the meal plan. Like I can go hours for everything. I like, I'm kind of like a camel. I can go hours. I'm fine, especially because I'm activity focused.

But siblings, friends are like, okay, so we haven't eaten in two and a half hours. So what's the plan? We're not going to the next destination until we're getting coffee on the way.

And they're in good company because the disciples were the same way. We need the food.

Exactly. I think it's kind of hilarious the way that Jesus kind of went up to a mountain and then he was like, okay, you 12, you guys are my people. It kind of reminded me of like Myspace when we had our top friends.

Top friends, yeah.

Not that he like ranked them above each other, but he was like, this is my crew. And he like handpicked them. I think that is so funny, especially because he had crowds following him. He was like, not you guys.

You guys, mm-mm.

It is really interesting. There's a lot of dynamics in there because then you get this little glimpse when everything goes down with Judas and then they replace Judas with, and they have two names pretty quickly that they're like in the running to replace Judas.

So it's like, this is interesting. There's some sort of like inner circle. And then there's like just outside of the inner circle, there was some sort of system to this.

Understudies ready to go.

Right, they're like, there's more ready to go. And then there's other like followers mentioned throughout the New Testament where they'll like sort of casually reference this person. It's like, oh yeah, they were like a follower the whole time.

So you're like, yeah, how did those 12 just got picked up a little higher than the rest? Although I think all their lives ended really, really dramatically. So I guess it wasn't like anybody, not all of the followers probably would have jumped at the chance that the disciples got, but it was interesting how they were like, those 12 were picked out.

100%, 100%.

I actually didn't know that he had follow-up. I feel like I need to study my word a bit more. You have a Bible study game, so you know this pretty well.

Well, yeah, I just, I mean, I was really like, I was born into it. I'm one of those stories. So like I was in church my whole life. And then for this project, did like a longer two, three year deep dive into the Bible to like get more familiar with some of that stuff.

But you know, the Bible is Funny devotional and the Bible is Funny card game will certainly familiarize you with people, with parts of the Bible that you might not be familiar with.

Ooh, okay, I need to get that game then and start playing it. Did you just spend days in the word, just like, oh, no one knows about that one, writing it down?

Well, it was like a, so I came to this point in my life in my like 20s, maybe like mid, late 20s, where I was like, I've been around church my whole life. I take my faith really seriously. I'm a Christian, I believe this stuff.

I tell people to read the Bible. But there was a lot of the Bible that I was not familiar with. Like there was whole chunks of it. And I just, it struck me how like weird that was. Like if I were to, if you were to meet someone who was like, the Harry Potter series is the best series ever written.

It'll change your life. You know, you gotta read it. It's really important. And then you were like, oh, cool. So you've read all the books? And they were like, well, no, I have not read all the books.

And then you're like, so how are you, like you're telling other people to do this, but you're not familiar with all of it. So that kind of sent me on this journey that I was like, well, I'm gonna read through all of it, slowly, take my time, just kind of like make notes.

And so this all kind of like was born out of that. And so that's when stuff was jumping out at me that I was just like, I've never experienced that because the parts I noticed the most, like there's this gap that gets created, especially in like American Christianity, where they're not sermon, there's not enough in there for like a 40 minute sermon.

So what happens is we end up kind of not visiting it much as a body, like in church gathering, you're like, well, I don't know what to do. Elijah calls down some she bears and they destroy some kids, end of story.

What do we do with that? How do I send everyone out of my sermon? So some people, you know, and you Google, some people have attempted some things, but it's just not common. So that's what kind of created the gap.

I started to learn a lot about within, yeah, and that was where a lot of the content for the Bible was funny, ended up coming from.

Reading the Whole Bible and Finding the Funny Details

Wow, how long did it take you to get through the whole Bible and make notes? Cause I feel like people get pretty lost around Leviticus and Numbers and you just had to muscle through that.

Yeah, Numbers is got some sneaky stories in there. The talking donkey stories in Numbers. Leviticus is a lot of laws as advertised and it can be a tough slog. But I think it took like two years to go through the whole thing.

And then I restarted and started, I did it all in the NIV cause that's just been my, the one I read. And then I thought it'd be interesting to do it in the KJV.

So I did it.

And that was a little bit, that was a little bit slower with that one.

Let it be in thy.

Let it be in thy. But there's some just funny ways that they translated it because it's King James Version. They were speaking differently. So yeah, it was a bit to work through, but I thought, you know, if it is the Bible, and again, if I hold the Bible in the esteem that I claim to, I have to value all of it.

Like I don't get to, I don't, I would have to think there is value in every part of it. So I can't, to me, my way of thinking and living didn't stack up if I didn't know what was in numbers at least. And then you can say like, yeah, it's a lot of counting.

They don't, there's a lot of like, there's this many people in the tribe of blank. And again, you can do some deep dives and contextualize stuff and kind of try to see more to it. But I think at least to familiarize yourself with it was certainly worth the time and say like, this is all scripture.

So yeah, that was the backstory.

No, I mean, that makes total sense. And I think that's great for seeing the stories that people don't recognize. That was absolutely my intention getting into this podcast. I'm like, let's talk about the verses that you never hear about at church.

And of course, any plan just never goes according to plan. Like my podcast has completely gone a different direction. And that's fine. I love the direction it's gone, but I don't know. I feel like I haven't done that and instead resorted to theologians and PhDs to explain it to me on a podcast because did you ever feel lost?

Like reading the Bible, were you ever like, who is Paul and what is like, he's writing a letter, what's going on historically? So you're doing like additional research or?

Yeah, like that's why you just like jot notes down. I would love to like do little side quests and try to just figure out like, well, what's that about? I don't know that name. I don't know those words.

And then it gets even more fun when you start connecting names and you're like, oh, I think I've seen that name before, but I don't know like hard line what the connection is. And you start getting more like early church history context to stuff because there's whole characters that you're like, oh, that's interesting.

That character had a whole story and a lot of the early church history will document it. And we don't, that's not included in the scripture. So you'll just get that context of like, oh, that's what happened to that person.

And they'll jump into the story because the guy's name is Jason in the New Testament. And there's a point where like Paul traveling with someone.

That's the most unbiblical name I've ever heard.

Oh, I know. I'm pretty sure it was Jason.

Like a time traveler? I want to say. Like Chad in New Testament came in.

I want to say it was Jason. My Bible, my PhD Bible scholars will get on me if I get this wrong. I think it's Jason. And he's noted in the New Testament just for his like hospitality. Like Paul goes to a city and he ends up in the city.

He ends up at Jason's house and then they end up visiting him and staying at his house. And then the officials are trying to get Paul. So they go to Jason's house and they're like, where's Paul? And Jason says, he's not there.

And then Jason ends up getting in some trouble. But it's just like, that set me on a level of like, Jason, this is odd. Like, I don't know anything about this dude. And there's a whole story. Like there's more information out there that you can learn from that.

That like a lot of, this is a book that's been around for thousands of years. Like there's people have been looking into it, talking about it, researching it. Like there's so much cool information. So many interesting details that get put in.

Paul goes on a trip in the New Testament and they mentioned this like, the boat has some characters like on the boat. And it's like, turns out they're like mythological connections to the characters. And you're like, well, that's really interesting.

Because like the boat was like adorned with these things. And it just mentions that, makes a note of it. So you're like, well, look at that. That's so curious.

Interesting. Wow, did you notice any like major differences or like, oh, that wasn't mentioned at NIV when I read it in KJV?

Nothing too serious. Quick research, by the way, Jason of Thessalonica. That's the guy's name. So it was Jason. No, nothing like too serious. The KJV just translates in a really funny interest. I like language too.

That's another thing. I was a communications major. So like, I just like, I like how we used to say things versus how we say things now. And all that stuff is fun. There are some things like in the KJV, there's mentions of a unicorn a couple of times.

And a lot of, most people believe it's a translation for rhinoceros. But KJV just straight up calls it a unicorn. So you're reading along on there and you're like, huh, a unicorn. Look at there. So yeah, there's all kinds of fun stuff like that.

You never know. It was probably a unicorn.

I could have been a unicorn. I wasn't there to be fair. But yeah, KJV is fun because you have all kinds of things going on. You have like Bible is, this is translated from its original Hebrew and primarily Greek.

And then it gets translated into like old English. And then you're translating it from old English to your understanding. So it's like, KJV has got so much stuff going on. That's fun. A lot of the newer ones are easier to read and they word it in a way that would be how we talk today.

So yeah. But that was the big one. There was a couple other like just one liners that were just worded in a funny way. So KJV is great.

All right. Yeah, I've been doing NIV since my first episode and I got a strict telling to when someone found out that I was using the message.

Have you been using the message?

It's amazing. They really explained it to you. There is no complications in what the words mean there. I mean, they really, the Bible. It is said outright. There is no deeper meaning though. It's just that baseline.

Yeah, I think it's its own thing. People do have strong feelings about that. And to me, there's a degree to which you are believing that God is working through this text throughout the ages, right? Like it was not written in English.

Like we have to make that realization first. It was originally written. It was translated. There's a lot of steps that when you take the step to say, I believe in faith that God speaks through this. This is God breathed and God's working through this actively.

Then I think there's a lot of, like, I don't know why you'd be like, God breathed and worked through it up to here. But then when it went from there to the message, let me tell you what, that's when God was like, I have no part of that one.

So that's why I'm just like, I don't know, man. I think God's doing a lot of things that we don't know about. And we like to jump in and say which one's good and which one's bad. And I'm like, people are reading the Bible and it's some people like they're just, it lowers the barrier of entry for them because the language is so familiar.

And I'm like, how is that? I don't know who thinks that's a bad thing, right? That somebody picks up a Bible and they start reading it. And a lot of people would encourage you then to as you grow, check out different translations and that's fun and that's fine too.

So I think anywhere we see God moving in people's lives, I think it's generally a positive thing.

The Disciples as Practical, Hungry, and Handpicked

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Super well said. I wanna get back into some verses just because I think that it's really fun to imagine ourselves on what we would have done if we were there in that moment, what we would have done with Jesus, WWJD, but it's more like what would I have done if Jesus was watching me?

And I wanna look at, which one was it? Mark 3, 30. And that's right when he just, I think he just exercised the demon and someone's like, oh, he has an impure spirit. And he's like, oh, your mom and your brothers arrived.

They're standing outside. They want to talk to you. And he's like, who's my mother and brothers? I'd be pissed if I was his mom. I'd be like, honey, honey. He's like, here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does God's will is my brother and my sister and my mother.

I feel like as a mom, I've been like, I birthed you. Okay, I had you in my womb.

Yeah, Mary was going through it in the New Testament, man. That's another character that's just endless with curiosity and interesting. Cause she gets from the beginning, she gets kind of a whole picture, which it doesn't seem like really anybody else has that she's really told like how this is, who this person is.

Who is she talking to? Do you think her and Mary Magdalene were like,.

This is crazy. And she's like, I know.

She had to have some buddies. She had to have some friends, but she, it also talks a lot early in Jesus's life about her treasuring things in her heart, which is like, she's a mom, man. Like she's, this is her kid.

So she's experiencing this all in a very different way. But yes, this is just an incredibly relatable mom thing where Jesus is like, hey, I'm God incarnate. I got some things I got to take care of while I'm here.

And her, and the disciples in the last verse, right? They're like, are you eating though? Let's make sure you're eating. And he's like, no, I know. I have some big things I'm trying to work on here. So then you get Mary showing up and it gives me the big mom energy of like, you come outside right now and I would like to speak with you right this instant.

And Jesus, Jesus and his mom have such a special relationship, obviously. And he's, but he's kind of gotta be like, I don't, I can't do that right now, mom. I'm sorry, I have stuff going on. I'm working.

This is not a good time.

I totally wonder if like after that verse, she like walked away and she was like, honey, we need to talk about this when we get home.

He's like, mom, just let me do my thing. You know that I have a mission.

Stop embarrassing me.

He's like, I was trying to like really preach to the people.

She's like, anyways, I gave birth to you when we get home.

Yeah, it's always interesting to me too. Like they're outside, they're outside telling him to come out. Like they're not, he's just again, I don't know for sure, but it just gives me big energy of her with her arms crossed like tapping her, tapping her foot.

Like.

Don't make me count to three.

Get outside. We got to talk about this thing.

Because she was there like out of concern because he was working with some demons, right? Like this was her going to be like, I think Jesus needs help. Let's go, let's go to him, me and your brothers.

And he's like, I'm with my disciples.