WWUTT 2520 Q&A Accurate Jesus Movies, Secular Music, The Shroud of Turin

Are there any accurate Jesus movies out there? Should Christians be entertained by secular music?

And what's some of the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is a fake? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help you grow in your walk with Christ, that he may guide our footsteps.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Psalm 65 begins, "'Praise is due to you,

O God in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed. O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.

When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.

Blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple."

And of course, the way God brings us near is through his son who died on the cross for our sins.

He is atoned for our transgressions through Christ. And all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God that we all deserve, but we will have everlasting life.

Amen. We thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. This is the Friday edition when we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

or voicemail us by going to www .wutt .com and click on that voicemail tab.

It'll give you about 90 seconds to record your voicemail. Yeah, so make sure you know what you wanna say. That's right.

Or, you know, you can go on to two of them. And that's happened. Part two. We've had a person record one voicemail and then come back and record another voicemail.

So that works as well. Can't promise I'll use them both, but, you know. At least you can get your whole message in there.

That's right. This first email comes from Tracy, Tracy in North Carolina.

Awesome. And she is responding to something we talked about last week with regards to the Mary movie.

Do you remember that? There was that Mary sort of short film that K -Love had put out.

So we talked about that. I made a comment about how it seems like in all these Mary movies, or in any sort of retelling of the nativity or the

Christmas story or anything like that, Mary is always visited by Gabriel at night.

Right. Never during the day. Right. Well, Tracy says she's got, she remembered one where Gabriel came during the day instead of at night.

That's impressive. So she says, hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I started listening to your podcast many years after my husband, who

I often hear writing or calling into your podcast. Aw. I'm curious as to who that is. Yeah.

We have a few from North Carolina. So I don't automatically know who that is, but that's cool.

Runs in the household. But back when you were still doing Song of Solomon on Thursdays.

Oh, yeah. Back during the Song of Song series, which was one of my shorter series. I think I only did that in 12 weeks or something like that.

Yeah, it was pretty short. But yeah, so if you want kind of a good, what's a good series from when we understand the text that's shorter,

I don't have to do something like Luke. Yeah. Which I'm just finishing up chapter 24. You have to go back months to get the beginning of that one.

Song of Songs was a little shorter and it was one of my favorite series that we did. I loved doing the

Song of Song series. It was great. So anyway, Tracy says I have greatly benefited from the Old Testament study and explanations and the

Friday Q &A have been a nice source of conversation starters for my husband and me.

Aw. This email is just a quick response to your statement on the Friday Q &A in regards to you not being aware of a single

Mary slash Gabriel meet in movies that was not done at night. The only nativity based movie

I really like or am comfortable having our children watch is the Nativity Story from 2006.

They obviously give extra background story that is not given in scripture, but mostly stay true to what might have been normal life at that time.

Oh, interesting. But more than that, what they do give in regards to known scripture is biblically accurate or word for word.

Oh, wow. Which I appreciate. I mean, that's all I'm asking for. I know, right? Why do you have to go beyond the words that they give you in scripture?

And every single Gabriel interaction where they go past what

Gabriel actually said, it's always terrible. Like it's not even close.

It's like you're not even rewording it in a way that people would understand. Humans can't impersonate angels.

So, you know. Well, yeah. I mean, some of them appear like men. Sure. But I mean, like for us to put the angel's words together,

I don't know. It just doesn't have that vibe. Well, yeah. It's the same sort of criticism

I've made too with any depictions of Jesus. Like how do we accurately depict the sinless son of God?

Right, we can't. And when you read in Matthew chapter seven about how the people were awed by his words because he spoke with authority and not as one of their scribes, none of the

Jesus depictions have ever done that for me. Well, and also now it's in a different time where like the things that were normal then for like people to not know scripture very well or to have it memorized but not understand it or -

Or it becomes real wooden or something like that. Yeah, like those type of things where today we have it like all sorts of studies about it and we have the full scripture and we have all of these things that are so much -

And people can still be really wooden about it. Well, true. But I mean, like the times are different and traditions are different and everything.

So it doesn't have the same effect for us as it did for them as an awe.

I'm sure he would still awe us but it wouldn't be like him going up and preaching in the synagogues or whatever wouldn't really give us an awe of, oh, wow, there's somebody new teaching scripture.

But maybe what he said would be, I mean, not maybe, definitely what he said. I mean, he was fully man.

He was human. Yes. Definitely, but there is still something about the way that he spoke and the way that he delivered.

He was still fully God. That grabbed the people, right? He's also God. Yeah. He's God incarnate. He's the God man.

So you're hearing God who is the author of scripture actually speak and whatever he said, whatever he said was divine authority.

Yeah, but I'm saying like the way that the Bible is written it wouldn't have the same effect for our audience watching it on a screen.

You know what I mean? Wouldn't have the same effect for us watching it. Yeah, like if we watched it on a screen the same way that they depict it in the

Bible it wouldn't have the same effect for us as it did for the audience that actually saw

Jesus. Well, sure, but yeah. So it's not that depictions of Jesus are wrong because they changed the words.

It's because a human being's ability to portray the sinless son of God just can't be done.

Right, yes. It's impossible to grab all the nuance and everything else. Right, on top of. Yeah, right.

What's going on. Right. Yeah. So even if they were staying true to the words and they were actually speaking the words you still wouldn't be able to portray it well.

And I understand that there are some Jesus movies out there that have been just strictly the biblical narrative.

Like there's the gospel of Matthew. Yeah. Which is just the words in Matthew. The Jesus film, which is like the most watched movie in the history of mankind.

Oh, okay. The Jesus film, which was made, I can't remember when that was made. 70s, 70s or 80s or somewhere in there.

Oh, okay, that one. I watched it when I was a kid. Yeah, I haven't seen it. It's been translated. It's the movie that's been translated into more languages than any other film and believed to have been seen by more people than any other movie.

I was watching like a behind the scenes thing on the Wizard of Oz not long ago.

Yeah. And one of the things they said was, I think Guinness Book of World Records or something has that movie as the most seen movie on the planet.

And I'm like, nope, there's one that beats it. It's the Jesus film beats it.

But anyway, as I recall, the Jesus film was true to scripture as well. So whatever they portrayed in the

Jesus story always was lifted straight from scripture. It might've been cross gospel, drawing from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

Oh yeah, sure. Not just the gospel of Matthew movie. Right. Which I think even that one's like two and a half hour, two and a half or three hours or so.

So to go through the entire gospel of Matthew word for word is gonna take you that long, right?

Yeah, sure. So you've got some films that try to capture Jesus word for word.

But again, the person who is saying those words, who is acting out those words, it's not like a preacher preaching those words.

Right. It's somebody who is acting out the role of Jesus is never going to have.

You just can't be sinless. Exactly, right. You're never going to have an accurate portrayal of who

Jesus actually was. So that's always gonna be a fool's errand, no matter what. Whatever your opinions are on it aside, that's just the way it's always gonna be with the role of Jesus.

And now Jesus in the chosen is through and through an ecumenical Jesus. They've tried to create a

Jesus that is going to appeal to the most number of people who claim to be Christians, people who aren't

Mormons. People pleasing. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox. It doesn't matter. Whatever you want.

Exactly, right. Yeah, it's the reason why that Jesus, the Jonathan Rumi Jesus is so popular is because that's the way he's made to be popular and appeal to the most number of people.

He's not the Christ of the Bible. Right. But anyway, yeah, we're beyond the letter. I'm only halfway done with this email.

Don't you love when we just do commentary to your email. So yeah, they give extra background story.

There's word for word delivery in a lot of the lines in the film.

I saw it. I remember seeing, what is this, coming up on 20 years ago now. Oh yeah, almost.

This was when I was still in Christian radio. I didn't have when we understand the text, but I would go see

Christian movies so that I could give reviews of them on the radio. Right. And Kyle, a friend of mine and I, we went to go see the nativity in Garden City, Kansas.

Yeah. Keisha, trying to remember her name, the gal that played

Mary, Keisha Castle -Hughes, the most famous. You forgot her last name?

Well, because it's Castle hyphen Hughes. It's the hyphenated last name. I knew it was Keisha Hughes, but there's another name in there.

Okay, fair. I'll give that to you. Anyway, she was well known for a movie called

Whale Rider, which I never saw, but I think was nominated for an Academy Award. So it was a big deal when they got her in the film to play

Mary and was young. I think she was a teenager at the time. Oh, wow. Oscar Isaac played

Joseph, which I did not remember that at all. So that would have been the earliest movie I had ever seen

Oscar Isaac in. He was in the more recent Star Wars trilogy. Oh, okay. And he played, as a matter of fact, played the voice of Jesus in the animated film that came out earlier in the year.

Man, I can't remember the name of it now. What was it? The animated one that came out from Angel Studios.

I took - Yeah, I'm trying to think. Yeah, I can't remember the name of it either. It was that memorable.

But anyway, Oscar Isaac played - I remember all of the ads for it, but I can't think of what it's even about. I know,

I know. We're saying it now and there's people on the other end going, this is the name, it's this movie.

And I'm sure tonight it'll dawn on me, just after this program. Yeah, later. So he played,

Oscar Isaac played Joseph in the nativity story. I wouldn't remember that. There's some other actors in there

I was looking at going, oh, hey, I forgot that person was in that movie. I remember liking it.

There are some things in there where, like for example, they have the wise men showing up with the shepherds on the night that Jesus was born.

Oh, yeah. The creators of the film acknowledged that we know that didn't happen. We know that the wise men came two years later, but the point was they were trying to depict the nativity.

Sure. So like your typical nativity scene. So therefore they had the wise men coming the same time that the shepherds came.

Yeah. Which is understandable. Okay. Still not accurate.

I think you still could have done that well without having to do it exactly like that. But anyway, that's me being -

A little critical. Right, biblically critical of a Bible movie.

Fair. So she goes on. And as you might've guessed already, the meeting between Gabriel and Mary is in the daytime.

I attached a clip of this found on YouTube. I hope that it opens for you. If you've not watched it or have but forgotten,

I'd be curious to know your take. Chris, my husband, oh, well, there you go. Her husband's name's right there. There you go. Chris watched it for the first time last year and agreed with my assessment on it.

Thank you so much for the time that you put into the podcast ministry and taking the time to respond to so many questions and comments.

I appreciate the sound, biblically grounded explanations, honest sharing of your faith in actual life and just the honesty of your normal life together.

We pray for God to keep you both honestly seeking him and not faltering in your faith.

Oh, thank you. In Christ, Tracy. We appreciate that very much, Tracy. Definitely. Yeah, we really, this is not a scripted show.

I just talked about that with somebody earlier this week, you know, and they were asking like, what sort of preparation goes into this?

How much were you thinking about that statement before you said it? I think that was what started the conversation.

But I say, oh, what you hear, we are not any different in real life than we are on the air.

No. This really is. These are our conversations. We talk just like this.

Occasionally, I have to repeat myself if like something flubs later, but I mean, that's about it, so.

Or I'm not paying attention. My mind's somewhere else. Yeah. Our conversations are usually just like this.

Yeah. When we get time. And not be interrupted.

When we do this podcast, might be the least number of interruptions that we get whenever we have a conversation.

And we'll still get interrupted. Yes, we do. A child may still try to come in here. We just edit that out.

And leave it for the end. Yeah. The outtake. You'll hear the outtake at the very end of a child coming in saying,

I wet my bed, or you know, something. Something. We still have children that young that that accident does still happen.

Occasionally, yes. We are just way off on this now. We are. So, okay, here's the clip.

It does come up. So, I'm gonna, let's see if I got it queued up. Got the volume at the right level here.

So, we're gonna watch Gabriel's appearance to Mary in the daytime. All right. You ready?

Now, hopefully playing the music, I'm not gonna get like a copyright strike. Hopefully not.

So, there's Joseph. Okay. Sees Mary walk by. And his friend. Is giving him a hard time.

Giving him a hard time. That's right. You're watching Mary walk by. Okay, she's going down to this tree here, sitting down by the tree.

Everybody else is walking off. So, here's the scene where Gabriel is gonna appear to her in the daytime.

We're talking like noon. Yeah. Right now. So, based on the shadows around. Wind through the trees.

She's looking around. Bird in the sky. And there's people.

There's a mysterious figure there between the trees. And the people disappeared.

Is that what happened? Yeah. They're just not there anymore. Okay. Do not be afraid.

For you have found favor with God. Come. You will conceive in your womb.

And give birth to a son. And you will call his name Jesus. How can this be?

Since I've been with no man. The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

And the power from the most high and the

Holy offspring should be called the Son of God. Son of God.

Mary. Even your cousin Elizabeth has conceived a son in her old age.

For nothing said by God can be impossible. That's a cool effect on his robe right there.

Let it be done to me. According to your word. And the angel vanishes.

And she's still kneeling. And she's still kneeling. She did kneel down before him right there.

Everything's returning to normal. Yep. Okay. So that was, and that was good. That the dialogue was exactly from scripture.

Yeah. See how easy that is to do guys. Come on. The lines are already written for you. That's what I was thinking.

That's exactly what I was thinking. They're right there. Well, no, that was a great scene. Yeah. Thanks for that reminder,

Tracy. I have not seen this movie in 20 years. I have not seen it at all. Oh, is that right? Might have to pull that one up then for our

Christmas watch list. That was before I was saved. Okay. Yeah. You know, not really first on my list of things to watch then.

I don't know. I had a lot of friends in, when I was in college who were not Christians who went to go see the

Passion of the Christ. Yeah. I didn't want to. I just.

It's not necessary. Bloody, bloody mess. Yeah. And I'm like, am I going to cry? And they're like, well, yeah.

And I'm like, okay, I'm not going. That's the crucifixion of Jesus. I don't recommend that movie.

I'm not recommending the Nativity either, but it might just be a film that I pull back up again and watch. But that was good.

Thank you, Tracy, for recommending that one. There was something else I was going to say about that with the angel visiting her and talking with her.

I can't remember what it was. I like that she was scared and then not full of herself later.

Oh, I know what it was I was going to say. Yeah, right. Because the Mary movies are, she's. They argue.

Wait, exactly. Right. They just fought up. She'll argue with the angel. Or get angry or whatever.

Why did you leave without giving me more information? Well, she says at the end of that conversation, let it be done, as you have said.

Yeah. She doesn't argue with the angel. Right. So it's just ridiculous. But yeah, a lot of the more recent

Mary movies, that's exactly what they've done. Or in the case of the Journey to Bethlehem film, they made it comedic.

Gabriel knocking his head on the door when he was walking in. Yeah, it was that dumb.

And he was played by Lecrae. Oh, okay. Yeah. Anyway, so what

I was going to mention was, when I watched this the first time, when Tracy sent this clip and I watched it,

I didn't like Mary kneeling before Gabriel. Because of course you have in John, him falling down before the angel and the angel telling him.

Yeah, don't worship. To get up, don't do that with me. Right. However, when we were reading in Luke chapter 24 this week, the women fall down before the angels that appear at Jesus' tomb.

That's true. And the angels don't tell them to get up. And so that's probably a, like out of fear, a reverent fear perhaps.

Sign of respect. Sign of respect. Something like that, right. It does not demonstrate it in scripture as the women were worshiping the angel.

John was trying to worship the angel. Right. And that's why the angel tells him to stop. But the women fall down before the angels and they don't tell them to get up, maybe stricken with fear, because it does say they were fearful at the appearance of these men in shimmering white.

Right. So it could be the same sort of a thing here, just a reverent submission to this messenger of God that has come to give her this word.

Yeah. So I guess that would be excusable in that sense. When I first watched it, I didn't like it.

I was like, oh, why do they have her kneel? They were doing so well. And then she kneels down before the angel.

Well, I mean, when the emperor would give a message, they would always kneel.

Yeah, like people would come in before David and kneel. Yeah. And it's just, right, a bow of respect or something like that.

Right. When we read in the book of Esther of Mordecai refusing to kneel before Haman, often the way that's depicted, often the way that's explained is because Jews would not bow down to anybody.

The Lord says, you'll worship only the Lord your God. And so Mordecai was not gonna bow before Haman because he's obeying the commandments.

But that's not the reason why Mordecai wouldn't bow before Haman. There are other instances of scripture, in scripture, of somebody coming before a king and bowing down.

So that's not the reason why Mordecai didn't bow. The reason he didn't bow is because Haman was a sworn enemy of the

Jews. Ah, gotcha. And so Mordecai was not going to give him the recognition. Yeah, the respect. So that was why.

Interesting. Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with, or at least the scripture doesn't tell us that that's what it has to do with.

Right. In the context, it's that Haman is a descendant of the

Amalekites. And therefore, Mordecai was not going to show him that reverence, even though he had the title that he had from the king.

Mordecai wasn't going to show it to him. That's what made Haman incensed and wanted to kill

Mordecai and all the Jews because they won't bow down to me. Makes sense. Just out of jealousy, pride.

Yep. All right, going on to this next comment. This comes from Scott up in the

Pacific Northwest. And he's got a comment about a blog or the

Saturday special that I did recently on the top praise and worship songs. Awesome. So I talked about Michael Tate, formerly of the

Newsboys and the things that he got in trouble for earlier this year.

Oh, yeah. And so Scott mentions that here in this voicemail. Scott gets cut off too, because he goes beyond the minute and a half, but sorry,

Scott. Here we go. Hello there, Pastor Gabe. Hello, Becky. This is

Scott, your brother in Christ in the great Northwest. I would like to bring up the

Saturday special you did this week about Christian praise and worship music.

The first thing I want to bring up is Michael Tate. I would like to understand why he hasn't been arrested when he officially said that he drugged a woman and watched her get raped.

He should be arrested for that. I don't understand why he's not in jail right now.

I know that God can forgive us for our darkest sins, and he does through the

Lord Jesus Christ. But to live in darkened sins, oh, wow.

I still think Michael Tate should be arrested. About Chris Tallman and his music.

You know, his music is great, but you're right. Playing with Joyce Myers and playing with Steven Furtick, Bethel music, it's not about scripture anymore.

It's about how much money he can put in his pocket. When he stands before God, what he has to answer for.

Anyway, that's my point. Sorry, got you cut off there right at the end there,

Scott. But yeah, appreciate your comments. So with regards to Michael Tate, he actually hasn't admitted to anything specific.

He has said that many of the allegations are true. That's as far as he's gone, but he's not specifically said of this thing that I'm being accused of, yes,

I did that. So whatever is gonna happen with him with regards to the law, those things take time.

They do, an investigation. Right, we only found out about this stuff this year. So with how long these things take to process, then yeah, he's in trouble.

He's gonna be facing some lawsuits. Those things will definitely happen. Does he deserve to be in jail?

Yes. Does he deserve worse than that? Yes, he does. He has put out a letter in which he has confessed to drug abuse and some of the sexual immorality that he has done.

We can pray that that confession is genuine and that he is getting the help that he needs. Yeah. And so that on the day he has to stand before God, he will have had his sins covered by the blood of Christ.

Yeah. We can certainly hope that would be the case. But over the course of his, what we would call his ministry, performing in DC Talk, the solo career, performing with the

Newsboys, we have enough evidence to indicate that he had been living in immorality throughout all of those years.

All the decades that we've known the name Michael Tate, he has been in wickedness. Yeah. And so very sad and tragic that anybody would be in that kind of position and use the fame that they would gain speaking or singing the name of Christ to feed the appetites of their flesh.

Yeah. Be careful that you don't fall for the same temptations.

Amen. You've heard the saying, there but by the grace of God go I. As the

Apostle Paul says in Galatians 6 .1, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. And in 1

Corinthians 10, 12, therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall.

No temptation has overtaken you, that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

So any one of us can stumble into grave sin. Yeah. And we need to be careful, keep a watchful eye on ourselves, keep our focus on Christ, that we would not be led astray by either the temptations of this world or the desires of our flesh.

So I've shared before in the past how I've been part of this world. I ate breakfast with the members of DC Talk, with Toby Mac, with Kevin Max, and with Michael Tate.

I've met the man many times. I did an interview with him, a face -to -face interview right ahead of, excuse me, the release of the

Supernatural album, which was the follow -up to Jesus Freak. So got the chance to, as a teenager, sit down with Michael Tate and do a face -to -face interview.

There's just some of the privileges that I got working in Christian radio. But then a few years later, I record my first album.

I'm going out on the road. I'm an independent artist. I'm not signed to any label. I had the chance to open for some pretty big names.

I was close enough to that lifestyle that I could reach out and touch it. I was behind the scenes.

I got to go on tour buses. Even when Becky and I started dating, she got a little bit of that as well. Yeah. There was a,

I'm kind of giving you a little behind -the -curtain sort of a look here, but there was a show promoter that I was friends with, and we went to a concert at a big arena.

Lot of big names. I'm not gonna mention who they were. And he said, hey, you wanna check out one of the tour buses?

And I said, yep. So Becky and I, I've seen many tour buses, but this is gonna be your first time on a tour bus, right?

So we walk on the tour bus. He shows us the bunks and everything. We go to the back. He stays in the back, the show promoter.

He would sleep in the back. And he opens up that back room, and it's just cash.

Yep. Mountains of cash, piles of it, trash bags all around because they take the cash payment at the door and would bring it on the bus and they would count it.

Right. And then it was one of the banks, one of the major chain banks that they would deposit the money into so that whatever city they went to, they could get to one of the chain banks and make the deposit.

Right. But it was hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a lot. We asked him like, how much cash do you think this is?

And he was like, it could be 600 ,000. Yeah. And it was like two or three. He was just like, yeah, whatever.

Yeah, right. Like this is normal. I'm like, oh my goodness. Now he's not making all that money.

They have to divvy it up. Right. To the artists and the - To everything. Right, the roadies and the sound guys, technicians, everything else.

And these are expensive shows to put on. Oh, yeah. It costs a lot to book the arena.

I did all that work too. So I've been behind the scenes and have had a taste in just about every aspect of that ministry without becoming a signed artist.

Yeah. And having like headline shows or something like that. But anyway, that's just kind of a behind the scenes peak of the contemporary

Christian music industry. It's an industry. It is. Yes, there are standards.

I mean, if you get caught doing certain things, then you'll be punished or removed from a label or kicked out.

Like Michael Tate is never gonna have a career in Christian music again. Right. So there's at least enough standards there in that respect.

At the same time, I've talked on this show before about how they let guys like, oh, who's that guy that sang with Brandon Lake and had the kooky name?

I said it and you just were like, what? That's really his name? I don't remember. Sorry, I didn't retain it.

Brandon Lake and it's that hard fought Hallelujah song. This is another one of those things we can't remember the name and everybody's going, it's this guy.

Why can't you remember the name? Anyway, with him receiving a Dove Award and having the chance to perform at the

Dove Awards. And he has a horrid lifestyle. He and his wife are filthy.

Jelly roll? Jelly roll, that's it. Yeah, you got it. That was it. That was Google to the rescue. Jelly rolls the guy. His wife has like a sex talk podcast.

What? And she's a former sex worker. Oh. I don't know if she's former. She may still be.

Okay. Is releasing a book. I think the book has already come out in which she's naked on the cover of it.

Okay. So I mean, these are. Goodness. These people are not Christians and yet they're allowed to perform at the

Dove Awards and they're performing with Brandon Lake and that song gets played on K -Love. So there's standards, but there's double standards.

Yeah. We got all kinds of standards. We even double them. Yeah. Anyway, so there are occasions in which a person can fall into such grave sin that they disqualify themselves from ever being part of that industry.

It does happen. Yeah. It is an industry. It's for making money. If it didn't make money, then they wouldn't do it.

Right. There are some genuine good people in the Christian music industry. Definitely. I've met lots of good people who love

Christian music, who really want to communicate Christ through the art that they do, but it's still to make money.

And if it doesn't make money, then you don't get to do it. Right. So anyway. It's too expensive. Yeah, right, right.

It's expensive to record albums. Nobody has empty pockets to fund that. It took a long time for me to record an independent album.

Yeah. And even then that album wasn't big budget because we didn't have the big budget.

But anyway, being close enough to touch that industry without ever being one of the signed artists,

I made a lot of foolish mistakes, a lot of mistakes. And it was all related to the desires of my flesh and really stupid things, things that nobody ever really found out about, but nonetheless doing them made me lose my focus.

It made the Christian aspect of it was kind of lost to me. I was too in love with the fame and the attention and lost the focus on communicating

Christ. And so I'm thankful that God took me away from that. I have no idea what would have happened to me if I had continued on that trajectory and I had had the chance at stardom.

I don't know that I would have made it. If all the indications leading to that were painting a picture of a trajectory, then

I was on the wrong road. And I could have fallen into really, really serious sin. I could have fallen into bad sin like this.

Yeah. And so praise God, I praise God now that he didn't let me get that.

Yeah. Of course, I've met my wife, we've had beautiful children, we have this wonderful, gorgeous family.

I would not want it any other way. Yeah. I will be honest, there are times that I will look back and go, man, that was fun.

Yeah. I wish I could do something like that again. Yeah. Those things still pop into my head every once in a while, but I have no regrets at all.

Well, thank you. Yes. None at all. I mean, even becoming a pastor and everything else, that the

Lord would appoint me to this, even as bad as I was holding on to good

Christian principles when I was a Christian artist. But then God would let me do this. And so I praise the

Lord for that. I praise him that he has been merciful to me and he has brought me to this. And it is a blessing to have the privilege of preaching

God's word every Sunday, of teaching it on this broadcast. And we thank you for listening.

Yes. We wouldn't be able to do it without you. Scott, you're part of that as well, because you've been a huge encouragement to us for -

Definitely. Several years now. Yeah. So appreciate you sending those thoughts to us.

But reminder again, folks, everyone who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.

Continue to hold fast to Christ every single day. Pray for one another. Exactly. Pray for each other, look out for one another.

Countable. Yep. Colossians chapter three says admonishing one another, which means to correct one another with goodwill.

So we do this for each other's benefit. Yes. That we would keep one another on the path of righteousness, focused upon Christ.

And he is the goal. Mm -hmm. Running the race with endurance, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, as said in Hebrews two, or Hebrews 12 two, sorry.

This next one, email comes from Ryan in Iowa. Hello, Pastor Gabe. I recently heard your episode about Freddie Mercury.

So this was one of the Saturday specials that I did on Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh, okay, yeah. That was two weeks ago?

Last week? Yeah, somewhere in there. I appreciate your well -thought research and interesting facts on him.

He was an amazing singer and talented musician and lyricist, and yet he had a sad life.

Do you think Christians should sing Bohemian Rhapsody? The lyrics are very interesting and the song is very catchy.

The lyrics are a bit strange the more you listen to and read them. Do you remember the band Down Here?

Have you ever met them before? I think I have, I don't recall for sure. I know that I played Down Here on the radio, but I can't remember if I met them.

If I did, it would have been at one of the GMA events, Gospel Music Association, because we would do GMA week would be like the week before the

Dove Awards. And you'd meet all the artists at GMA week and there'd be all kinds of concerts going on and stuff like that.

So if I did meet them, it would have been there. I don't remember ever doing a concert with them. But yeah,

I do know the band. I know who you're talking about here. I've always liked Down Here's music, Ryan says. The lead singer, now this was fascinating.

Ryan shared this with me. I did not know this. The lead singer, Mark Martell sounds so similar to Mercury's vocal style and sound that he actually sang some of Queen's songs in the movie,

Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh, wow. So the actor that played Freddie Mercury in that movie did not actually sing the songs.

There was somebody else singing them and apparently it was Mark Martell from Down Here. Interesting. I had no idea. That's really fascinating.

So anyway, Ryan goes on to say he has been traveling with a Queen cover band as the lead singer, sounding like Mercury.

That's weird. That is really weird. I don't know that Christian should be doing that.

So I mean, he's basically stepping into the role of a homosexual and singing songs that some of those songs were just downright blasphemous.

And really Bohemian Rhapsody is too. So I think with regards to that, like knowing the background of the song now based on what

I had shared about the lyrics, there are some nuance to the lyrics that maybe you don't agree with what

I said, that's fine. But the overall message of the song is definitely what I said it was.

Like Freddie Mercury having this conversation with God and calling

God mama. So that is what the song is about. And him having this guilty conscience over the sins that he's indulging in, and he knows he's incurring the wrath of God.

Why did you give these desires to me if you were gonna punish me for them? That is the heart of what's going on in the song

Bohemian Rhapsody. Now, when I did the review of the top 10 most popular praise and worship songs, one of the things that I said in there, and somebody else asked a question about this too,

I said in there that some of these songs may be fine for you to want to worship along with in your car.

They don't belong in your church. They're not good corporate worship songs. And so if that's where you want to leave them, like a song like Holy Forever by Chris Tomlin is still good in its lyric and you can still be worshipful to it, excusing that maybe

Chris Tomlin may not be so genuine in the songs that he writes and the way that he leads worship, whatever your thoughts are regarding Chris Tomlin.

But the song itself is still lyrically good and you can be worshipful singing that song with the

Lord on a car ride or when you're by yourself in your home or something like that, or family worship even if you wanted to do it that way.

So I said that about those songs and somebody had asked the question, well, if these artists are heretics and if the money that you pay to buy these songs is gonna go to their churches like Bethel and Elevation and Hillsong and things like that, then why would you even sing them in private?

That's a good question. That's a very good question. But really what's behind my saying that is because you listen to all kinds of things that aren't

Christian, most likely. I mean, everybody sees ads. Well, sure, yeah, right.

The stuff that pops up on YouTube that you can't control, you know, stuff like that, right. But you're probably listening to old rock songs that you like listening to when you were a kid.

Pop music radio from the 80s and 90s. You go to the office and you have to sit and wait. You gotta hear music.

You hear songs that are going on there, right. You go shopping, you hear music there. Exactly. And you find them catchy and you sing along with them and you wear the band

T -shirts. Some of you do. You got the band T -shirts, right. Yeah. There is some of that enjoyment going on with some of those songs.

You can appreciate the artistry behind it and you like the music, just like watching a movie and all the people that are in that movie, probably not

Christians. Right. And yet you can enjoy a good story. So you can do the same thing with Christian music.

Even if the artists are not genuine, you can enjoy some of those songs. Just don't put them in corporate worship.

They don't belong in the corporate worship service. There's better worship songs that we can use in church. So, you know, hope that answers your question with related to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Some of these things that when it comes to our entertainment choices, and Becky and I have talked about this many other times in the past, but a lot of our entertainment choices come down to liberty of conscience.

Yes, definitely. So if you feel guilty singing it or partaking in it or watching the movie, then don't.

Right. Don't do what's going to make you feel guilty, even if somebody else doesn't feel guilty watching it, or they've made a recommendation to you.

You start watching it and you just don't like the substance of it. Yeah. Maybe there's kind of an irreverent take on God or spiritual things.

And you're just like, I just don't think that I can be entertained by this. Then don't be, don't watch it. I mean, everybody has their different struggles of, some people are able to ignore it.

Other people are not. Right. So, yeah. A good verse that often accompanies these kinds of discussions is

Philippians 4 .8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the

God of peace will be with you. All right, last email that I have comes from Andy in Indiana, Andy, Indiana.

Pastor Gabe, I appreciate you addressing the Shroud of Turin on the podcast this week. As it so happens,

I was just talking about this with a friend and we'll be referring him to these episodes.

What sort of research have you done on the Shroud? Are there any books or videos that you can recommend?

Well, as it so happens, I just watched a video this past week in preparation of those lessons that I was gonna be doing in Luke 24.

Well, yeah, even at the end of chapter 23 where you have the burial of Jesus and then the resurrection, the women at the tomb, what the tombs would have looked like, as I'm kind of trying to paint the picture for you.

So I've watched a couple of archeological videos, videos from archeologists that are talking about what burial sites in Jerusalem would have looked like during that time, different things that they've discovered.

I have some archeological encyclopedias that I use. And by the way, the

ESV archeology Bible is really good too. That's also a great commentary

Bible, all of the archeological facts that they have in there that just give some more weighty evidence to the truth of scripture that we already know.

But it's just neat to read those facts and how some of these things have been authenticated. Discovered.

Yeah, exactly. Or rediscovered, I guess. I don't know which one would be appropriate.

Discovered is fine. Discovered. They've discovered these artifacts that just give, it doesn't have to authenticate the story for us.

We already know that it's true. Right, but it's just kind of like a, hey, there it is.

Yeah, right. More proof. And those things give testimony to the truth that we know.

Definitely. So there's a guy by the name of James Tabor. He's a biblical archeologist. He's made several discoveries over the years.

About 20 or so years ago, he and his team discovered a tomb in Jerusalem.

And in that tomb, they found a body that was wrapped in a shroud. Well, after, long story short, after testing everything, they came to find out that that body that they had discovered in the shroud was actually dated back to the first century.

When he first made the discovery and it was on the news and everything else, Martin Bashir came out with his team from like 2020 or whatever, and they followed them around with cameras and they looked inside the tomb and all this other kind of stuff.

So it was now known worldwide about this discovery that they had made in Jerusalem of this body that was still wrapped in a shroud.

There was a friend of James that called him up and said, before all the dating of it was done and everything else, said to him, there's no way that thing is any older than the medieval period.

So you did not find a body from the first century. It's gonna be medieval. Oh, I'm sure there was all sorts of second guessing.

Yeah, right, exactly, yeah. And then they tested it. Believe it or not, they tested it at the University of Arizona, which is just down the road from us here.

Yes, it is. And after all that testing came out, it was for sure from the first century.

That's amazing. Making this body the only shroud, only burial shroud from first century

Jerusalem ever discovered. There has never been another one. And it was just one of those things where providentially everything kind of lined up for him to discover it.

There was a grave robbery the day before. And if it wasn't from that grave robbery, they wouldn't have known about the tomb and been able to excavate it and get inside and find the body and everything else.

The reason why it's so difficult to find bodies that date all the way back to the first century, like why don't we find a plethora of bodies in shrouds when the

Jews took such great care in the burying of their dead? Why is this the only one?

The only one that's been found that has been shrouded, the only body with a shroud on it from the first century? Well, because after they would bury them in the tombs, they would only be in there for about a year.

And then the family would reenter the tomb and undo the shroud and disassemble the body, which has now become, it's not powder exactly, but the bones are all like disconnected from each other now as the tissues decayed.

And then they would take the bones apart and they would put them in an ossuary, which is like a smaller coffin.

It's not exactly an urn because they haven't burned the body and then poured the ashes in an urn.

Right, but it's much smaller. It's much smaller, right. And so they can kind of pile up all the pieces.

Yeah, you can put it in a smaller space instead of having like a whole body length coffin or something like that.

Believe it or not, Caiaphas' ossuary has been discovered. That is crazy to me.

So Caiaphas, the chief priest who was the one that Jesus was brought before and then

Jesus taking a pilot, that Caiaphas from the biblical narrative, they found his body in his ossuary.

Now they only know that it's his based on like names that have been carved into the ossuary or something like that, but they haven't done any

DNA testing on it yet. So all of that is still to come. Yes, oh, that'll be crazy.

Might be kind of interesting what sort of, you know, when it comes to DNA testing, you still have to test it against something like that you know belongs to the person.

So it's not like they have an old hairbrush of Caiaphas' and they can test his remains against the hairbrush and go, okay, yeah, this was definitely

Caiaphas in here. Anyway, but you can still discover some things DNA wise, you know, knowing, for example, that this was a male.

So at least that narrows it down for us. If that was a woman's bones in there, well, this can't be

Caiaphas, you know, something like that. Anyway, but with the discovery of this body in the burial shroud, this is further proof that the shroud of Turin is not the burial shroud of Jesus.

Because it does not match what we know of the Jewish burial customs.

Now, even before this body was exhumed, we already knew the burial customs of the

Jews from that age. And just reading the burial customs, the shroud of Turin doesn't match that.

So again, and I mentioned this on the podcast, the shroud of Turin is in the chapel of Turin.

It is believed to have been the burial shroud of Jesus, that Jesus was wrapped in the shroud of Turin.

And it was a vertical wrap. So it went like over his head and back around.

That's the, when you see the full shroud of Turin. When I was a kid, I didn't realize that.

I'd seen pictures of it, but I thought it was only his face. That's what I thought too. Right, I thought it was only the face covering, but it's a full body shroud.

And when you see the display of it, it's, you know, one long, huge shroud, and you have both the front and back of the man that this was wrapped around on the shroud, which the most likely thing is that it wasn't a person that was laid down on it and wrapped around.

It was actually painted. So that's the most likely explanation of the shroud of Turin.

Not that there was a person in it, you know, some other person that wasn't Jesus, but it was actually painted.

But anyway, it was a discovery from back in the 14th century. There's no existence of it or writing of it before that.

It was carbon dated back to the 14th century. So proven that that was when it was made.

But then people have come out with all sorts of stuff since then, like, oh, well, the pollen in it actually does date from the area of Jerusalem from back in the first century.

You know, and there's all these other kinds of things that people try to throw in there. But you don't need any more than your

Bible to know that the shroud of Turin was not the burial cloth of Jesus. Because it doesn't even match the way the

Bible says that Jesus was buried. So just discovering this body just further exposes the shroud of Turin as being a fraud.

And it's another neat thing to find and - And affirm our beliefs.

Yeah, right. All the more. It doesn't really prove anything about the burial of Jesus, but we get to learn a little bit more about those

Jewish customs from the first century because of that discovery. Yeah. So anyway, I brought that up because you can look at the video yourself.

The title of the video is called The Only Authentic First Century Burial Shroud Ever Found in Jerusalem.

It's by James Tabor. It's about an hour long. He's not a real quick speaker.

You may wanna increase the speed on your YouTube video, get through it a little quicker. But the slides that he shows and the things that he talks about, all very neat stuff.

Awesome. So I would recommend that. And by the way, so hang on, let me bring up the email again. Andy, you had said, what sort of research have you done?

Are there any books or videos that you can recommend? Look up a writing from John Calvin. John Calvin actually did a fair amount of writing on the different kinds of artifacts that the

Roman Catholic Church would use and using those things to convince people we're the true church.

Look at all this cool stuff that we have. This proves everything that we've said is correct. And one of the things they were pushing in John Calvin's day was the

Shroud of Turin. That discovery was made over a hundred years before the Protestant Reformation.

So Calvin did write on the Shroud of Turin and other kinds of burial artifacts that the

Roman Catholic Church claimed that they had. Oh, that's interesting. One of the things that Calvin points out is that the fact that they have so much stuff is actually a self -contradiction.

Because they have more than one thing that they say Jesus was buried in. Well, how could that be?

Yeah. He was only buried once. Right, exactly. And he goes through some of them.

You can look this up. Just look up, like, if you do a Google search for John Calvin Shroud of Turin, you'll find the writings that he's done.

They're free online. And you'll find what he's written about those different things. That's all very good as well.

And Calvin's argument, Calvin's main arguments were always going back to the scripture.

What does the Bible say about it? And so what Rome is presenting as some sort of ancient artifact doesn't even match what the

Bible says about it. So it's like, it's a self -contradiction. Like you guys wanna say, the scriptures are authentic.

They've been given to us by the Holy Spirit. It's inerrant. And yet you're presenting things that exactly contradict what you claim is the word of God.

What you will affirm is the word of God. And yet you're presenting things that don't match what God said in his word.

Right. So anyway, that's good too. Look up those writings, those

PDFs. I think the one that I read was a PDF from John Calvin. So, all right.

And then we have one more thing. We got one more thing. Yes. Okay, oh yes. I forgot about this.

Last thing. This was sent to us by a friend. We talked the last couple of weeks about the little rubber

Jesus dolls. Yes. The little, I mean, they're like pencil eraser size. Right.

Little Jesuses. And there was a pastor, I think in North Carolina, in fact, that started this and he would hand them out and it would begin with, you need a little

Jesus today. It's a pun. Yeah. But then people, what do we as Christians, what should we be thinking about this?

I mean, it's a little teeny tiny thing. Nobody's really gonna worship that. Right. Or think that it's an idol.

I talked about it being irreverent. And I talked about kids getting confused. Yeah. And like, oh, well, there's

Jesus, so I can just remember to pray to Jesus, so I'll just pray to this. Yeah. And then get confused in that process.

So, this is from our friend Brandy, who responded to exactly that, what you just said.

So, I just listened to y 'all's Q &A and I wanted to share a story regarding those little Jesus figures.

The kids brought some of the little Jesus dolls home from Sunday school this year.

And Robert and I were not thrilled, but chose to let it go. Well, not long ago,

Robin brought me one of them and she was showing me how Jesus' head had come off. And she's,

I shouldn't laugh, but yeah. She said in a very serious tone, look, mama,

God is dead. And I realized right then why Jesus figures are a bad idea.

Yeah, I hadn't even considered that. I mean, really, our kids would be in tears.

Yeah, right. Our kids would take that personally. Yeah, they would. They would. Our children very much would.

Like, they would see that and think we got to take care of this. Right. As if -

And then we broke God. Yeah, right, right. As if we're showing tribute to God in the way that we take special care of this, which is idolatry.

Right. That itself is idolatry. Yes. This is that story that I talked about at the end of the book of Judges.

Right. With these idols that they had made. So yeah, and this becomes exactly that.

Yeah. You're running the risk of this becoming that. Right. And that's why we shouldn't. And at a young age, that's hard to undo later in life.

Right. So yeah. And as I've said before, I'm not - Approach with caution. Yeah. Everyone take heed lest ye fall.

Yes. Going back to that again. Yes. And as I've said before, I'm not a strict 2CV guy, second commandment violation.

I don't automatically look at nativity scenes and go, oh, that's a second commandment violation. Right. So -

Yeah, I'm pretty lax about it too, honestly. Right. But like I said, I hadn't even considered, you know,

God dying, being beheaded or whatever, you know? Like, oh.

How are we - Or you leave them in the sun and they melt. Yes. Yeah, especially here.

Right. That's why I thought of it, here in Arizona. Oh my goodness. Or, you know, you lose

God, then what happens? You know, like, I don't know. I could just see this going so many bad ways now.

Just thank you for that, Brandy, of opening my eyes to the possibilities.

Yes. And I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Good reminder of that. So sad.

Yeah, exactly. Well, folks, we appreciate you listening. Definitely. Thank you once again.

And you can send an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com or send us a voicemail.

Again, it's wwutt .com. Click on that voicemail tab. This is

December. We're coming closer to the end of the year. We've got our end of the year review that we're gonna be doing in just a few weeks.

Yeah. Got any questions or recommendations of stories for this year that you wanna hear on the program, let us know that.

We've got a special Christmas episode coming up. We always try to do like a special Christmas episode the Friday before Christmas.

Right. And then it's gonna be the Friday after Christmas where we'll do part one of our year -end review, year -end review of all the biggest happenings that occurred in evangelicalism over the course of the year.

So those are the things we've got coming up for December. And we wanna thank our listeners for those donations very much.

Oh, yes, yes. Thank you so much. Had a couple of people drop us some donations and offer to buy us some pizza.

Yes, appreciate it. We appreciate that very much. And you can send us a donation if you would like, just going to wwutt .com

and click on the Give tab. Yeah. And we'd love to hear from you. I'm having to update the website just because it just doesn't look very good.

So I can't do the cheap blogger thing anymore. It's not going well. So I've got a website that I'm going to create and it's 10 bucks a month.

Okay. So that's gonna add to the expenses of when we understand the text. So somebody is gracious enough to donate.

The podcast costs, I think $100 a year for me to host it through Podbean. And then

I started Hear the Word of the Lord and that costs $100 a year. So there are some expenses to doing when we understand the text.

It's not totally free for us to do it, even though I try to be as cost -saving with it as I possibly can.

But anyway, those kinds of donations will help us with some of those kinds of expenses. Definitely.

Those are just a few. There's other things that we have to pay for. And by the way, there have been a few people that have asked me about Hear the

Word of the Lord. So my intention is to finish up Jeremiah here in the month of December and then

January 1 will be Lamentations and then try to finish out the rest of the Old Testament. But yeah, with the renovations we were doing at the church, there've been some other things, kind of life happenings that have taken place, just consumed a bunch of time.

Yes, it did. And it meant that there were some things that I couldn't keep doing. I couldn't maintain the time to keep it up.

And Hear the Word of the Lord was one of those things. And the sound quality too was a big issue. Well, that, yeah.

We wanting to keep, or you wanting to keep that. Keep it consistent. Consistent, thank you. That came with the renovations.

Yes. So I couldn't do both this podcast and Hear the Word of the Lord, which

I was recording. The only podcast episodes that I record here at home are the ones

I do with you. The rest of them I record at the office. So the consistency in the sound with Hear the

Word of the Lord means I can only do it from home. Right. And anyway, I'm not gonna bore you with all that, but that was the reason why that fell by the wayside.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that will resume, that will come up again soon. Lord willing. Lord willing, exactly.

So I think I said I was gonna resume that November 1st and then that didn't happen either, yeah. All right, well, let's finish here with prayer.

Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have together, discussing the things from your word and talking about how amazing you are and the wonderful gift of your son that you have given to us.

We think about the incarnation this time of the year as we get closer to Christmas day in the holiday season, as we refer to it.

There are people that may have their minds and hearts a little more open to hearing about things concerning Christ around the holiday season where they may not be as open to it the rest of the year.

So I pray that we would use this as a chance to be evangelical, to share the good news of the gospel of Christ with other people.

They would know as said in 1 Timothy 1 .15 that Christ came into the world to save sinners and those who believe in him will have everlasting life.

Our sins are forgiven. We are reconciled to God. We will not perish in judgment, but we'll live forever in your glorious kingdom.

Keep those things in our view, our focus be on Christ. May he guide our steps all the way through those heavenly gates when we dwell with you forever in glory.