What Makes Something Pornography?

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May 19, 2021

On today's episode, Pastor Keith welcomes back Matthew Hinson to discuss the very important subject of pornography. Most specifically, what makes something pornography? Does the Bible define this term? Warning, for anyone with younger listeners, today's episode may contain subject matter too mature for them. Parental discretion is advised.

00:01: Welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist.
00:04: This podcast is dedicated to helping believers better understand Scripture, defend truth, and engage culture.
00:12: Get your Bible ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
00:16: Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
00:20: Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
00:22: My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.
00:26: I am joined today by my good friend and repeated guest of the show, Matthew Henson.
00:31: Hello, Matthew.
00:32: How are you? Hey, Keith.
00:33: Good to be here again.
00:34: Glad to spend some time with you.
00:36: Yes, sir.
00:36: Looking forward to it.
00:38: Today we're going to be talking about a subject that is a little bit difficult in the sense that we're going to be using some words that are adult in nature.
00:48: We're going to be talking about the subject of pornography.
00:52: So if you're listening to this with your children, you may want to stop the recording.
00:58: You may want to listen to this without them because they may hear those words, words like pornography, and want to know what the definition is.
01:07: So my encouragement to you is to use some discretion on today's episode, and I'll also have that in the link, in the wording, so when people know, they pull the show up.
01:20: So the subject of today's program is what makes something pornography? What constitutes pornography? Because the world certainly has its definition, and what Matthew and I are going to discuss is what the Bible defines as pornographic, or just does—really the first question, I think, is does the Bible even reference anything that we would define as pornographic? And this started as part of an interaction that Matthew had online.
01:50: I actually witnessed this interaction.
01:52: It was an interaction on social media, and it got my attention, and so I said, hey, let's talk about this on the program.
01:59: So I want to reference that really quickly.
02:01: Matthew, can you kind of give me the background as to the conversation that you had online? We're not going to use any names of anybody you spoke to, but sort of how it started and what happened.
02:11: Sure thing.
02:12: So I was—I'm on Facebook a couple times a day, and there is a section, if you haven't seen it, if it hasn't bothered you with constant pop-ups, there's a watch section on Facebook, so shows videos and that kind of thing.
02:28: And it had constantly had a number three or a number four, some number of notifications, and I'm one of those people that drives absolutely insane, seeing that little red number at the top.
02:38: And so I said, maybe if I—maybe if I just tap on this, I can clear it or make it stop or turn off notifications or whatever.
02:46: So I did, and full screen on the phone was the album art for the song California Girls by Katy Perry, released in 2010.
02:57: And it shows—and again, that parental warning being very applicable, but at the start of this podcast, but it shows the artist laying, you know, kind of on her stomach, I suppose, with, as far as I could tell, no clothes on whatsoever.
03:15: Now the camera work is a little careful to make sure to not quite show the parts that would specifically get it tagged as pornography, but—and we'll get into what is and what isn't, but that's where this started.
03:28: And so I took a screenshot of it and censored it out with lots and lots of red, you know, using my amazing Microsoft Paint skills to actually censor that part.
03:38: Yeah, I saw it.
03:39: And I posted it.
03:39: Looks like a crayon.
03:41: Yeah, exactly.
03:42: It was done very quickly because I didn't want to see it any longer.
03:46: I had an instant aversion to it.
03:49: And so then I posted it to a Facebook group.
03:52: This was about a month ago.
03:54: It's sort of a Christian humor group, but there's also people post news articles and things like that.
03:59: And I said, you know, I just, I, the post that I finally decided to tap on the watch now thing and to get rid of that notification and look what shows up actual pornography on the front page of the watch section.
04:11: Good work, Facebook.
04:13: And the response I got— Wait, wait, wait.
04:16: You also said you, you degenerate God haters.
04:19: I did.
04:20: Yes.
04:20: Because I did call them degenerate God haters.
04:27: I just happened to be looking at the same thing as you.
04:29: And I was like, wait a minute, you left out a very, very important part.
04:33: Yes.
04:33: Well, they, they are, they are in my estimation, degenerate God haters in the, in the spirit of Romans one.
04:39: So there we go.
04:39: Amen.
04:40: I just, I couldn't, I couldn't, I could not mention that part.
04:44: Sorry.
04:44: Yeah.
04:45: No worries.
04:47: But what surprised me was this is a Christian humor group.
04:49: And very often there is widespread agreement when it's something to do with transgenderism, when it's something to do with abortion, it's usually a, there's usually a lot of people that offer their own commentary, but it's usually quite universal in condemning or supporting whatever it is that the article is about.
05:04: But in this case, it was universal disagreement.
05:07: There were a couple of people.
05:08: And again, like Keith said, we're not going to mention names cause that's not really fair to the people who aren't here.
05:15: And the first response was, that's not, or excuse me, that's a music video.
05:19: Yeah.
05:19: It's inappropriate, but it's not porn.
05:21: Hmm.
05:22: Yeah.
05:23: And the more I replayed that in my head, I thought, wait a minute, because I, I can't help but analyze people's arguments.
05:29: That's not porn.
05:30: It's a music video implying that those cannot be a Venn diagram that overlaps.
05:36: I mean, yeah.
05:37: Yeah.
05:38: But for instance, what's the, the one that there was the, the, the, the top song of the year last year, I can't even say the name of it because it's correct.
05:47: Uh, it's so vulgar, the vulgarness of it.
05:50: And, uh, it was the, you know, just a few screenshots that went out online proves that it was certainly pornographic, uh, by, by, by any natural stretch of, of how we would use that phrase.
06:03: So, so yes, just because something is a music video doesn't mean it can't be pornographic, but continue, continue.
06:09: So then the conversation went something like this, and I do have the screenshot of all the things going up here.
06:14: So again, and I'm, I'm paraphrasing, I'm deliberately not using direct quotes because I don't, I don't want this to be traced back because again, that's not fair to the person who was doing that.
06:24: Um, and I said, this person is naked in the screenshot because she is, and I censored it because I think it's sinful to even repost the screenshot.
06:32: And the response was yes, naked, but you cannot see any naughty bits.
06:36: I even looked it up to check.
06:43: Okay.
06:45: Oh, okay.
06:46: All right.
06:47: Um, and I said, so then a picture of a naked woman is cool because she's at an angle where her, um, parts are just out of view.
06:55: Is that, is that the standard? Like, and, uh, and then the person was a bit defensive and said, I didn't say it was cool.
07:03: I said, it's not porn.
07:04: It's inappropriate.
07:05: It's not good for Christians to watch, but it's not porn.
07:07: And this, this insistence on that difference between, well, it's inappropriate, it's sinful, but it's not porn.
07:15: And I'm thinking, why, why is this person fighting so hard to maintain that distinction, which is what led you and I to say, we need to dig into what this word means and how are Christians supposed to understand it? Yeah.
07:25: Yeah.
07:26: And that, and that's the, that's the, really the heart of today's episode is, um, we, we, we are dealing with what, you know, can only be described in one sense as really an epidemic of pornography in our world.
07:41: You know, we talk about the pandemic of COVID-19 pornography has touched many more lives than COVID-19 will ever touch and has destroyed marriages.
07:52: It has destroyed men's understanding of sexuality with women and women's understanding of sexuality with men and seeing each other as objects.
08:01: And certainly, uh, and this has really only been a, uh, I don't want to clarify what I'm about to say when I say it's only been in the last few generations.
08:10: What I mean is prior to, uh, photography, um, we, we could say pornography still existed.
08:18: You said you had a good story about that.
08:20: Uh, but, but, but when we, when we use the word, you know, porne, uh, the, the Greek word, you know, uh, pornea, which is, uh, uh, illicit sexual activity or, uh, you know, the, the, I don't have the definition pulled up, but we understand pornea and then graph is, is writing or, or in this, in this sense would be photographed.
08:39: So, so pornography is, is we would, we would normally relate to photography now prior to prior to the existence of photography, certainly lustful stories and images, drawings, and things existed, you know, the, I think of the, uh, what is it? And they have an envy of that book that the Kama Sutra.
08:59: Yeah.
08:59: Yeah.
09:00: Which is drawings.
09:00: Right.
09:01: But it's still, it's still illicit, you know, sexual images.
09:05: Um, but ultimately, you know, I know from my father's generation to my generation, the, the proliferation of photographic images, and now everyone's carrying around a device that can, um, can take high quality, the, the, the ability that your ability to make movies on your phone is far more, the quality of the image is far greater than anything that, you know, existed in the early years of filmmaking, even in the sixties and seventies, you know, the quality, the, the, the high definition and people can use their cell phones and make, and they do, right.
09:45: Uh, you know, what's, what's that thing called only fans.
09:50: Yes.
09:51: Uh, it is, it has made, it is for those who don't know, it is a subscription based pornography service that differs from the other major players.
10:00: And I've done quite a bit of research on this, um, because I've, I've wanted to understand how this frankly satanic industry works.
10:06: Um, but only fans is a subscription based model in which a person can pay anywhere from like $3 a month.
10:15: And then there are tiers.
10:16: If you've ever had a Kickstarter, that's a one-time thing.
10:20: But there are tiers in Kickstarter where the more you pay, the more of the doodad you'll get, or you get a commemorative t-shirt any with only fans, you start with $3, $5, whatever per month.
10:31: And then you get a certain subset of this person's pornographic images that they are producing.
10:35: And the more you make or more you pay rather the more and the more graphic usually, um, or that if you pay enough, you can request that they will do specific acts or things like that.
10:47: And, and you can, you can pay for that.
10:49: So it is taking the app economy and technology and instant online payments and using it for the direct marketing of sex.
10:57: Did you see the one where the guy spent $10,000 to meet his only hero? And it was 10 grand to meet some woman who has, you know, no interest in him at all.
11:11: None whatsoever.
11:12: Prostitution by any other name, but yeah.
11:14: Yeah, absolutely.
11:15: Absolutely.
11:16: And again, prostitution has been around forever, you know, it's called what the world's oldest profession.
11:21: So it's not new.
11:22: It's just technologically different.
11:24: Right.
11:25: And on that subject, um, the interesting story I had for you was I got the privilege of visiting, um, Italy and, and Greece over there, a couple of two different trips.
11:35: Um, but in Italy, we toured the ruins of Pompeii.
11:38: And, and if you remember, uh, Pompeii was the city destroyed by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius in AD 79.
11:46: Um, and in Pompeii, the thing that's so interesting about it is buried under all that volcanic ash, the city layout itself is far more preserved than many other, uh, Roman cities of the era.
11:59: And so they've excavated it and you fab like your bath house and you're this news to this.
12:03: One of the things that was a stop on our tour, because we had the guided tour with an actual tour guide saying this was this, and this was that was a brothel.
12:11: They actually have found a brothel in Pompeii.
12:14: And do you want to know what was up on the walls? Pornography drawings of people engaged in sex acts.
12:21: I mean, it was, it was, and they were still very vivid and it was still extremely clear what was going on there.
12:27: And they this was the waiting room.
12:29: You would sit there and you would look at the walls until it was your turn.
12:33: And then you would go to the back room and do what you do in a brothel.
12:36: Wow.
12:36: And, um, so this is AD 79 is right around when a lot of the new Testament is being written.
12:42: Sure.
12:42: And so when Paul uses a word like pornaya, um, it's not like the idea of written or visual depictions are, are alien to him, especially when he's writing this somewhere like Corinth, especially being a well connected Roman citizen.
12:59: He's got, he, he knows what this stuff is.
13:01: I don't know if he'd been to that specific place in Pompeii, but this was widespread throughout the empire.
13:06: Sure.
13:06: Sure.
13:07: Oh, that's an, and that's an interesting, like I said, so, so really pornographic images are nothing new.
13:13: It's just how, how much detail and how easy, you know, it's, it's a little, it's a little easier to snap a picture than it is to draw a picture, especially.
13:22: Right.
13:23: Yeah.
13:23: So, so they, they spent a lot of time then drawing and creating these images.
13:29: So, um, you know, working our way backward from what is, what we might say is obvious pornography, uh, you know, rated X films, uh, uh, only fans.
13:42: Um, uh, I know there's a place online called porn hub, which has recently come under, under a lot of legal scrutiny because they had actual videos, uh, of people being raped, uh, of children being molested and, and, and, you know, and the sad thing from what I read was that those, those videos get off and get the highest amount of traffic.
14:06: And so porn hub wasn't wanting to do anything from what I, and again, I'm, I'm speaking clearly off of a few articles that I looked at said that porn hub, uh, wasn't wanting to do anything.
14:16: Cause again, that's, that's generating traffic for their site, but now, but now it's creating a legal, a legal problem that they're having to deal with.
14:23: So, so we, we would, we would all agree, at least all believers should agree that those things are pornography, but what really started our conversation started your conversation.
14:35: And again, I watched it.
14:36: I didn't engage.
14:37: I like to sometimes watch my friends get into fights without getting into the fight myself.
14:43: I'm a guy going, get him Matt.
14:46: Yeah.
14:48: Yes.
14:48: Or, uh, just like, uh, it was, I think it was, uh, yesterday.
14:51: I just, I posted a little, right.
14:54: But you know, I just, I just added my name.
14:56: Oh, Hey, I agree.
14:58: And that was pretty much all I said.
15:00: Yeah.
15:00: Hey, I'm Keith.
15:01: Oh.
15:01: And by the way, this is the case.
15:04: Yeah.
15:04: Yeah.
15:05: Yeah.
15:05: That was, that was for Jake, our mutual friend.
15:08: Uh, that was for his, that was for his benefit.
15:10: I'm a yes.
15:10: And yeah, I'm on his team on that, on that particular same.
15:15: So, so yeah.
15:17: Um, so if we, if we said, um, you know, a film that was that depicted two people having intercourse, that was, you know, what we might say is the far, you know, it's certainly pornography.
15:30: Nobody would debate what, what we're debating is okay.
15:33: We see an image of a woman who is, who is, uh, naked like Katy Perry.
15:39: And, uh, is that, is that pornography? And they're saying it's not, they're saying it's a different, it's a different category of sin.
15:45: The thing that the thing though, you know, they didn't say it's not necessarily sinful.
15:49: They just said, it's a different category of sin.
15:52: And at this point it's almost like, you know, we're splitting hairs, but for what purpose why are we trying to say, well, it's not really porn.
16:01: It's just wrong.
16:03: Right.
16:03: Why is it wrong? My, my good friend, Mike has said this.
16:08: He is, uh, he takes a very strong position against alcohol, which he and I differ on that.
16:13: Um, but that's fine.
16:14: I think that's a place where brothers can disagree, but Mike, Mike walks a very similar thing as he said, the scripture is clear that the Lord despises drunkenness.
16:24: And that's often something that's used in, in Paul's vice lesson.
16:27: I completely agree.
16:28: And he said, so why would you try? He's like, why would you try and put a hard limit on that and get as close to that sin as you can without touching it? Wouldn't it be better to stay as far away as possible? And that's his, that's his argument, uh, against alcohol in any quantity.
16:43: I don't hold to that argument, but I, I, I understand where he's coming from on that.
16:47: And I do agree that if, uh, especially when you're dealing with middle school boys, as I do often, and they have girlfriends, they want to know, okay, how far is too far? Horrible question.
16:56: Horrible question.
16:57: The correct answer is why do you want to know? Yeah.
17:00: And, uh, and, uh, that tends to get them thinking a little bit more than, than just give me the line and I'll get right up to it and I won't touch it, but I'm going to want to, you know, so.
17:12: Yeah.
17:12: Years ago I preached a sermon and, and I, I hope I'm remembering this correctly, but I was, it was about, uh, it was in Exodus when Moses went up to receive the, the word from the Lord on Mount Sinai.
17:24: And, uh, there was a command from, uh, from God that no one was to come up the mountain with him, not, not even any animals or anything.
17:33: It was just supposed to be him and essentially putting, uh, as it were like a barrier around the mountain.
17:39: And I said, I said, I said, God puts up fences and we are constantly wanting to move those fences.
17:45: We constantly want to, we want to, or, or get as close as you just said, get as close as we can to say, you know, well, I didn't go over the line.
17:53: I didn't write.
17:54: And like I said, I do think alcohol is a little different.
17:56: I think we could, you know, I talked about this on the last program.
17:59: What's interesting is this is really a nice addition to the last program.
18:02: And listener, if you didn't hear last week, I had Richard Roden on and we talked about gray areas.
18:07: And one of the gray areas we talked about was alcohol, you know, is that a gray area? And, uh, you know, the one thing that, that, that, uh, that I, that, you know, the Bible does talk about some of the benefits of alcohol, but it never talks about the benefits of lust.
18:21: That is very correct.
18:23: Yeah.
18:24: So, so we could, uh, you know, and maybe somebody might argue, well, there's a benefit in a man and a woman having an attraction to one another, married man and woman, you know, song of Solomon is about the love between a man and a woman.
18:34: Uh, and so, you know, there's nothing wrong with a man finding a woman attractive, but here's where the difference is.
18:40: A lot of times somebody will say, well, it's nothing, there's nothing wrong with a man finding women attractive.
18:46: And I say, wait a minute, is it, is it women or a woman or a woman? Right.
18:50: Yeah.
18:50: Uh, you know, and one of my elders, uh, actually points this out a lot because you have people who will say, you know, well, you know, I find women attractive and he says, well, you know, we understand what you're saying, but really, is it not that we should be looking to our wives, you know, be intoxicated with her beauty to be satisfied in the wife of our youth and, and, and to find all of our pleasure and satisfaction in, in her, um, you know, not looking elsewhere.
19:20: And, um, and the world is constantly producing these images to get us to look elsewhere.
19:25: Yes.
19:26: And, um, go ahead.
19:29: The most successful attacks I think upon Christian.
19:32: Well, so, so this is something, it's just such a short statement that made me totally rethink the relationship between Christians and sin and all, and that is that Satan cannot create anything.
19:43: The only thing he can do is to twist that which God has made.
19:47: And the more you understand that, the more it starts to help you, uh, to, to regulate your emotions, to regulate your responses to things and to live a less sinful, not sin less, but a less sinful life.
20:01: Um, the attraction a man feels for a woman is beautiful and perfect and wonderful and holy within the confines of marriage.
20:08: And the writer of Hebrews makes that very clear.
20:11: It's to be held in high regard by all that, that relationship.
20:15: Um, but outside of that context, it's a horrible thing.
20:19: It leads to breakdown of trust, breakdown of relationship.
20:22: It leads to all sorts of other things.
20:25: Um, and so by looking at that is that, or by thinking that way that, that only that which God has created actually exists without him, nothing was made.
20:37: And so therefore the only way that a good thing can be a bad thing is when it is twisted.
20:42: And, and again, I know we're almost sounding like a broken record, but Romans one is just the keystone passage for how that which was made good has been twisted and worshiped by the creation.
20:51: And anyway.
20:53: No, that, that's, that's great.
20:54: That's the, and that's a good point.
20:56: What we've done is we've God's good gift, which is the love and physical intimacy between a man and a woman.
21:05: Yep.
21:05: And we have, we have turned it into, uh, you know, as it were, like we talked about earlier, a commodity it's right.
21:13: And it's a, and the reason why sex sells is because people want it and people want it in whatever way they can get it.
21:21: Um, you know, and, and my wife and I've had this conversation a lot talking about why, uh, pornography seems to be more, uh, more prevalent among men.
21:34: Yes.
21:35: And, uh, certainly it, it, it, it's any more, it seems to have a stronger, uh, relationship with women, uh, meaning there's more, it seems to be more porn for women.
21:47: But the other thing I said to her, I said, I said, there's, there's been porn for women.
21:51: It's just not the same women.
21:52: Women have books that they read that are, that are, you know, sexual in nature that don't necessarily have pictures.
22:01: Uh, you know, men have the visual images that are stimulating and women have these books that, that take them, take them into these fantasy world, uh, where they are, you know, where they're being, uh, sought after in a lustful way.
22:14: And, um, and so there is porn for women.
22:17: It's just, uh, you know, it's not always the same kind.
22:20: I have just two thoughts on that.
22:22: The first one is I worked, uh, as a, uh, network, uh, they call it, I was a college student working about 20, 25 hours a week in the it department of my college.
22:33: Um, my title was network operations engineer, but I think that does a lot of disservice to the word engineer.
22:37: But anyway, part of what I would do is analyze daily reports on our network usage.
22:42: And we weren't spying on students and that, that was not something that we were interested in doing.
22:47: Um, yeah, yeah.
22:49: But we would get statistics in aggregate, like this building use this much data and that building use that much data.
22:55: And here were your top 10 websites for the day and all.
22:58: And the college I went to had, um, gender segregated, uh, dorms in some cases.
23:05: So they were, uh, they were not co-ed.
23:08: They had the girls lived in these buildings and the guys lived in these buildings.
23:11: And then there were some that were mixed together, uh, separated by hallway.
23:15: Anyway, the data that I saw, and it's so interesting how it trended, cause I got there in 2012 and I left in 2016, I will tell you this by the time I left in 2016, the amount of traffic that the amount of hits to pornographic websites was regularly just as high in the girl dorms as it was in the boy dorms.
23:36: Um, and, and even in just, even from 2012 to 2016, that's the time period I have.
23:43: Um, that was a big shift.
23:46: It used to be that your top ones are Google, YouTube, Facebook, of course, but then like number seven or eight was a pornography website.
23:54: And, um, you know, that, and it did not discriminate, we'll say based upon, uh, based upon gender.
24:02: Um, the other thing that would be interesting to sort of suss out is one definition of pornography is some, something which generates, um, a, an unrealistic and unattainable expectation of romance in you towards another.
24:19: Um, I don't think that's a complete definition.
24:22: I think that's a little murky, but I will say if you are watching a movie and I'll pick on romantic comedies for just a minute in which, like you were saying, there's a man and a woman and the man is going to absolutely unrealistic, unbelievable levels of performance and, you know, uh, spending money and giving up everything and all of these things.
24:46: And then he's far out there on the bell curve, the most extreme examples of seeking after and trying to woo this woman.
24:54: Those are the ones that tend to sell.
24:57: And when women watch those, I'm not saying all women, but those who, uh, don't keep, don't set their minds on the correct thing, set their minds on the things of the spirit and let their thinking be transformed by Christ, see that and can't help but look across the couch and go, why didn't he do that? And see right there, what you've introduced is an unrealistic expectation.
25:20: It is not the same, but it is a transferable concept to the husband watching a hardcore pornography act where a woman does something that is possibly even unsafe and thinks to himself, why won't my wife do that with me? It's a parallel kind of construction, even though we tend to view one is more heinous than the other.
25:38: And maybe it is, um, but it just, it's something to watch out for.
25:42: Yeah.
25:42: But our, and our, our conversation isn't that there are different levels.
25:47: We're just asking, is it still pornography? Cause it's not, you know, we're not saying that all pornography is equal.
25:53: You know, we're not saying that everything that someone does is necessarily, you know, uh, you know, the K we're not saying the Katy Perry video is the same as a, you know, maybe a hardcore pornographic movie.
26:05: Uh, we're, we're just saying that there, it still would fall into the category of the, the, the, the purpose is producing this lustful thing.
26:13: And this, I want to, you mentioned your definition or not yours, but the definition you just mentioned of pornography.
26:17: I want to provide it maybe a slightly different nuance on that because years, years ago, I preached a sermon.
26:25: In fact, it was the, it is still the top sermon on our sermon audio, uh, of all time, other than the time James white visited and blew me out of the water because he's, you know, the one, but he does the one time.
26:38: Yeah.
26:38: The one time he came, his sermon, it wasn't even a sermon.
26:41: It was a Q and a, and it has over like 6,000 downloads.
26:44: And the next one is my sermons, which are much less, uh, but the top one, and it has, it has trended at the top ever since I preached it was the title of it was called mental pornography.
26:56: That was the title of it.
26:58: And what it was was it was my exposition of Matthew chapter six, where Jesus talks about, or chapter five, where Jesus talks about, um, he, who looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart.
27:12: And I said, how do we define lust? And I actually got this from Ray comfort.
27:17: So this wasn't, this wasn't to me, uh, anything original as I posted yesterday, very few people have ever had original thought, you know? Uh, so we're all plagiarizing someone.
27:28: Uh, so, um, but, but when Ray comfort said that, he said, you know, he said, lust is mental pornography.
27:35: And I said, wow, that's great.
27:37: So that became the title of my sermon.
27:39: And that became how I explained what Jesus said when he said, if you look at a woman to lust after her, because people say, well, if I think a woman is beautiful as that lust, I say, no, not necessarily, but when does it become lust when it's mental pornography, when you begin to imagine yourself, uh, with this person and doing things with this person that are ungodly, um, things that you could not do in, in, you know, in real life or whatever.
28:01: But if you engineer my definition and that's what it is.
28:06: So if lust is mental pornography, then pornography is lust in, in, uh, in the image it's it's intended to, it's an image that's intended to produce lust.
28:19: Correct.
28:20: And, and so I think that's, that's maybe a more biblical definition, not to, not to say that it's the perfect definition, but if I said, okay, this image was specifically produced to create lust in the minds of the people watching it.
28:35: But then I have just drastically, drastically, uh, expanded what would qualify.
28:41: Cause how many images are created to produce lust? Yes.
28:46: Even the billboards, you know, if you go down, if you go down, uh, 95 coming down and coming back from, uh, Mandarin, you know, your, your side of the world, you know, every once in a while we'll have to go over, we have to go to Jacksonville, which I don't want to do anymore, but if we have to go downtown or go to the avenues, when you're driving back, there's, there's billboards.
29:07: And I think if I remember correctly, it's, I don't know if it's still there, but it used to be one for a, uh, an adult novelty shop.
29:13: It was like a Adam and Eve store.
29:15: Yeah.
29:15: And the images of a woman and, you know, in an outfit that is, um, not necessarily.
29:21: Yeah.
29:21: It's not naked, but certainly is, uh, very revealing and, you know, come to the Adam and Eve, which is awful, by the way, the adult novelty store is Adam and Eve store.
29:32: And yeah, exactly.
29:35: It's just like using the rainbow for, for LG.
29:38: It's like, you're just, you're just kicking toward you're kicking dirt in the face of your creator, you know, when you, when you do these things.
29:46: And so, um, you know, uh, is that, is that image pornographic? Well, that image is certainly intended to get you thinking in a certain direction.
29:55: It is.
29:57: Yeah.
29:57: So I'm a bit of a Supreme court nerd myself.
30:00: And so it's been interesting about American jurisprudence on this, obviously scripture is our final authority, but it helps to like, when we're talking about post-modernism, um, a few weeks back, it helps to know what the culture is thinking on this so that we can appropriately respond.
30:14: So, um, it, it used to be the standard in the, in the 1800s that was set was that, uh, the Supreme court declared as obscene and obscene means that it is not entitled to first amendment protections that it can be regulated in any way that a government sees fit, uh, anything that would seek to deprave the mind of the viewer.
30:34: And so that is, you know, that was based on a common law tradition with Judeo-Christian roots.
30:39: That's the entire NBC lineup.
30:42: Yeah, basically.
30:43: Yeah, you're right.
30:44: You're right about that.
30:45: Yeah.
30:46: Um, so then that the Supreme court is, is, uh, has moved around on this over time.
30:54: So there was another court case in 1964, which was Jacob Ellis versus Ohio.
31:00: And, uh, basically the defense.
31:03: So this guy produced a pornographic film, Ohio tried to restrict the distribution of the film on the grounds that it was, you know, obscene.
31:12: And, um, the defensive strategy was to get the justices, basically the justices are these, you know, stuffy old men or whatever, basically to embarrass them to where they just didn't want to deal with it.
31:23: And to, and to keep submitting as exhibits pornographic images to just anyway.
31:29: So justice Potter Stewart said, I will not, here's a quote from him.
31:32: I will not today attempt to further define the time kinds of material that I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description known as hardcore pornography.
31:41: And I could probably never succeed in intelligibly doing so, but I know it when I see it.
31:46: And the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
31:49: And so the, I know it when I see it standard was Supreme court precedent for about 10 years.
31:54: Wow.
31:55: Uh, which is that, that really has a, has a judges, everyone do what's right in your own eyes kind of feel to it.
32:03: Uh, but then finally the current standard is Miller versus California.
32:07: That was 1973.
32:09: And in Miller, they said if a, if material fails the Miller test, that means that, uh, it can be regulated in any manner that a government sees fit.
32:18: It is not entitled to first amendment protections.
32:21: And that is that this is the Miller test, whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest, which is a wonderful word.
32:32: Just, yeah, go ahead.
32:34: I just want to say, cause you, we talked about this before the program, you sent me these guidelines.
32:40: Purient out is, is an awesome word.
32:42: We, we both agree, but the fact that it references contemporary community standards, which is an ever changing paradigm that is not a consistent paradigm, but, but, but continue.
32:56: I just, that, that, that just struck me as this is not something that you can, it's like trying to nail Jello to the wall.
33:01: It is.
33:02: Yeah.
33:03: Yeah.
33:04: But you know, cause today in every, in every modern television show that I have seen, uh, that's been made in the last decade, um, whether it's a superhero show or anything that I have just happened to pick up to watch, every one of them has a character in the show who is homosexual, who is set up to be at least the friend of the hero or a hero himself or herself for the purpose of mainstreaming and, uh, establishing homosexuality as the norm, or at least as part of the norm.
33:37: And, uh, and, and again, you go back to, I love Lucy.
33:41: I love Lucy.
33:42: Couldn't even be in the same bed with Ricky and they were married.
33:45: Yeah.
33:45: Yep.
33:46: And, and so contemporary norms talk about the change of contemporary norms.
33:51: Yeah.
33:51: So I didn't mean to interrupt you.
33:53: I just said, no, it's okay.
33:54: Yeah.
33:54: That's the heart of it really.
33:56: Yeah.
33:56: Um, part two of the Miller test is whether the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or other functions, uh, specifically defined by applicable state law.
34:07: And the third one is whether the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
34:13: So if a, if a, which again, subjective piled on subjective, um, if a work meets all three of those criteria, it is said to have failed the Miller test and to be, uh, to be obscenity.
34:29: And it can therefore be regulated in any manner that a government sees fit.
34:32: Yeah.
34:33: It doesn't mean that doesn't mean they can't do it.
34:35: Right.
34:36: It just means that it's no longer, they can no longer say, well, I have the first amendment, right.
34:40: Correct.
34:41: Yeah.
34:41: Right.
34:42: The first amendment does cover, uh, the, the creation distribution and all that the courts have found any, so, uh, child pornography is universally a non starter for the first amendment that is in no way covered.
34:57: Um, and there's one other category that doesn't, doesn't quite come to mind right now.
35:02: Um, so those are the, the test of contemporary culture.
35:04: Now there's an author that's one of my favorites named Andy Andrews, and he talked about the subject one time and he was, he said, his son asked him, how do you know the difference between something that is pornographic? And my school, uh, took a field trip to the art museum and there's a marble statue of a naked woman there.
35:24: And so he asked his dad, how, how do you, how do you know? And as Andy Andrews kind of mocked the Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it kind of test, but he said, well, there's a grain of truth in that.
35:34: He said, what do you think when you see it? What does it make you think of when you see the thing? And so his son said, it looked like a pretty, you know, just a, the human figure in a, in a beautiful fashion.
35:48: And he's like, great.
35:50: And he said, if the person next to you had begun having lustful thoughts, then it would be pornography for them, but not for you.
35:56: And I thought, okay, so this is an interesting test.
35:59: So now it can be for some people, but not for others.
36:02: And so then that got me digging a bit more and said, all right, well, how do different people respond to different images? And it turns out, and this is kind of the part I was trying to get to, the science is extremely clear on this, at this point, that the more pornography that you view, the more desensitized you become to it.
36:18: And to where something that in your eye would produce a lustful response to someone who has been watching pornography for 10 years that sees that it may induce no response.
36:28: And so that person may argue with us and say, no, the picture of that naked woman in a suggestive pose, that's not porn, that does nothing for me.
36:36: Whereas you or I would say, I don't even want that in my peripheral, that is not.
36:40: And so then it's like, we both have two different standards now of what is and what isn't, but that standard has been corrupted by a lifetime of sin.
36:49: And so these things get very complicated.
36:50: So I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.
36:54: Well, it's a lot to break down.
36:56: I had the same conversation with my wife.
36:59: We were talking about prior to the show, we were, cause I kind of wanted to get a female perspective.
37:04: And then we talked about porn for ladies and stuff.
37:08: And what you're talking about, the art gallery came up.
37:12: I actually use the example of art classes where they have not just a marble statue, but they have a man or a woman come in and a robe, disrobe and have the people draw them or sculpt them or do whatever.
37:28: And recently there was a video I saw, and this was overseas somewhere where they had children in a classroom and they had adults come in and disrobe for the purpose of demonstrating that there's nothing wrong with being naked.
37:46: That was what that was though.
37:47: That was, it was about, you shouldn't be ashamed of your body and look at all these old people and their bodies are wrinkly and whatever, but they didn't just take off their shirt or stripped down to their skivvies.
38:00: They were full-on frontal nudity in a room full of children.
38:04: And everybody was like, yes, this is not pornography.
38:08: This is teaching a lesson about self-acceptance and the different ways that the human body functions.
38:18: And so is porn in the eye of the beholder? I think that's really the heart of the question.
38:22: And I, you know, some people might run right to Romans 14 and say, well, you know, if it's porn for you, don't look at it, but it's not porn for me.
38:31: And, and, and is there some truth to that? I think, I think Romans 14 gets, I think Romans 14 gets a lot of, a lot of things get thrown into Romans 14 that shouldn't.
38:43: I don't know that this is or is not necessarily the case, but I do know this.
38:48: A lot of people use Romans 14 as a catch-all.
38:51: They do.
38:51: Anything I want to do isn't sin for me.
38:53: So I'm just going to do it.
38:54: That's right.
38:55: That's right.
38:55: I don't, I do not think that Paul was establishing a, I don't think Paul was establishing a relativistic view of truth, which is, I don't either, which is the way people try to do it.
39:07: I think, I think what Paul was saying is there are certain things that aren't sinful, but that people think are sinful.
39:13: I think that's the point of Romans 14 is there, there are certain things that aren't sinful, but yet people don't have, they have not matured enough to, to realize their freedom in Christ.
39:23: And therefore they should not, they should not violate their conscience because in doing so they are sinning because they're violating the conscience that, that is, that God gave them.
39:33: And so for them, it is sin in that regard.
39:37: So but that doesn't mean that things naturally or, or even you know, somehow are by God's design sinful for some and not sinful for others.
39:47: It's the conscience of the person.
39:49: So we're asking today, we're saying, is there an objective standard? And I think, like I said, going back to what I said before, if it's, if, if, if the image is intended to produce lust, but then you get back to who's, who's the intended person, right.
40:07: Did Katy Perry, and I, and I don't know her personally.
40:09: I, I know nothing about her other than what little bit I've seen.
40:14: I think she played the Superbowl a few years ago and I think her daddy's, her daddy's a preacher.
40:19: That's the only thing I think that I I've heard.
40:23: Always the pastor's kids, Keith.
40:25: Always the pastor's kids.
40:25: Let me tell you something.
40:27: But, but did you know this, and this is boy, this is way off the subject, but since you mentioned that, did you know that some of the most famous, especially female singers in the last 20 years, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, they all started in church.
40:44: Taylor Swift, if I'm not mistaken.
40:45: Yeah, yeah.
40:46: Because the church, they saw the church chancel as a stage, which I never allow our people to call it a stage.
40:51: It's a chancel.
40:53: It's a big deal for me.
40:55: Okay.
40:55: I understand.
40:56: Because I say as soon as we start calling it a stage, we'll treat it different.
41:01: As soon as we start calling it a stage, that's, that's, again, that's a personal conviction of mine.
41:05: We, we, you know, they say, well, what's a chancel? It's, it's, it's, it's a platform that you preach from that you think in the word of God, it has a historic meaning.
41:13: But the point is, is because people begin to see the church as an, as a stepping stone to, to that kind of success.
41:20: You know, if I can sing in church, that means I'm a good singer.
41:23: Now I can go sing in the world.
41:26: And the church is a lot less, you know, a lot less difficult to break into as far as musically.
41:32: And I know I just took us on a hard right turn, but getting back, getting back to Katy Perry and her, and her image, you know, is her, is the image intended to produce lust? You know, well, if not, what, what else? That is the good question is that in this image and I would say, look it up, but please don't.
41:51: So I have conflicting feelings on that.
41:54: She is laying sort of at a 45 degree away from the camera, looking back over her shoulder, and she is very clearly wearing nothing.
42:02: And they've done some very careful camera work to ensure that there are curves visible, but not specific spots, if you take my meaning, listener.
42:14: Now, first off in my, just in my opinion, there's no way that image could have been produced in a manner that wasn't sinful.
42:21: I mean, you have onlookers and things like that, that are, that are, while this is being constructed.
42:28: And then the question has to be asked, why, why is the nakedness necessary? Why are we pushing the very, and Facebook being an utterly secular and worldly organization, this is pushing the very limits, in my opinion, of what even Facebook would allow, just based upon what I've seen from their editorial standards, which ebb and flow constantly.
42:53: And so then the, the better question I think is, does this, not is this porn or is this not, does this contribute or detract from my personal holiness before God is the better question.
43:07: Is it, so for the married person out there, is it wrong for me to go hang out with my friends, my old dude friends once a week? Not objectively, no.
43:18: But if my wife says something bad happened today, my heart is hurting, I need you here, and I go and do it anyway.
43:25: Now I've forsaken my wife when she needs me, and this is a real problem.
43:31: In the case of this kind of image, you have to ask yourself, is, is gazing upon this contributing to my holiness? Is it contributing to my being a true image bearer of God, or is it taking away from it? And to the person who, to the person who in all cases says, no, it's not, it's fine.
43:51: Watch out.
43:52: Just, just be careful with that.
43:55: Absolutely.
43:56: The, the line is, the, the, the line has to be marked somewhere, and it can't just be at the, the most grotesque forms of what everybody would affirm as, yes, that is pornography.
44:10: I'll give you a thought that came to my mind while you were talking, you know, when, when I was, I was a young man that a few movies came out.
44:28: One but it was pretty much universally, you know, people would say, oh, that's, that's sort of like it's soft pornography, you know, that, that, that film.
44:37: But then a few years later, a movie came out called magic Mike, and it was about male dancers, and it was about the sexualization of, of male dancers.
44:49: Now, I don't know what the movie was about.
44:50: I didn't see it, but I'm just saying it's obviously has, has that.
44:55: But because it was aimed at women, it was not universally seen as pornographic.
44:59: Right.
45:00: And so the, the, you know, this one here is, but this one isn't.
45:04: And again, it comes back to the question of you know, the, the, the whole subjectivity of it all is it, you know, well, well, it's not pornographic because it's aimed at women and women don't, women don't look at porn, but we just, we've already proved that that's not the case, but, but, but the, the, the, the, the difficulty is especially within the church because, you know, what if a group of ladies got together and said, Hey, we're going to go see this film.
45:30: How, how, you know, how should the, the elders of the church, or should there be any investment in that, you know, in, in, in saying this may not be a good thing, or this is a bad thing.
45:44: You know, I think, I think so.
45:46: I think elders have to be willing to say this.
45:49: So that is, I'm not saying that every time culture does something depraved, there needs to be a sermon on it because you'd never stop preaching.
45:55: But, but if there's a specific church event, and we're saying that this is endorsed and sanctioned by our church, then there's a higher standard for that.
46:03: When we have a fall festival, we're very selective about what songs are played over the loudspeakers, just as the background music.
46:12: We will play all kinds of music because ultimately, all music is, is God's anyway, but not if it has specific words, and it's specific themes, we read through that.
46:24: And I've actually had because I run sound and tech sometimes I'll be in sort of an after the middle school youth time, they're all just kind of hanging out, we play songs over the loudspeakers.
46:36: I'll have a student come up and say, Hey, can you play this song? I said, Sure, read me the lyrics.
46:41: And they slink back out of the sound booth and hope that I don't ever remember who they are.
46:45: And I'm like, I didn't even, we didn't even look at it.
46:47: I just said, what are the lyrics? And it was just that little lever through and like, Oh, maybe not, you know, and they just knew.
46:55: So I find that, I find that interesting and a bit sad too.
47:01: Yeah, absolutely.
47:02: Absolutely.
47:03: Well, a subject like this, as we said, is, is, is wide and varied and we can go down different rabbit holes.
47:08: But really our goal today has been to really define, you know, from a biblical perspective, pornography.
47:14: And I, and I love that you shared that even in the time of Paul, there was visual images, which are intended to create lustful thoughts.
47:22: And as I said, that's my personal definition of somebody says, what, how do you define pornography? I say something that's intended to produce lustful thoughts.
47:31: And therefore, you know, if we discuss the conversation about art, I don't know that that's necessarily intended to produce lustful thoughts, but it still comes back to the question of why are we so fascinated with this, this image of the person, uh, uh, being naked.
47:47: And, and, and I certainly, if my son came to me and said, dad, I want to take an art class and we're going to spend the vast majority of our time, uh, looking at naked women and drawing them.
47:58: I would probably say that's not a good idea for him.
48:01: I would agree with that.
48:02: Yeah.
48:03: I would say, you know, the, the, the potential here of this becoming lust of this becoming, uh, you know, and, and, and somebody might say, well, that's just wrong.
48:13: You don't understand art.
48:15: Maybe I don't, but I do understand the heart of man.
48:18: And Jeremiah 17, nine tells me that the heart is desperately wicked and it is, it is beyond our ability to understand it, how wicked it can be.
48:28: And so, uh, God in his, in his, uh, grace has given us so many wonderful ways to express artistically, uh, that do not involve having to look upon someone who is naked.
48:45: And, and, and I go back and, you know, just a few weeks ago, I preached a sermon and it was, uh, on Noah, Noah's, uh, transgression after, after the flood, you know, many of you are familiar with this after the flood, Noah produced the vineyard, he made wine and he got drunk and he laid naked in his tent and his son ham came in.
49:10: And the text is a little obscure.
49:13: We know that he saw his father naked and he went out and told his brothers, there seems to be an indication, at least this is how I understand it, that there was some form of jesting going on or some form of, there was some form of dishonor that went along with, with Ham's interaction with Noah, that he dishonored his father by looking upon him, but also telling his brothers, rather than covering his father's nakedness, he went out and, and made light of it.
49:38: And the way I like said, I understand this sort of spread it abroad, spread his father's shame.
49:43: So the other brothers, they cover themselves and walk backwards to cover their father's nakedness.
49:49: They didn't even want to look at their father.
49:52: Now, given the biblical timeline, let's say that was 7,000 years ago, somewhere around there, say six, 7,000 years ago.
50:02: How far have we come where they didn't want to look at their naked father.
50:08: They did not want to see his form.
50:11: And yet today we, every night of the week, you can turn on television and there are commercials.
50:20: There are TV shows, you know, you go to YouTube, you know, my kids love to watch funny things on YouTube, but it's so dangerous.
50:30: You can't just hand somebody a computer and say, go nuts, you know, because yeah, for sure.
50:34: Very quickly, just, you know, get, you know, you don't know what they're going to be looking at.
50:38: And, and so, so what constitutes pornography? I would say the first thing, from my perspective, I'll give you a chance to maybe give a few final thoughts, but from my perspective, first and foremost, something that's intended to produce lust.
50:51: And, and even that, think about this.
50:53: And I'd say men and women, both, you know, what we choose to wear.
50:56: And that's another conversation, but the conversation of Christians who are called by scripture to modesty, called not to flaunt ourselves sexually.
51:08: So does it have to be an image? That's a picture, you know, is what someone chooses to wear.
51:15: Could that be maybe not a pornography, but certainly an, an attempt to create lust in the heart of someone else.
51:22: And somebody says, well, it's not my problem.
51:23: If he lusts, that's his problem.
51:25: Okay.
51:26: Well, and again, that's another program.
51:28: We're almost at an, we're almost at our hour mark and I know we got to cut off, but, but, but that, that leads to the conversation.
51:35: That's a longer conversation about, okay, what is the intention of, of this, of this outfit? What is the intention of this photograph? What's the intention of this film? What's the intention of this commercial? What's the intention of this billboard? And, um, as, as has been said by so many people, sex sells.
51:55: So they know what they're doing, know what they're doing.
51:58: And, and we'll be judged by God for it.
52:01: Um, and one thing that, uh, I've often heard about substantive clothing is if someone is dressing immodestly, the first look is her sin.
52:11: The second look is yours.
52:13: So the first moment you look at it and you go, Whoa, I do not need to be seeing that some lady in an extremely revealing outfit.
52:20: And that's all there is.
52:22: Then you have guarded your heart and you have, you know, walked away.
52:26: But then if your eyes roll back over, now it's yours.
52:29: Um, now it's a, you problem.
52:31: And to the, to the listener specifically, what I would say in closing is this, um, a couple of warning signs for you.
52:39: First off, any regular consumption of pornography is doing severe damage to your brain.
52:44: Um, it's doing severe damage to your ability to interact with your spouse.
52:48: If you have one or your future spouse, if you will have one, um, but, and there's plenty of data about that.
52:55: We didn't have time to get into, but more than your soul.
52:59: And Keith and I are first and foremost concern is that people would turn to and glorify God.
53:09: And, um, so if you find yourself in that, in that position, um, I would say go to those you trust in your church and just lay it out and confess that sin and work through it because it is worth beating.
53:22: The second thing I would warn you of is that, um, and again, this gets a little specific, so I'm sorry if it's, um, if it in some way offends, but if you find yourself in a habitual pattern of pornography usage, um, and you find yourself searching for longer than you are watching, you must find that specific video to do it for you as it were.
53:50: That is an indication that you have a fairly advanced level of, of depth into the sin.
53:56: I hesitate to use the word addiction.
53:59: Um, we as Christians believe first and foremost, this is a heart problem.
54:02: We believe that this has to be solved at, and can only be truly solved at the cross.
54:07: Um, but at the same time, there are some medical things that do come into play a little bit with that.
54:13: And you need first a good church, but second off, you, you may need someone who specializes in this type of sin, a counselor who understands the biblical concepts as well as some of the other concepts that go into this and getting out of this is a liberating experience.
54:30: Um, there is freedom in Christ.
54:32: Uh, the Bible says he set us free from, from all sins.
54:35: There aren't any that are too strong for the cross.
54:37: And I would just, I would pray for you and encourage you that you do that and that you seek that out in your local church and that you, um, do whatever it takes to get out of, out of that bondage.
54:48: Amen.
54:48: Amen.
54:49: And, and it truly is, uh, it is, uh, it is such a, a dangerous thing that, that people, you know, we talk about playing with fire and people say, well, it's not that big a deal.
55:00: You know, um, I was recently in a conversation with, um, uh, a relative and this is not a saved individual.
55:09: And, uh, the joke was, uh, you know, my son is five years old and we put up Superman pictures, you know, we have, we have Superman, uh, uh, sort of my thing, you know, superhero stuff.
55:21: Yeah.
55:21: And we have, uh, my old Superman stuff is going to go up on his wall.
55:25: He got a new bedroom.
55:26: And so he's going to have some posters and he has some of my old comic books and stuff.
55:31: And this relative sort of made the joke.
55:34: Well, one day, those will come down and playboys will go up.
55:38: That was the statement was, well, you know, one day those, those will come down and playboy pictures will be on his wall.
55:44: And I said, not, I said, not my wall.
55:47: I still own the house.
55:49: Uh, that's right.
55:50: It's his bedroom, but it's, it, he dwells within the sanctuary of Casa Fosky.
55:56: That's my drywall.
55:57: That's right.
55:58: Uh, but, but it was such a flippant statement.
56:02: Yeah.
56:03: Well, you know, he's going to go from Superman to playboy and it's going to happen and it's just natural.
56:09: And that's just the way it is.
56:10: And even though that may be the way it is in so many families, that may be the way it is in so many, you know, the vast majority of situations, it certainly is not right.
56:21: And believer, as Matthew has said, um, you know, I will tell you this and I'll just add one thing to his thought and then we're going to draw to a close.
56:29: You know, he talked about going to people in your church and he mentioned going to people that you trust.
56:33: May I encourage you, um, to, to be sure and, and look for people that you can trust people that are not going to spread your shame abroad.
56:43: People that are not going to treat you like Ham treated Noah and spread his shame abroad.
56:47: Um, and, and you, that may just be your elders or that may be a deacon, someone who has been, uh, placed in a position of trust, uh, in your life, maybe the person that you need to go to rather than sharing it in a, you know, in a open Bible study or something where you may feel comfortable, but then there, you know, just, just, um, you know, guard your heart, guard your, uh, you know, your family in that regard.
57:12: Um, and know that, uh, know that your pastor, your, your elders love you.
57:18: And, uh, if you're in a good church, a biblical church, they, they want to come alongside you and minister to you.
57:24: And, and, and, uh, so be encouraged that there are men, there are men that want to do that for you.
57:30: Yes.
57:30: And if you don't have a biblical, biblical church, Keith knows where you can find one.
57:34: And yes, absolutely.
57:36: And so does Matthew.
57:38: And, and, and I want to tell you this, I, as we draw to a close, Matthew, thank you for your contribution today.
57:44: I think it was very, very thoughtful and very thought out.
57:46: And I love our conversations and I look forward to having you on again.
57:51: Absolutely.
57:52: And, uh, for the listener, you know, I know many of you probably have questions.
57:56: Maybe you even have questions about our subject today that you'd like for us to dive deeper into in a future episode.
58:01: We do this.
58:01: I do this once a week and I've had Matthew on twice now on this new format, and I'm sure he'd be interested in coming back.
58:08: So if you have a question, please feel free to send it calvinistpodcastatgmail.com.
58:14: And, uh, like I said, if it's a private question, I can answer it privately, but if you'd like me to answer it on the program, just put in there, you know, when you get time answered in the podcast, and I'd be happy to do that.
58:25: Well, again, thank you, Matthew.
58:26: Thank you listeners.
58:27: Absolutely.
58:28: And, uh, thanks to everyone for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.
58:32: My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.
58:36: May God bless you.
58:38: Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.
58:42: If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe.
58:46: And if you have a question you would like us to discuss on a future program, please email us at calvinistpodcastatgmail.com.
58:54: As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
59:00: All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect savior.
59:06: He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.
59:12: May God be with you.