December 21, 2022 with Keith Foskey on “A Christian Approach to Comedy & Humor”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 21st day of December 2022.

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I'm thrilled to have back on the program an old friend and a returning guest, Keith Foskey, one of three pastors of Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville, Florida, and the host of the podcast,

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Conversations with a Calvinist. Today, we're going to be approaching a Christian approach to comedy and humor in search of the very rare and nearly extinct smiling

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Calvinist, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program,

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Keith Foskey. Yes, sir, Chris. I'm glad to be here as always, and thank you for having me on the show.

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I always enjoy it. Always enjoy having you on, brother. And for the sake of our listeners who have not yet heard you on this program or are unfamiliar with you from any other media, tell us about Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.

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Sovereign Grace Family Church is a Reformed Baptist church on the north side of Jacksonville.

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We're about five minutes from the Jacksonville International Airport, so if you are anywhere in Jacksonville, you probably know where the airport is.

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We are only a couple of miles away from the airport, and just a quick run from there.

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We are committed to expository preaching. We hold to the 1646

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London Baptist Confession. That's the first London Baptist Confession. It predates the Westminster Confession.

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It predates the Westminster Confession. Yes, and we're an elder -led church.

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We have three ordained ministers. Myself, Mike, and Andy serve as our elders, and you are good friends with one of those, a former pastor of yours,

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I believe. Not a former pastor of mine. Andy Montoro was a former pastor of my late wife,

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Julie. Andy Montoro and Dawn Blend were her pastors at First Baptist Church of Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, and had many great memories of fellowship with Andy, and both laughter -filled and tear -filled, and a great brother in Christ.

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I believe, I like to take credit for things whenever I can. I believe it was me that actually led him to your church, and which eventually led to him becoming one of the pastors there.

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Yeah, he had retired from being a pastor of a different church, and had come here as a member, and after some time, became one of our elders, yeah, as one of our pastors.

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So yes, absolutely. You were instrumental in that, so thank you. If I'm not mistaken, the first time

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I met you was when you had invited Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries to preach at Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville, and I happened to be in Florida on,

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I think it was a speaking tour that Dr. White was involved in, in different churches down in Florida, and I believe that's the first time

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I met you, isn't it? Yeah, we may have shook hands before that at a conference or two, but that was the time we spent some time together.

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That was the time I got to hear you do your party -hardy Marty Martin Luther, which

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I'll never forget that, and for those who don't know, we're going to be talking about Christian humor today.

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People need to know Chris is a funny dude. Chris is a funny brother, and party -hardy

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Marty needs to be resurrected every October 31st. It needs to be something that we do on the annual basis.

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Well, you know, I don't know if he still does it, but Bill Shishko, who was the pastor of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square in New York, he is now pastoring an

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OPC church plant called The Haven in Comack, Long Island, New York. But when he was pastoring at the

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OPC, for years they would have a Reformation Day celebration, and they would always play the

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CD of that song. So I was very honored by that.

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Well, now tell us about your podcast, Conversations with a Calvinist, which obviously reveals that you are a theological bigot because you're only having conversations with Calvinists.

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Well, see, that's the confusion, is I'm the Calvinist. See, I'm Keith Foskey, and I'm your

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Calvinist is my sign -off. That's every show. That's how I sign off. So you have conversations that you sometimes have non -Calvinists on.

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Oh, absolutely. In fact, one of my—I have a small group of guys who are regulars on the program, and one of them is named

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Matthew Henson, and we all refer to him as our not -yet -Calvinist friend because he's not a

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Calvinist, but we just say that's just not yet. It's coming. It's coming. Well, this is a controversial issue that we are addressing because this issue, which should just be a time of reflecting on a merry heart maketh like a good medicine and should bring smiles to our faces, but there is a division in the body of Christ on humor.

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We all should agree that filthy, coarse, vulgar jesting is always wrong.

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There are things that are unanimously held as being improper, if not even seriously dangerous in the spiritual realm when it comes to humor that is offensive to God and Christ.

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But there are different views of humor, things that you and I think are completely fine to laugh at, and cause others to laugh with.

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Some people raise their eyebrows and think that we are being improper, and I think that more than the other theological camps,

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I think that Calvinists may be the most guilty of that kind of sour reaction, although I do see a healthy rise of funny

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Calvinists around the United States and perhaps other parts of the world, so perhaps things are turning around.

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But tell us why humor is important to you and why you even wanted to discuss it today.

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Well, what brought up this topic is in the last couple of, well, it really has only been in the last couple of months,

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I have begun to produce and distribute humorous videos, which are intended to address truthful things within the body of Christ, but to do so in a somewhat satirical manner.

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And that's one of the things I did want to address today is the different types of humor. There's satire, there is things that are intended to be exaggerated and hyperbolic, and all of those have use as tools.

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And I do believe that truth that is conveyed through humor is often some of the most memorable truth, and this is something my wife and I were talking about last night as I was preparing what

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I wanted to say today. If we think about the things that have been said by some of our most famous Reformed preachers, the things that we tend to remember are the things that tend to make us, maybe not laugh, but at least kind of strike us, like how many people repeat

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Vodie Bauckham saying, if you can't say amen, say ouch. Well, that's not a joke, but that's a humorous line.

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How many times have people repeated it because they remember him saying it?

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And I have a line that I say in my church all the time. I say, and it was something I heard from a professor,

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I say, there's a Greek word for that, and it's baloney. Anytime I hear somebody say something untrue,

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I'll say, well, the Greek word for that is baloney. And now everybody in my church will make that joke, like we'll be out to dinner, and we'll be talking about something that's false or untrue, and they'll say, well, you know what

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Pastor Keith says, there's a Greek word for that, and it's baloney. Well, I got that from Professor Jerry Powers, who was one of my school, one of my teachers in seminary.

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And it's just those types of witty statements tend to stick with us. We tend to remember things that cause, that strike our funny bone.

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And even R .C. Sproul, when he said, what's wrong with you people?

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I mean, he was serious when he said that. But if you listen to that recording, people laughed because that was a funny thing.

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When he said, what is wrong with you people? And so I started creating videos that were intended to be truth expressed in humor.

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And it all started with me recording in my office. I recorded a conversation with myself talking about Calvinism.

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And at the end of the conversation, the other guy who was the Armenian, he said, well, you know,

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Calvin killed Cervetus. That was how he tried to win the argument was like just yelling that out of nowhere.

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And because it shows the humor of when somebody doesn't have anything to say, they'll just throw out anything.

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And so that one little video got quite a lot of attention.

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And so I made another one, and I made another one. And now we have an entire series that's been viewed, you know, over a million and a half times on TikTok.

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It's been viewed thousands of hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter. And YouTube hasn't been as as much viewed, but there are you know, it's got thousands of views on YouTube.

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So that that's my wife and I write these scripts. We write the we write the the skits, if you want to call them that.

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And and then we film them. She helps me. She's my co -producer. And unfortunately, since Iron Sharpens Iron is solely audio, we can't even play what you do as far as those skits are concerned, because most of the humor is in the fact that you are every person.

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And that's showing you as four or five, maybe six different denominational ministers that you are cutting from one to another to another, reminiscent of Eddie Murphy's version of the

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Nutty Professor when he when he, of course, he had multimillion dollar prosthetics and everything on his face and body.

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But he was at a classic scene at a dinner table where he was every single person eating and he was just made up different news, different voices and so on.

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But they are hilarious. And by the way, how do we get a hold of our listeners?

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Because I failed to mention this conversations with the Calvinist. How can they watch slash listen to that?

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OK, well, conversations with the Calvinist. The easiest way to find is just to go to Calvinist podcast dot com.

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It's just that simple. Calvinist podcast dot com will take you directly to our YouTube page, which has all of our short videos and our long form podcast.

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And our podcasts are very serious. People people wonder sometimes is the humor from the short videos.

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Does that mean our podcasts are comedic? Well, our podcasts are funny, but they're not comedic. They're there.

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We address serious topics on the podcast. And sometimes it's sometimes we do deep dives into Greek studies and things like that.

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So the podcast is there. The short videos are there. And it just Calvinist podcast dot com.

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Great. And you were just mentioning in one of your skits how a non

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Calvinist just blurts out. Well, Calvin killed for service. That was basically all that an opponent of Dr.

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James R. White had to say years ago. This was this would have been in the early 2000s.

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He debated a Unitarian Pentecostal, a oneness Pentecostal.

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Robert Sabin, who is one of the most well -known defenders of the anti Trinitarian position, the oneness

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Pentecostal position. And we were all waiting with bated breath to hear

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Mr. Sabin's articulate biblical defense that there is no

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Trinity. And basically he for the vast majority of the debate eulogized

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Michael Cerritos. That's all he really did to try to pull at the heartstrings of those in the audience.

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So it was a big letdown because we actually didn't want to see a challenging debate. But so when you do these humorous skits and other things, when you use humor as a

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Christian pastor, what goes into your mind before you do them? As far as now, am

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I going to offend this person? Am I going to offend that person? To give you an example, I had a very long opening routine recently.

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I was the master of ceremonies at a fundraising banquet for a classical

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Christian school. Pete Hegseth of Fox News was the keynote speaker. And when

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I was sitting there waiting to be introduced and I had all these jokes written out and I'm looking around the audience and I'm like, whoops, well, there are people wearing masks.

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Got to take that out of the routine. Whoops, there's that person that I didn't know would be here, you know, that kind of thing because I knew they'd be offended by what

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I was going to say. So I probably cut my whole routine in half. But what goes through your head, if at all, in concerns over who you may offend?

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Because you are poking fun at other denominations, but I think in a lighthearted way.

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I can't even imagine that somebody would actually be offended by what you do. And I think you also use, you know, you're making fun of Calvinists, too, on occasion.

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So tell us. Yeah, I think that where the fair game lies is as long as you're willing to poke fun at yourself, then you can say things that other people might not get away with because people understand you're doing it in a sense of lightheartedness.

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You know, I'm not coming in and smacking people around. There are times when I say things that are pretty rough, but at the same time, you know,

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I would like to say equal opportunity offense. You know, everybody gets it.

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The one character that seems to be the most popular is the Presbyterian.

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And I'm not Presbyterian, but I wear a big bow tie, and I wear a sweater vest, and some people have even accused me of being

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Doug Wilson, that I'm trying to be Doug Wilson. Well, you do call yourself a deep water

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Presbyterian. I love that line. Yeah, I got that. I don't remember what pastor said that years ago, but that stuck with me.

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Again, that's a funny thing that stuck with me. And being a deep water Presbyterian, meaning I'm a Reformed Baptist, I feel like I can poke fun at Presbyterians in a way that's not mean.

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Because the whole idea of the Presbyterian character is that he thinks that his theology is the best.

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Well, I've never met a Presbyterian who didn't think his theology was the best. You know, they're very confident in the

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Westminster Standards. And so none of them seem to take issue with it because I'm exaggerating it, but it sort of does hold.

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Now, the one I have gotten some grief over is I've been told

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I'm unfair to Methodists because I tend to make Methodists very liberal. And the argument is, well, not all

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Methodists are liberal. I say, yeah, I know, but they're all Arminian. And so that's my thing.

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I say, I'm a Calvinist. I'm going to give the Arminian a hard time. And so that's, again, just being fair.

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And I did one video one time very early on where I did a video where there were some ladies who were singing about being pastors, like how

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God had ordained them as pastors. And I cut into the video some words. Well, I thought they were

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Roman Catholics. They weren't. They were Anglicans. And that's the only video

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I felt bad about because I said something about Roman Catholicism that was incorrect. So if I say something wrong,

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I'll own it. But otherwise, it's just humor. And so, like I said, truth or humor, as long as what

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I'm saying is correct, I don't feel bad about it. So go a little bit further into this whole concept of why it is completely appropriate, acceptable, and even healthy and beneficial for Christians to be involved in comedy and humor.

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Well, I think in a lot of ways that when we hear the term sober -minded,

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I think that we think that that automatically means that we have to be always super serious.

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But at the same time, I don't think that that's what that means. I think sober -minded means that we have to be mature.

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I think we have to be respectful. I think we have to be godly. And yet at the same time,

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I see a place for, again, even in Scripture, a place for satire, a place for,

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I think Jesus used sarcasm. I hope people don't get offended when I say sarcasm, but I think there were times where he was sarcastic in the sense of where he would say things to people that were intentionally to drive a point home.

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I mean, when you say to Nicodemus, you know, you're the teacher of Israel and you don't know this, right?

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I mean, like there's a little bit of, you know, sanctified sarcasm. Or how about the account of Mount Carmel in the

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Old Testament where God is saying, where is your God? Is he going to the bathroom somewhere?

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Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that one, you know, I've heard that used to defend crass joking, you know, people who use foul language and things like that.

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I think we have to be careful. I know that's not what you're saying, but I do think we have to be careful that we don't oversell, you know, like say, well, he said your

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God's on the toilet, so that means I can use whatever word I want to use. I can say a curse word or something, and I'm very careful.

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I don't use any curse language, obviously. I don't as a pastor, I wouldn't want to do that anyway. And I try to always, you know,

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I just present things in a way that I think are truthful and yet at the same time, funny, you know, a pastor who the thing about the firetruck baptism,

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I did my very first denominations video. I talked to one of the guys was

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Big Eva. Big Eva is the guy who is, you know, the multi -site campus church guy. And I said, you know,

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Big Eva was talking about their 60 foot water slide baptism and their firetruck baptistry for little kids.

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And what's funny is both of those things, maybe not the 60 foot slide, but I have seen in churches where they have created these six flags over Jesus atmospheres where everything is meant to be playful.

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And that was what the joke was about is churches have become six flags over Jesus. So I think,

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I think there's a place for truth or humor. And again, it seems to resonate with people and it seems to cause people to remember it.

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And that's, you know, part of what teaching does teaching, teaching that sticks, you know, Who are some of your favorite comedians that you promote and share their humor with your congregants and friends and so on?

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I mean, immediately the person who comes to mind when it comes to specifically

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Christian humor is Hans Feeney and I am or Feeney.

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Please forgive me, Hans, if you're listening because I can't remember how to pronounce his name, even though I interviewed him once, but he is the genius behind Lutheran satire.

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And some of the, some of those videos are the funniest things I've ever seen in my life inside or outside secular comedy.

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So who are you, who's some of your favorites? Well, let me say this about that. I'm glad you brought that up because Hans, if you're listening to things, one,

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I would love to do a collaboration with you, a Calvinist and Lutheran do something funny together.

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I think that would be awesome. So Hans, if you're listening, if you're listening,

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I want to do something. I don't do, I don't do the cartoons like you do. So I do all my own very cheesy videos, but, but I'm putting it out there because yes, you're right.

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Hans is brilliant. So that's the first thing. Second thing, he's got a video on how, how

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Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, they do this little reference.

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Luther's like, I'm starting my reformation. And then, and then Zwingli comes up and he goes, it is my reformation.

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And then Calvin comes in. No, no, it is my reformation. So they, and that video is my favorite, even though I think his

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Horace Ruins Christmas is probably the one I've shown people the most. The video,

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I just want to say those two things. So Hans, if you'd ever see this brother, I love you. I think you're great. So yeah, he's, he's definitely a number one for sure.

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Anybody else? Yeah, go ahead. I've got a, I got a list. I don't know how, how, how long before our first break, but I could, but I know about three minutes.

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Okay. All right. Well, the first one on my mind is someone that maybe people have never heard of, but isn't, but he's, he's an older Christian comedian and his name is

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Dennis Swanberg. He was a, he was, he was known as the minister of encouragement.

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That was what his title was. And you can find his videos online, Dennis Swanberg that called him the

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Swan. And he was a Christian impressionist and he did impressions of Don Knotts.

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And, um, oh, the guy from, it's a wonderful life. Uh, Jimmy Stewart, he did all these great old actors and he was such a fine impressionist.

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And I used to watch his stuff for hours. I could watch him do his Don Knotts impression just forever.

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uh, so Dennis Swanberg was a tremendous Christian comedian and he would go to churches and he would put on Christian comedy shows similar to Tim Hawkins today.

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Tim Hawkins would be another Christian comic today, but Dennis Swanberg was the last generation of that from like the seventies who did that.

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And so I would say those two guys, um, another one would be Ray Stevens.

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Ray Stevens was one of my favorite, uh, musical comedians.

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Uh, you know, the squirrel went berserk and the first self -righteous church must be one of the greatest of, of all times as far as, um, poking fun at Christianity.

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I mean, if you listen to the squirrel went berserk, you know, that song pokes so much fun at, at the, at the church, he's got the sister

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Bertha better than you is a great line, you know? Um, and so those would be that.

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And there's also a few secular comedians that I think are really funny. Um, probably the guy who

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I like the most right now, who's very clean. His name, his name is Nate Bargatze.

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He's a clean secular comedian. Um, he has a podcast that he does with some other guys who are, who are clean comedians and they are all known for that.

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And I love clean standup. Um, guys that I can watch dry bar comedy, which

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I think is actually put out by Mormon. So I have to be careful to promote that. But dry bar comedy is a, is a group of, um, uh, clean.

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It's, it's a clean comedy. I've seen that. I had no idea there was a Mormon connection. I believe it's in,

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I actually think it's in Utah. I think it's actually, uh, at Salt Lake. Um, but it's, uh, it's, it's those typically everybody on there is clean, but Nate Bargatze had a, had a, is, is a guy that I, I would say is, you know, for the most part,

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I mean, he's, he is secular. I don't, I, he might be a Christian. I think he's talked about that some, but he's, he's not a

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Christian comic guys. Like I said, Christian comics would be Tim, Tim Hawkins, um,

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Dennis Swanberg. And then of course, Ray Stevens, who is, I know these are generationally modern. People don't know who they are.

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Um, now I have one for you that you might remember, Chris, because, because you, you're, you, you, you go back a little ways like I do.

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Do you remember Mike Warnke? Oh, yeah. And he turned out to be a fraud.

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He was, uh, yes, he, he was, he was telling people that he was in a satanic cult and witnessed a human sacrifice and all kinds of things like that.

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Yeah. Well, Mike Warnke, uh, you know, for, for all that he was, as far as his falsehoods,

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I've never heard a better storyteller. Mike Warren. And again, he was, you know, it comes with the territory if you're telling falsehoods, but, but, but, um,

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Mike Warnke, I used to have all of his tapes and I listened to them growing up.

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And so that was the type of thing that somebody who could tell a good story was what really got my attention.

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So that, that, that was influences. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the, the

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Jim Gaffigan, uh, had for years made me split my gut and he never cursed or anything like that.

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Then he started to let them fly once in a while, uh, during his routine unexpectedly more recently.

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And then he became overly critical against conservatives. And uh, it started to get a little bit annoying to me and I don't,

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I don't enjoy him as much as I used to, but uh, I think that he made a fatal error in becoming overly political, unnecessarily offending a huge portion of his audience, no doubt since he was clean.

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But uh, we have to go to our first break right now. And if anybody has a question for Keith Foskey on comedy and humor in the

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Christian faith, send it to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N -G -M -A -I -L dot com.

30:29

Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence. If you live outside the

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USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Keith Foskey right after these messages. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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We are now back with Keith Foskey, who is pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

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He is also the host of the podcast known as Conversations with a Calvinist. And if you have a question for Pastor Keith, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

41:21

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. We are discussing a Christian approach to comedy and humor.

41:33

And we already do have a question for you from all the way over in Metro Manila in the

41:40

Philippines, Keith. We have Ramon, who says, can you ask

41:45

Keith what his favorite Bible verse on humor is? I don't know if I've ever been asked that question, so I don't know that I can give a great answer.

42:02

Let's see. We mentioned it earlier. Proverbs 17 .22 says, a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

42:11

And I'll tell you how that works out in real life for me. I know that some of the most difficult ministry times that I have had to be a part of were times where people were going through a tremendous amount of grief.

42:30

And certainly you don't want to be a clown or a fool when people are grieving. But sometimes a word that is rightly spoken in a way that can bring a smile to someone's face in a moment of difficulty can be like a medicine.

42:51

And I do think that when it says, a merry heart doeth good like a medicine, I think that is something for us to consider.

42:59

Again, not being a fool or being a jester, but our words can be soothing, our words can be comforting, our words can be funny.

43:08

So I would say that. I would say, you know, Proverbs 17 .22, probably the one that I would point to the most, most quickly.

43:17

And, you know, there is a, there is a verse that I'm probably the only one on the planet who thinks it's funny.

43:27

I remember the first time I heard it as a new Christian. I kind of chuckled, and I still chuckle when

43:36

I hear it, because it is, to me, I don't know if Jesus was using a sense of humor here, but in Matthew 21, it says when they approached

43:51

Jerusalem and had come to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with it.

44:06

Untie them and bring them to me. And if anybody asks, if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the

44:14

Lord needs them and he will send them on immediately. Now, that just seems like, you know, if anybody is asking you while you're doing something and you just say, oh, the

44:23

Lord needs them, and they're going to be satisfied with that. That just always has struck me funny, but it might be because I'm a bit mentally ill.

44:30

I don't know why. And by the way, thanks,

44:35

Ramon, for sending in the question and keep listening to Iron Sharp Design Radio and spreading the word about the show in the

44:43

Philippines and beyond. And there is a point where if we are consumed with never offending anyone with humor, we may never use humor at all or never enjoy it.

45:01

Aren't certain things worthy of mockery even from a

45:06

Christian? Things that are so heretical, so beyond what a

45:15

Christian should be teaching and participating in. You know,

45:21

Martin Luther was a champion at this with, you know, we've seen some of the famous woodcuts of Luther that have sometimes include earthy humor, to put it lightly, but, you know, his mockery of the papacy and so on.

45:37

Now, I'm not saying that that gives a green light to be openly offensive to our

45:43

Catholic friends, and there's a time and a place for certain things like that. You don't want to be unnecessarily harsh at your

45:53

Christmas dinner table with people who hold the different faiths. But, you know, there are certain things, like in the

45:59

Word of Faith movement and some of their heroes, like Kenneth Copeland, that they're just begging for mockery.

46:06

What do you think about that? Because there are Christians who have chastised me very sternly for using humor about any of those things.

46:19

Well, again, going back to what we talked about in the first segment, and that is there do seem to be those who think that all humor is bad or that it's somehow being less than sober -minded.

46:35

You know, if you use humor, then you're not fulfilling the command to be sober -minded. But I will tell you this, it takes a pretty sober -thinking mind to be able to come up with stuff that's truly funny and truly mocking and that actually nails it.

46:54

And that's probably the most, probably the most, probably the best compliment

47:00

I have received, whether it be on Twitter or other places where people have seen my material, is they'll say, this guy nails it.

47:08

This guy is nailing this. It's not, you know, this is true. This is, you know, it's exaggerated, it's hyperbolic, but it's still, it's nailing it.

47:19

And that, you know, and there are a few things that I miss, like I mentioned the Lutherans and a Jesse tree. I had a few

47:25

Lutherans come after me because they'd never heard of a Jesse tree. And I said, well, that's a whole long story.

47:30

But the point is, if we want, you know, if we want to address something, we have to address what's really there.

47:39

And you just mentioned mockery. Yeah, if there's anybody in the world that needs to be mocked, it's the false teachers.

47:45

It's the people who, you know, that are injuring the flock.

47:52

And we are pointing to them and we're saying, look at the foolishness that these people are doing and doing it in a way that shows how absolutely and utterly ridiculous that it is.

48:06

So, no, I, again, I understand. And I don't want to just simply say, well, some people don't have a sense of humor.

48:12

That is true. I've met people that don't have a sense of humor. But I also think there are some people who, for some reason, think that humor is somehow bad and therefore it shouldn't be used.

48:21

Now, I do want to add a caveat, and I don't want to go too long before you get to speak again,

48:28

Chris, but I do have a thought that I want to clarify. I do think that when we deal with the preaching of the word, that that is not a place for a man to be trying to be a comedian.

48:45

I don't think that that's a place for a man to be trying to be, to just get people to laugh.

48:52

And I have seen that. I've seen pastors who seem like they would be more comfortable at the chuckle palace than they are in the pulpit.

49:02

And that's inappropriate. So I think also knowing the time and place and the avenue for humor is,

49:12

I mean, again, I have shown Hans's Lutheran satire video so many times on the subject of Christmas because he nails this whole

49:24

Horace and Mithras and all this and how Christmas is just pagan and he nails it in a two minute video.

49:32

He says more than I could say in a 20 minute conversation. And so I think humor has a place, again, it sticks with us.

49:41

It's truth through humor. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's a helpful thing.

49:47

Yes, and I'm assuming that also having said what you said, you don't think it's always wrong for a preacher during a sermon to use appropriately humor.

50:00

And as long as it does not dominate the message, I know that one of my own pastors, actually both of them, from time to time they're teaching something as serious as a heart attack.

50:13

But then they'll say something that's usually something that is unplanned because just something pops in their head or, you know, it could be involving a child crying in the congregation in one of the pews.

50:28

It could be anything like that that just sparks a joke in their mind and they tell it and it's funny.

50:34

Somebody who does this every time I see him preach or hear him preach is Steve Lawson. He's a very serious preacher but then he has said some things in the midst of serious sermons that made me explode with laughter.

50:50

So I'm assuming that it's okay, it's completely acceptable as long as it doesn't dominate a message.

50:57

Yeah, and that's what I meant. I guess what I'm saying is when it comes to—I don't want somebody to see me doing these videos and think, well, this guy just is a comedian and therefore when he preaches, he preaches like Jerry Seinfeld or, you know, with that attitude.

51:16

There's a sober -mindedness in the pulpit that's different. But yeah, no, there are things that I say in the pulpit.

51:22

The things that people tend to remember, again, are the things that cause them to have a sense of pause or, you know, sometimes humor.

51:31

As I said earlier, Bodhi Bacchum, you know, if you can't say amen, say ouch. Steve Lawson has said, like you just said, several things that were just pointed and funny.

51:41

So no, I'm not saying that humor is wrong in the pulpit. I'm saying we shouldn't be trying to be stand -up comics in the pulpit.

51:51

And that was my only point, is that I think there's a line where if a man is just pushing for laughter rather than pushing for the truth of the text, that's where the issue would lie.

52:09

Well, we've got to go to our midway break. Please be patient with us. It's always a bit longer than the other breaks in the show.

52:18

And please send in your questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

52:24

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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01:10:57

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01:11:04

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, like Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, no matter where you live on the planet

01:11:17

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01:11:31

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01:11:38

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Keith Foskey, pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, on a

01:11:48

Christian use of humor. That's chrisarensironradio .com Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

01:11:59

And we do have another question for you, Pastor Keith. We have an anonymous listener, and the anonymous listener says,

01:12:12

Please believe me, when it comes to blaspheming God, I am the first one to recoil in horror when

01:12:20

I hear it. But sometimes I have heard people say things that make them overly strict when it comes to the use of humor, and I think they are improperly attaching blasphemy to the charge against me or someone else when they make a certain kind of joke.

01:12:42

What do you think constitutes blasphemy when it comes to humor? That is not necessarily an easy question.

01:12:53

I mean, wow. I want to make sure that I'm clear.

01:13:00

Let me give you an example of something that just came up that kind of puts it into this realm,

01:13:07

I think. Something that just came up a couple of days ago. A friend of mine sent me a video of a woman holding a dog in her arms, and she started singing

01:13:22

Silent Night. And she or whoever created the video dubbed the dog singing

01:13:33

Silent Night along with her, but horribly. And it was hilarious. I didn't find it blasphemous at all.

01:13:40

This friend was concerned after sending it to me. Oh, do you think that was blasphemous?

01:13:46

I said no, because it wasn't mocking the name of Christ. It wasn't mocking Christ at all. It wasn't using the name of the

01:13:52

Lord in vain. So I don't know. Maybe you would think that video is blasphemous if you saw it.

01:13:58

I don't know. But I think that's in the orbit of what the listener was just asking. Sure, and that makes sense.

01:14:07

I'll tell you one. I recently did an episode of my show on Second Commandment violations, and that is those who would see any image of Jesus as being a violation of the

01:14:22

Second Commandment. I had a friend who's a Presbyterian who came on the show with me, and I took one position.

01:14:29

He took the other, and we had a friendly conversation about what constitutes a violation of the

01:14:35

Second Commandment. So one of the things that I would say is off and off limits for me is

01:14:44

I won't post anything that has a picture of Jesus on it just for that reason, not because I necessarily think it's a violation of the

01:14:53

Second Commandment, but because I know there are people who do. And so there's a very famous meme that goes around frequently that has a picture of Obi -Wan

01:15:04

Kenobi on it, and it's got people saying, you know, this man died for your sins. It's not

01:15:09

Jesus. It's Obi -Wan Kenobi and the Ewan McGregor who played the part.

01:15:17

And so I don't share that. I think it's one of those things where it's like somebody may see that, think that I'm promoting an image of Jesus, so I'm careful about that because I don't want to violate someone else's conscience on that issue.

01:15:32

I'm very careful about that kind of stuff because even though I may not hold the same position in regard to images,

01:15:39

I'm more along the lines of where R .C. Sproul was. I do think there can be artistic expressions of the image of Christ that are not violations of the

01:15:47

Second Commandment. But in general, that's an area that I'm careful with.

01:15:55

And as far as what you said about the dog singing Silent Night, I can see where that might offend someone. It wouldn't offend me.

01:16:02

I think that I don't necessarily, I wouldn't count that as blasphemy. I do know, again, ugly language.

01:16:10

And when I say ugly language, words that are curse words that invoke the name of God, that's obviously something that would be wrong.

01:16:18

So that would be my simple answer to a complex question because I would have to see something.

01:16:26

It's almost like they say when you're discerning something that's beautiful, it's like I don't know how to define it, but I know it when

01:16:34

I see it. And that same thing can be said of blasphemy. It's like I don't always know exactly how to define it, but I know it when

01:16:41

I see it. And so it's a little hard to put into words. I just know that I try to be very careful with that kind of thing.

01:16:51

One last thought on that. One of my videos, or on several of my videos, my denominational videos,

01:16:58

I have included Roman Catholics. And I had somebody ask me, well, do you believe that Roman Catholics are a legitimate denomination?

01:17:07

And I said, no. I said, I think the Roman Catholics have abandoned the gospel, and I think that as far as a legitimate denomination, that's why

01:17:19

I'm Reformed, is I think that Roman Catholics have a misunderstanding of the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

01:17:29

But that's very offensive, but I do believe that. But I include them in the video for the purpose of pointing that out.

01:17:37

Every time there's a Roman Catholic in the video, it's pointed out that there's something like a misunderstanding of the sacrament or something like that.

01:17:44

So I know that may have went off of what the person was talking about, but the point is there are things that somebody might say, well, including a

01:17:55

Roman Catholic is blasphemous. Well, no, it's not, because I'm doing it to make a point. And so, yeah, that would be a simple or difficult answer to a complex question.

01:18:07

And of course, if there's even a doubt in your head in regard to you either making a statement or telling a joke or sharing a video that you think might be blasphemous, the better thing is to just don't show it.

01:18:24

Don't say it. You know, don't share it, because if you're not certain, just like with anything in life, if you think you may be offending

01:18:33

God and you do something, that you actually are offending God, because things that are not sin that we do while thinking they are sin become sin.

01:18:47

Am I right? I mean, if we violate our conscience and do something that, even though God is not innately offended by it, if we do it thinking

01:19:00

He is, then we are sinning. Yeah, Romans 14, I think, can be invoked in that regard.

01:19:08

And to simply say this, you know, that which is not of faith is sin, and if you can't do it in good faith, if you can't do it with a good conscience, don't do it.

01:19:16

Don't say it. I think what you just said is very true. Absolutely.

01:19:22

And of course, we have to always be mindful about not offending brethren. I mean, that is always a tricky issue, because if we are constantly consumed by offending our brethren over everything, we just keep ourselves locked in our houses.

01:19:45

But at the same time, especially when we are in the presence of people, we have to be very careful about not offending them.

01:19:57

This is a little word of loving chastisement to my brethren, especially

01:20:03

Reformed brethren, who are too free, in my opinion, with their liberty to drink alcohol.

01:20:10

I am completely abstaining from alcohol in my life, because I used to abuse it very badly, very horribly, very wickedly.

01:20:20

But I can't impose that on other people, because I don't think there is a biblical prohibition from all consumption of alcohol.

01:20:29

But at the same time, some of our Reformed brethren can be too flippant about it, and not even be concerned in the least bit about those who are hearing them push alcohol consumption and watching them drink it and so on.

01:20:48

I think that could be considered in the same realm of even humor. I mean, what's your take on that?

01:20:55

Yeah, it's interesting. I have a personal anecdote that goes with that same thing you just said.

01:21:03

Back earlier in December, I posted on Twitter, I said it was the anniversary of the lifting of prohibition.

01:21:14

And I just posted a post that said, today is the anniversary of the lifting of prohibition.

01:21:22

And I said, and all Reformed people said amen. It was just a joke, right? It was just to say, because of what you just said.

01:21:29

Well, I got lit up on Twitter. A lot of people were coming and saying, alcohol is terrible, alcohol destroys families.

01:21:38

Well, just what you just said. There are people that alcohol has destroyed their lives.

01:21:44

And my point was to simply say, kind of what you just said. Within the Reformed community, there's this sort of humorous head nod towards alcohol and the freedom to imbibe alcohol.

01:21:58

And so I was just saying, look, it's the day prohibition was lifted and all Reformed people said amen.

01:22:05

I was just trying to be funny. Some people did not think that was very funny. And I get it. That was maybe for some people a bridge too far.

01:22:14

And so I wasn't intending to be offensive. I was just making light of something that is the case within the

01:22:22

Reformed community. The picture of a pastor with a cigar and a beer, it's always going to be the

01:22:28

Reformed guy. That's why in my videos, the Presbyterian always is chewing on a cigar because that's the stereotype is that he's got great theology and is always chewing on a cigar.

01:22:48

And so it's just a stereotype. Yes, and the mafia definitely was not laughing at the end of prohibition because that's when they made their fortunes during prohibition because they were the only place people could get their alcohol.

01:23:05

But tell us about some reasons why you think humor and comedy are valuable in the lives of Christians.

01:23:19

Well, I don't want to be overly repetitive, but I will say that comedy has a tendency to stick with us in a way that is different.

01:23:32

We talk about catechism and catechizing our children, and we do.

01:23:40

And some of the ways that we catechize are through just the straight memorization of catechistic material, which is the questions and answers.

01:23:50

But the other ways that we catechize people is we catechize people through music.

01:23:56

Music has a catechistic quality because we sing it, we repeat it, we remember it, and people will remember something in a song that they won't necessarily remember in a sermon.

01:24:06

Well, I think humor has that same effect. Humor is something that sticks with us, and it's something that we will remember.

01:24:14

And again, I can almost quote verbatim the Lutheran satire

01:24:20

Horace Ruins Christmas interaction between the false god Horace and the

01:24:25

Lutheran pastor from that cartoon because it was so funny and it was so true and it was so absolutely nail -on -the -head accurate.

01:24:36

And I said – in fact, he talks about Gerald Massey, who was a failed Egyptologist, which is something – that's gold, and that's a piece of good information that's couched in a comedic sense.

01:24:55

And like I said, I still remember it because it was that way. So I think that there's value there.

01:25:01

I also think that there's value in simply giving folks clean content.

01:25:11

This is something else I wanted to point out, and maybe this might drive a longer conversation. When we go to YouTube and we go to Facebook or even

01:25:21

TikTok – and I know some people question being on TikTok because there's a lot of bad on TikTok. I try to be a light in a dark place when we talk about TikTok because there is a lot of bad out there.

01:25:31

But I am producing content that's intended for Christians to enjoy so that they have positive things to look at rather than all of the negative that's out there, the bad language comedy, the terrible comedy, all of those things.

01:25:48

I'm producing something that is a positive version of something they're already doing.

01:25:57

Christians are watching YouTube. They're watching Twitter. They're watching – or looking at Twitter.

01:26:02

They're watching Facebook. They're seeing these things. I'm just producing stuff that is positive and encouraging and funny, and it's a better alternative to a lot of what's out there.

01:26:15

So that's a different way – I guess another way of looking at it. Yeah, and let's face it.

01:26:20

It can be mentally, emotionally, and physically such a blessing to someone.

01:26:30

No matter what they may be going through, whether they are depressed or whether they are physically ill, when they start laughing, there is something very cathartic about that.

01:26:42

There is something about bringing joy to someone to the extent that they begin laughing.

01:26:50

When you're laughing, you're not thinking about those things that are dragging you down into depression.

01:26:58

I think it can be a blessing as long as the nature of what is making you or someone else laugh is not offensive to God or is not vulgar or blasphemous or heretical.

01:27:12

I think that it can be a very helpful thing. Any comments on that?

01:27:20

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was going to say, you mentioned depression. You and I have done a previous episode where we both talked about our own battles with darkness.

01:27:32

And I know that in my own life, I have suffered at times in the past with anxiety and depression.

01:27:39

And I've overcome those things through Scripture and God's Word and been very thankful for God saving me through those things and not allowing me to fall into the deep pit of despair that those things can often lead to.

01:27:55

And I will say this, sometimes the best humor comes out of those dark places where you're down and then something brings a smile or a laughter.

01:28:09

And you just said it, a good belly laugh is one of the best feelings that you can have. If someone gets you to laugh in your stomach, where you really are doing the whole

01:28:19

Santa Claus, ho, ho, ho, you know, just really letting it out. That can be one of the most cathartic feelings in the world.

01:28:28

Oh, by the way, I have to say something. My wife texted me, she's listening to the program, and she said, because we talked about funny verses of Scripture, and she said, don't forget to mention when

01:28:41

John wrote that he outran Peter to the tomb. She said that's what she thinks is the funniest, that he included the fact that he outran him and that always makes her happy.

01:28:54

Yeah, and isn't it interesting that Spurgeon, whose sermons are filled with very serious content, life and death content, heaven and hell content, very stern rebukes at times to, well, he was preaching them to the listener, but today we have his sermons in writing.

01:29:19

And yet he was a very humorous man. And if you research

01:29:25

Spurgeon enough, you will find yourself laughing a lot. One of the favorite things that I have heard that Spurgeon has said,

01:29:36

Spurgeon, I don't know if you knew this, but he did not believe in musical instruments and worship. Yes, interesting fact, yeah, absolutely.

01:29:46

And someone apparently approached Spurgeon and says, Pastor Spurgeon, is it appropriate for a church to have an organ?

01:29:56

And Spurgeon said, it is completely acceptable for a church to have an organ, as long as its pipes are filled with cement.

01:30:04

And if you, as I said, if you research Spurgeon, if you go to Spurgeon .org or anywhere else where there is filled with Spurgeon's writings, you will definitely find a lot of humor in him.

01:30:19

Yeah, there's a great story where he was visited by an evangelist, and I don't remember who it was.

01:30:26

It may have been D .L. Moody, but I could be wrong on that. But he was visited, and when he knocked on the door,

01:30:31

Spurgeon opened the door, and he was smoking a cigar. And the guy said, oh, Pastor Spurgeon, I can't believe that a holy man like you would be smoking a cigar.

01:30:40

And Spurgeon took his fingers and he poked him in the guy's belly. And he said, I can't believe a holy man like you would have a belly that big.

01:30:51

So, yeah, that's pretty witty. Yeah, when Moody visited

01:30:58

Metropolitan Tabernacle with Ira Sankey, who used to accompany him and he had some kind of an accordion or something that he used to play,

01:31:11

Spurgeon said that Pastor Moody is more than welcome into the pulpit of Metropolitan Tabernacle, but Mr.

01:31:21

Sankey must leave his music box in the basement. Yeah, that's great.

01:31:30

That's fun. But we have to go to our final break. It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.

01:31:36

So if anybody has a question, there are a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, and we'll get to you as soon as possible.

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Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com. Welcome back, Pastor Keith. We have

01:40:59

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, Isn't it always wrong to use humor when it is solely used to hurt the feelings of another person?

01:41:14

Are you there, Keith? For some reason, I don't have Keith here.

01:41:21

Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I had accidentally muted myself. I'm sorry, brother.

01:41:26

Okay. Yeah. I would say that if the only intention is to hurt someone's feelings, then that would be a form of bullying, and I don't think that we are to do that.

01:41:45

I think a simple answer is if the only intention that I'm being humorous is to hurt someone, then that's bullying that person, and I don't think that that's appropriate.

01:41:58

I don't think that's what we're called to do. Now, that is not to say that someone might not be offended by what

01:42:05

I say, and I shouldn't say it because somebody might get offended. I can't live my life always being so concerned that I'm going to accidentally step on someone's toes that I'm going to be afraid to say the truth.

01:42:19

But, again, if I'm just poking specifically to hurt somebody,

01:42:25

I think that that's a form of bullying, and so, yeah, I would agree with that in that sense.

01:42:31

And one thing that I believe would reveal that someone is using humor improperly is if it's making light of making something frivolous that is intensely, deadly serious.

01:42:52

If you are making a joke over something that is just too serious a command of God to disobey, or whatever the case may be.

01:43:07

Do you see where I'm going there? Do you have any comments on that? Yeah, no, I think that there are some, you know, it's often said, you know, that you can't go too far.

01:43:22

Yes, you can go too far. There are jokes that go too far. There are lines that need not be crossed.

01:43:28

And as I said earlier, just even like the image of Christ, things like that, there's lines that we should not be crossing.

01:43:36

And so, yeah, when somebody says, oh, there's nothing off limits for comedy.

01:43:42

Well, there's nothing off limits for worldly comedy. Worldly comedy makes fun of everything from abortion to rape, but those subjects aren't funny.

01:43:55

And so, I would say, you know, yeah, do worldly comics get a laugh when they make fun of babies being aborted?

01:44:04

They do from the world, but that's not the kind of comedy I think we should promote that makes light of the murder of children.

01:44:12

So, yeah, I think that there are lines we don't cross. We have an anonymous listener who says, a friend of mine says that humor is inappropriate for Christians because we have no evidence in the scripture that Jesus ever laughed.

01:44:28

How do you respond to that? I want to respond in a way that's funny, but might be offensive.

01:44:43

Because there's a lot of things that we don't have evidence that Jesus ever did.

01:44:48

That doesn't mean that he never did them. We don't we don't have any evidence that Jesus ever went to the restroom.

01:44:58

I mean, there's no, there's no, no mention of that. And again, I hope nobody finds that terribly offensive.

01:45:04

But that's the point I'm making is there's a lot of things that we don't know. And to say

01:45:10

Jesus never laughed, I don't believe that's true. But, you know,

01:45:16

I hope I didn't just I hope I didn't just turn off all of your listeners by referencing that. What I know is

01:45:24

I'm never having you back on the show. I did it. I drew my line.

01:45:32

You can email me at Calvinistpodcast at gmail .com. Don't send it to Chris.

01:45:39

You know, I'm just saying there's, you know, such the same argument is made.

01:45:45

People say, well, Jesus never said anything about, you know, directly regarding certain sins.

01:45:53

OK, yeah, but he but he did address sin in general. And it's very.

01:45:58

So anyway, I just don't I just I just don't find that argument very. The Bible says

01:46:05

God sits in the heavens and he laughs. So, you know, now that's a laugh of derision.

01:46:10

But again, what is it saying? It's God looks at the at the at the works of men who are trying to over, you know, who are trying to make a name for themselves.

01:46:20

And he looks at us and he laughs. And so, yeah, so God laughs. Well, before I go to any more listener questions,

01:46:28

I want to make sure before we run out of time that you have several minutes uninterrupted where you can summarize what you're what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding this topic before they leave.

01:46:42

OK, well, I do want to say this. Thank you, Chris, for having me on, as always.

01:46:49

I appreciate it. I want to also offer a word of thanks to some of the men that helped me in my ministry.

01:46:55

Those who are part of my crew that help the CWAC crew, the conversation with the Calvinists and the network that I'm a part of, which is the

01:47:02

Truth and Love Network. We were talking about Claude Ramsey earlier. Claude is a dear friend of mine. He's part of the network.

01:47:08

And it's truthandlove .com if anybody's interested in seeing some other men who are doing some of the same things that I'm doing.

01:47:14

So thank you for that. And as far as the main takeaway from today,

01:47:21

I would hope would be that there are things that humor can do for us.

01:47:28

Humor can expose truth in a way that is unique and is memorable and will stay with us.

01:47:34

And so that's what I want what I'm doing to do. I want it to be truth, which is expressed in a humorous way so that people will maybe get a laugh out of it, but at the same time, maybe have something pointed out that they hadn't thought about.

01:47:48

I've had people see my Calvinist arguments because I do a skit called Arguing with a

01:47:54

Calvinist. And I've had people say, OK, that's an argument I hadn't thought about.

01:48:00

And so it provides a different way of looking at truth. And so I would hope that people would understand there is value in this.

01:48:09

And if people keep enjoying the content, I'm going to keep creating it. So thank you.

01:48:14

One of the things or one of the realms where humor has proven,

01:48:24

I think, to be beneficial to me in things that I have been regularly involved in over the years is when

01:48:34

I have orchestrated debates, especially between Dr.

01:48:39

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who is a Reformed Baptist. And he has debated Roman Catholics.

01:48:45

And he has debated people who are representatives of cults.

01:48:51

And he has debated liberals. And he's also done in -house debates with friends and brethren.

01:48:59

One in particular is Bill Shishko, a dear friend of both of ours, who is a

01:49:04

Presbyterian. And they had a debate on infant baptism. But before these debates that I've orchestrated, going all the way back to 1996, is

01:49:15

I knew that there was going to be, especially when my very first debate was a debate between James White and Jerry Matytix, a

01:49:24

Roman Catholic apologist. And I knew there was going to be a lot of tension in the room between the two members of the audience, the side that would be evangelical

01:49:38

Protestant and the side that would be Roman Catholic. And the first debate that we orchestrated, we had over 500 people there.

01:49:50

I was blown away by the number of people. And it seemed to be, from what

01:49:55

I can remember when we were asking for a show of hands, seemed to be pretty equally divided.

01:50:02

But for years, I have been hearing from both evangelicals and Roman Catholics about how much they appreciated the humor

01:50:12

I used in the beginning of the event. Because it did bring a different frame of mind into many who were there present.

01:50:25

They weren't there gritting their teeth anymore. And I'm not saying that it completely dissipated any measure of hostility or anger in every single person in the audience.

01:50:39

But for the most part, it seems to be something that has been well -received for many years, for decades, when people have approached me.

01:50:51

And people that I don't even know, I've never met before when I go to conferences all over the United States. They've approached me and they've told me that those stand -up routines that I did in the beginning of the debates really did a lot to put them at ease.

01:51:10

And some of them even said it was the best part of the debate. But it can be used greatly to cut through the tension in a situation.

01:51:24

And even in some way, bring a bit of humility to you as you're laughing at yourself.

01:51:33

Am I making sense here? No, absolutely. And again, I can't tell you how many people have reached out to me who are from different theological stripes, from Methodists to Presbyterians, everything else.

01:51:50

Even some Roman Catholics who have left comments on my videos and have said, Hey man, I appreciate what you're trying to do, trying to make light of some of these things.

01:52:00

And they've been encouraging. Like I said, I don't agree with them on a lot of things, and I point those out in the videos. But at least

01:52:06

I'm trying to do so in a way that's humorous.

01:52:13

And like you said, it often takes that wall down, all of division.

01:52:19

Well, before we go, I wanted to leave our audience with, especially for the sake of those who have never heard it before, my parody of Martin Luther, party, hearty,

01:52:31

Marty, and the protesters singing the Great Reformer. But before I do that,

01:52:37

I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information. And want to make sure that if you have anything coming up, a special event that you want to promote or anything like that, you can let them know.

01:52:51

The website for Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida is sgfcjacks .org.

01:53:00

sgfcjacks .org And you can look up Conversations with a

01:53:07

Calvinist on YouTube and other places. What would be the best one in your mind,

01:53:13

Keith, to direct our listeners to? Calvinistpodcast .com

01:53:19

will take you directly to our YouTube page. And from there, if you want to get a hold of me directly, it's

01:53:25

Calvinistpodcast .com. So just think Calvinist Podcast. And I'm Keith Foskey, and I've been your

01:53:30

Calvinist. That's my Twitter handle is YourCalvinist. And anything going on in the near future that we should know about?

01:53:38

Any kind of special event? I'll throw this out there for anybody listening. I'm hoping to attend at least one or two conferences next year to promote the podcast.

01:53:48

So if anyone has a conference where they are looking for vendors and they have a table that they might be interested in having me come fill, to reach out to me.

01:53:55

And if it's close to the southern, eastern, southern United States, somewhere

01:54:01

I could drive. I don't fly well. I just don't enjoy flying. And we do have a newborn, so I don't want to be too far away.

01:54:07

But if it's in the southeast, if anybody's interested, I would love to come and do interviews there and be able to promote there.

01:54:15

Well, I hope that Atlanta isn't too far from you because I'm going to the G3 conference. It would be great to have a booth near you.

01:54:22

Yeah, absolutely. I'm hoping for that as well. And I believe that's in the fall. Well, Keith, if you could hold on because I want to say a proper goodbye to you after the program's over.

01:54:34

But here is Party Hardy Marty and the Protestors. During the 16th century, the

01:54:44

Church of Rome reached its height of power as well as its depth of debauchery, greed, and corruption.

01:54:51

One of the most vile and greedy puppets of the papal throne was a member of the

01:54:57

Dominican Holy Order named Johann Tetzel. Tetzel sold indulgences to the spiritually ignorant and enslaved laity, warning them that this was a necessary means to purchase the souls of their deceased loved ones out from the torments of purgatory.

01:55:14

A limerick became popular in that day's advent when a coin in Tetzel's kapha rings a soul from purgatory springs.

01:55:23

This abuse of papal power through pilfering the poor, pious, and peasant people did not go unnoticed by a young German Augustinian monk who was once one of Rome's most faithful and loyal subjects.

01:55:35

Outraged by the level of greed and wickedness that the Church sank to, this monk nailed his protest to the practice of indulgence selling to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, hoping to spark a debate with the intelligentsia of Rome.

01:55:50

The hammer blows as these 95 theses were nailed to the church door were like cannon fire heard round the world and ignited the blaze of a holy inferno that is still burning brightly today.

01:56:03

This holy inferno is the Protestant Reformation. That Augustinian monk who ignited it was me.

01:56:11

Hello, I'm Martin Luther, and this is my story. Oh yeah,

01:56:27

I'm the great reformer. Reforming the churches that I'm known for.

01:56:37

I made my protest before Zwingli and all of the rest.

01:56:44

Nailed it up to the Wittenberg door. Oh yeah,

01:56:51

I'm the great reformer. Reforming the church was my goal.

01:57:01

But the Pope threw me out like some bad sauerkraut.

01:57:07

Flushed me right down his Vatican pole. I would not indulge that dirtbag

01:57:17

Johann Tetzel. So they threatened to twist my spine up just like a pretzel.

01:57:27

Yeah, I'm the great reformer. The Pope put a price on my head.

01:57:38

But while out on the run, I married a nun.

01:57:44

Sure beats living with guys who bake bread. That's the default, guys.

01:57:52

They're in robes baking bread. My lady, sweet Katie, gave up her old habit.

01:58:01

She once dressed like a penguin, now multiplies like a rabbit.

01:58:09

Yeah, I'm the great reformer. I turned

01:58:17

Tetzel's church upside down. Tell those greaseballs at Trent centuries after they came and went.

01:58:27

I'll be dead, but that won't keep me down. They wanted to slice me and dice me and feed me to the papal palace puppy dogs.

01:58:38

But I'll bet you that in the 21st century that I'm still alive.

01:58:49

Well, I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:58:55

Savior than you are a sinner. I look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.