Have You Not Read S2E6 - Filthy Language

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

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Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you.

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I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Durham. Kyle Smith. Chris Giesler. And today we have a question about language and specifically filthy language that's come in from one of our listeners.

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The question reads, or it's a multi -part question, but we'll try and do our best to answer it all. What makes for filthy language?

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Colossians 3 .8, New King James Version for the Christian. Obviously, you can't take

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God's name in vain by reducing it to a common expletive, but what about those expletives? I've heard a variety of words that I feel should not be a part of a

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Christian's dictionary, but at the same time, there are some Christians I highly respect that use descriptors and words that I've grown up believing to be wrong.

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I also understand there are particular contexts to some of these words. Another Christian I know has very little qualm with using the

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F word, stating it's just a word. Biblically, how can we best discern what a bad word is and ensure our language is good, true, and holy?

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Michael, you wanna start us off? Sure, so there has been a lot of discussion,

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I think, just over the last year and then even reaching back for probably the better part of a decade with the phenomenon called the emergent church to be talking about the appropriateness or lack thereof of what our culture considers to be profanity in the mouths of Christians, whether they're normal conversation or in their preaching, in their teaching, in their books, in their artistic expressions, whether they're, you know, if they're writing something or if they're singing something and so on.

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And so the right relationship between Christians and the words that get labeled as dirty words has been something considered and worked over a little bit now for, as I said, for about a decade.

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So this question, I think, needs to be, as always, considered in the light of Scripture.

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The third commandment says that we are not to bear the name of the Lord our God in vain. And the word bear has more to it than simply verbalizing, intoning the name of God.

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It has the idea of how we carry it about. So in this case, there is a violation amongst

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Israel, of violation of the third commandment, when they're supposed to be bearing the name of God, but not actually worshiping him, not praising him, not living in light of him, not honoring him, so on and so forth.

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This would be bearing his name in vain. And Jesus has something similar to say, you know, many will say to me that day,

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Lord, Lord, and I'll say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you, right? They were bearing the name in vain.

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We are informed by this that the name of God, the name of Christ is not some sort of magical, superstitious power word that we wanna try to use in just the right way to either save ourselves or sanctify something, and so on.

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And it's used that way, pretty much so in a pagan society. You know, we just slap Christian in front of anything or after anything, and then all of a sudden, we think that makes it holy.

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Very often, this is bearing God's name in vain. So that's kind of our starting point of consideration.

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But then of course, it becomes more specific in the application. We have all manner of passages in the scripture telling us to be cautious in this regard.

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So let me read a few of those, just kind of help our discussion. In, let's start with just simple communication, then

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I wanna move into the area of conflict because this pertains. In Ephesians 4 .29,

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it says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

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And here, again, we're not thinking about, oh, a list of words, but we're thinking about the use of words, that it would not be corrupt, but true, not twisted, not perverted, not misaligned, but accurate, and that it would be used for edifying, that we're seeking the good.

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We're seeking to bless those who are hearing us. Now, that doesn't mean we always tell people what they wanna hear.

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In fact, that's a curse. Paul warns against those who heap up for themselves teachers that tickled their ears.

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That's a cursed way to live, but that somebody would considerably speak accurately to edify and bless somebody else, that may not be what they wanna hear, but it may be very gracious to say to them.

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So just to kind of qualify what's going on as we understand that. Also in chapter five, verse four of Ephesians, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.

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So out of our mouth, not filthiness, no. Not foolish talking, no. Not this jesting or the idea of coarse jesting, but rather giving of thanks.

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This is what should be coming out of our mouths. This should be our normal kind of conversation. So that's just kind of a general, you know.

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In general, how should Christians be talking? I can add, I mean,

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Colossians four, verse six. Paul is speaking there and he says, let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

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That's another, it's meant to be flavored as to taste good to the hearer, so.

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Yeah, effective, you know, for them. So in this case, when we think about language, when we think about use of our language, it has to do with our hearers, okay?

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So why would we use a word that is on the list of profanity, okay?

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And everyone kind of knows what that list is. And then they even have sub -lists of, well, this is acceptable profanity and this is only marginally acceptable and definitely not this list because that's way out of bounds, okay?

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What business, what business does a Christian have? This is not a rhetorical question, by the way.

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What business does a Christian have using words off that list? What is the Christian's business with words?

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We're going back to the Ephesians 4, 29. It kind of gives the reasons there.

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It must be good for edification according to the moment so it will give grace to hear.

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And so I think I've heard some people say there are just certain words that carry more weight or power in speaking them.

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There are justification for using those types of language. But I don't know that that's actually the case.

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Would it be rightly dividing all words? We're supposed to rightly divide the word of God but even use of our own words need to be rightly divided in everyday speech and communication as well.

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The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. We should be using words truthfully, right?

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I think there is a temptation to try to use words on the forbidden list and try to use that and try to find ways to use that and eagerly try to drop that in in a way that is, you're basically following a fad or you're trying something new.

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And this in and of itself would be a kind of corrupt communication. A lesser thing but it kind of funny would be that when somebody learns a new word, they wait all day at work to drop it in, right?

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They just learned ubiquitous, okay? And they're in the work kitchen area and they see a mouse run by and they say, my, the pests in this area are ubiquitous.

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I'm gonna drop my word. Not only is that inaccurate, right?

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Because you just saw one, okay? But the intention there is to say, hey, look at me.

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So you have a twisting and a corruption on two levels there. And when we have a lively discussion very often amongst

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Christians in the church and in the arts and so on and so forth about, I wanna use these words, very often they're not being accurate with the words themselves.

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And then two, it's more about, hey, look at me. How much can I get away with? Yeah, exactly.

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The old juvenile question or perhaps the old slave question, right?

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Whereas the son question, the sonship question would be different, right? Not how can

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I find a way to use these words, but what were these words ever intentioned in the first place?

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One thing that we need to talk about to undergird our whole discussion here and that I think was picked up on by a recent discussion on a podcast by, remind me again.

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Indy Wilson. Indy Wilson. And Brian Cole. Yeah, Stories Are Soul Food. And so they were having this conversation. It was very helpful, great conversation.

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But one thing that they mentioned there that is common theme in any systematic theology is the doctrine of sin, the understanding of evil, that God did not create anything evil, right?

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He's reaching us as one, as good, good, good, good, very good. And very clearly, evil is not something that exists in some sort of form, that God made the sticky goo of evil that sometimes gets on everything, okay?

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That's not how it works. Evil, the very word evil in the original languages talks about being a perversion, a twisting, a malformation, okay?

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So when it comes to words that we have on our lists, and this is the list of the four -letter words, and here's the cuss words, and so on and so forth.

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When we think about those, though it's difficult for us to think of, in and of themselves, they are not forms of evil, okay?

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But we associate them with evil because they are so often used evilly.

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Almost exclusively used evilly, right? Mm -hmm.

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So that's why there's two things going on here. One side of it is understanding the true nature of these words, and thus, in the best -case scenario, when and if they should ever be used.

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The other side of it is the matter of the Christian's desire to be edifying and gracious and to communicate

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Christ well. Would you say that there's kind of, in my mind, there's almost three groups wanting to use this type of language.

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Some that would claim the title Christian who want to use it because it is edgy, because it is wrong.

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And then this other group that they're trying to be relatable to the world, that they're trying to be winsome, and if I use this language,

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I'll be like them, and I'll win them over. And then maybe a third group of some that are in reaction to this winsome or effeminate culture we're in where we're gonna go to another extreme and use it as this bomb we're gonna drop on people.

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Kind of the Joe Rogan side of things. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a good observation. And again, this is where really the pastoral questions really live.

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We have the theological side of it. What are words, right? How did

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God make us in his image, by his word, that we are living under the reign of God the

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Son who is the word, that we are not only made by God's word, but for God's word, and to live in truth and light?

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These are theological questions and concerns, and we need to be able to recognize those factors, and at the same time, understand on the other side of it, how do we actually apply that?

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So there is more than one good example where a preacher in confronting false teachers for the good of his hearers, including those he's pastoring, or maybe even a preacher out on the street who is proclaiming that God's truth in the face of active hostility and so on, is in the position to say,

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God damns your lies, right? This is straight from the pits of hell. You know, and so on and so forth.

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And to use strong language in the exact precise manner in which it is to be used.

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When you think about the list of all the profanity out there, most often it has something to do with the vacating of the glory of God or the evisceration of the image of God in humanity.

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The words that are focused on vacating the truth of the glory of God and the weightiness of his holiness and his truth, the glory of his son, lots of the word on the list.

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That's what it is. They name the name of God, they name the name of Jesus Christ in ways that drag the names of God through the absolute gutter, okay?

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And it's an intentional satanic attack. Satan is raging as the father of all lies.

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And make no mistake, this list of profanity is simply a list of lies, okay? Because these words, when they're used improperly, which they most often are, they are, every single one of them being used as a lie.

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You're lying about the glory of God. You're lying about the glory of Christ. You're lying about the nature of a human being.

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You're lying about sex, right? How many of the cuss words are about sex? And you're lying about it again and again and again and again.

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And this is what makes it so profane, to mix the glory of God and the value of those made in God's image and the sacred nature of the sex act that was given only to a husband and a wife and to take it and to mix it all together and just eviscerate it all.

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This is satanic. And why does it have an impact? Why does it seem to have power?

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Because it does have power. It has demonic power. And oh, I can get people to do things.

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I can move them. People pay more attention when I use these words and so on and so forth. So there's the desire to use it, but you can also get your children to do more if you hit them in the face, right?

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That's not what you're supposed to do, though. There's a right use for corporal punishment, but there's a way to do that.

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And as soon as you figure out, well, I can make them be more submissive and obedient and clean up more and be more on point if I hit them in the face than if I spank them on the rear after a very calm talking to you about the necessity of this punishment.

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You see what I mean? So when we're talking about, especially the words that are denoting sexual acts or sexual things, was that a bit of witchcraft?

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Because originally a lot of those words were like technical terms where they were explaining actually some sort of wickedness or some sort of evil as an acronym, and then it just came into parlance.

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And now it's used to kind of almost denote anybody or anything in a lot of cases, but sometimes it's used to glorify those acts.

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So it's that switch. So two more things here. One, we're told in the scriptures that things that are done in darkness should not be paraded around in the light.

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You know, Pride Month? Right. Right. So Pride Month and all the parades is basically a sacrament of profanity.

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Okay, it's just an ordinance out in front of everybody. You know, we're gonna bring the profane out into living action.

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And so there are certain things that are meant to be concealed that are precious.

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The marriage bed is undefiled and honorable among all. But then to begin to use words that expose and shred the sacredness of marriage in front of everybody else, that's what makes it so evil and profane because it is an intentional misuse of these terms.

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And so there's recognition that there is no situation in which these words should be used in a public way to berate somebody else.

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Right. Okay? And I've got words that God has made and given to me in the word of God if I need to make a quick cut in a righteous sense to do something righteous.

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Okay, now the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God, but I may be called upon to use a strong word.

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I'm not going to use one of these words that should not be used out in public and exposed that way.

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Right, I should not be using unrighteous words in the cause of righteous. I should not be using words in an unrighteous way to try to achieve the righteousness of God.

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That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. So that's one thing. The other thing is remember that most of the time, when does it say, when's the last time you got cussed out?

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Well, probably the last time I cut somebody off in traffic. Right? And the scene of strong language is almost always in the scene of human conflict.

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One person versus another person. And I think we really need to buy in to what

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Jesus has to say about what we do with our words when we are in human conflict. Okay, let's think about that.

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So Matthew 5, 44, but I say, do you love your enemies? Bless those who curse you.

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Uh, yeah. Hey, bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

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Boy, that's hard. Romans 12, 14, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.

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Man, don't you hate it when the Bible is just so obtuse and unclear and it's just so hard to figure out what it means.

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James 3 complains about the treachery that comes from the mouth, right?

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With the tongue, the nature of the tongue. Oh, how the tongue exposes the depravity of man's heart, right?

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He says, James 3, 9, with our tongue, we bless our God and father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God.

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And then one last verse, and then we think about and we'll discuss this. Jude, verse nine. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, the

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Lord rebuke you. And this is in the context of Jude talking about, you know, ungodly men who revile authorities, revile magistrates.

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And Michael the archangel didn't even cuss out Satan. So if there's anybody who deserves to get cussed out at Satan, right?

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We can all, you know. But even Michael the archangel, who knows a thing or two about holiness, did not use a reviling accusation.

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So how are we to actually apply that, recognizing that God has given us these words, and we're supposed to use them honestly and truthfully, and there are strong words, but then how are we to apply this in a way that is appropriate?

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All these admonitions about human conflict and how we address one another. I think that's why

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I appreciate satire so much. And we've heard it said before, the serrated edge that's used in scripture a lot of times, that the niceness of,

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I guess, modern day evangelicalism may be like, oh, you shouldn't have said it like that.

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That was really mean. I call that the general squish. Yes. You know, there's a general squish. Jesus was the master of satire.

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And if we're throwing profanity out there, particularly common modern day profanity,

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I appreciate more a good, well thought out, argument via satire, than I do boring and lazy profanity.

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And I think it achieves an end that is much more impactful. So the way that he deals with the scribes and the

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Pharisees is one way. And he just kind of ratchets it up every so often.

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Fun little example, when Micaiah gets hauled in front of King Ahab and told what to tell

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King Ahab, because all the other prophets on the payroll had already told him what he wanted to hear.

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And Micaiah gets drug in front of the king. He has the opportunity to cuss out the chief false prophet, the other 400 false prophets, the

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King Ahab, and then the King of Judah, who was stupidly conspiring with him. You know, he has the opportunity to curse those who stand in opposition to him.

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And speaking of satire, what he did was he took the moment to be very sarcastic and say exactly what everyone told him to say, but obviously in a way that everybody knew he didn't believe it.

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He was like, oh yes, oh king, go up, you'll win. You know, everything's great. At this point, he is not profaning the king.

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He's not cussing at the king. He's not blaspheming God and using God's name in a blasphemous way to try to attack the king or something like that.

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But I'd say he's using his words in a way that's very effective. And then when the king says, stop it, say what you're supposed to say, and then he does say it, he tells the king, you're gonna lose.

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You're gonna die. God is not with you. You know, this is, you know, do not go up.

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This is not going to work. And he says something that the king does not wanna hear. And he says it in a way that offends the king, so much so that the king's like, you're under arrest.

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You know, so just considering this example, I mean, this is a good example. Something that'd be useful for us to, you know, model in our own lives.

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You know, I'm glad that's there in scripture. And Jesus did it even, Jesus did it way better than Kai did in all his examples.

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And I think that's important to recognize when we read the passages here where it says, bless, do not curse.

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This is not something where it means affirm people's self -identity in a therapeutic manner so that they have no idea that, you know, something might be wrong.

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That's not what it says, right? In the consideration, every one of these conflicts about blessing those who persecute you, blessing those who curse you, so on and so forth, the concern is, is language being spoken before the face of God?

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And you're wanting to bless them. Do you bless them by leaving them in their darkness?

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Do you bless them by affirming their lies? When God brings judgment upon a people, he brings silence.

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When God brings judgment on a people, he even sends deceiving spirits upon them to convince them that it leads them to their destruction.

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Confusion, right? That's what Babel is. That's right. So our blessings upon other people should be in good faith.

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I desire this person's conversion. I desire this person's turnaround.

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I do not want to see them in hell. So in the process of my blessing them,

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I may inform them that their ideas are coming from hell, and that might involve some strong language, but I'm certainly not going to use it in a way that is untrue or profane.

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Well, I think it's also, it's not just the person that you're addressing, it's anybody who may be in the vicinity watching that exchange happen that sees the fool in his folly being called out.

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Exactly. And not in a crass way, a way that the world would do it, but in a way that just in the light of God's truth, they can't hide.

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They're not in the dark anymore. It is right there in front of their face, and if they deny it, everybody's witnessing, if they're really being honest with themselves, the stupidity of their argument.

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It's interesting you bring up those verses about bless those that curse you, and talking about how there's this conflict between people, and God's concern for both parties, the person that is in the wrong, and his concern for the person that is in the right, but the way that they conduct themselves.

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Because in James 1 .26, if anyone thinks he be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, and that ends with keep oneself unstained by the world.

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Or in Timothy, and it's talking about worldly chatter and empty chatter, it says it will lead to further ungodliness.

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So employing those type of methods against someone that's in the wrong, we're actually damaging ourselves in speaking that way.

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So with all that being said, and that's usually the venue in which we're concerned about how we're using our language, as you see it in the scripture so much, it's talking about what comes out of your mouth?

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What comes out of your mouth towards other people? What comes out of your mouth before the face of God? And all that being the case, I would agree with those who have observed that very often the translators do a poor job of bringing forward the real meaning of the text, because they're scared of words that have been infected with evil.

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There are many passages, and again, I was required to take many hours of Hebrew and Greek and so on and so forth, so when

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I get into the original text and I see stuff, I'm sitting in my office just laughing, not laughing at the word, but laughing at what the translators tried to do with the word or the expression.

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It was like, yeah, you guys. Softened it up quite a bit. There was a bunch of blushing in that room and nobody wanted to write down what it actually said.

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In that case, that is not unrighteous. God, the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, used that word and that word was used in these other contexts and it's pretty clear what this means.

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Just say it. And in that case, put it this way, every time there is a big, huge deception in the church, false teaching in the church, so on and so forth, it comes in areas where the church is silent.

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If the church doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and understanding who the

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Holy Spirit is and what he does, what comes from a total lack of that understanding? You have a charismatic chaos, to borrow the title from John MacArthur, right?

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Strange fire. A lot of things that need to be corrected. Why? Because not enough time was spent talking about this last

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Ligonier state of the church, state of theology came out and things are worse than ever about the doctrine of the

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Trinity and so on and so forth because we just don't spend enough time teaching it from the word of God. Who needs the

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Trinity? Here's three action steps for a more happy life. What if, what if our

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English translations, and again, God in his providence and God in his sovereignty uses these English translations and we ought to with all confidence say, thus saith the

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Lord and read it in English. So Peter did and he quoted the Septuagint and said, this is what the

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Spirit says and he quoted the Septuagint, not the Hebrew. Okay, so totally good with translations.

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But what happens when the translations continually, intentionally fail to translate the strong words that are in God's word in the way that they read?

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Well, then what do we begin to think about these strong words? We begin to relegate them to the realm of, you know, oh, these are evil words and so on and so forth and the right understanding and proper use of those words is not given to us in the text, which is our authority.

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So would you say that there is not any part or any word in the Bible that would not be read from our pulpit in the original strength?

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I think all of it needs to be read. Right. I think it all needs to be read. And I think that there are chapters in the Bible that the

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Puritans and so on and so forth said a variety of things about like, you know, not fit for, you know, church service or in the case of one

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Puritan who after he preached through a particularly dicey area in Ezekiel afterwards commented that he would never do so again.

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And, you know, everyone's concerned about, you know, what if there are children in the room? Well, in one sense, it'll probably force the parents to, you know, do some work.

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Do some, yeah. Do some work. Have a discussion about it. Yes, have a discussion about it. But, you know, there's nothing in the Bible. There's nothing in the

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Bible and nothing the Bible talks about in any fashion that is inappropriate. Right.

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Right. It's all appropriate. It's all important and righteous and good and should be read just as it is written.

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And then there is nothing that requires, this is kind of the problem with our over -sexualized culture.

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Nothing in the Bible has anything to do with the pornographic culture in which we live other than to condemn it.

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Right. And the fact that we can't read the Bible out loud without having problems just shows us how much holiness we need in our lives.

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We need to have that confidence in Christ and the strength and the holiness of God's spirit. Somebody just read the text and then deal with it.

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And then we get to deal with it according to the scripture's own terms and words, you know, and it's never something where we should be blushing in saying what the scripture says.

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Right. We should just say it. Is there something that should be said as I was kind of looking into this?

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I ended up in Isaiah, and Isaiah is in the throne room in chapter six. And what's the first thing that he says when he is confronted with the glory of God?

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Woe is me, I am undone. And the next thing that he says, this is not a rhetorical question again, because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the

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King, the Lord of hosts. Does that tell us something about language, about the words that we use?

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The fact that he went there, he didn't talk about his eyes, he didn't talk about his ears, he talked about his speech.

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What do you think? Would that go to bearing the Lord's name vainly?

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Supposed to be the people of God, Israel? I think it's more, once you are confronted with the holiness of God, you see that in whatever way you've spoken about God, however reverently you think you have, when you are in his presence, everything that you've said is profane compared to his holiness.

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It falls short. Yeah, and the other two senses, sight and hearing are both taking in. Speaking is declarative, it's output.

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And so whatever we're speaking, we're supposed to be bearing, you know, we bear his image, we're speaking, we're ambassadors on his behalf.

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Bearing his name. And yet oftentimes, you know, we talk and idle chatter comes out.

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We don't even think about it. You know, we're living our day -to -day lives. And then we bless

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God and then we curse our brothers. And so we do have unclean lips.

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I think that's more of that declarative instead of the other two senses. So when you walk all the way back to the problem, what hit the lips of Adam and Eve, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where they determine good and evil for themselves, and rebel against God, they will now form their own categories.

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What's good for me and evil for me versus what God says is good and evil entirely.

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And right after that, the first things we hear Adam and Eve saying are corruptions.

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They're lying, they're blaming. Everything that comes out is twisted now. And so in the light of the holiness of God, Isaiah is like, whoa, you know, again, the compulsion though, those made in the image of God, as soon as they see the glory of God, what's our compulsion?

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What were we made to do? We were made to immediately declare the goodness and the holiness and the righteousness and the wonder of God.

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And Isaiah is immediately confronted with the fact that he can't. He's seeing God high and lifted up in all of his glory, and he's been made to worship

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God, but he knows everything coming out of his mouth is gonna fail. And we live in a culture today where everybody is convinced about the failure of language, convinced about the failure of communication.

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And, you know, anything a white person says is tainted by their whiteness.

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Anything a male says or a cisgendered male says is tainted by that. And for certain professors at Southern Baptist seminaries, anything the white church says is incomplete without the black church also speaking with them.

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And everyone's convinced about the problems with our language, the inefficacy of our language, but then what happened?

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An angel, some tongs, takes a live coal from the altar, and he touches it to the lips of Isaiah, and his lips are cleansed and cleaned.

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It is by the sacrifice of our Savior, the sacrifice on the altar, that we are sanctified by His holiness, by His person, so that then we may be the servant of God and say, here am

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I, send me. I'll go say your words. I will go say what you want me to say, and it's only because of your forgiveness and your cleansing and your grace and your salvation that my language is now made effective.

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And then God says, okay, you're gonna go preach until there's nothing left. You're gonna go preach the coming judgment upon this rebellious people.

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How long, oh Lord? You're gonna preach this condemnation message. How long until there's nothing left? And that was

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Isaiah's calling. But we have that same hope in our cleansing of our language, cleansing of our mouths, but notice being used in the service of the

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Lord, not to serve self, bring attention to self, to find a way to get kind of loose with my language, but always in the service of the

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Lord. I'm not interested, again, in not, we're already seeing it in our culture, in not diluting that list of bad words by us participating in even more this idea of inflation, where now it's just, it's almost like an um or an uh.

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We played a game at our house the other night as a family and Hudson jumped in and he has speech this semester and he's like, let's play a game.

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And so it was the game where we kind of did like fishbowl where you pick a topic out of a hat and it's how long can you go before you say um or like?

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Well, it's not really um or like anymore, it's just profanity, every other thing within the normal course of conversation.

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So why would I, as a believer, want to kind of dilute that at all? Well, unless anybody has anything else to add,

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I think we've about wrapped it up on filthy language and the cleansing of our lips by our

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Lord that we have hope for. So we're gonna go do, what are we thankful for? Michael, we'll start with you.

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I'm thankful for my brother. I'm really, I just rejoice that we get to live in the same city together and that we get to spend time together and he teaches my daughter piano and I get to see him about almost every week and we get to spend time together and sit together after the piano lesson and fellowship and talk about church ministry and family life and encourage each other and I'm just really thankful for him.

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Kyle. I would say I'm thankful for the analog and what I mean by that is

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I spend a lot of my days in the digital realm being a IT director for a school and I come home and there's devices everywhere.

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The kids have their video games and their computers and whatnot. But I'm thankful for the opportunity to unplug from that and actually pick up a physical book that has pages and is made of maybe leather or go outside and pet the rabbits or whatever.

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The non -digital, I'd encourage us to stay tethered to that a little bit.

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Leather books. Believe it or not, they still exist. Man, where are you getting those? Those must be costing a fortune these days.

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My wife lets me play with them every once in a while. Chris, what about you? I'd like to echo

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Michael. I'm grateful for my brother as well. We've got some stuff coming up and he's gonna step in and help both my brother and sister -in -law.

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So grateful for family and what they do and just kind of being in the trenches together and facing this world and their opposition to family and just having another family in the trenches to talk to that kind of have that same background growing up together and same experiences and we can talk about and we see the world in the same way and laugh about it.

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He can make me laugh in a way that no one else can and I'm just grateful for him. We were talking off mic earlier about this and I had mentioned beforehand how

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I was thankful for non -academic or scholarly work that is not coming out of academia because I'm a believer that your work, your proof of work, it will prove itself in the end and it's not about who stamps it, who gives it approval or how many peers reviewed it.

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It is solely about how you have pursued truth and we know that pursuing truth, it is pleasing to the

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Lord and anytime I can go find that without it having some sort of connection back towards experts or universities who are approved by the state and funded by the state in a negative feedback loop,

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I will go about and pay extra for that research that's outside of the academy. So I'm very thankful for that and the fact that we're free enough to go pursue those works.

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And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?