August 8, 2022 Show with Dr. Dan Doriani on “Work: Its Purpose, Dignity, & Transformation”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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 and now here's your host

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this eighth day of August 2022 and I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today someone whom

I've wanted to interview in the past and there always seemed to be something conflicting with our schedules but I'm thrilled to have the opportunity by the providence of our sovereign

God to have him on today on a very important subject. His name is Dr. Dan Doriani he's an author professor of biblical and systematic theology and vice president at Covenant Theological Seminary founder and president of Center for Faith and Work St.

Louis in Missouri and host of the podcast Working with Dan Doriani.

Today we're going to be addressing his new book Work Its Purpose Dignity and Transformation and we're also going to be announcing the upcoming

Quakertown conference on reform theology featuring Dr. Doriani and other speakers this fall in Quakertown Pennsylvania on the theme

The Sufficient Word but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Dr.

Dan Doriani. Thanks Chris good to be with you. It's great to have you on the program.

First of all tell our listeners about the Center for Faith and Work St.

Louis. Yeah so the Center for Faith and Work is essentially has three projects or three aspects to it.

The first is to train leaders Christian leaders to make a difference in their corner of the world.

So we have cohorts in St. Louis and honestly scattered throughout the country and even a few overseas that try to take business leaders men and women whether they're owners entrepreneurs

CEOs or informal leaders that is to say people who may not have a rank on the chart the organizational chart but have a lot of influence and enable them to ask the question how can my biblical principles how can my faith how can my position and the power that I have

God given power that I have enabled me to make a difference in my workplace which might have you know 10 people or might have 5000 people.

So we spend about 12 hours over a span of eight weeks doing that and it's all transferable anybody can can do it.

The second thing we do is is work with some immigrant communities in the area of St. Louis is one of those places that has a lot of internationals a fair number of refugees and we try to help them find good jobs again based on biblical principles working with pastors in those communities.

And the third thing we have is a podcast which maybe we'll talk about later and the gist of that is to interview people who are practicing their faith at work.

Well why don't you tell us about the podcast now so we can what further whet the appetites of our listeners today.

Yeah sure glad to do that. So the podcast actually has sort of two sides to it.

One is the main one is to interview people who are mature and sometimes you know not long time

Christians who are simply trying to practice love and justice and mercy and faithfulness and honesty in workplaces and that can be anywhere from a surgeon.

One of my early interviews was with a groundbreaking surgeon whose techniques allowed people who were beginning of his career doomed to die.

He started working on a cancer that basically had a 100 percent death rate and over the years he slowly innovated and worked and researched and tried things and until now the vast majority of the people who have this cancer in this location survive and not only survive but survive with their faculties and abilities intact which was by no means assumed.

And you know he had great accolades and ministered and served people all over the world training people in other surgery centers but as often happens he also got a lot of opposition because he questioned the way things were being done.

And so his faith sustained him in a decades long process of changing the way surgery was done in his area.

He was ear, nose and throat. So that would be an early one. But on the other hand I've also had a broadcaster who has a very simple goal and that is to speak the truth in love whenever he broadcasts games.

And that means that if a player is performing badly you say so but you say so in a way that would never demean anyone or make them feel that they were devalued as a person.

Convey information in a way that's entertaining and also honest. Honest enough again without hurting anybody.

If you pay attention to professional sports you know people have very bad days. Sometimes they have bad weeks or months even and you have to talk about it and yet give people dignity.

So those are two simple early illustrations. We've had all kinds of people, artists and we had a children's librarian who you know wants to fill her school library, it's a

Christian school, with books that are beautiful and well written and promote Christian values.

And so we just encourage our people, whatever their spot in life might be, to think serving the

Lord can and should make a difference. And so we interview a lot of people about a wide variety of fields, hoping to inspire others, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, directing movies, you name it.

Being a governor, being a senator, being an ambassador for the U .S. government, we just try to let them share their story about what they're doing to show that Christ is the

Lord of their work. Well praise God, that sounds fascinating and I want to give both of those websites for each of the organizations that Dan has founded.

First of all, the previous organization,

Center for Faith and Work St. Louis, you can find that organization at faithandworksstl, abbreviation for St.

Louis obviously, .org, faithandworksstl .org.

And if you want to begin subscribing to the podcast,

Working with Dan Doriani, you can go to workingwithdan .org, workingwithdan .org,

and I'm sure that we will return to those websites towards the end of the program to remind you of them.

We have a tradition here on Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Dan, whenever we have a first time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised, any kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in their lives that drew him or her to himself and saved them, and I'd love to hear your story.

Yeah, I'm glad to do that. And those are great categories, and I'm happy to operate within those.

So I did convert. I would call myself an adult convert. I was 18 years old. I was a college freshman.

I'd just turned 18, and I did grow up in a Christian -ish home,

I'll say, or a Christian home in many ways, maybe not every way, and went to church a lot as a child, but I was self -consciously not a believer.

In fact, I've never heard anybody else say this, but when I was in third grade, for some reason the church

I was in had catechism class that then led to church membership. I don't know of any other church that has that, and that was my experience, and my friends were joining the church, and I was self -consciously not a believer, and I just did not have the courage to say,

I'm going through this because you expect me to. I remember sitting outside the church one day thinking, what am

I doing? This is not the way it's supposed to be. I don't believe this.

Wow. Would you think from your experience having conversations with Christians for quite a long time, is that normal for a person that young to be conscientiously an atheist?

Yeah, I wouldn't say I was an atheist. I believe there was a God, but I just didn't buy the way it was being presented.

So I think there was a pretty heavy dose of legalism and world escapism in the church

I was in. I remember very distinctly, I had a teacher at that time who was telling us about heaven, and how when we're heaven, we get to float on clouds and play the harp all day.

And I thought, if that's heaven, I want no part of it. So there actually is somebody out there teaching people that that is what happens in heaven.

That's what I was taught when I was in third grade, absolutely. And I thought, if that's what it is to be a

Christian. But it was also a fairly legalistic environment, but that wasn't the only thing. The truth is, I had a very—my parents are both with the

Lord now, I believe. My mother's a very, very godly woman, very pious and maybe pietistic, and thought that everything would be resolved if you prayed enough, which is certainly a good starting point, but of course, it's not the whole truth.

My father was not a great dad, and he could be pretty, or maybe even very rough toward his sons, my brothers and I.

And he was a leader in the church, and that made it very difficult for me, because he was not living a life—he did not treat his children the way a godly man should treat their children, without going into detail.

And, I mean, it wasn't little things, it was big things. So I'll leave it at that.

And I was quite aware of the level of hypocrisy that was going on.

But I was drawn to the Gospel, also. I mean, I believe that Jesus was absolutely awesome as time went by, and I thought, there's probably got to be a

God that made this universe in all of its complexity, I just wasn't convinced that He was good, or that Christianity was the right accounting of that.

When I was in high school, I had a couple friends who were essentially quasi -nihilistic agnostics, is probably the best way to put it.

You know, we read Sartre, and Catch -22, and Absurdist literature.

Maybe we all grew up in somewhat difficult homes. Then I went to college in God's province.

I had a series of just wonderful godly male friends who were a lot like me, very intellectually gifted men, very curious, in the best sense of the word, and also athletic.

I'm not a great athlete, and I never was a great athlete, but I loved sports, and I was pretty good at sports. And they were athletic.

And also very funny and lively, just hilarious people. We laughed a lot. And that sort of combination of intellectual giftedness and curiosity, athletic interest, and I'm going to say clean fun, not fun, not drunken fun, but just good humor, was what

I needed. I needed to see people living out the Christian faith, and they were. Again, you asked the question about God's providential preparation.

I did have a very godly grandfather. One of my grandfathers died when I was quite young, but the other was very godly, and so I saw that example.

And I also had an uncle who was dedicated to the

Lord and to his work. And so God sent people around me, and at that time

I was going to church also and hearing really good sermons by a very, very gifted and thoroughgoing biblical expositor, and so that counted a lot, too.

So I had an enormous number of gifts to receive the gospel. And when did you realize you had a calling upon your life from God to enter into the world of academia in the

Christian realm? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I would say a lot of people have a sense of what they're supposed to do at a relatively early age.

One of my children decided she was going to be an architect when she was nine, and guess what?

She's an architect. So that does actually happen, and a lot of people have a sense that they're supposed to be a teacher.

I remember, again, in early age, seventh grade, I would be sitting in math class and thinking, if the teacher would explain it this way, my classmates would understand it so much better.

Now, that's not all that unusual experience, and millions of people have that kind of sense, and they're meant to be teachers.

But I always thought that I wanted to be a college professor. I thought high school and junior high, it's just too simple.

So from a pretty early age, I mean, even in high school, I thought, I think I'm supposed to be a professor, most likely.

And so that's what I am. Obviously, I'm a grad school professor now, which I think suits me better than being a college professor, but it was pretty early that I had that sense.

And you also, were you not in the pastoral ministry for a while? Oh, yeah,

I've been a pastor for a total of 16 years, and in some ways, more than that,

I mean, at the moment, like this summer right now, I am an interim pastor working kind of close to full time for the summertime at a wonderful church in St.

Louis, mid -sized, or slightly larger church in St. Louis, that had a long -time faithful pastor for many years, and he moved on to another calling, and they asked me to fill in.

So I'm preaching for a year or more at this church, and having a great time being their interim pastor this summer.

It's a very delightful church with so many wonderful people. It's a real gift. And where is that church, so we can let our listeners know?

Yeah, that church is in Kirkwood, Missouri, which is part of St. Louis, it's a neighborhood in St.

Louis, or town, technically, outside St. Louis, but I mean, it's part of St. Louis. And it's called

Green Tree Community Church, it's actually an evangelical Presbyterian church, but it's very much dedicated to its neighborhood, which

I find really good. But beyond that, I was a pastor right after grad school of a very small church we call today

Revitalization for four and a half years or so, almost five years. And then I was lead pastor of a very large church in St.

Louis from 2003 to 2013. I took about almost an 11 -year break from academia during that period of time, and was a pastor.

Yes, I'm very familiar with the evangelical Presbyterian church, and I don't know if you know my friend

Mitch Tepper, a Jewish believer, but he is in that denomination. Yes, yes.

And I know quite a number of other folks as well. Well, I looked up that church's website, so my listeners can have that as well.

If you're interested in exploring that church, go to GreenTreeChurch .com,

GreenTreeChurch .com, that's Green Tree Community Church in Kirkwood, Missouri.

And we mentioned at the beginning of the program that you are featured as one of the speakers at the

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. I'm sure some people get confused hearing that name, thinking that it's a

Quaker conference, but it is not. It is always a Reformed conference, and it is orchestrated by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and I have been to many of these conferences. In fact,

I have met you face -to -face a number of times, and when you see me, God willing, in November at the

Sufficient Word Conference, you will probably say, oh, I remember that ugly guy now. I primarily saw you at the

Harvey Cedars conferences. Right. I was able to do one. They canceled one because of COVID, one year, even a couple years, but yes.

Yeah, and I saw you in the crowd another time, for sure. Okay, yeah, definitely saw you more than one occasion.

But I love the theme of the Quakertown Conference 2022 coming up in November 11th through the 12th at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, pastored by my dear friend Ron Cole, cancer survivor, wonderful brother.

The Sufficient Word is such a serious issue because not only do you have, historically, one of the main reasons that the

Reformers were protesting the heresies of Roman Catholicism was because of the

Church of Rome's rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture, but you even have, especially in the 21st century, many who claim to be

Protestant who unconsciously reject the sufficiency of Scripture.

They might never say that, and they may not recognize that, but it is, I think, a rampant problem in the

Church. Tell us about this conference. Yeah, sure. And I'll pick up on one thing you said about sufficiency of Scripture.

So there are basically three speakers. I'm one of them, the others are Rick Phillips, a very good friend of mine, and Harry Reader, someone with whom

I've also ministered to some extent over the years. Yes, I've interviewed both of those men and received commendations for the program from them on the website.

Yeah, I mean, they're both extraordinarily gifted men and blessed by God with both energy and clarity of thought and clarity of expression.

So the themes, I'll just mention them briefly, are the authority of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, trustworthiness of Scripture, relevance of Scripture, and the story of Scripture.

Now, of course, we start with the authority, but that's not, you know, your comment was actually about sufficiency, that's the second talk, and I think it's extremely important if I could just label this for you.

So the Catholic Church says that the Bible is inspired and infallible, but what they deny is its sufficiency.

And they say it's inspired by God, it's without error, but it just doesn't have everything that we need.

And we need, so says the Catholic Church, the traditions of the Church, that is to say, you know, the accumulated wisdom of the

Church over the years, and the doctors of the Church, those who are set apart by the

Church to address questions that, so they say, are not addressed in Scripture at all, or are not sufficiently addressed.

And so we have, we need more revelation, living revelation through the living words of the

Church. And what we're saying, beginning with Dr.

Reeder on the authority of Scripture, and then Rick Phillips and I, we're all saying, no, the

Bible is not only authoritative, it gives us everything we need for faith and life. It directs us as to what to believe and how to practice.

So that's really Rick's charge, Dr. Rick Phillips. And I'm going to speak on the clarity of Scripture, which is a similar kind of an issue.

The Catholic Church, again, believes in the inspiration of authority of Scripture. It doesn't necessarily affirm that Scripture's clear.

And if you have a text that's authoritative and inspired, but not clear, what good is it?

Now, I'm not saying that every passage of the Bible is equally clear. In fact, Peter says that there are parts of Paul's letters that are hard to comprehend.

They're hard to comprehend, and impossible to comprehend are two different things. So we might say, yes, there are parts of the

Bible that demand careful study, and Scripture must be compared to Scripture, and we can't allow any interpretation that would seem to contradict another portion of the

Word. But the Bible is clear enough to direct us. So, for example, I remember

I had a long conversation with a group of people on ordination of women in the ministry.

And I said, well, you know, it's pretty clear what the Bible says, and if you disagree with it, you should just say you disagree with it.

And they said, well, actually, no, the Bible is not clear. We don't know what it says. We don't know what the words mean.

Paul says, I don't permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. And so we don't know what he means or what he's saying.

So whether that person would, it was a group of people, actually, would mean to officially deny the clarity of Scripture might be up in the air.

But at a practical level, they're saying it's not sufficient because it's not clear. We don't know what it says.

So we're going to affirm three things, then. The authority, the final authority, not proximate authority.

The final authority, the sufficiency that Scripture ranges over all life. And the clarity, so we can actually grasp what it's saying.

Yeah, if there's anything that is crystal clear in the Scriptures, it's sole male authority in the church.

I don't understand people who claim to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the

Scriptures and read those prohibitions from Paul and come away with any different idea.

I can't help but think a false presupposition is driving them in a refusal to abandon a tradition.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to argue with you on that, of course. You know, I'll say that, you know, people,

I don't want to try to speculate as to what the motive might be, but people sometimes think, well, you know, the

Bible doesn't teach us anything about a topic like artificial intelligence or about how long we should preserve the life of someone who's dying.

Now, it's certainly true the Bible doesn't tell us exactly what we should think about artificial intelligence, but it does give us sufficient guidance to understand that humans are uniquely created in God's image, and AI, of course, we're never going to create sentient robots and so forth.

And it certainly gives us enough direction so we know what a bad use of artificial intelligence is in the computer world, and what a helpful use of artificial intelligence is.

So, you know, they might want a Bible verse. The Bible doesn't only operate through Bible verses, it operates through principles that we then apply to these situations.

By the way, you can pass on a personal note from me to Richard Phillips. You can tell him, as a

Reformed Baptist, I do forgive him for converting my friend Joe Bianchi to Presbyterianism.

You'll have to tell him that yourself. I don't think he's inclined to repent of moving people over to Presbyterianism.

Even though this occurred many years ago, every time Rich sees me at a conference he reminds me of it.

Okay, well, I'm sure he does. By the way, you said something earlier about Catch -22, and now

I'm starting to feel guilty that I can remember. Now, I saw that movie, that 1970 movie, many years ago, before I was a

Christian, but I can remember laughing at it and enjoying it a great deal. Now I feel I have a need to repent of that.

Well, it's extremely like a lot of movies and books. The movie has some connection to the book, but they're in these identical productions.

It's a very nihilistic book, a very despairing book.

And that was my move. Yeah, I think that was my introduction to Alan Arkin, who is a brilliant actor, in spite of any flaws in what he may be involved in.

But that was like a star -studded movie with Buck Henry and Bob Newhart and a whole bunch of folks.

Well, before we return to what is our main theme today, oh,

I forgot to mention. Folks, if you're interested in attending the Sufficient Word conference, the

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, November 11th through the 12th at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, forward slash, the -sufficient -word.

That's alliancenet .org, forward slash, the -sufficient -word.

Or you could just go to alliance .net and click Events and scroll until you see that conference.

I will be there, God willing, Manning and Exhibitor's Booth for Arnie and Sherpa's Iron Radio. So if you attend,

I hope you greet me at my booth during a break. And we are going to be, when we return from our station break, we are going to be entering into the main theme at hand,

Work, Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation, which is also the title of Dan Doriani's new book published by P &R

Publishing. And so if you have a question for Dan Doriani, send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. If you're asking a personal and private question about work, perhaps it has something to do with one of your adult children not having work, or perhaps it's even you, yourself, you're going through a period of depression because you haven't been able to find employment or adequate employment.

If it's something personal and private, we will allow you to remain anonymous. But if it's just a general question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Dan Doriani on work, its purpose, dignity and transformation, right after these messages from our sponsors.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading to Washington, D .C.

for the G3 Ministries Regional Conference on the theme, Just Thinking About the Bible. The conference will be held

Thursday, September 15th, through Saturday, September 17th. I'll be speaking along with Stephen Lawson, Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

Just Thinking podcast. To register, visit g3min .org, that's g3min .org,

and click on Events. Your registration will include a ticket to the Museum of the Bible nearby the conference venue in Washington, D .C.

So join me and Chris Arnzen, September 15th through the 17th in Washington, D .C.,

for the G3 Ministries Regional Conference. Register now before they run out of seats at g3min .org,

that's g3min .org. Stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.

It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you. If you're near retirement or thinking about retiring, you probably have questions.

How do you make your savings last? How much should you take out and when? You're ready for retirement, but are your finances?

Art Amundsen, an Edward Jones Financial Advisor, can help you build a strategy to help make sure your finances keep up with your long -term needs.

Do what it takes to get there. Now it's time to make the most of retirement. Visit edwardjones .com.

That's edwardjones .com. Or call 717 -258 -4688.

717 -258 -4688. We here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio are forever grateful for the generous financial support of Art Amundsen, Edward Jones Financial Advisor in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Call 717 -258 -4688 today. As a mother,

I was looking for a magazine that would include devotionals that I could quickly do before school and had theology and doctrine made very simple for children to understand that they could read themselves or I could walk them through.

There's tiered content so that you can go to the older group and learn more or go to a younger section and it's even more simple.

Join us on our journey in developing our magazine entitled Ignited by the Word, which engages and ignites the hearts of our children and young people in their walk with God Order Ignited by the

Word for your home today at ignitedbytheword .org. Learn more information and subscribe now at ignitedbytheword .org

and receive your first two issues free and put good literature in your children's hands.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. This is Darrell Bernard Harrison, co -host of the Just Thinking Podcast, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Tom Butt, at First Baptist Church in Glendale, Texas, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Kent Keller of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Andrew Rapoport, the founder and executive director at Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Mark Rimaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Greenbrier, Tennessee, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Christopher Cookston, pastor of Prineville Community Church in Prineville, Oregon, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Marksville, Pennsylvania, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com, to place your order.

We here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio praise God for the generous monthly financial support of Royal Diadem Jewelers, educated by and affiliated with the

American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America, for the perfect custom -designed engagement ring, or any one -of -a -kind piece of jewelry, created exactly according to your imagination and specifications,

Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step -by -step through every stage of the process, and even hold a high -tech internet virtual visit using state -of -the -art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you.

From rough design to digital model, to photorealistic image, to wax prototype model, to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.

This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed and well beyond your expectations.

Visit royaldiadem .com, that's royaldiadem .com today.

Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,

Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And I've got even more fantastic news Right before we went on the air,

Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, told me that anyone in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience who purchases an item for $100 or more, the entire profits will go to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

So I was thrilled to hear that, and I'm sure that if you love this show, you'll be thrilled to hear that too.

So I hope that you get your custom -designed jewelry as soon as possible in time for Christmas at Royal Diadem Jewelers.

Now we are back with Dr. Dan Doriani. He is founder and president of Center for Faith and Work, St.

Louis. He is host of Working with Dan Doriani, which is a podcast, and he is the author of the new book published by PNR Publishing, Presbyterian and Reform Publishing, Work, Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation.

And Dan, work is obviously something that has captured your heart.

It has burdened your mind and soul. You have founded an organization dedicated to faith and work.

You have a podcast about work, and you've written this book. Tell us about why this subject became such a focus of your mind and ministry.

So it's a good question, and the answer would go like this. I had two grandfathers, as everybody does, and one of them was an ordinary farmer.

He raised vegetables and fruits, strawberries especially, and beans and corn, and he had a bunch of chickens and eggs and so forth.

And he was a college -educated man, not a tremendously successful farmer if you measure by material means, but he loved to work, and it was interesting, and he seemed to know everything about running a farm.

My other grandfather was an opera singer and an artist. And this grandfather's programs you can still find on the

Internet from the 30s and 40s and 50s. He sang all over the world, and his artwork is actually touring the country again right now.

So he was a famous man. Actually in the Philadelphia area, not a lot far, a friend of mine said, hey,

I saw some paintings by William Doriani in this art center, or I don't know exactly the status of it, but you know, an art museum.

And he said, is this guy related to you in any way? I said, yeah, that's my grandfather. So it was intriguing to me at an early age that I had these two grandfathers who were so different from each other and that just captured my imagination as a child.

And then that was sort of a starting point. The second thing, though, is my father was a very inquisitive man and whenever he'd meet somebody who had an interesting job, he would always ask him, tell me about your job, whatever it is, you know, a hydraulic engineer or an astronomer or a car salesman.

It didn't matter. My father wanted to know about it. He was just a very curious, inquisitive man. And that rubbed off on me,

I think, in a good way, especially when I was a pastor of a larger church of the two that I was pastor of.

There's a lot of very interesting professionals and I fell into the habit of interviewing them and asking them about their work, partly under the influence of early writers on faith and work who said, you need to visit people at their workplace and find out what they're doing so you can minister to them adequately and not just ask them to be busy at church.

But actually to bring the kingdom of God to bear on their work as carpenters and designers and engineers of all kinds and people in the construction trade, medical trade, financial fields, you name it.

And that just seemed correct to me because I was and am a Calvinist.

I believe that Christ rules all life and we spend so much of our energy, or life's energy, on work.

You know, eight hours a day, we say usually is the minimum, but a lot of people work 10 hours a day or 12 hours a day, four, five, six days.

And it's where we have the greatest resources, it's where we have the greatest training, it's where we have teams of people who can work on projects together.

And so, when I say concentrated firepower make this world a somewhat better place or at least a less unjust and less exploitative and less materialistic place, so I slowly got more and more interested not just in listening to stories and speaking about it from time to time, which

I always did, I decided to put the thoughts I've been gathering over a span of 20 years into a book.

Well, praise God for that. And we do have an anonymous listener already who has a question.

Do you have any Christian counsel for someone like myself who absolutely despises their work?

I'm not saying that I'm lazy and I don't hate work, I just happen to hate with a passion the job that I have to earn money to provide for my family and I would love to be working at a career that employed my gifts and my talents and things that I love, but I was unable to find such a job.

What can I do to overcome this mindset of hatred for what I am doing? Well, that's an extremely important question, so let me first of all thank the listener for sending it in.

So there are probably three kinds of answers to that question, and it hinges, this is actually based on one of the chapters

I wrote in the book about work and about our calling and locating our calling, and the principles found in 1

Corinthians 7, which I call, Stay and Less Because. If you look at 1

Corinthians 7 globally, it tells people who are asking questions of Paul, Paul tells people who are asking questions about difficult positions in life,

Paul's first word to them is stay. So if you're single and you think maybe you want to get married, Paul says, well, we've got this current distress, you should stay, unless you're burning with passion, in which case you should get married because it's better, because it's better to marry than burn, so stay and less because.

Similarly, if you're married to a non -Christian, this is Corinth, Christian folk are all first generation, new converts of Paul, and a lot of people converted, both husband and wife and whole family together, praise

God for that, and others converted and their spouse did not. And so they asked Paul the question, and now we're in verses 10 and following of 1

Corinthians 7. They asked him, you know, can I leave my marriage to a non -Christian? Paul said, no, you've got to stay.

In your marriage, that's God's plan, lifelong marriage, unless the unbelieving partner resolves to leave, in which case he says let them leave because God called us to stay and less because.

I'm not advocating perilous divorce, I'm just saying if someone moves to Australia with no forwarding address and changes their identity and they divorce you, which they can do against your will, you're not married anymore.

And Paul says, you know, stay unless that happens to you because God calls you to peace.

And then he does it again with slaves. Now slavery was not the same then as it is now. There are all kinds of differences.

Most people were able to buy their way out of slavery before they were 40 years old. It wasn't race -based.

Slaves earned the same wage as anybody else so they could save money and buy themselves out of slavery. But not everybody was free to do so and not every owner of a slave would let the slave buy themselves out of slavery.

So Paul gets a question again. What do you do if you were a slave and you were called?

Now, of course, I'm now answering the question more directly because being a slave or an enslaved person is a miserable job.

Who would want to be a slave? How could I escape my slavery? I hate being a slave.

It would certainly be something that an unbeliever, a pagan, or a believer could say at that time.

But Paul says, stay in the position in life in which God calls you.

He says it in verse 17, 1 Corinthians 7. He says it again in 20. Each one should remain in the position he was called in.

So stay and whatever condition you were in when God called you, let him there remain with God. That's verse 24.

He says it three times, stay. But then he says, unless. He says, unless you can gain your freedom, in which case do so or avail yourself of the opportunity.

The translations vary because the Greek is a little complicated there. So he says, stay as a slave unless you can gain your freedom, in which case you should.

Because you serve God. I'm paraphrasing now. It's easier to serve God when you're free than when you're a slave.

But he also says, look, nobody's absolutely free. Nobody's absolutely a slave.

The person who is a slave is free in Christ. That's still in verses 20, 24.

And the person who's free is Christ's slave. And the truth of the matter is a lot of people are called

God's slave. In the Bible, Paul was, Moses was, David was. They called themselves God's slaves.

Jesus actually is called the bond servant or slave of God at one point.

And so the most free person in the world is still bound to God the

Father. So all this then has the conclusion, which is if you are miserable in your work, you need to hear what

Paul says. Stay where you are. Serve faithfully there. If you're miserable in your work, you can also ask the question, is there an unless here?

Am I free to go? Am I free to do something else? Now, if you want to take a job, my friend, you said you need to provide for the family.

You need to make sure you take care of that basic duty. So you can't leave the job you have if the one you would pursue would not enable you to take care of your family.

So you have that ongoing obligation. You can't find a new job if it would be a violation of other principles, such as if you promised to work someplace for three years and the three years aren't up yet.

Or you are caring for your wife or children or other family members, and you know you're obligated to do that.

But if you are free to change a job, then you should look for one.

And of course, the way to do that is very immensely from place to place.

If you're in a setting where there's lots of openings, and if you're in a setting where maybe there's just a large populace, if you have gifts or skills or training or degrees that are much in demand, you're in a better position.

If that doesn't apply to you, and I'm guessing maybe that doesn't apply to this caller, then it's worthwhile.

I do believe in consulting with career consultants. One of my family members has done that.

It was extraordinarily beneficial, and he ended up in a place he wouldn't have expected.

It took some years of retraining and earning credibility over time in his workplace, but he's exactly where he needs to be, and he loves it.

Now, it did start with him going. He's a believer, and he went to a Christian woman who does vocational assessment, and she said, you know, you should aim for this career.

I think it would suit you really well, and it has. So that's an option, and of course, the other things include just spreading your net wide as widely as you can, and of course, prayer.

You know, Lord, guide me to a conversation or a person with whom I can talk about work, and the more open you are to opportunities, the more you're praying for opportunities, the more you're liable to see them when they come.

So that's not global, but that's at least the starting point. The first idea, if you need to stay, you know, there is a theme in the

Bible that we summarize aptly by saying bloom where you're planted, and we often find ourselves in work that we would never have chosen for ourselves.

For example, I was reading an article by a Christian, actually one of my students, who was reflecting on the fact that she suddenly had twins, and that was not expecting twins at all.

It deeply interrupted with her plans for her life, including service to God, you know, in the church.

She just said, you know, I would never have chosen it, and I have friends who have triplets and children who have serious developmental difficulties, and their lot is harder than mine, but I'm finding myself in this difficult calling, and perhaps that can be the result for this caller as well, that you may hate your job now, but God may enable you to see how

He is shaping you and forming you and enabling you to do good work, at least love your coworkers while you're there.

So those are a few points, and of course, I'm under no illusions that this answers every question people might have in that situation.

Well, thank you, Anonymous, and guess what? If you provide for us through an email, your full name and mailing address, you have won, compliments of P &R

Publishing, a free copy of Work, Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation by our guest today,

Dr. Daniel M. Doriani, and of course your identity will not be divulged on the air.

Just send us an email, and you will get the book, and it will be shipped out to you by CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, so keep an eye out for a package that says CVBBS .com

in the return mailing address area. We have to go to our midway break right now.

This is the longer than normal break, so please be patient with us. Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to air their own public service announcements and other local things that geographically localize

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida. We simultaneously air our globally heard commercials, so please be patient with us, and we'll be right back after these messages.

Attention all men in ministry leadership. You're all invited to my friend Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, Thursday, September 22nd, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, featuring me,

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries, your keynote speaker. Not only will you enjoy a wonderful time of fellowship with your colleagues in ministry over a delicious meal, but you'll also receive dozens of free brand new books donated by Christian publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom, personally selected by Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

So if you're a pastor, an elder, a deacon, a parachurch leader, or any other man in ministry leadership, please register for the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon today by calling 631 -291 -7002, 631 -291 -7002, or by visiting ironsharpensironradio .com,

ironsharpensironradio .com. This is James White of Alpha Omega Ministries hoping to see you Thursday, September 22nd, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, for Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon.

It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com

That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com Or call 678 -954 -7831

That's 678 -954 -7831 If you visit, tell them

Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's word in those smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the

Bible. Hi there. My name is Jordan Too, and I am the Executive Director of the Baptist Publishing House.

Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources.

Our quarterly curriculum is titled The Baptist Expositor, and for good reason. We are

Baptist, and we exegete the scriptures. If you want to have a curriculum that teaches your people how to study the word of God, I invite you, go to our website, download a free study, baptistpublishinghouse .com.

May God bless you. Why can't we see God? How do we know we picked the right

Bible? Why do we go to church on Sunday? Parents, if your kids have questions about God's word and his creation, they would love to read our new reformed magazine called

Ignited by the Word. This magazine is packed full of devotionals,

Bible stories, church history, poems, activities, and more to encourage you and kids of all ages in their walk with God.

Created by a team of teachers, ministers, mothers, fathers, and more, we know how important it is to have

Christian literature in our homes. Order Ignited by the Word for your home today at ignitedbytheword .org.

Learn more information and subscribe now at ignitedbytheword .org and receive your first two issues free.

Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus.

Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

That's liyfc .org. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.

Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?

Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth Love Parent and host of its award winning podcast.

I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s. And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.

That's why Truth Love Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents

God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.

Please visit us at truthloveparent .com. Music When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the

First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Anthony Mathenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia, and the NASB is my

Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmerville, Long Island, New York, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in South Lake, Texas, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net

That's hopereformedli .net Or call 631 -696 -5711

That's 631 -696 -5711

Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebinding.

No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot. Jeffrey Rice of Post -Tenebrous

Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan. All his work is done by hand from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching.

Jeffrey uses the finest in buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors like the turquoise goat skin tanned in Italy used for my

Nestle All in 28th edition with a navy blue goat skin inside liner and the electric blue goat skin from a

French tannery used to rebind a Reformation Study Bible I used as a gift. The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished chrome.

Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications and even emboss your logo into the leather making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art.

For more details on Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebinding go to PTLBibleRebinding .com

That's PTLBibleRebinding .com If you love

Iron Sharp and Iron Radio one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

Daniel P. Patafuco serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission to foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God.

They go to various churches schools and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.

Patafuco demonstrating the reliability of scripture. To advance the cause of the gospel they created a beautiful perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition 1611

King James Bible. This 17th century hand engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ going back to Adam and Eve.

This book is complete with gorgeous full -size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the

Tower of Babel and an explanation of why the genealogy of Jesus is so important for his claims to the throne of the universe.

Originals of this work are in museums and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public in a large book form before.

You can have your own copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35 or more.

Visit historicalbiblesociety .org That's historicalbiblesociety .org

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered,

Christ -exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And never forget, folks, make your very first stop for all your gift -giving needs. solid -ground -books .com

solid -ground -books .com Why not give a gift that has eternal significance?

Whether you're giving a gift to a brother and sister in Christ or a lost person in your life.

solid -ground -books .com prints nothing but the finest in Christian literature, dating back to the

Protestant Reformation and extending forward to our current day, including such modern -day authors as Dr.

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. So go to solid -ground -books .com today. Purchase generously.

Purchase frequently. Always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before we return to Dr.

Dan Doriani on his book regarding the subject of work, its purpose, dignity, and transformation, we just have a couple of more important announcements.

Please, folks, if you love this show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves. Go to ironsharpensironradio .com

Click support, then click Click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

If you prefer mailing in a check the old -fashioned way, there will also be a physical mailing address that appears on your screen where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

When you click click support at ironsharpensironradio .com Please, folks, never give your own church less money in order to give

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a gift. Please don't cut in to your regular giving that you're accustomed to, to your own church where you're a member, in other words, in order to give us a gift financially.

Never do that. Also, never put your family at serious financial risk if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet by giving us a financial gift.

Wait until you are back on your feet and financially stable before doing that. Those two things are commands of God in Scripture providing for your church and family and providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God in the

Bible. But if you do love this show and you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, you have extra money in the bank collecting interest, you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, or trivial matters.

And you love this show and you don't want it to go away, please share some of that money with us. Go to www .ironchipdesignradio

.com click support then click click to donate now. And as always, if you want to advertise something, we can sure use your advertising dollars as well, as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe.

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a

Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally sound, theologically solid church like Green Tree Community Church in Kirkwood, Missouri, no matter where on the planet

Earth you live, I may be able to help you find a church, sometimes even within minutes of your own home, as I have done with many people across the world in our listening audience.

Just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr. Dan Doriani on work. And that email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. We received an email with a question from Charlie in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Charlie, you asked a question that has nothing to do with our subject, so please send in a question on work, its purpose, dignity, and transformation, and I hope to hear back from you with a question that suits our topic of discussion.

We have Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania who says, how young can a child be for you to remove them from your home if they refuse to work?

I'm sorry if I'm chuckling about that, but it just struck me funny immediately, but if you could.

I'm sure that's a very common problem. Yeah, that's an interesting question.

I would say something like this, I probably need a lot more information about the age of a child that's not working.

Certainly, we have to hold our children to accountability beginning at an early age, and you know, in a healthy home, of course, if I can just broad out the question, in a healthy home, we are looking for a child to teach our children to do things like put away their toys, make their bed, and contribute,

I don't know, clear the table, wash dishes, unload the dishwasher, you know, when they're pretty young, and you keep that up, and you always hope, of course, that habits that are inculcated early will remain.

It depends on, you know, removing a child who refuses to work depends on questions like, are they dangerous?

Is this child not just refusing to work, but is this child also refusing to work? also a hostile or cursing or refusing to follow the parental guidance?

Are they taking drugs? Are they drunk? Et cetera. So, it's a broad, broad question.

I would say, certainly, it's good for parents to help their children at least through the end of high school, all things being considered, and today, if they have the aptitude, of course, and it's good to help them find their way through college,

I think that when someone is 21 or 22 has finished college, they should be on their own. I know that sometimes children stay with mom and dad well past that age in their 20s, and I do think it's reasonable to say to a child, you need to be on your own, especially if they're well above the age of 22, and you are, you are invited to leave if they refuse to work.

And, you know, I've never heard put it that way, invited to leave. Well, I don't know what else to say.

I mean, you know, I'm not sure you want to kick your child out. You could say, look, it's time for you to go, mom and I, or, you know, maybe you're single, or maybe your spouse died.

You know, we have our own life, and we're not helping you. The basic idea in discipline of a child is this,

I love you too much to let you think that what you're doing has no consequences in this world.

I talk about that in another book I wrote called The New Man. And that's, that's the core issue of discipline.

It's an act of love. Now, it can be an act of self -preservation if a child is vile or extremely disruptive, or, you know, stealing from their parents to support a drug habit in extreme cases.

But in the milder cases, you're, you're doing your child a favor. Look, you're working 12 hours a week playing video games all day and then wandering out with your friends at night, you're 24 years old, this is no way to live.

That's a favor to your child to tell them it's time to go. Yeah, nobody's doing a child, especially an adult,

I mean, you have adult children living with their parents into their 50s and older, and even when the, the circumstances involve the, the parents or parents singular, it might be a widow or a widower, saying, come on, you know, get a job and get out.

But of course, we have to remember that there are times when a, a parent, especially a single parent who is older, might have health problems and other things that would necessitate the child living there.

Yeah, right. We don't want to give a guilt trip to people who are either taking care of people physically or financially.

You know, it might be that the income that the adult person is making is required for this parent to, to live, and so we don't want to make a broad brush statement.

There are, there are reasons, especially if a house is big enough and so on. Well, you know,

I'd like to go into some principles to give the idea behind this, but it's fine,

I think, for children who are working and trying to save money to buy a house or trying to save a little money to get a few things together so they can have a roommate.

I think it's fine to have children live with you for, you know, two months or six months or something like that.

But, the specific question is about a child who won't work, refuses to work, and I think what we have to remember in a setting like that is that God works.

God is a worker, and God ordains the human's work, and He ordained that before the fall. Work is difficult and can become a curse, but in itself, work is not a curse.

It may be drudgery, it may have bad co -workers or bad boss, et cetera. It can be unpleasant, but in itself, work is good.

And God, we don't think of it this way, but when we hear that God is king or God is shepherd or God is creator, those are all jobs.

I mean, it's a job to be an inventor. It's a job to be a potter. I'm the potter, you're the clay.

It's a job to be a shepherd. It was a job, a real job, not a figurehead job as it is today, to be a king.

And it was real work. So, a lot of the metaphors that God uses in the

Bible are working metaphors that He uses to describe Himself. So work is good, and, you know, the

Bible says you should work six days, and the seventh day is the Sabbath. So, hey, my son, my daughter who refuses to work,

God tells us to work six days, which is not the same as earning money six days. You might earn money four days, or five days, or six days, but you're supposed to work, that is to say, this is the definition, put forth concentrated effort to accomplish tasks, working through challenges or difficulties.

And the Lord honors work. He honors manual labor. Jesus worked with His hands.

Paul worked with his hands, as well as mental labor. So, don't tell yourself that this job of preparing food, for example, is beneath their dignity.

It's good to work with our hands. The Apostle Paul says that explicitly. Of course, Jesus was, we say

He's a carpenter, but really He was a worker with materials. The word that the Bible uses is tekton, which means carpenter or worker with stone or metals.

So, you know, God honors artisans, and it's not your place to say this isn't the right job for me.

You know, get out there and start working and start accomplishing some skills, and if you won't, then

I'm loving you by telling you that I'm not going to support your sloth or your laziness or pride.

Maybe it's pride. You know, these jobs are beneath my dignity. So Jesus was actually a mason then?

Jesus was probably, you know, the recollections are that He was mostly someone who worked with wood, but the word tekton that's used in the

New Testament of Jesus, which gets translated carpenter, was used to describe people who worked with stone.

So, yes, masons. And I did not mean He was a member of the Freemasonry cult. No, He wasn't that kind of a mason.

That's right. I'll agree with you on that. Joseph, you've also won a free copy of the book we are addressing today by our guest,

Dan Doriani. And that book is Work, Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation.

Send us your full name and mailing address at cvbbs .com. We'll ship it out to you as soon as possible.

And we want to thank, once again, P &R Publishing for the generosity in providing a limited number of copies of this book today.

We have another anonymous listener who says, Is it sin to burden your adult children, especially if they have already moved out of the house, by continuing to work for the family business and even to take over the family business after the parents retire or die?

And also, on the other end of the spectrum, is it sin for adult children to be indifferent or to strongly resist keeping a family business alive that may has been in business for generations just because of the person's own personal interest in a career?

Yeah, let me take the second one first because I actually lost you for just a second on the first question.

But I'll answer the second one and then you can prompt me to say a little bit more. Is it a sin for an adult child to refuse to keep a business alive?

And the answer would be that depends. You know, work is good, we understand, from our

Confessions of Faith and theological teachings, when it has the right goal, the right standard, and the right motive.

So the goal is ultimately the glory of God, of course, and love of our fellow humans, love of God and neighbor.

The standard is God's Word, the Decalogue, for example, Ten Commandments and the other teachings of the

Bible. And the motive is then what we're talking about, is what we need to talk about here, and that is, does it proceed from love?

And which covers, of course, the love of mom and dad, in this case, but also the clients and so forth.

So if someone says, I don't want to continue to work in my father's business, let's say it's metallurgy, because I just don't want to have dirty hands and I don't like sales, and, you know,

Dad, you've done a great job, and I can just live off your inheritance, which you were kind enough to give me a portion of already, then that motive would be self -indulgence, and we would certainly think that that's not a good reason to refuse to work with mom and dad and the family business.

On the other hand, and I know people, they say, look, my father started a wonderful business, and my mother worked with him on it, and I'm just so different from my father who ran the business, and I don't understand this work.

I don't feel any affinity toward it, but I also don't feel I have any ability in it either, and I have a deep concern that if I were to take over this business,

I would destroy it. I would be offering a poor product to our clients, and, of course, you know, that's basic, that you love your client by giving them a good product or good service, and promote life and health.

You know, Jesus commended those who brought water and food and clothing and shelter during his life.

I would run it to the ground, and the truth of the matter is, a lot of children do run their parents' business into the ground.

Oh, yeah, I've seen it happen, especially restaurants I've seen that happen to. Well, that would be an obvious example, and there are quite a few others, unfortunately.

I mean, a man I have the deepest respect for left his father's business and sold it.

I mean, he didn't own the whole thing. It was a fairly substantial local company, but he left, and he said, look,

I'm just not good at this. This doesn't fit my training, my disposition, my skill set.

I'm good at other things, and I'm going to do that, and so he started his own business, so his dad had an entrepreneurial side, and he had an entrepreneurial side, but his gifts were so different from those of his father that he was actually respecting his father and respecting his father's clients by leaving that field in which he simply did not have aptitude.

So everything depends on the motives. If it's laziness, if it's indifference, if it's disrespect, then, of course, it's wrong, but if it's honest self -appraisal, then it's right and good.

Also, I want to make a distinction, the Bible certainly does here, by saying, look, we don't always know exactly what our calling might be.

It's not immediately obvious to us. Sometimes we find our calling by working at a job. A job and a calling aren't the same thing.

Jesus had a job as a carpenter. It wasn't his calling. His calling was to be Lord and Savior. Paul had a job to make ten.

His calling was to be an apostle. But for a lot of us, ordinary people, we find our calling by taking a variety of jobs.

And we understand that God puts us in a place, and if you take a job working your family business and you realize, this is not my calling, then it is the right thing to ask, okay,

God showers gifts upon his people, and he's made it clear I don't have the gifts to run this business.

It was clear to me that I should do something else and fight back against the curse and fight back against, you know, all the woes of this life by doing good with our hands as God enabled us.

The part of the question that you did not hear, because apparently I cut out in the audio realm, you really answered the question because the question was, is it ever wrong for parents to burden their adult children with a necessity to keep a business alive that perhaps has been in business for generations, maybe even for centuries.

But you gave the wrong reasons a parent should burden their children with that responsibility, and you gave the right reasons where they should instill in them a need to keep that business alive.

So you really answered. Yeah, I can comment a tiny bit more about that. I hear the question, which I like. Obviously, to try to use guilt to move a child to stay in the business, you know, if you don't stay in this business, it'll be destroyed, is not a good way to operate as a parent.

Guilt is not a motive. It's not a good motive for our work. Obviously, guilt is sometimes a gift from God, and we are guilty, we just face it.

But you don't want to move someone to a career through guilt. You move them to the career through concepts of calling and vocation and the value of the work.

It's also important if a parent does see that it's dubious, the gifts of their children are uncertain, it's excellent to say, well, why don't you try it out for a year or two, and we'll see, and then have honest conversations.

You know, we're afraid of awkward conversations, but we need to have them. And if you own a business and your child is, or you don't have to own a business, you just say, okay, my child's interested in some field, and you have doubts as to whether that child is indeed capable of that work, let's have a can of conversations.

Is this the job you're supposed to have? Is this job good? Okay, it's good. Is it the calling you want for your life's work?

That's a somewhat different question. And I have to say, I've had that question with one of my own children on a number of occasions.

She's very good at some things, but she decided that's not her calling. That was a job she had for a number of years, but it's not her calling.

And so, you know, it's good to have channels open and say to your child, I'd love to have you take over the business, but I'm not sure you're the right person for it.

What do you think? Well, Anonymous, please, if you want to receive this free copy of Work by Dan Doriani, give us your full name and full mailing address, and CVBBS .com

will ship that out to you. And of course, we will not divulge your name and location on the air since you remained anonymous.

We have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says,

I don't know if your guest is a Sabbatarian, but I was wondering what his opinion is on the fact that many

Sabbatarians will say a Christian can only be obedient to God when it comes to their employment and their working on the

Sabbath if that job is a work of necessity or mercy. But sometimes jobs are overlooked that I feel are in that category, such as people who work at a gas station.

That could be a very important job when people are in an emergency situation running out of gas.

Or the phone company, and we could go on and on with things that could become works of necessity and mercy but not recognized normally as such.

Excellent question. Although we should never base these opinions on feelings as you use the word, but your thoughts.

But anyway, if you could, Dan. Sure. So first of all,

I appreciate your point, Chris, when people say, what do you feel about this? I say, well, my feelings about this are completely irrelevant.

I will tell you what I think, however, and I will try to make it as biblical and theologically sound as I possibly can.

So it's a very astute question that your caller asks, and he's exactly right that our definition of works of necessity has a need to be updated based on the life we live today.

So, for example, in centuries past, there was no such thing as an electrical grid, and there was no need to keep an electrical grid going because it didn't exist.

But once we all depend on an electrical grid, so, for example, you could say, oh, we could just turn off the electrical grid on Sundays.

There are people in hospitals that would die if you didn't keep the grid going.

So there goes a lot of people who have to see power generation and power transfer as a part of their life, of service to God and neighbor, and therefore an act of necessity.

Certain gas stations would be another example. We could give the medical fields our services.

The police probably should add water. People could store up water, of course, but today people don't, and people could end up being harmed by lack of water.

So I agree that we need to expand in light of the changes that have occurred in society so that jobs that didn't even exist in the past now not only exist, but are essentially mandatory for our way of life, like pumping gas.

I mean, in the year 1700, nobody even knew such a job would ever exist.

Right. So that became a work of necessity, and we have to update that on a regular basis,

I would say. On the other hand, of course, the bigger danger is not that we would neglect true works of necessity like power generation and power transfer, but that we call things necessary that really aren't, like keeping retail stores open.

We could say, well, you know, people need clothes all the time, therefore

I will keep my clothing store open on Sunday. Well, true that people need clothes all the time, but they rarely run out of clothing on, you know,

Sunday at 7 in the morning. Your clothes may be ripped or something, but you can still wear them.

So the danger really is that we have the greater danger in our society today is we make no differentiation between Sunday and, or the

Lord's Day, and every other day of the week. And I don't know, I'm sure your listeners who are dedicated to the church know this, and know how many, how very many people decide they can't come to church because they're off, you know, doing work that isn't really necessary, or they're off in various activities that are, you know, certainly not necessary, nor even close to necessary.

And they declare that that's God's schedule of starting every day, every week with rest.

I love how, you know, now the Lord's Day is the first day of the week, and so the Lord says, the first thing I want you to do is take a day off to celebrate what

I've done. And, you know, we're much more inclined to see the work week, you know, but it's very different from the way

God does. We talk about the work week, five days work, and then the weekend. And that's when we reward ourselves for working hard.

But in the Bible, of course, we start by resting in Christ, and then we go to work. So we do well to follow, you know, the

Biblical calendar more than we do. Although again, I appreciate the accomplished question. And wouldn't you agree that there are some important factors to look at?

For instance, are there enough people employed at this company, and you have a good enough relationship with your employers where you can say, can

I please have Sundays off, no matter what extra day

I need to work, because I want to observe the Lord's Day and worship. And also, the other factor would be somebody whose secular job is actually preventing them from attending worship service and gathering with the saints completely.

Right. Right. I agree. And in those situations, I do think it's wise to be the best worker you can be, so you become indispensable, shall we say, and they ought to keep you because of how hard you work.

And I do think that that can happen, and I think if you're not there yet, you can work toward that.

And of course you can always get another job if you have the ability to get free.

Yeah, I was, before my conversion, I was raised Roman Catholic, and we thought it was a required element of Lord's Day observance by going to the bakery.

Okay. After the worship service. But anyway, and let's see, we do have another listener here with a question.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says,

I don't know if you've ever seen Dirty Jobs hosted by Mike Rowe, but I absolutely love the program.

I don't know if Mike Rowe is a Christian, but it seems he either consciously or unconsciously has a very

Christian work ethic. Yeah, so I'm going to make an odd confession, and that is about two years ago,

I got rid of cable and said, I'm not going to watch TV until I start to miss it.

And I still don't miss it. I don't watch

TV at all anymore, but I have seen Dirty Jobs, you know, years ago, and maybe while working out at the gym, you know, it was on the screen, or maybe while eating somewhere, it was on a screen.

So I do have a sense of the idea of that particular program. And I like the way it dignifies ordinary work.

That's what's terrific about it. And we have, you know, Chris, I know you know that we don't want to have a sacred -secular split, right?

That, you know, only if a priest, or a nun, or a monk, or a bishop, or a pastor, or a missionary is doing sacred work, but anyone can dedicate their work to God.

So I'm sure your listeners know that, and I'm sure you've said that, and other guests have said it.

But there's another split, and that is the split between white -collar work and blue -collar work that a lot of people think in our culture, and I've always thought that the more clean your fingernails are, the better off you are.

We should get white -collar work, and we shouldn't fix cars, or fix bridges, or be a welder, or anything like that, if we can possibly avoid it.

And that's just completely unbiblical. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any job that is honest, and does good, and provides food, clothing, and shelter to our neighbors.

You know, I alluded to it earlier, but, you know, in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus pulls the righteous side, you might say, the sheep, and he says,

I'm commending you. He blesses them because I was hungry, and you gave me food, you know, that part.

But it's also, I was thinking you visited me. That includes all medical work, which includes, you know, bedpans, and changing sheets, and things of that nature.

I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. There's anything that brings people together. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. That's all water and beverage services.

I was naked in clothing. That's all clothing, and I think it includes housing. You know, I was covered, and the

Bible says if we have food and covering, we should be content with that. That's 1 Timothy chapter 6. Covering includes the roof over our head and the clothes on our back.

And I was thinking you visited me. I was in prison. You came to me. That's all the acts of social kindness, you know, and anything that brings people together and brings lonely people together with friends, and certainly things like I was thirsty, you gave me water to drink.

I mean, that includes pipes, and maybe also sewer lines, and waste, and toilets, and it's not, we don't think of it as dignified work, but we need it.

That's for sure. How about this? Garbage collectors. You know? We need garbage collectors in our society.

It's dignified work. It's good work. If all the garbage collectors and all the politicians disappeared on the same day, who would we miss first?

And we're going to our final break. It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks. In fact, let me ask a question of a listener, and you can answer it when we return.

Sure. We have R .J. in White Plains, New York, who says something that the previous questioner said sparked a question of my own.

The other questioner said the phrase, Christian work ethic.

I was wondering if you know the origins of Protestant work ethic, and we'll have you answer that when we come back.

If anybody would like to ask a question of Dan Doriani, please send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dan Doriani.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dan Doriani. g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org g3men .org

g3men .org is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Dan Lebenick of West Hills Baptist Church in Huntington Station, New York, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Reverend Buzz Taylor, author of God's Lawson, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Dr. William Webster, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Battleground, Washington, founder of the ministry

Christian Resources, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Ryan Galan of Central Islip Community Church in Central Islip, New York, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Brandon Smith of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Jackson, Georgia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

And don't forget, folks, if your pews in your churches, or what may be more common today, your chair

Bibles rather than your pew Bibles, if they are tattered and falling apart, or you just want a different translation that's highly recommended by many

Bible scholars, please consider replacing all the Bibles in your church building with the

NASB and mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

The publisher's website is nasbible .com, nasbible .com. And we thank them for just recently, last week, in fact, renewing their advertising contract with Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And the owner of our newest advertiser, Sterling Vandewerker of Royal Diadem Jewelers, uh, he says he has a question for Dan Doriani, our guest today, that he will ask you off the air, and he's going to email you privately if that's okay with you,

Dan. Uh, sure. Um, that's fine. Yeah.

And, uh, thank you, uh, Royal Diadem Jewelers for offering that magnificent, uh, offer to our listeners that if they purchase anything valued at a hundred dollars or more, all of the profits will go to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio if you mention that you heard about royaldiadem .com

on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Uh, as we, uh, asked you, or should

I say I asked you before the ad break, RJ in White Plains, New York wants to know where the, or what the origins of Protestant work ethic came from.

Right. So, uh, that's a fairly concrete, specific, uh, answer, and that is a sociologist who is really no friend of the church, uh, but the influence of Calvin and others on, and the

Puritans on Western civilization said, uh, so Max Weber said that there's a factor in Protestantism that makes us think that we should work hard to serve

God, to please God, and so far so good. And then he said that Protestant work ethic, uh, which is, you know, grounded in the idea that God created the world and we should take care of it, um, and love him and love our neighbors by working hard and producing good products also led to a, uh, mindset that was, uh, not materialistic, uh, but led people to save money and that savings led to the development of capital and it actually fostered capitalism and fostered people having enough money to invest in factories at the time.

He wrote quite a while ago, uh, more than 30 years ago, um, invest in factories and manufacturing of various kinds, which then promoted the production of further wealth.

So it's a, it's a pretty secular idea, and, uh, we would say that there's a difference between the terms used in culture, the

Protestant work ethic, and a Christian work ethic, which says we do everything heartily, unsung to the

Lord, and we, you know, work six days and do our labor, and then we rest because we're not working machines.

God's not a working machine. Even Jesus rested, so we rest, and we don't think, uh, that we have infinite energy and infinite gifts.

We understand our finitude and our limitations. We accept those from God and so forth. So those are some elements of a

Christian work ethic, uh, which is not the same as Max Weber's concept of a

Protestant work ethic. Well, I definitely know already that I want you to come back soon and frequently to Iron Trump and Zion Radio as long as your schedule allows and as long as your interest is there.

I would love to have you return, but if you could perhaps give one or two elements of the book in summary form that we haven't addressed today.

Oh, yeah, and so, you know, let me just say thank you for that, and I did also write another book on work.

It's shorter and simple. It's only 98 pages, and it's called Work That Makes a Difference. Um, so that's one you can use in your churches.

I'm going to just hit something we didn't get to today, and that is how do we find ourselves in a position to change the world for the better?

And I say that you can think this through in terms of four Ps, and the first one is have biblical principles, and if you want to change your corner of the world, ask, you know, is there a big idea, a biblical idea that I can use to change my corner of the world where I work, whether that's education or service and manufacturing or medicine or communication or various forms of ministries of kindness, love, and mercy, and so you have a principle, but then the second thing you really want is to ask, do

I have a position that allows me to create a team, to locate resources, to even, you know, insist on resources if you're in a certain position, and if you don't have that position, what would it take?

What kind of work would I have to put in for how many years? What skill sets would I need to acquire? Maybe some training

I would need so that I can have a position formally on a leadership chart or informally in a firm so that my ideas to make this workplace better could be put to the test, could be actualized, but it's not enough to have an idea or principle or a position.

You also have to have some passion because every effort or reform is going to meet with resistance.

There'll be surprising obstacles. There'll be sabotage on some cases.

There'll be foot dragging on other occasions, so you have to care about it enough to actually put in the work, and then, of course, connected to that is you have to persevere when there's an unhappy turn of events, opposition, and so forth, which, you know, we see in the lives of all the gods, they write.

I mean, Jesus, Paul, Moses, David, everybody who's trying to accomplish something that God gave them to do met with not only obstacles but even severe opposition, and it takes perseverance or endurance, which are fundamental, difficult values, in order to fight your way through the obstacles that will arise when you try to implement

God's plans and God's purposes through your workplace. Well, we are out of time. I want to repeat the websites that are associated with Dan Doriani, faithandworksstl, abbreviation for St.

Louis, faithandworksstl .org, and we also have the podcast

Working with Dan Doriani at workingwithdan .org, workingwithdan .org.

If anybody wants to purchase the book that we've been giving away today, published by P &R Publishing, Work, Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation, you can get that at cvbbs .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com.

I want to thank you so much, Dan Doriani, for being a superb guest. I look forward to your frequent return.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater