Should a Man with a Therapy Animal Be Told to Man Up?

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Alright Tim, the question for today's episode is, should a man with a therapy animal be told to man up?

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Definitely, yeah. So in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

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So I interpret that to mean act like men equals don't have a therapy animal.

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You couldn't even keep from laughing when you read the Bible first. Why'd you laugh, Tim? Why'd you laugh?

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There's nothing more emasculating than the thought of a man having to be dependent upon an animal for comfort and safety.

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So obviously, act like men has direct application to don't have therapy animal.

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I mean, couldn't we guess that maybe Paul had some kind of chihuahua or something as he was chained in prison?

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Maybe that's what the thorn in his side was. The chihuahua, it was helpful, and then eventually it became too.

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He wasn't able to take it outside enough, and so it was peeing and pooping inside, and maybe that was the thorn in his side.

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We've got to admit that that's at least a possibility. Right, Tim? No. No?

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Mostly like a seeing eye dog or something like that. A seeing eye dog because he was blind?

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Yeah. No, I did this poll on Twitter, and I was basically saying – I was asking about therapy animals.

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Should therapy animals be allowed in church? A lot of people confuse a therapy animal with a service animal essentially.

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So a service animal is like an animal that helps someone with a disability. So like a seeing eye dog to help a blind person or something along those lines.

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But then a therapy animal is like an emotional support animal. Like it's an animal that a person has to have in order to be okay, in order to handle life, and they feel like just paralyzed with fear, like afraid, uncomfortable.

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So like a therapy animal. Like the problem is that Paul is telling men, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

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And so you're supposed to mean, well, what does it mean to act like a man? So be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

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Well, one of the things that we talked about in our courage episode is Isaiah 19, 16. So if you want to think about what is the opposite of acting like a man, well, in that day, the

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Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the hand of the Lord of hosts shakes over them.

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So to be a man is like synonymous with having courage to face difficulty or danger.

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And what you're talking about with the therapy animal is an individual who has to have an animal present in order for them to have the requisite courage necessary just to face the normal, difficult trials of life, or just go anywhere in public.

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So they just don't feel okay unless they have this animal there with them. And really, I mean,

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God's a God of all comfort. And what you're talking about with the therapy animal is essentially like an idol.

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I mean, that's what you're talking about. So the problem with therapy animal is not just like you're beating up on these men who are so emotionally incapable of handling life, that they have to have some animal there present for them to feel okay or feel safe.

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Like, yes, that's an utter failure of masculinity. But like the deeper problem is that they've made this, they turn this animal into an idol, essentially.

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So the Bible says my people committed two evils. One, you know, they've forsaken me, the fount of living waters. And then two, they hewn for themselves broken, sick cisterns, which will never hold water, which will never satisfy, essentially.

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And so, you know, instead of worshiping God, looking to God to be the God of all comfort, they look to created things to be sources of comfort and safety and security.

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And that's just not how God's designed the world. So you shouldn't look to the creation to do something that God ultimately is going to do.

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So you should be strong in the Lord, in the strength of his might, and stand firm, right, in the

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Lord. You shouldn't have to have some animal there to help you to, you know, basically face other people or go out in public or whatever.

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So this is basically just like, yes, it's a failure of masculinity, but it's also like fundamentally about idolatry at that point.

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So all I hear you saying is you don't think Paul had the chihuahua. That's true.

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Paul definitely didn't have a therapy wild, you know, dog. Not the chihuahua that, you know, like when you're real stressed out, you just, you rub its belly and then you get warm fuzzies inside and everything's okay.

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I mean, he probably ate a few dogs on his travels, you know. Doesn't the

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Bible say, you know, I'm pretty sure the Bible says things like, you know, beware the dogs. Beware the dogs, mutilation, right, yeah.

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The idea of having to have an animal, you know, a therapeutic animal, yeah, definitely.

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So is that even a therapy animal? Is that even like a, is there even a category of that beyond like 10 years ago?

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Yeah, it's a totally new thing. Yeah. I mean, it's a totally new thing that people have developed in order to basically, as courage in masculinity fails, as men are becoming less and less masculine.

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You know, this is something that started out with like children and cancer patients and things like that.

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But I mean, I counsel young men in college who, you know, have their therapy animals.

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And so this is just like some this is a new thing that that has come about.

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And it's definitely coming about in a society where, you know, men aren't nearly as masculine as they used to be, for sure.

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So when Paul is saying, you know, act like men, he's not even thinking in his mind, like, get rid of the therapy dog, because that's not even like a thing, right?

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That's not even on the radar, yeah. That would be so, like, embarrassing to anyone of that society that there would be, you know, this is a no brainer.

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Okay, fair enough. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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