Prison

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Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification

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Of the Saints before we dig into our topic. We humbly ask you to rate review and share the podcast.

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Thank you I'm Andrew Hudson and joining me today are

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Michael Deere and Chris Kiesler. All right, so we had a brother send in a question

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Let me read it. It's actually a two -parter, but we'll address the first part now I have long held the belief that long -term incarceration is not scriptural

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God's Word seems to clearly indicate you make restitution for your crime or if it's grievous enough

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You forfeit your life. I do believe long -term incarceration is inhumane and not according to God's law

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Michael please start us off. Okay. This is a good observation that The prison system that we have in both federal and state forms seems to be not

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Humane not workable this there's something just totally broken like there's a flaw here

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Yeah, I'm pretty back pretty big flaw. It's interesting that it's called the Penitentiary System.

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Yeah, and I know you were yeah I was looking at that and the prison reform movement actually started for what happened here in the

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United States that actually Started in England But the first state to implement some of the same types of reforms that were happening in the

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UK was, Pennsylvania And so it became as known as like the Pennsylvania system It's the idea of a penitentiary and it was designed to be a secluded house of repentance that's the form of penitentiary coming from the

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Latin where they those who are incarcerated would be subject to bodily pain labor watchfulness solitude and silence also joined with bodily cleanliness and simple food as a form of Deprivation leading towards repentance.

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Well, it works for the monks, right? Yeah, and it was a model that was adapted from that Yeah, I mean it works for the monks in the monastery

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So obviously it'll work for criminals in a in a prison turn it into penitentiary and then you can buy outward

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Stimulus change the inward man. Mmm. Yeah I think there might be a difference in motivation with the monks choosing that lifestyle and others

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First of all, he stood up on though. Yeah. Yeah, there's certainly a difference in Reasoning there, but it does ignore a very important biblical principle before we can talk about justice we need to talk about the condition of man so that we can understand what justice is about is justice in itself redemptive as the justice dispensed by the state the instrument of Redemption and is the state of Savior.

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Well, we know that man needs a Savior indeed and for the Lord in Genesis 6 5 the

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Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thought of his Heart was only evil continually and the

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Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart so God as creator as the owner of Mankind he decides to destroy man

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He says I will destroy man who might have created from the face of the earth both man and beast Creeping thing and birds of the air for I'm sorry that I have made them but Noah found grace in the eyes of the

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Lord So God had grace He had favor upon Noah, but in his family, but he killed all the rest of humanity

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Now this was a massive act of justice and judgment Mankind being so evil before the face of God deserved death and that's the righteous sentence deserve death well this outward stimulus came upon mankind and we can only imagine the hardships and the fear and the

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Tumult that went on in Noah's life his wife's Life and his three sons and their wives what an amazing

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Impact that flood must have had on them that they have the only surviving humans

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Yeah with with a could just a relatively poultry collection of the animals there on the ark.

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So after this massive impact upon humanity, what was

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What was the result? Well, God said I will never again curse the ground for man's sake although the

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Imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

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So in other words this flood And even the year -long so -called prison sentence for Noah with a bunch of animals on the ark

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Cut off from everything that they knew cut off from society cut off from the earth cut off from from land

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Yeah at the end of it It didn't change the fundamental Sinfulness of the heart of man did not so it can't be and there's no answer an outward stimulus is not the answer to change the heart of Mankind so a prison system number one should not be used as an instrument of redemption of regeneration of Sanctification or however, you want to put it?

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It's just not going to do the trick is it? No So that's the first thing. So the question then I think for the modern

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Hearer is then what good is a prison system? I think for most people it's it's usually phrased like this

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There are dangerous criminals that pose a threat to us and our children they threaten to destabilize the order and the peace and the

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Commerce and the good of our society and therefore they need to be moved out of the way put out of the way to someplace else where we don't have to Engage with them and they can't harm us

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All right, so we're going to essentially the modern -day prison system is a form of exile.

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Yeah expulsion from the camp Yeah, okay. So it's a form of exile then this will happen For what six months 18 months five years ten years twenty years fifty years

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Never come out. Yeah life for and I think the questioner is saying these long -term prison sentences these exiles

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Does not seem wise does not seem just does not seem biblical Yeah, if I'm remembering correctly doesn't even mention the the reasons why they're there

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Because we could talk about some of the laws in the book and whether the laws themselves are just the reason why people are being put in prison just the concept of holding people for a long period of time is

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Kind of what's being called into question here. And so you talk about it being an exile people being

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Removed and then under what condition do they? Reenter society we talked about the prisons not

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Rehabilitating them, you know in their soul or in their minds or their thinkings So if you know someone to be of that nature

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If you're trying to reach for like that argument that they're they're not changed

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Then just locking them away out of sight out of mind I can't think of the verse that the mercies of the wicked are cruel are cruel.

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Yes That's their solution not taking into consideration And these people are are made in the image of God, even though they're criminals

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They're made in the image of God and taking all that that time away from them and in the burden

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It places on the society to hold large numbers of people for long term and that's and and that's where I think the prison system shows itself to be not only foolish but Fundamentally unjust there's this expression that you have to you do the crime you do the time and then once you've

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Quote unquote paid your debt to society Then you can be released and then criminals don't want their past Incarcerations to be brought up and they'll perhaps thump their chests.

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I paid my debt to society, right? But in actuality you created a greater debt on society.

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You are a burden to society so you if you embezzle from your business partner and destroy your small business because you embezzled and you leave this man without a job and he loses his home and maybe his whole life is is

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Thrown apart perhaps his wife divorces him He's his life is a complete misery because you embezzled from it

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You go to jail You go to prison and you have to do your five to ten years for embezzlement the whole time the taxpayers are paying for your time there including the man's wife

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And the man and ultimately the debt passed on to the man's children whom you embezzled from how is that righteous?

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No restitution was made so the so now you're left with the prison system does not rehabilitate and It does not repay

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Okay. So What good is it? Maybe perhaps the prison system is being used to bring some sort of greater good to society, maybe you can

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Rehabilitate people and maybe the problem was that they are there may be a reason why they came to prison is because they didn't read well enough they didn't learn a trade and maybe if you could just educate them enough, but the return rate of Prisoners back to the prisons and so on shows that this is not that's not true.

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It's not true Yeah, you'd say well, maybe you could get some use out of the prisoners while they're there and put them to work

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Okay. Well the prison system is a form of slavery, right? Yeah, it is That's another system.

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It's called slavery Yeah, so this the the war between the states did not outlaw slavery in the

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United States it outlawed private slavery private ownership of slaves in the United States federal ownership of slaves

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Still is very much alive and well, and so you put these prisoners. They're there against their will they're incarcerated

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They're kept essentially not if not in chains, they're behind bars and they're made to work So all sorts of laundry laundry systems, you know the old trope of making the license plates and yeah all that kind of furniture

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Work details sure. And so there's a whole bunch of the industry going on where you can pay these prison workers

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You know, perhaps less than a dollar an hour or maybe a dollar an hour. Well beneath the minimum wage slave wages

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Okay And you're trying to get something out of them now the amount of money that goes in to keep to keep them and house them and feed them

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Far outweighs Any profitability you get out of them, especially since the prison systems themselves are often run by private corporations

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Whose lobbyists make sure that the politicians keep up the prison sentences and keeps the justice system rolling feeding low

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Wage workers into the prison system over and over and over again. So we don't have a profitable system

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It only causes more debt. We don't have a healing system a restoring system It just more disease. And so the whole thing is a massive disaster.

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The only thing left is is it a deterrent? Mm -hmm criminals fear such a situation

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Well that four hots and a cot, you know, I know people personally who when they went into the system

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When they were released they said I prefer that everything's paid for I don't have to worry about anything my housing paid for my meals are paid for I don't have to think

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I'd Do a little bit of work and then everything's taken care of. I don't know how to function in society and so far from being

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Rehabilitating it's debilitating. He was saying I don't know how to to do this now

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He's been out for a while and he's got help and he's doing it and he knows he has to keep busy

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Idle hands and all of that. Mm -hmm, but the system Hindered him in many ways good, you know going through that and it wasn't a that wasn't a deterrent

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Yeah, that's a further breaking of the image that's not a restoration right now you you guys have both used the word

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Restitution, I think of other words that are thrown around like reparations and things like this. What how are we defining?

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Restitution that sounds restorative. Well, okay So think about the way in which we find justice being described in the scriptures now

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It's important to remember that the covenants that God made were in the shape of Creation with the shadow of Christ they address the ruin of Adam and Eve the ruin of sin, okay, but also anticipates the reign of Christ So this is not simply a passive waiting around during the covenants twiddling your thumbs waiting for the

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Messiah there actually is a development of Understanding and enrichment of the of the idea of what it means to be made in God's image through through the various covenants

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So we see what the God image of God is in the Garden of Eden and then the covenants enrich that even as they address

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The sin problem and anticipate their arrival of Christ. So we start off in the garden and what is it?

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Well death for death Okay, so you you separate yourself from God God separates himself from you you rebel against God He exiles you from the garden you say you don't need

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God Then you're going to live without him without that special fellowship out

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You're gonna be exiled. So you see God rendering a sentence of justice that would later on be described

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I For I tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot life for life, and that was expressed in the

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Sinaitic Covenant and You see it in other agreements even prior to Sinai, but the idea is

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Tit for tat I for I and and God says to the judges to those in charge of justice in Israel again.

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Israel is Adam writ large here is Humanity in it's it's a

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Adam writ large, but it's the image of God writ small So it's not all nations.

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It's one nation, but it's Many people functioning where Adam should be functioning.

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So it's important to keep that in mind So the justice should be occurring within Israel God says to them in Deuteronomy 1921 your eye shall not pity because what does pity have to do with justice?

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It doesn't belong they don't go together. Do they they don't go together in the state? It makes no sense that they would come together

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Your eye shall not pity life shall be for life I for I tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot now that would be the idea of justice now in the

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Mosaic case law that we would Glean wisdom from there was monetary restitution as an option available

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You didn't necessarily have to You know rip out your own eyeball and give it to the guy that you poked his eyeball out

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Okay, that doesn't actually restore his eyeball, right? Okay, but Let's say you refuse to make the monetary restitution.

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That was That was said to be on the level equivalent Mm -hmm equivalent for him losing his eye and the work that would he would lose from that and his ability and skills that he would

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Lose from that. Let's say you couldn't make that restitution or wouldn't well The threat is we're gonna guide your eye out and then you're like,

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I'd I'd I don't want that Okay, then you have to create the value that belongs to this man.

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Okay, so that that's where slavery Servitude servitude came in and it worked in Israel in this way because You would work for a time and be freed the seventh year

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You would maybe have to sell your property, but you would come back on the year of Jubilee and there would be certain resets

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Involved in the life of Israel where this system made sense Okay, how do we take the wisdom that we find in the

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Sinaitic Covenant? Which has been fulfilled the Old Covenant has passed away The entire

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New Testament was written in the last days of the Old Covenant and it has passed away How do we take the wisdom of that and apply it to our modern?

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solutions today after all Romans 13 says that the state is God's deacon his minister to punish evildoers and The church is the pillar and ground of the truth that should be saying to the state

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Hey, if you would like to know what what evildoers are versus doers of righteousness whom you're supposed to praise

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Hey, here's what evildoers look like. Here's what doers of righteousness look like Please punish the evildoers and please praise the doers of righteousness and here's what we would recommend

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Right. So in a sense the questions trying to get at what would we recommend? What would you think is more biblical than long -term prison sentences, right?

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How can we actually justly do and I think that goes back to you what you're talking about. Do not pity Yes, if you're if you are pitying if your mindset is this poor victim

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Which is everything is victim mentality now this poor victim. They just need more help.

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They need to be changed They need you would agree. They need change need changed.

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Yes, but how do you get that change? And so what the pity does I was reading this Ecclesiastes 8 because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily

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Therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Because the sentence is not executed speedily so you have this growing and growing acceptance of Sin, yes, it was bad, but we don't have to punish it in that way

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Maybe we can do better than what God has prescribed Maybe we can just change them work on them and enough time

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They'll change Yeah, so that is that's where lady justice who was supposed to be blind, right?

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No pity, you know supposed to be looking at are they poor are they rich what color they are what their background is

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It's simply, you know innocent until proven guilty, but proven guilty. No pity. This is this is the this is the proper approach

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Now we don't have lady justice, right? What do we have? We have like a codependent grandmother, maybe

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You know it pity is a poison to justice it Completely undoes the the point of justice.

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And so if we're waiting around and looking for Some sort of way to nice our way out of the problem

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If we just be more nice to people then they're gonna be nice to us. Yeah, then once again, we're ignoring the basic Condition of man and the fact of the matter is there needs to be a proper response.

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So for example Proverbs 19 29 Says judgments are prepared for scoffers and beatings for the backs of fools

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Now do we understand what a fool is a fool is someone who knows better, but does it anyway now that basically sums up A whole lot of the prison population.

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They knew not to do that. They knew better and they did it anyway Okay, and so in God's wisdom in his observation it's kind of timeless

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Proverb what is prepared for the backs of fools? Beatings meetings used to be on the books.

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It's like the old -fashioned canings Yeah, that's what they used to call it. But now pity has poisoned justice, right?

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So now we're going to put them away Because we're being merciful.

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We're gonna put them away out of sight Four hots on a cot make sure that they have everything that they need and That's going to be our punishment or that's going to be our rehabilitation

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This is our answer and yet putting someone away for 50 years or 25 years for something

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That could have been handled with a beating does not I Hadn't thought about this before but in that instance the the beatings are a reminder and it stays with you for a while I'm sure but there's still common graces that are being deprived when you lock someone up Yes being able to see your children or your wife being able to go outside and see the sky being able to Meet with friends people who might have the gospel and preach it to you

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Access to all types of things that are that would be a grace or a mercy from God all of that's taken away

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Because in the name of mercy like oh, this will be nicer for you because this is just we've deemed this as inhumane

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Mm -hmm, and yet we're gonna lock you in a cage like an animal and that's more humane So let me tell you a story about a guy named

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Michael Johnson. He was six eleven and a half And I met him in my first year of pastoring here at Sunnyside.

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He was cold calling churches from a Rundown motel looking for a ride to a gas station out in Choctaw Choctaw Road and I took the call so I went to go give him

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I went to go give him a ride He had spent 25 years in prison in Texas because he was hot and bothered one night and He punched a police officer.

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Hmm 25 years. Yeah assault a police officer He got 25 years so and he said

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I did the wrong thing I broke the law I lost my temper I shouldn't have done it. He didn't say anything else beside that though He did, you know, he did say 25 years seems like a little long time for that and I would agree

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Right. Now that doesn't sound like blow -for -blow. No and Does that overzealous prison sentence fix anything?

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No, his wife didn't divorce him and She was out in eastern, Oklahoma and To he went to prison, of course for a long time.

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It was poor me talked about this it was poor me not my fault and so on and so forth until he came to repent of a situation guys from DTS Dallas Theological Seminary were coming in doing expositional

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Bible study with the prisoners and Michael said, you know, you could really tell when when guys change they stopped making all those excuses and they just took ownership what they did was wrong and they wanted to get to know the

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Lord and grow in the scriptures and he said that helped him more than anything else that he was able to grow in the scriptures Well, he was on his way out to eastern,

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Oklahoma to go live with his with his wife's brother And just sleep on the guy's couch until he could find a job and find a way to reconcile with his wife

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So I drove him out quite a ways longer than Choctaw But he called me a couple of times to confirm that he had gotten there and then later on he let me know that things

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We're getting better with his wife and he had a job and so on so you could see God's grace at work in his life

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But I think 25 years for Assaulting a police officer. Hey, I don't think anyone should assault a police officer

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You know, you get all hot under the collar. You shouldn't be swinging at an officer of the peace However, I think 25 years is not the righteous response.

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So what would be the righteous response? well, it seems to me the wise response is also the righteous response and we're looking for that in the scriptures and You know

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Paul got beat by Jewish authorities and Roman authorities and Many times he was put in prison trying to get him to trial and very often

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He had lengthy prison stays two three years sometimes and he was languishing there and it wasn't good

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I mean, there was no there was no justice being done there It was just no one knew what to do with him

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So they just left him there and and then one administration would go out another one come in between Festus and Felix and all of this

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Yeah, and waiting for the bribe. Mm -hmm, right waiting for you. Hey, you ready to bail yourself out yet?

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You know and Jesus even brings this up. He talks about how the prison system is a matter of money

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Okay, so Jesus says this in Matthew 5 He gives some sage counsel, you know And a lot of what he says has has this twinkle in his eye you can imagine as he says it but in Matthew 25

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I'm sorry Matthew 5 verse 25 says agree with your adversary quickly while you're on the way with him Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge the judge hands you over to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison

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Assuredly, I say to you you will by no means get out of there till what till you have paid your debt to society

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Till you have been punished duly enough know till you have paid the last penny So even

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Jesus said this whole prison incarceration system is all about money. It's not about justice So we see the need to have maybe temporary holding cells for trials and so on What would be justice

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Biblically, I think would be will be wise would be an approach that says I for I you know tooth for tooth

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Hand for hand. We're not simply taking up the Old Covenant and saying plug and play into American society

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But we see the wise principle there. We see the wise principle there So what you come down to the very practical things and what do you do with somebody who will not?

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comply With societal standards, you've beaten them three times You know, they they still go back to it all they refuse to go work off their debt

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They don't they don't you know, they won't hold down a job so that you can properly Take their money take a big portion of what they're earning and then give it to the people that they wronged, right?

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I forget the technical term for that garnish their garnish their wages, right? They won't hold down the job that has been given to them

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So that you can't garnish their wages and give it to the people that they wronged they just won't comply now

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What do you do? Well, you can either execute them or you can exile them to Canada, you know But something right something that has to be something we have to be something it would need to be wise it would need to be just Mm -hmm.

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Yeah, and I had brought this up joking, but in Romans 13 where it talks about the state bearing the

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Sword. Mm -hmm. Yeah, that that's a The sword is is a death sentence.

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It's it's a punishment It's not just like a you know, and in vain here is like not an empty threat, right?

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Right, like this is coming. Mm -hmm Yeah, and this the sting of the the rod and the whip is a reminder of hey, there's a sword behind there somewhere

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Yeah, you know you need to turn around and go a different way So and again just just to make the point let's say you get the wrong guy and let's say this say that you know

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It was totally mishandled. The whole case was mishandled You got the wrong person and you convicted the wrong person and you gave him 40 stripes.

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Well, you know what 40 stripes? Getting that wrong is a lot better than getting 40 years wrong

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Indeed, and we know that the justice system is flawed. So yeah, that would also be you know, what's going to happen?

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Yeah, we got that's also a wise consideration. Yeah. Well, I think there was a follow -up There was so the listener also provided some context saying that Oklahoma has the largest number of women

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Incarcerated in the entire nation and top three in the entire world on a per capita basis

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We live in a state that all 77 counties went red For three national elections, but we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates highest divorce rates drug and alcohol abuse abound

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I've always found that very hard to reconcile in a state that has 1 million households attending church weekly

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How do we reconcile that? well, it's That's a sad thing. But we were saying earlier perhaps

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Oklahoma is very progressive We're very egalitarian that we incarcerate so many women along with so many men, you know equal rights and equal treatment under the law

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But that's actually it feels really bad doesn't it? Because we're made in the image of God We know somehow that that's just not the way it's supposed to be.

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Do I want that equally applied to women? You know, like do I really want that? Do I want this egalitarian?

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Yeah, do we want do we want women in the way that they are specially made in the image of God? Do we want them filling up our prisons and filling up for instance on the front lines?

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Do we want to see them, you know, no, that's not. Yeah, that's not good. There's something very wrong here

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Yeah, well when you start saying that there's no fundamental difference between men and women then that's the route

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You're gonna you're gonna go down and when you say, okay Have no the Bible says have no pity and yet we've we're in a feministic age where it's all, you know

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Heartstrings and and all of that and then we don't know how to handle like violent men

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It's like you're gonna be met with violence, but oftentimes with women It's like we know there's a difference between men and women in some of these cases

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You almost think where is the man whether it's the father or the husband you bet that is not standing between Saying I will take responsibility for this for this woman and instead it's like well

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You're you're gonna get locked up. You know, it's interesting after they meet trial and they're duly

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Convicted declared to be guilty by a jury of their peers They stand before judges who often see lighter prisoners prison sentences instead of death penalties and such as The more merciful route like we have been discussing.

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Is that really what is just this cruel this cruel mercy? Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't seem just you're taking so therefore we we end up having more and more women more.

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Yeah Yeah, yeah, I signed up for Several emails to come in for local and state government trying to keep my eye on things and the group to homicide numbers 16 of Oklahoma City and I was surprised to see how how often the violence was being done by young women and that was a surprising a surprising look at that the idea that red counties mean

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Christian ethics, you know righteous counties. Yeah red does not mean righteous, right? Yeah, red does not mean biblical if you've paid attention the radical fundamentalist left

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Leftists, you know from the from the deep left whether the East Coast or the West Coast or the the north the the deep left has so Jumped the shark.

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I'm gonna mix my mix my metaphors They've moved the Overton window so far to the left that they have ostracized

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Many who used to identify with them and now they're all flooding to the middle where Trump the

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Democrat of the 90s Welcomes them with open arms. And so the Democrats of the 90s are now

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The party in control and we think oh look at all the red Conservatives won

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No the radical leftists won the talking heads are all crowing on YouTube about how bad the approval rates are

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For the Democrat Party Okay, they're like hey, we won. They've totally nuked themselves so on and so forth.

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They wisely Nuked themselves. They're getting what they want because everything is moving left

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And so the people who are in charge now say they're all red. But in fact This is simply the

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Hegelian dialectic Thesis antithesis, here's the new synthesis and so in this new synthesis what will rise up to meet it is a new antithesis

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All right. This is just the way of the the cultural Marxism as it marches through the institutions so there's not really any victory here and just because Oklahoma's got all these red counties doesn't mean that there's

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Christian righteous ways of thinking as can be noted from the other statistics

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Look at all of the teen pregnancy rates the all of the family destruction

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Look at all of the drug and alcohol abuse. Are we the number one state for pot shops?

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Yeah Well, I don't know about that But senator Lankford if I am recalling correctly had an interview

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That I saw an article that we had like nine times more pot shops than the state of Colorado Whereas they have over a million more in population.

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Yeah, so okay. So so many people go to church Okay, well, I'm glad that so many people are attending church regularly, but but what goes on there?

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What is it? What is actually happening is it more or less everyone's showing up and saying to be a Christian affirm everybody and be nice niceness is the way if you're showing up and they're saying well things are getting bad, but it's supposed to and Don't try to get involved and change anything because if you get involved with government government is the beast

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Promised and therefore you're just helping Antichrist and there's no reason to rearrange deck furniture on the

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Titanic It's supposed to get bad, but we're gonna get helicoptered out of here soon. Okay, if that's the mindset then a million households attending church is not going to translate into some sort of salt light

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City on a hill. Mm -hmm. Okay, this doesn't really translate that well

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So I think that's probably how I would account for the Disconnect now,

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I don't I don't think it's gonna stay that way. I think Jesus has things well in hand I think that he turns people around is turning people around and I think that it there's a whole lot of things going on that aren't being talked about We live in a day of information an age of information, but we do not live in an age of understanding

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I don't know all that Christ is up to but I know I can't tell all that.

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He's up to is my Great Shepherd Just from the news headlines. That's right or from the statistics.

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Yeah, I was talking to Brooke this morning We're talking about Revelation, but we're very short -term minded.

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So we look at right now. It looks real bad right now So it's real bad. And then we're also Geographically America or Western minded.

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Yeah When there's people all over the world where God is working and we don't hear about it.

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That's true. So long -term minded and just Globally minded it's all in his hands.

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He's got the whole world in his hands. I like that song. It's a good song It's good. What's catchy? Yeah Let me just briefly discuss that.

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I said there were nine times as many dispensers. It was five Okay, five times there are 12 times more licensed growers here

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Colorado and the amount of marijuana which is produced is 32 times the amount that is consumed in the state of Oklahoma I wonder where it's going.

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Yeah, we're an industrious people. Well, maybe that's the thing. Yeah, it's a Protestant Something a

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Bible belt That's yeah. All right Thank you for addressing that.

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Do you have any media recommendations? Yeah, I'm gonna recommend a book by Barry Webb, it's part of the new studies in biblical theology series

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It's called five festal garments Christian reflections on the

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Song of Songs Ruth Lamentations Ecclesiastes and Esther those are the five scrolls

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They're called the scrolls and they were set together in the Old Testament Canon under the end of the

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Hebrew arrangement and the Tanakh the Torah and Nevi 'im and Kethuvim and so these five scrolls go together and they were traditionally attached to major feasts in Jewish life and they would be read each one would have its reading just prior to those or during those feasts

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And so it's an interesting way to study these shorter books and to think about Why were they placed together how they bring a message of Christ Ultimately as they are put together in connection to the liturgical calendar of Judaism So it's a really interesting book is not long and because these are these are short books in the

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Bible There are also short looks in this this book and I think it's very interesting

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So I don't have necessarily specific media recommendation

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I recently started at a new job, which is requiring a lot of me and it's requiring a lot of learning

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I know this this one's been mentioned before you Demi and there's also Pluralsight places where you can go to learn

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YouTube You can go to learn I would encourage people to Take inventory of any tools or skills that maybe you've only been introduced to or that you've kind of started and see if there's anything there that you could expand or Incorporate more in your life find some help doing so utilizing those skills because Anything that we do we can do unto the

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Lord and so maybe there's something that he's put in your life Previously that nothing has come of it and maybe you're feeling prompted to do something with it now

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And there's plenty of tools to help you learn So I just encourage you to keep growing keep learning keep developing your tools

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Because we use those tools for our master. Yeah, ultimately it's for his sake, right?

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So many of you may know or have listened I Am quite often involved with discussing the scriptures with the

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Jehovah's Witnesses who are on campus at UCO whenever I'm up there However, I haven't seen them in a couple months

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Hmm, not since this semester ended I pray the Lord gives me an opportunity to continue telling them the truth

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But I do know that there are seasons in life and it just may be a different time but Something that has come from that that will be an indelible mark is learning more about what

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God's Word has to say about the Godhead the Trinity and I have begun listening to some ex -witnesses who the

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Lord saved out of The Watchtower and they have a YouTube ministry where they discuss

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Perspectives that they had which were previously ingrained in them from the Watchtower that when they finally read the scriptures

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Christ was revealed to them and in truth. So that's that's been beneficial I'll make sure there's a link to that in the show notes but they actually turned me on to a guy who was studying in the

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Northwest a layperson if you will not that I believe there's a clergy lay distinction, but just some laborer who was studying with the witness speak witnesses because he was

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Seeking the truth and he started a website He produced a book and he has started a website where he wants all of this information to get out free to the public

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Yeah, there's he doesn't it's not copyrighted material. So anyway The website is tetragrammaton org

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I'll make sure that's spelled out correctly and the show notes as well, but there are quite a few pamphlets

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We're talking like 70 pages under pages But there's also his seminal book the or actually the the book he first produces over 300 pages

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I believe but one of the things that came to why I Appreciate this resource is that the watchtower has done their own translation of the scriptures

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They have inserted the name Jehovah in many places where it's not warranted There are a few passages in the

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New Testament that if you well, they lie about what the scriptures say

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I'll just put it like that and This is a method or an apologetic to use the actual what the scriptures actually say

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That they tried to deny Christ and his divinity So it was it was a good resource for me and it's also a good resource not just for opposing

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Jehovah's Witnesses, but any any oneness type people as well as just having a deeper appreciation of what the scriptures teach about the

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Trinity Michael what are you thankful for? I am thankful for Sundays. I'm thankful for the indicators in the scripture the richness of the

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Background to Sunday with Christ's Resurrection and the deep tradition of The Saints gathering on Sundays and making that a vital part of their lives

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Organizing their lives to be together on Sundays. What a blessing. I'm very very thankful for Sundays I'm thankful for Christian brothers wherever I find them.

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So Sunday mornings meeting here locally Christian brothers and then Finding them in my workplace

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The discussions that come up around it just that God has strategically placed people around me to Pour into me or for me to disciple just the interactions that we have

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One specifically I have or two actually and both of them have sharpened me greatly one is

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Josh and one is Adam I'm getting to work with him more closely just in life And I'm greatly appreciating that and that God has put them in my life, and I'm learning a lot and I'm hopefully

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They're learning a lot and we're all going to scripture We get time to actually go to his word and ask these questions and say what do you mean by this?

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And it's just been really good to have that And then to see other relationships as well people in the church and that I'm getting to talk to more and just have you know great fellowship with With brothers and I love that on Wednesdays here at Sunnyside.

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We enjoy a meal together. We enjoy fellowship and There I'm I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do prayer requests as a body

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So that way many people are made aware of the issues which others are

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Crying out to the Lord for there are many times that Brothers and sisters who are in our smaller groups and we do go to pray

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Have not been mentioned on the board. Mm -hmm, but there are made known to the to the smaller group I find that there are times that you know what

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I might have been a I should have been up on the board for the entire congregation to pray for But I thank God that I have the ability to pray

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With my brothers and sisters and join with them and the things that they're crying out to the Lord for And that wraps it up for today

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We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections