Should You Mourn the Loss of a Pet?

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Think about the opening chapters of the Bible, right? Man is considered alone while animals exist.

00:08

He's by himself. Warning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences.

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These audiences may include, but are not limited to, professing Christians who never read their Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished

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Netflix but don't know how to meal plan, and people who refer to their pets as fur babies. Viewer discretion is advised. People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

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Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

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Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the work of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:46

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age old question, should you mourn the loss of a pet?

01:54

Now Tim, as we kick this episode off that I know many people would love to hear your answer to, what

02:01

Bible verse do you have to sort of kick off the conversation? Yeah, 1

02:06

Thessalonians 4 .13 says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

02:16

Okay, so. That's all I got. So a verse that's seemingly talking about, you know, mourning people who have died, not as those who have no hope.

02:29

So how in your mind does that relate to the topic mourning pets?

02:38

Are you saying we should mourn pets as those who have no hope? Well, I mean, apparently. I'm sorry, we should not mourn pets as those who have no hope, we should mourn our pets as those who have hope.

02:48

Well, I mean, you only have a few options here, right? So either all pets go to heaven, like, you know,

02:54

Karen Swallow Pryor says, so you can grieve them in a hopeful way, right?

03:00

With hope filled one day, because you named them, you gave them personality, right? And God recognizes that and they enter all eternity and the afterlife with you because you claimed ownership of them, right?

03:11

So it's like, yeah. Do you fall in the KSP camp? No. Oh, no. Okay. But I mean, you know, one option is all pets go to heaven, right?

03:20

All pets go to heaven. Sure. Or, you know, the pets you name go to heaven because I guess it's like a

03:28

Presbyterian form of covenant membership with pets, you know, kind of thing.

03:35

A familial covenant. Yeah. They get to experience the graces of God through the covenant of the family.

03:40

And if the whole family, pets included, are considered clean on account of the believers. Does that mean you have to baptize the pets too?

03:47

Presumably, yeah. I guess so. I guess so. So, but in that option, then you would presumably, you don't have to grieve in a hopeless way.

03:54

You have the hope that because you named them, you gave them personality, now they go to heaven with you, right? So you'll see them again.

03:59

So not a hopeless way. I guess option two, option two would be to say that, you know, pets are not people, right?

04:09

So therefore, because they're not gonna, they don't have souls, they're not gonna go to heaven, right?

04:17

It's not as if all dogs go to heaven or hell, right? So it's not, or cats go to heaven or hell, right?

04:22

So they're just - I don't know, man. I've met a couple of cats that I'm pretty sure they might be in hell. There you go.

04:28

So I mean, in that option, then they don't have souls. So I suppose then you should grieve them in a hopeless way, right?

04:37

Okay. Because yeah, there's no hope that you'll ever see them again.

04:44

So you should just give yourself over to hopeless grief. Hopeless, unending despair, right?

04:52

I guess so, I guess. I guess. Be blessed with that.

04:58

That's option three. I feel like you're about to give us a fourth option. No, that's option two, yeah.

05:03

So option three would then be - Oh, that's option two, okay. Yeah, option three would be then to say that maybe animal grief is inappropriate and you should calm down.

05:14

Okay. So don't grieve at all. Yeah. Is that what you're saying?

05:20

Yeah. Okay. I'm assuming you fall in that category. Yeah. Not the all dogs go to heaven, not the -

05:29

Commit yourself to hopeless grieving. The pet familial covenant, and yeah, not the hopeless grieving.

05:38

Just don't grieve at all, right? Right, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that sounds silly.

05:44

Now what is the argument behind not grieving the pet? Is it just the fact that, hey, pets aren't people, they don't have souls, it's not that big a deal?

05:56

Well, I mean, the other two arguments are bad, so this is all we got. Well, it obviously wouldn't be grieve as those who have no hope.

06:06

It obviously can't be that. Right, I mean, the other ones are ridiculous. Right, right.

06:11

This is all we got left here. Now, I mean, part of this is you do have to do basic dictionary definitions on what grief is, right?

06:22

So if you say this, people, they haven't looked up the word grief before, so then they get bent out of shape and get really mad at you, and it's like, well,

06:32

I'm sorry that you didn't look this word up in the dictionary, but you should have, right? But I'm not responsible for the fact that you haven't looked it up in the dictionary yet.

06:39

Sorry, you know? But yeah, I mean, grief, like grief, like you look it up in the dictionary, and what you see is grief is deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement, right?

06:53

So like this, when you're talking about grief, you're talking about significant sorrow. So grief is not like the word for general sorrow.

07:03

Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, now, obviously, like you can, grief can be used in different ways.

07:11

So like someone can cause you grief that means mild annoyance or something like that in that kind of context, right?

07:18

Getting grief from your friends, that's annoying or playful criticism, but like deep distress, like when you're talking about grief and grieving, you're talking about is not just normal sorrow, you're talking about deep distress, right?

07:32

So yeah, I think if a pet dies, it would be certainly appropriate to not just be completely and totally emotionally unmoved, right?

07:42

So like you look at, I mean, God obviously cares for the animals, right? God obviously cares for the animals.

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We should have a care, we're God's vice regents on the earth. We're given dominion over the animals.

07:55

We need to rule the animals well, right? They're not created in the image of God. They don't have the dignity worthy of human beings.

08:02

Their life is not of more value than human beings. In fact, we're giving the animals as food, right?

08:09

So it's difficult to imagine deep distress over killing your food, right?

08:18

And eating it, yeah. So I mean, certainly some kind of sorrow is appropriate, meaning like the fact that this animal has died should remind me of the fact that I'm a sinner, right?

08:30

And the world has been subject to futility, not because of him who subjected it, but who subjected in hope of the deliverance of the sons of God and all that.

08:39

So like the issue is that, yeah, we're living in a fallen world, that this is part of life in a fallen world because of Adam's sin.

08:47

So all deaths should remind us of our sin, right? And there should be some source of sadness that should come from that in a certain way.

08:56

I mean, I'm not suggesting that, you know, you shoot your deer for food or something like that, and then you weep a

09:03

Mr. T tear, and then you tell the tear to get back in there or something like that. I'm not suggesting that tear is, like that single tear is mandatory, right?

09:12

I'm just suggesting that, yeah, some kind of, you know, that animal died so I can eat it. That's kind of sad.

09:18

And then, oh, but that deer burger is going to taste really good, you know, after that. And they do taste good.

09:24

They do, yeah. So yeah, so I do think some kind of brief, momentary stirring of emotions are okay.

09:32

You know, but like just this deep, deep distress that you're grieving this animal as if they are a human being, like as if their life is as valuable as a human being life.

09:45

And that's kind of what people are doing now at this point. And so they're grieving them as if they're a human being, and that's utterly inappropriate.

09:54

And it's a trap, like a travesty at that point. Yeah, I was going to say that mourn just, mourn just feels like such a strong word to use for a pet.

10:07

You know, sure, I mean, it seems right to be, I mean, I wouldn't ever want to tell anyone that they're somehow wrong for being sad in some way at the loss of a pet.

10:21

I mean, you know, like, I mean the Bible, you know, in Proverbs 12, verse 10, it says a righteous man has regard for the life of his animal.

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And so there, you know, I think there is something virtuous about not being just completely, you know, aloof to the fact that we live in a fallen world where death is a real thing that doesn't only affect us, but it affects everything about creation.

10:50

But at the same time, yeah, mourning, mourning an animal as opposed to feeling a brief sadness for an animal, it feels like it's just kind of,

11:01

I mean, you're just falling into the same error that we've talked about a couple of different times on the podcast where you have now elevated animals to a much higher significance than they ought to have, basically.

11:16

I mean, you're treating them like people, like you said. Well, many people are, yeah. I mean, so birth rates are plummeting at this point and they've been plummeting since birth control was invented.

11:27

So birth rates are plummeting and pet statistics are, you know, through the roof at this moment and there's an inverse correspondence to that.

11:35

So yeah, I mean, younger, I was reading some statistics on it and it's pretty remarkable. But yeah, I mean, younger people at this point are, like single people in particular are not only looking to animals to be, they're not only looking to them to be like fur babies, like replacement children.

11:55

More naturally, they're looking to them to be replacement spouses. So like they're looking for the things they should be.

12:01

I mean, I'm not trying to say that they're in the main describing them as their spouse.

12:06

I'm trying to say that all, like they're, in the first instance, you should be looking to a spouse for companionship, right?

12:15

You don't look to kids for companionship, if that makes sense. Like in the first instance.

12:22

What do you mean? But like, yeah, I mean, so a man looks to a wife, like a woman for companionship because she's made to be his life mate, right?

12:33

So like the companion category is more naturally a husband, wife kind of thing. It's not so much a child kind of thing.

12:40

A child is a temporary relationship, right? So it's not like a companion till death do you die kind of relationship.

12:49

Yeah, temporary in the sense that eventually they're gonna move out. I mean, they'll still be your kid, but yeah, they're gonna be out.

12:57

They'll live their own life. They're not a perpetual companion, right? So like you're multiplying, you're filling the earth, you're thinking in terms of your legacy, like you love them, right?

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But there's different kinds of love. They're a husband, wife kind of love is more centered on the concept of companionship in certain ways, like intimate companionship.

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So, but people are like single people, they're more naturally view these pets as replacement companions for them.

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Whereas like if a family who has kids also has a pet, they're not, they're more looking at the animal in a utilitarian kind of sense, in terms of the utility of the thing.

13:37

Does that make sense? So yeah, like there's definitely just a lot of evidence that this is actually the case.

13:45

I could read some statistics here or I could read, I wanna read a statement here from, this is, let me see if I can pull it up here.

13:56

The Institute for Family Studies or whatever, here's their conclusion while they're trying to explain why birth rates are plummeting and pet marriages and pet ownership is increasing essentially.

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So this is what they say. With delayed marriages, the share of young people who are married has fallen and they spend less of their 20s and early 30s in marriage than previous generations did.

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Meanwhile, singles may also see their pets differently than families do. Singles often see pets as family members while family owners are more likely to see their pets as property.

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But while pet parents may rhetorically describe their pets as children, the correspondent decline in both single person fertility and marriage among young people suggests that pets may be replacing two different family members.

14:45

For some pet owners, pets replace kids, but for many, the companionship provided by a pet replaces spouses, right?

14:52

So pets are often described as providing companionship, emotional support, security, and a sense of home or rootedness for pet parents, right?

15:00

But these aren't traits that describe a child, these are traits that describe a husband or wife. With my generation postponing the commitment of marriage due to any number of other reasons, the need for a reliable companion who is committed to stay until death do you part may simply be transferred onto pets rather than people.

15:17

Like in other words, there's probably two separate connections between fertility and pet ownership. Rising pet ownership may be replacing single motherhood to some extent, but more prominently, young people are pushed by many factors to delay marriage, so to spend more years of singleness without reliable companionship.

15:32

As a result, they invest often expensively so in a truly reliable companion, right?

15:38

One that can't say no to you, a pet, right? So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of -

15:44

That's pretty disturbing to hear. Yeah, definitely. I mean, to think about, you have society, like the article said, what was that article?

15:58

Who was it from again? This is the Institute of Family Studies, essentially. So I think -

16:03

Okay. Yeah, it's the article, Fewer Babies, More Pets, Parenthood, Marriage, and Pet Ownership in America.

16:10

We'll have to link that in the description so that people can read through the whole thing. But it is pretty interesting to think about.

16:17

You have society pushing many people to delay marriage and then even further than that, having children and expanding the family.

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And so in an attempt to satisfy the need for companionship that we all have, people get pets instead.

16:39

And then we just assume that's, all right, well, that's just gotta be the way it works, I guess, because everyone's telling me don't start a family right away, go to college, get into a ton of debt, probably get a degree that's worthless anyway and I can't do anything with.

16:56

And now I can't afford a family. And it really is kind of something I have been wondering about.

17:02

And this is a little bit off topic, but it is something I've been wondering about is when you have a society that is pushing all this stuff, and even this article made some statements about this, but you hear statements all the time about fertility rates going down.

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And something that I've been wondering is what exactly does that mean?

17:25

Does that just mean that, I mean, literally birthing rates are going down or literal fertility rates are going down, meaning more and more people are unable to even have children.

17:38

And if the latter is the case, then what I've personally been wondering, and I'd love to hear your thoughts too on it quickly,

17:47

Tim, is when our society devalues the family this much and encourages people to do anything but start families, do you have to start wondering if God is just punishing nations that do that by making more and more people infertile and even unable to have children, whether that's through means that are directly brought on by the individual.

18:19

So, I mean, things like birth control and if they try to get an abortion and it doesn't go to plan and the mother gets harmed in the process as well.

18:33

So it's not just the baby being killed, but now the mother has some sort of permanent damage that affects her reproductive abilities.

18:44

All the stuff with transing kids and trying to pretend that you're a gender that you're really not, do all of these things.

18:53

Well, those direct ways and then even indirect ways where you don't necessarily have all of those explanations that I just gave and yet more and more people are infertile anyway.

19:07

Do you think that that is something that we should consider when thinking about this topic, that God is just judging the nations by making them more infertile?

19:19

Yeah, I mean, so both things are probably true at the same time, meaning birth rates are remarkably lower than they used to be, okay?

19:29

Right, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of this is due to the influence of birth control, the prevalence of abortion, right?

19:36

Delayed marriages are on the rise. So people are getting married later and later and later. You have birth control that's able to prevent it and then if it doesn't prevent it, you can kill the child, right?

19:46

So you have that as an option as well. And so less people are choosing to get married.

19:52

They view having children as just a personal choice. Yeah, so we're not really even meeting replacement rate of the population at this point.

20:02

And so, yes, that's, I mean, those are obviously signs of God's judgment. But then also fertility rates are lower too.

20:10

So we're, you know, testosterone levels are down, right? And so,

20:16

I mean, obviously, as you read the Bible, one of the things you'll see is that frequently the barren womb is a curse from God and it's a curse from God on nations too as well, right?

20:26

So when, I'm trying to figure out who the guy's name was. Now I'm blanking on it, but who took

20:33

Abraham's wife, Sarah. Go ahead and save me, Harrison. You're my only hope here.

20:40

You mean Pharaoh? Was it Pharaoh? Yeah, I think he was just named

20:48

Pharaoh. I don't remember his name. Yeah. Is that who you're talking about?

20:54

Probably, yeah. I mean, whoever Abraham shamelessly handed his wife over to.

21:01

But I mean, basically infertility was the curse of that, essentially.

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So yeah, I mean, throughout the Bible, infertility is a curse. It's mentioned under the law that if the

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Israelites would not obey God, then the curse would be the fruit of the womb and all that.

21:22

So, I mean, this is just routinely a way that God judges a nation. Oh, is the king

21:27

Abimelech? Yeah. Okay, that's what I thought. Abimelech. Yep. Okay. We were both wrong.

21:35

I was ignorant, I didn't know. You're ignorant. Yeah, I guess yours is better than mine, probably.

21:42

But you were confident, you were confident in it. That was good. Yeah, well, yeah. Anyway, so I did have a couple more questions related to the actual topic of mourning the pet.

21:56

I figured probably something that we would be addressing is essentially this idea of, and we have addressed it, the idea of essentially overvaluing animals, right?

22:08

Right. And displaying a sort of love for them that is inappropriate. However, it's not like the

22:16

Bible is completely devoid of examples of people loving animals.

22:23

And so one example of that from the Old Testament would be when Nathan confronts

22:29

David over his sin with Bathsheba, right? And I'll just read it real quick.

22:35

It's from 2 Samuel chapter 12. It's verses one through four. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said, there were two men in a city, the one wealthy and the other poor.

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The wealthy man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing at all except one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nurtured.

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And it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat scraps from him and drink from his cup and lie in his lap and was like a daughter to him.

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Now a visitor came to the wealthy man and he could not bring himself to take any animal from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the traveler who had come to him.

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So he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man.

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And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this certainly deserves to die.

23:28

So he must make restitution for the lamb four times over since he did this thing and had no compassion.

23:34

So you seem to have a story here that's obviously a hypothetical story, but it's still presenting a poor man who has one ewe lamb that he cares for as a family member.

23:49

And he's not presented in a negative for doing this.

23:56

It seems to at worst be just morally neutral in this scenario.

24:04

David doesn't make any mention of it. Nathan doesn't make any mention of the poor man being in the wrong for treating the lamb this way.

24:13

So what would your response to that be? Is the Bible telling us there that it actually is okay to treat an animal as a family member based off of 2

24:27

Samuel here? Yes, it was interesting. I mean, a lot of people will bring this passage up in order to advocate exactly what you're advocating there or presenting as a rebuttal or whatever.

24:38

But yeah, I think if you wanna understand the relationship of man to animal, you need to first visit first principles that you're gonna find in the opening chapters of Genesis.

24:51

And then once you do that and you read the story, you may read it in a little bit of a different light. So meaning like when you think about the opening chapters of Genesis, God says it's not good for man to be alone.

25:03

So God determines to make a helper suitable for man. That's the story. So at the very beginning of the

25:10

Bible, you see that God creates man his own image. He's given dominion over the animals. They're different things.

25:16

So animals are not created in the image of God. Man is created in the image of God. So God says it's not good for man to be alone.

25:21

They're a different kind of creation. So God's gonna make a helper fit for him. And then what he does is he parades all the animals in front of Adam to see what he would name them, right?

25:33

So one of the things you see is Adam is considered alone while animals exist.

25:39

All animals are brought to him. And then the text says, but there was no helper for a man found from among the animals, right?

25:46

So just in terms of your, think about the opening chapters of the Bible, right?

25:52

Man is considered alone while animals exist. He's by himself, right?

25:58

He's alone, right? So he has no companion. He has no companion. There's no companion found for him among the animals.

26:04

So God makes a woman, right, from man to be his helper suitable, to be his companion, right?

26:11

So you think about what's happening there. Man is alone. He has no suitable companion.

26:18

The animals are not. That whole story exists to tell you that animals are not meant to be his companion.

26:24

Like he's still alone, right? So they're not meant to serve that function or purpose. Woman is made to be that for him.

26:31

So that's, I mean, that's kind of the opening chapter of Genesis that tells you about the nature of those, of the relationship between man and animal.

26:38

Now you read through the Bible, you realize that, yeah, no, God wants man as his vice regent on the earth to care for the animals.

26:45

Sure, right? So God has regard for the life of an animal. You know, a sparrow can't fall to the ground without God noticing, right?

26:56

So God cares for the animals, meaning he provides everything that they need in order to live, right?

27:02

So man is made to be a vice regent, God's vice regent on the earth. Man is given dominion over animals.

27:08

Man should care for animals, right? In a way that's different from how he cares for humans.

27:15

Okay, so those are just basic points that you take into reading a passage like this. There's different type of care that animals deserve over and against human beings, right?

27:26

So there are qualitatively different types of creation. So man's care for his sheep.

27:32

So David was a shepherd, right? And what you see over and over again is the good shepherd loves the sheep and lays down his life for the sheep, right?

27:41

Now, what does that mean? Well, I mean, he's loving the sheep as sheep, you understand? So why would the good shepherd lay down his life for the sheep and the hireling run, right?

27:52

Well, the issue is that those sheep are their livelihood. Do you understand?

27:58

Yeah. So meaning it's not morally evil for the wolf to eat the sheep.

28:04

In fact, God's designed the wolf to eat the sheep, right? But the good shepherd, he's committed to his job, right?

28:12

So he's going to care for the sheep because in doing so, if all the sheep die, all the humans die, right?

28:18

So there is a kind of care that God, that man should extend to animals. And then there's a kind of care that man should extend to his fellow man, right?

28:27

So the Bible doesn't say greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his pets, right? I mean, human life is of infinitely more value than animal life.

28:38

These things have to be kept in priority, right? So now, I mean, David is a shepherd. Nathan is trying to talk to him as a shepherd by giving him an example that he would understand, right?

28:50

Now, there's a lot of indications in this passage in 2 Samuel that a lot of it's hyperbolic in certain ways, but I mean, there's a lot of indications in this passage itself that this is a pretty ridiculous kind of situation that they even know is a little bit over the top.

29:09

Does that make sense? Yeah. So for instance, it says, there were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.

29:17

The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little lamb. So this is kind of a sad story, right?

29:24

You have a poor man, he doesn't have anything. He only has this lamb, right? Now, in the story, there's no mention of a wife.

29:32

And I think that the wife is left out because she's probably not in the picture, right? So I think what you have is you have a story of a man who's kind of emotionally attached to a lamb because that's really all he has.

29:43

And so he treats the lamb in a way that's overly affectionate, right?

29:49

So it says, he bought it, it grew up with him and his children. It used to eat his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, right?

29:58

So I mean, if the wife is on the picture right there, I mean, she would probably have some words to say about this man. Holding this lamb and going to sleep with this lamb in the marriage bed and everything else, right?

30:10

So I mean, this is like the picture of a grieving man who is attaching himself to a lamb in a way that everyone should be moved to pity, right?

30:21

So David's response at the end of this story, right? David was anger, David's anger was greatly kindled, it said, against the man.

30:30

He said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. Now, does the man deserve to die?

30:37

The man who took the ewe lamb? Yeah, and ate it. Does he deserve to die? Well, he just has to,

30:46

I mean, according to the law, I think he just has to repay for what he's taken and then some.

30:54

Right, so but the thing is that David's so mad about it. He's not, he's basically, this is not like justice as defined by the law, right?

31:04

So David's so mad about it that he basically says he deserves to die. He doesn't deserve to die. David's not right. Do you see what

31:09

I mean? So Nathan knows how to get David to react, right?

31:16

As a shepherd, he knows how to get him how to react. So I mean, what David is saying is not right, like he doesn't deserve to die.

31:22

There's no death penalty for stealing a lamb and eating it. You make restitution for it, right? So David says, he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing, right?

31:31

So David basically is saying he deserves death penalty, but we're gonna make exorbitant restitution at this point.

31:38

And he says, because he had no pity. Well, what does that mean? Everyone should look at this scenario and say, hey, this is a, like you should, this isn't the right response.

31:50

This is a sad man. This is a sad man. Like this is a sad man. You should have some kind of pity.

31:56

I mean, that's kind of mean. He shouldn't be so attached to this animal, right? Like that's the whole point of the story. He shouldn't be so attached to this animal.

32:02

He shouldn't be treating it like a baby, holding in his arms, lying in the bed with it and treating it like a family member.

32:08

But like, he must have been through something that's causing him to, you know, that he's responding to in this way.

32:14

And, you know, it's not right, but it's a human reaction. You should pity the man, right? You should pity the man for doing this.

32:20

That's the point. You should show him pity. Like, but then David, he's like, again, he's so mad about it and being so hypocritical at this point, he's saying he deserves to die.

32:29

And so he doesn't deserve to die. That's not even in the law, you know? David, you're, we are out of control at this point, right?

32:36

But it certainly, yeah, you should have, like, there are human situations. And a lot of people do this.

32:42

Yeah, I mean, they're going through bereavement. They inappropriately attach to animals. We all understand that that's something that can happen.

32:48

But you go back to first principles, you realize that animals are not image bearers. They're not made for companionship, right?

32:55

Man's still alone, even after the creation of animals. That's the way it works. So thinking about all that, yes, you should not, you should grieve the loss of a, or you should be sad at the loss of like an animal that you have some kind of history with.

33:12

I'm not saying that all sadness is completely and utterly appropriate, but you just have to make basic distinctions.

33:17

What's the sadness that's appropriate for an animal? And what's the sadness that's appropriate for a human? And the issue is it depends on the value, right?

33:26

So sadness goes up based on the value. So you should have a lot more sadness at the death of a wife, right? Then you should just a random stranger.

33:34

So what is the value of an animal compared to a human? They're much less value.

33:40

I mean, in fact, they're so diminished in value that you're allowed to eat them.

33:45

You understand? So that's the point. Can't eat kids. Can't eat a kid, right?

33:51

Yeah, so, but what's happening is you're living in a world right now where people are desperate for companionship and it's easy to just find that in your replacement little human being here.

34:02

And that's the mechanism people are turning to to keep them from fulfilling God's basic purposes in the world, for sure.

34:09

Okay, well, fair enough. I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on.

34:15

And I was glad you mentioned the good shepherd thing because I was gonna bring that up as well.

34:21

I mean, Jesus is saying, hey, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

34:28

That seems like a pretty significant commitment. And obviously, when Jesus is saying that, he's talking about human beings.

34:35

He's gonna die for people. But then it only has any weight because there's truth to the statement he's making about the relationship between shepherds and sheep.

34:49

But I think you're right. It's not the fact that the animals just in a vacuum have that much value.

34:57

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep because the sheep are the livelihood of the shepherd.

35:05

They're the thing that keeps people alive, fed, clothed, all of these things.

35:12

And so when he's saying he's a good shepherd, he'll lay down his life for the sheep. It's ultimately because they have an intrinsic value as it relates to human beings.

35:24

Yeah, as it relates to human beings. So even that is pointing back to the fact that human beings are more important than the sheep because the sheep are only being kept alive so that they can keep the humans alive.

35:36

And then even when they're killed, it's to keep the humans alive. And so I think that's a helpful distinction that hopefully will make sense for people.

35:47

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35:55

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36:10

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36:20

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36:49

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37:24

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37:39

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37:47

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37:59

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38:08

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