WWUTT 1960 Q&A Ending of the Lord’s Prayer, Shiny Happy People, Gothard and the Duggars

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Why do some translations of the Bible not have the longer ending of the Lord's Prayer?

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What's with the documentary, Shiny Happy People? And can we learn anything from the rise and fall of the

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Duggar family? The answer is when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the Word. Tell all your friends about our ministry and to search for WWUTT on whatever podcast app you use.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. It almost sounded like you were saying, Here's Johnny.

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Here's Johnny. Here's Gabe. Hey, babe. Hey. So let's come back to Psalm 68.

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It's been a little while. Yes. Remember doing Psalm 68 a few weeks ago? Yeah. I think this is where we left off.

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So starting in verse 15. Okay. A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan.

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A mountain of many peaks is the mountain of Bashan. Why do you look with envy,

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O mountains with many peaks, at the mountain which God has prized for His habitation?

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Surely Yahweh will dwell there forever. The chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands.

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The Lord is among them as at Sinai in holiness. You have ascended on high.

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You have led captive your captives. You have received gifts among men, even among the rebellious also that Yah, God, may dwell there.

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So this starts by saying, a mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan.

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Bashan was not in the Promised Land. Bashan was off to the northeast. It was on the other side of the

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Jordan. And the mountain there was higher than Mount Moriah, which is where the temple was built.

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So why would it say, the only places that are ever called the mountain of God are

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Mount Hermon, Mount Sinai, Mount Zion? That's it. So why would the mountain of Bashan be referred to as a mountain of God?

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Now first of all, the definite article is not used here. So it's a mountain of God. It's not the mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan.

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A mountain of many peaks is the mountain of Bashan. But then the very next line in verse 16 says, why do you look with envy,

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O mountains with many peaks, at the mountain which God has prized for His habitation?

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So, the mountain with many peaks is Mount Bashan, because that's what's said in verse 15.

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And it said then in verse 16 that that mountain envies where God has actually placed His dwelling. So why would it be called a mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan in verse 15?

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Likely because this mountain was so tall, it was much taller than Mount Moriah, and also had a multitude of peaks.

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So since you could see that mountain, you would probably have thought, well, why doesn't God make His dwelling place there?

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That's the tallest mountain. And there's also many peaks to that mountain. But that's not where God has placed

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His dwelling. So it's as if you would look at it and say, that's a mountain of God. But no, that mountain looks with envy on the place where God has made

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His dwelling. Why do you look with envy, O mountains with many peaks, at the mountain which

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God has prized for His habitation? Surely Yahweh will dwell there forever. Verse 17, the chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands.

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The Lord is among them as at Sinai in holiness. So this is in reference to chariots that cannot be seen, like the chariots of fire we read about in 2

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Kings, for example. And these chariots, though they cannot be seen, are greater than any army that is on earth.

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So you're looking at that mountain, and you're thinking, that should be the place where God dwells.

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Right. Well, is that the same thing as the wise men coming through and thinking that He'd be at the palace?

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Yeah, right. So the magi, when they came from the east, they went to the palace in Jerusalem because, hey,

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He's a king that's been born. That's what the prophecies say. So surely this is the place where He's going to be.

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But He's not. He's in that little place called Bethlehem, which is the city of David. You see a similar sort of a thing here.

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But what God has at His disposal is greater than what any eye can see.

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Verse 18, you have ascended on high. You have led captive your captives.

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You have received gifts among men. You made the magi connection. Yeah. The magi who brought gifts to the king.

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Even among the rebellious also that, yeah, God may dwell there.

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And then verse 19 goes on to say, blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the

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God who is our salvation, Selah. So we have a

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Lord that sits on high. There might be places that we would think God would much rather prefer.

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Why doesn't God prefer that place? Because it's much more glorious. But God dwells with His people.

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God dwells with His church. And so as you go to church this Sunday, you may have a small building.

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You may have a few people. But God is pleased to dwell there. Amen. With His people in His church.

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All right. That's Psalm 68 to start things off for us. This is the Friday edition of the broadcast, which we're uploading on Saturday.

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Yeah. Sorry, guys. And you can send your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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That's what we like to do on Friday, respond to questions from the listeners. Before we get to that,

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I had said on Wednesday that the ending part of the Lord's Prayer I would cover on the

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Friday edition of the broadcast. Right. So let's come back to that. Can you say the Lord's Prayer?

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Can you quote it for me, babe? Our Father? Yeah. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day your daily bread and forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Very good.

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I wasn't actually expecting you to do that. I was being rhetorical. Wow. But well done. Thanks. I was trying.

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I was actually curious if I could do it still. Yeah. Because we've done, like that's the original that I memorized, right?

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That's King James -ish. Right. Yeah. And so we've kind of changed it up to the children so they know what they're saying a little bit better.

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Yeah. Thy isn't in there. Right. Trespasses we don't use. We say debts. Yeah. Debts and debtors.

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Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. You did flub on verse 11, give us this day our daily bread, not your daily bread.

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Oh, man. You said your. I did. But you quoted it from the original manuscript or at least the earliest manuscript evidence that we have from the

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Gospel of Matthew. You quoted that correctly because you skipped, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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Amen. Right. Because I said it the old way. If I said it the new way, then

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I would have put that in there because that's how I memorized it. Well, that's in the King James. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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So newer translations like the ESV will omit it or the legacy standard in the

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New American Standard will put it in brackets. So I've been asked this question before.

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I mentioned the question on Wednesday. I said I'd save it to Friday. But why is it that the English Standard Version cuts the end of the

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Lord's Prayer and why does a translation like the LSB put it in brackets to indicate that it is not in the earliest manuscripts?

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For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Where does this come from? I was going to say that the brackets usually means that it's a change.

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No it means. That it has been like a change that's happened. Well sure, yeah. Right. So it's a later edition.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. It wasn't in the earliest manuscripts. Right. So this actually comes from 1

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Chronicles. It's based on something David prayed in 1 Chronicles 29 11.

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He said, yours, O Yahweh, is the greatness and the power and the glory.

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Sound familiar? Yeah, it does. And the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth.

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Yours is the kingdom, O Yahweh, and you exalt yourself as head over all.

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So here's the likelihood. Here's what probably happened. When Byzantine monks were copying the early manuscripts and they were making copies of copies, they wanted the

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Lord's Prayer to be something that people memorized and could recite together. So to make it a complete prayer, you wanted to have that conclusion at the end and sign off with Amen.

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Meaning so be it. We're all in agreement of everything that we've prayed together. But this needed a conclusion.

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So some Byzantine monk may have read, may have written over in the margins the conclusion that came from 1

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Chronicles 29 11. Like that's a good conclusion. So let's put that over in the margin.

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Sure. So you pray this prayer and then you look over in the margin and you add that conclusion.

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Well as the manuscripts get copied, eventually one of those monks grabs what was written in the margin and just brings it over into the text.

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And so now we have an ending that's not exactly 1 Chronicles 29 11, but it's based on that.

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To give us a close to the Lord's Prayer. For yours is the kingdom, which is kind of at the end.

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But since kingdom was mentioned earlier in the prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done. We got to have kingdom in there.

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So we're going to put that at the start. Yours is the kingdom. To sandwich it. Right. Yeah.

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So you got kind of the header and the footer in there. And then you have, and the power and the glory forever, amen.

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So now we've got our, now we've got our complete prayer. Now we've got something that's kind of like a catechism prayer that all of us can pray together.

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We can recite it together unto the Lord. Sure. But that wasn't what Matthew originally wrote.

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Now see this actually testifies to the accuracy and the reliability of the scriptures.

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The fact that we can go back into earliest manuscripts and we can see that that ending wasn't actually there.

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And so in the more modern translations, in things like the

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ESV, where the ending is actually omitted, but the NASB and the LSB that puts it in brackets, this indicates

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Matthew probably didn't write it. It was an addition that came later. But when we take that out, like a

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King James only as we'll say, if you take it out, then you're changing the scripture. It's still in the Bible. You can find it in first Chronicles 29 11.

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Right. Very true. But we know through careful study that Matthew didn't write this.

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So to be accurate, to be accurate with what Matthew wrote, he wasn't writing a prayer.

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And Jesus wasn't giving a prayer. That would be something that that's like, you know, recitable that we're all like praying together.

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You can do it that way. But he's teaching his disciples how to pray. Right. So pray like this. And you have the various petitions.

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So he's not really giving it as a here, recite this prayer. He's giving it to teach them how to pray.

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Otherwise he would have tacked on that ending so we can all pray it together and we can have that nice conclusion with amen.

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Sure. But that wasn't what Jesus intended. It wasn't what Matthew recorded. Therefore, to be accurate, we're going to keep it as Matthew originally wrote it.

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Yeah. Make sense? Sure. So that's the that that's the extended ending of the prayer.

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Then I also mentioned on Wednesday that I would get to verses 14 and 15. Okay. And explain those a little more too, because I didn't have enough time on the

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Wednesday. I think I came up at 25 minutes as it was, and I try to keep them at 20.

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I never hit 20. But verses 14 and 15, for if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

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But if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions.

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Now that's an interesting thing to add in there at the conclusion of that prayer, because at first glance, that almost looks kind of off topic.

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Okay. Why are we why are we talking about that? Because Jesus had previously said, pray like this.

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Don't practice your righteousness before others as though to be seen by them and receive congratulations from men.

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Right. But give to your father who's in secret, and he'll reward you. Pray to your father in secret, and he'll reward you.

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So we go from that into pray then like this. And so we get to the end of that prayer, and now you have this lesson on forgiveness.

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Well, that's not in the context of what Jesus is talking about. So why is that?

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At the close of the prayer, it's right at the end of the Lord's prayer, and right before we go into fasting.

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Now, whenever you fast, don't put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, which is the lesson I'm doing on Monday.

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Okay. Well, isn't it because we need to be forgiven of our sins first?

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Like before you come to communion, you have to go make it right with a brother or a sister in Christ.

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Yeah, that was talked about earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. Okay. Right. That was in Chapter 5. So isn't that essentially the same thing?

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Like before we pray to God, we need to ask for forgiveness. So in 1 Peter 3, verse 7, it says that if there is strife within your marriage, then your prayers are hindered.

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And so it's encouraging husbands and wives to be agreeable with one another so that their prayers will not be hindered.

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Same thing goes here. If you have strife between brothers in the Lord, then your prayers are hindered.

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And also, as mentioned in the prayer, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

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Now that's not the very conclusion of the prayer. The next line in verse 13 is, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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So it's not like Jesus goes straight from, forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors. And if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly

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Father will also forgive you. We've got another line in the middle there. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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So it could be that the temptation that Jesus had in mind there was with regards to holding grudges against your brothers.

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Got it. Since that was talked about previously in chapter 5, we have a statement in the

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Lord's prayer about, forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, holding on to grudges and bitterness and being unloving toward others, but deliver us from the evil one.

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I think you could still read that generally. Don't lead us into temptation of any kind, but in context, don't let us be tempted to harbor anger and hatred and bitterness in our hearts.

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Consider that in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says, don't let the sun go down on your anger, and then give the devil a foothold.

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So if you're not forgiving your debtors, then you're giving into temptation, and you're giving into the snare of the evil one.

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So then Jesus says at the conclusion of the prayer, if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

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But if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions. Also consider that that is not something that is done in view of others to receive the congratulations of men.

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And that's been the context here in this section of chapter 6. Don't practice your righteousness in view of others so to receive praise from men.

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If you're forgiving, there's not really anything praiseworthy for that.

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In fact, the general consensus of the public is, yeah, sure, you can have your bitterness and I'll have mine.

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You complain about all the stuff you want to complain about, and let me complain about all the stuff I want to complain about.

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We're a bunch of complainers in this culture. Grump, grump, grump. And especially in Judah at this time, and in Israel, holding grudges was a thing.

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Yeah. I mean, if somebody wronged you, then you wronged them right back.

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I don't know if there's any time in history that was not a problem, you know?

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Yeah. Is there ever any people anywhere? That's what I'm saying. That was just a generally forgiving people.

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Right. Yeah. Like, everything's good. You were forgiven right away, you know, like,

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I don't know if that's a thing. It is in our nature to hold grudges with one another.

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Oh, yeah. To have our bitterness toward each other. Well, I mean, obviously, it's written in the Bible many times, apparently.

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Many times. Addressed. And here, Jesus even tacks on an ultimatum with it.

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If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. Right.

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And so, when you come in prayer and you come with this attitude of forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors, you already have the forgiveness of God.

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That's right. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

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If you have been forgiven by God, it is going to be seen in your life that you're going to be gracious and forgiving toward other people.

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It is astonishing the number of people that I have counseled that have bitterness and grudges in their heart toward other people.

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Yeah. And that may not be the thing that they came to me asking counseling for. In fact,

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I don't know, it may be one out of 20 cases of anybody that's come to me asking for counseling would actually say something like,

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I need help forgiving somebody. Usually, they come to counseling for something else entirely.

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And then we come to find in the conversation, there's a lot of pent up anger and hurt and frustration with other people and grudges that they just haven't let go of.

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That seems to be tied in with the other spiritual issues that they need to have figured out.

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There's also grudges. Yeah. Well, I mean, whenever you're focusing on a grudge, you have to focus on it to keep it there.

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So you're focusing on the grudge and then you're just grumpy. And so then everybody else irritates you because you're grumpy because you're focusing on this grudge.

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I mean, you can't have a grudge and not pay attention to it.

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You know what I mean? Well, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, your general disposition is less sunny for sure when you're holding grudges against other people.

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And then you just kind of take it out on everybody. Yeah. And this kind of bitterness, it's like drinking poison and expecting somebody else to die.

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Right. Which is really bitterness, holding a grudge against somebody else.

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It does not benefit you. And of course, our holding grudges do hurt other people.

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It's not that you're holding a grudge against a person is not hurting them. It is. It's hurting you too, though.

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And it's hurting you worse than it's hurting the other person. But it's not just hurting the other person, because obviously those people that came in for counseling had problems in other areas.

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That affects multiple people. Yeah, it does. So it's not just between the two of you as you think that it is.

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It's definitely not. Well, it's like the whole thing of, you know, you can't sin on an island. Your sin is not just affecting you.

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Right. It's affecting everybody around you. Yeah. And especially those closest to you.

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Yeah, definitely so. First and foremost. So there is the further commentary on Matthew 6, 13, and then also verses 14 and 15.

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Now, it's not being said here, Jesus is not saying that if you forgive others, yay, you're saved.

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Right. Definitely not. But if you have the forgiveness of God poured into your heart, then you're going to show that forgiveness and that grace toward other people.

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Yeah. Yeah. And holding grudges feels pretty miserable, not just in the sense that a grudge doesn't really make anybody happy.

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But if you truly have the Holy Spirit within you, or you know the word of God, it's going to eat at you that you are holding a grudge against somebody and not being forgiving.

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Definitely. So make it right with other people. Talk to your pastor about it. If you're still holding onto a grudge with somebody, and have someone that you trust be able to guide you through the scriptures and help you to understand that conviction of the

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Spirit that is on your heart, you need to let go of your grudge. Yes. Have no bitterness toward anybody.

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As the Apostle Paul talks about in Colossians chapter 3, let these things be put away from you.

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In them you once walked, but now you must put them all away. All right.

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Let's get to some questions here. Now this one, we're going to go back a couple of weeks here.

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Okay. Because we had somebody that asked this question. I said I didn't have any intention of following up on this.

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But I had a couple of people contact me and said, no, we really think you need to watch this. Okay. So this was a question that came from Chris in North Carolina, Gabe and Babe.

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I have recently become aware of an Amazon Prime docuseries called Happy Shiny People that covers the rise of the

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Duggar family and the influence of Bill Gothard's teachings and movement. A friend of mine shared about some of its content on social media, stating that she had been raised in the

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Institute in Basic Life Principles, IBLP. She briefly described the environment as cultish, particularly surrounding the personality and teachings of Bill Gothard.

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I listened to the first episode of the show and it became clear that while some of the interviewees seem to just want to get the truth of various abuses in the open, and that's actually the way it ends, too, others were using the opportunity to bash the whole of conservative biblical

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Christianity. There seemed to be a conflation of homeschooling with some cultish, backwards, harmful lifestyle.

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I know better. I was raised in IFB circles and was homeschooled as well, but I do not recall anything related to IBLP.

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Do you have any insights or experiences with this group, its affiliations, and its ideology?

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Well, like I answered this question the first time a couple of weeks ago, I did not have any affiliation with IBLP.

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I didn't even find out what it was until just a few years ago. Okay, hold on a second.

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Can you back up and tell me what IFB is and the IBLP? IBLP. Yeah, that one.

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The B -I -B -L -E. I'm like, there's too many acronyms. Hold on. I'm swimming.

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Every time I say that, that's what I have in it. The I -B -L -P. Yes, that's the movement for me.

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It's not. It's just the song that gets stuck in my head. This is the Institute in Basic Life Principles, I -B -L -P.

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This was Bill Gothard's thing that he created. We actually have an, what would you call it, an institution, an institute, a center?

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I don't know what you call it. Anyway, it's real close to here where we live in Lindale. There was a Bill Gothard facility.

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I can't remember where it is. It's not far from here, though. I think it's just like an hour away. But it was even where Bill Gothard was when he got kicked out,

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I think. Oh, interesting. Or arrested or something. I don't remember what it was. He never got charged with anything. So all of his, all the stuff that he was in trouble with were accusations.

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There was never like a trial or anything like that. But anyway, that facility is not far from here and there are people at our church that have been influenced by it, that have been in it or were raised in it.

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So that's what I -B -L -P stands for. I -F -B is not an official acronym.

25:05

It is the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church. So there are

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I -F -B churches. You'll pass by one. It'll say Independent Fundamentalist Baptist sometimes.

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Rarely do you see that. But you'll find a lot of, you know, those churches are independent even though there are kind of an association of them.

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They're independent, but there's an association. But anyway, that's an I -F -B church. And a lot of times those

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I -F -B churches tended to be really strict, very legalistic. For example, the

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King James Bible is the only divinely authorized English translation of the Bible. Oh, okay. It's that church.

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Right. Where there's nothing in the Bible about that, but they make it a law.

25:49

Okay. True. And things like a woman has to have a skirt down to her ankles, and if she's not, she's sinning.

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Oh. If there is a part of your body that you don't want a man to touch, you should have that covered up.

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Okay. And if you don't, you're sinning. Okay. But the thing with that is you probably don't want a man touching you anywhere.

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Nope. I don't even want him touching my face. I mean, a handshake is fine, but don't touch my face.

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Right. Now, that's a charge that's given to a woman, but yeah, for me, it's like, shake my hand.

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Don't touch me anywhere else. But I don't see why I need to cover that. You know, that's just kind of a weird, you know,

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I'm not sinning by wearing shorts. But it's stuff like that. So when they're making rules and laws around those kinds of things, that's very legalistic.

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It's not in the Bible. Right. So you're adding to God's commands. It's building a hedge around the law, but then you make that hedge the commands of God.

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Okay. God commands this. So not only in IFB circles do you have that, but especially in the

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IBLP, Bill Gothard was doing a lot of that. Okay. And especially toward women.

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A lot more rules against women than there were rules toward men, although the men had their share of it as well.

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Right. But I was, again, I was not raised around any of that. My parents were pretty strict, but we were not even independent fundamentalist

27:17

Baptists. Most of my young adult life, I attended a Mennonite church, and we weren't even

27:22

Mennonite. Right. Dad would just go wherever, in whatever community we lived in, my dad would go to the church where the gospel was being proclaimed and sin would be called out.

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And so for two of those communities that we lived in, one in Pennsylvania and the other one in Southwest Kansas, it was the local

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Mennonite church was the most gospel preaching church. So that's the one that we went to. I was baptized in a

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Mennonite church, but none of those churches were, none of those churches were like the IFB.

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It wasn't a lot of legalism. There was some, but you know, I think you're going to find that anywhere.

27:58

Right. You can go to a liberal church and find that legalism there.

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Yeah. It's not just in the IFB church. They're just kind of notorious for it. But then the IBLP, the

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Institute of Basic Life Principles, you know, those principles weren't in the

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Bible or they would grab stuff from the Bible, but then they'd add to it as well. And then those principles became laws, became rules.

28:22

Sure. So on and so forth. Now, again, I was not influenced by that, but I was unaware of the stuff that existed around me that actually came from Bill Gothard.

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And one of those, an example of that is the umbrella of authority.

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Have you ever seen this before? So there's like this three -tiered umbrella, or it might be four -tiered, anyway, the umbrella at the top, which is the biggest umbrella, is

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Jesus Christ. And then right under that, a little smaller umbrella that says man or father or husband or something like that.

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And then underneath that is another smaller umbrella that says wife or mother.

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And then underneath that might be a little tiny umbrella or a bunch of little umbrellas that say kids, the children.

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So this is the umbrella of authority. Now I've seen that drawing before. I had no idea it came from Bill Gothard until just a few years ago, because I had posted it on Instagram, one of our

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Instagram pages or Facebook or something like that. And somebody said in the comments, that's from Bill Gothard, and like totally rebuked it and was ripping on me because I had posted something from Bill, oh, you've been influenced by Bill Gothard.

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I was like, I have no idea who that is, or I just, I have a vague understanding of who that is.

29:46

Right. You know, wasn't aware of his teachings, anything like that. This was a few years back. And so I just left it because I liked the illustration.

29:54

It made sense to me. You know, you have Christ and then you have the man of the house who is the head of his wife.

30:02

Sure. Who's underneath that. And then the children are to be subject to that. I mean, that's the, that's the direction of authority that's given in Ephesians five to six.

30:10

And then you also have that in first Corinthians 11, three, right. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ.

30:21

Right. There is authority in Christianity. There is even hierarchy.

30:27

So it's not wrong to say that there's authority. But with this umbrella illustration, now here's something that I did not know until I had somebody who had been in the movement explain it to me.

30:41

Okay. So this whole umbrella thing that was this, this whole drawing, it comes from Bill Gothard's ministry, the umbrella of authority.

30:49

Mm -hmm. If there is a hole in one of those umbrellas, so like you're talking about the father or something.

30:57

Okay. Then the umbrella underneath is not protected. So if the father has sinned, that puts a hole in the umbrella.

31:07

This is how the illustration goes. Okay. Okay. So if the father has sinned, there's a hole in the umbrella and now that trickles down to the wife.

31:16

Mm -hmm. And now she's got a hole in her umbrella that trickles down to the kids. Okay. So if the kids are unruly, if the wife is unruly, then the problem is probably with the dad.

31:28

Okay. Who has done something sinful. And it's not just that he's done something sinful, it could be that there's some unconfessed sin in his past.

31:40

And that has caused a hole in the umbrella and the whole pattern of sin or the effects of sin are now coming down on the wife, which is now coming down on the kids.

31:50

And so you have to confess that sin and you have to do it publicly and you have to be able to do it the right way or else the effects of that sin are tearing your family apart.

31:59

It's a very ungracious model. There's no grace there. It's all constant worry and concern about what have

32:07

I done in my past that is damaging my family right now. Rather than going forward in the grace of God and understanding, as said in Romans 6, that the grace of God covers a multitude of sins where sin abounds,

32:22

God's grace abounds all the more. So, instead of recognizing

32:28

God's grace, it's instead focusing on sin and flaw and where I might be going wrong and obsessing over those kinds of things, making sure

32:39

I've done everything right, because if I haven't done everything right, then God's not going to bless me. Well, you've never done anything right and God's blessing you anyway in Jesus Christ.

32:50

So, the truth about God's love is embracing the grace that we've been shown in Jesus Christ, not obsessing over all the little sins that we don't think we've confessed rightly.

33:02

And obviously, that model is, I mean, it's right there.

33:08

It's showing you that it's ignoring Christ's umbrella to protect you.

33:14

Yeah, right. What about Christ's umbrella right there at the top? I know. It's like his doesn't do any good.

33:20

The Father's umbrella can get holes in it, but Christ's is not. So Christ, the umbrella of Jesus over the top of everything is protecting you.

33:32

Anyway. I know. That's a really great point, babe. It's like it's ignoring the fact that Christ is the one on top.

33:39

So yeah, there might be holes in Dad's umbrella, but no water's getting in because Christ is over the top.

33:44

Right. Yeah. But anyway, when I found that out about the umbrella illustration and all of that's tied into that illustration,

33:53

I took it off of our social media accounts. Probably for the best. Yeah, because I'm like, if somebody has actually been caught up in that movement and they see that and they remember everything that was tied into that illustration, then

34:05

I'm probably – That would be like red flags to me. Yeah, right. Exactly. I'm probably leading somebody to stumble.

34:11

Right. But as I also said a couple of weeks ago, Bill Gothard has become such a name over the last several years especially.

34:20

I mean, over the last decade or more. Okay. But especially in the last few years, he's become such a name that people are now using that name to tear somebody down.

34:33

Oh. Almost like – Like Boomer? Or Karen? Yeah, well, Karen's a good one.

34:40

More like Hitler. Like everything's Hitler. Oh. If you get the argument to Hitler, then, you know, comparing somebody to Hitler.

34:46

Oh, God. Because I just had it happen to me this past week. I said something that was straight out of the

34:52

Bible. Okay. Like I quoted scripture. I actually quoted 1 John 2. I was quoting what

34:58

John said. And somebody in the comments said, that's so Bill Gothard. It's like, what are you talking about?

35:04

I quoted the Bible. But people are throwing that name out now. Oh, wow.

35:10

And because of shiny, happy people, I think it's just going to get worse. Right. Oh, definitely. That documentary is just going to make it – you know, everybody's now an expert on Bill Gothard.

35:18

Right. And if you say anything obedience -related – I mean, we're still called to obedience.

35:25

Christ has called us to obedience here. So the pendulum's going to swing the other way? Yeah. So now, because of this documentary, everybody – you say something about obey the

35:34

Lord. You say something about being pure, about not giving in to temptation, about not holding grudges, which

35:41

Jesus clearly gives us instruction on. Right. You know, you say what the Bible says, somebody's going to fire back at, oh, that's just Bill Gothard legalism.

35:49

So now they're going to be throwing that word around like as a curse. Well, they probably know

35:55

Bill Gothard more than their Bible. That could be. Right. So pray for them.

36:00

Now, with this particular documentary, people were telling me about it before I had the chance to watch it.

36:06

And I was expecting – I think because of the preponderance of people that were saying, yeah, the whole documentary is kind of used as a weapon against homeschooling in general.

36:16

They kind of leave the reservation of addressing the Duggar family and Bill Gothard, and they attack

36:22

Christians who homeschool altogether. So because I heard that over and over again, I was expecting that to be like the thrust of the documentary.

36:29

But it really wasn't. Oh, okay. I mean, they did have comments in there like that. But I think for the most part, the documentary did stay pretty well focused on what was going on with the

36:40

Duggars and Bill Gothard and IBLP and everything like that. That really – you know,

36:46

I came away from the documentary feeling like that was what the documentary was about. Yeah. Yeah, there were some people that made some comments about Christianity in general.

36:54

But that wasn't where I felt like the documentary was going. Okay. Now, what was really funny, though, at the very beginning of the documentary, in the first episode within the first few minutes, like they introduced their experts who are chiming in on the legalism of independent fundamentalist

37:14

Christianity and stuff like that. Okay. And Bill Gothard and all this kind of thing. So they have their panel of expert people, like the different names and faces that you see come – any documentary that you watch.

37:25

Sure. Right? You've got your experts that'll come in offering their opinions. Well, one of those experts, and one of the first ones they put forward was this very obese woman.

37:35

Okay. Who has makeup on that looks like she's a clown, different colored hair and everything.

37:41

Okay. Her expertise is that she's got a TikTok channel. It could be a

37:48

YouTube channel. I can't remember. Anyway, social media. Sure. Social media video channel in which she does her makeup and rants about independent fundamentalist

37:58

Christianity. Okay. That's it. That's this woman's expertise because she's got a channel where she is putting on makeup and ranting about Christianity while she's putting on her makeup.

38:14

People watch that? I know. Somehow she's got a huge following just doing that.

38:21

Just putting on makeup and ranting about IBLP. You know, there are much weirder things that people watch.

38:28

True. But somehow this has made this woman an expert in the independent fundamentalist movement, and so they –

38:37

Well, if you're going to rant about it, you should know about it, I suppose. I don't know. So they pull her into this documentary.

38:44

Then again, Twitter would be shut down. Every time she came on, I was like, you are not contributing one thing to this conversation.

38:54

And sadly, you know, there were even some people on there I was surprised to see. One of Joshua Harris's brothers,

39:02

Alex Harris. I can't remember the other Harris brother's name. Joshua Harris is the

39:07

I Kissed Dating Goodbye guy from back when we were in high school.

39:13

And then he became a celebrity pastor in the

39:18

Sovereign Grace Movement and just a couple of years ago left the faith. He left his wife, left his family, and just decided he wasn't a

39:28

Christian anymore at all. So there was a lot of conversation that kind of erupted after that with regards to –

39:34

That he wasn't a Christian to begin with. Well, he wasn't, right. He wasn't a Christian to begin with. But there was also a lot of conversation about – he was a child star, became a star at a very, very young age, was platformed to mega pastor status way too early.

39:49

And so all of the damaging effects that came as a result of that. So Joshua Harris has kind of been the result of a lot of those conversations.

39:58

But anyway, one of his brothers who was also the author, one of the co -authors of the book Do Hard Things.

40:04

We had our youth read that book at our church in Kansas. This would have been back in 2012, 2013, somewhere in there.

40:12

Yeah, I remember that. I mean, this was over 10 years ago. Yeah. But he was one of the guys in this documentary talking against even a

40:22

Christian movement of homeschool kids because he kind of came out of that movement. And he's speaking against it.

40:28

It was really, really disappointing to see him in that documentary. I just kind of wonder now how far has the

40:34

Harris family gone from all the things that they were influential in doing in the late 90s, early 2000s?

40:43

It just kind of seems like they're trying to put distance between the stuff that they did decades ago and what they're doing now.

40:51

But the irony of that is now they're finding a new platform. So where they were stars in the homeschool movement 20 years ago, now they're becoming stars in the anti -homeschool movement.

41:04

And that's really concerning. Quit platforming these people. Right. They're just looking for another spotlight. They're not experts.

41:12

You need to stop consulting them and giving them what they want. Yeah. I don't know.

41:19

That sounds too Disney star, you know, like. Oh, yeah, like the Disney child stars. Yeah. Yeah.

41:25

And how they pendulum swing the other direction to put as much space between their...

41:32

There is nothing good about making superstars out of kids.

41:38

Right. Nothing good comes from that. And incidentally, here's the problem with the whole

41:44

Duggar phenomenon and the, what would you call it? The reality TV phenomenon altogether.

41:50

Because remember there was John and Kate plus eight. Oh, right. Remember that one? Yeah. And they even signed a

41:56

Christian book deal with Zondervan. But they got divorced just like a couple of years into the series.

42:01

Oh. Because it started in, when was it? 2006 or 7. They got divorced in 09.

42:07

And then the show became Kate plus eight. Do you not remember all of that? No. I never watched it.

42:13

Never have seen a single episode of it. I think I watched like maybe two episodes. I don't remember.

42:19

Well, she had twins and sextuplets. Okay. So that was where her eight came from.

42:24

And because of that, you know, they rocketed to superstardom. They became this reality show on TLC.

42:30

Sure. But they, I became aware of them because of the

42:37

Christian circles that they were in since they signed that deal with Zondervan. Okay. Yeah. And so I tracked with them because of that.

42:44

I was in Christian radio at the time. And so I was following them for that reason. And then the divorce happened and it was like, you know, all of that blew up.

42:52

Yet you've got this book deal, Kate's still coming out with books with Zondervan, even though their marriage fell apart.

42:58

But those kids, like those kids grow up on camera. The Duggar kids grow up on camera.

43:04

What is not addressed in this documentary, Shiny Happy People, is what kind of effect that has on children.

43:11

Right. I mean, that's not a normal life. So what they put all of the emphasis on was how

43:20

IBLP and Bill Gothard messed these kids up. Their father messed these kids up.

43:27

By raising them on television in view of the public eye. And this was the world that they were in as famous.

43:34

You know, they're being raised in fame and fortune. And actually, let me back up there for a moment. Jim Bob Duggar got all of the fortune, not the children.

43:44

This was something that I learned watching this documentary. A lot of the stuff that I watch in this really wasn't all that shocking.

43:50

Most of the Bill Gothard stuff I had caught up on by the time I watched the documentary.

43:56

Sure. Just because of stuff that's happened in the last few years. Right. So some of the stuff, like some of the things that were going on behind the scenes,

44:03

I even have some opinions about some of the stuff they said on the documentary I didn't think went far enough. But anyway, all of that aside, then there was also the

44:12

Josh Duggar stuff. So remember he got caught with child porn. He's been sentenced to prison.

44:18

I think he's there for 12 years or something like that. I can't remember how long his sentence is for. All of that I knew about. We've actually talked about that on this podcast a couple of years ago.

44:26

So those things were not shocking. They weren't brand new to me. Although when you really think about how deep all of that went, even with Jim Bob Duggar, the father, it was still just, anyway,

44:41

I don't want to go into all of that. This is a family -friendly show. But anyway, yeah, there was enough in the documentary that just made your skin crawl, which is why

44:51

I didn't subject you to it. Well, thank you. I'm at a loss right now. I have no idea what to talk about.

44:57

But I'll take your advice and... Not watch it. No. Yeah. No, I'm not even curious.

45:03

But here was one of the shocking things I found out watching this documentary. This is something I did not know.

45:08

The fortune was all Jim Bob Duggar's. He gave none of it to the children.

45:16

Okay. They got nothing. So for years, like half a dozen years, some of them seven or eight years, they were on this popular, what do you call these shows?

45:32

The... Reality shows? Reality, yeah. Reality shows. They were on one of the most popular reality shows and one of the first.

45:39

Like the Duggar, 19 and counting, I think it even started as 16 and counting, 17 and counting, somewhere in there.

45:46

And then the number just kept counting. When it started, it was one of the first reality

45:53

TV shows that launched a whole plethora of reality TV shows. And they talk about that in the documentary about how cheap they are to make, you don't have to pay writers, you're just filming stuff and then you splice it all together and you have a

46:06

TV show. Sure. About the one that I think we watched the most was Duck Dynasty.

46:12

Yeah. Probably. But that was clearly plotted. Yeah. That wasn't really a reality

46:19

TV show. I don't know if the family came up with all those plot lines or what, but yeah, that wasn't true reality

46:25

TV. And really, none of it is true reality TV. Nope. Because they even talked about how the kids would...

46:30

They would have to walk through a door eight times or something like that to get the shot. Oh, wow. Things like that.

46:36

So this is the environment. That would be annoying. Yeah. Just let me walk through the door. This is the environment these kids grew up in, but they did not get any money from it.

46:47

They all had to sign their waivers, but they got no money. Jim Bob got all of it and he didn't even pass it on to the kids.

46:56

That to me... Was there a reason? Just to make himself rich, I guess.

47:01

Oh, okay. No, I'm just curious. Now, I did not know what to think of this man when

47:07

I started this documentary. I really didn't know that much about him, except for the stuff that was in the whole

47:13

Josh Duggar scandal, because I'd read some things about, like he knew about it beforehand and wasn't doing anything about it, or didn't do as much as he should have done.

47:23

So there was still enough there that I was going, doesn't really come across as being a great father.

47:29

But I still didn't know what to think about the man until they unveiled all that stuff about Jim Bob in the documentary, and one of his own daughters says, never got a dime from that show.

47:41

And I'm like, oh, what a jerk. You know, that's... All of a sudden it just kind of came out of me like,

47:48

I cannot believe you did your kids that way. I cannot believe it. So that was probably the most shocking revelation.

47:57

Since most of the stuff I knew coming into the documentary, that was the more shocking reveal for me.

48:03

I'm really surprised that that wouldn't go under child labor laws or something, you know? Yeah, truly.

48:10

I mean, really, if one of his kids wanted to grow up and sue their dad, they probably could do pretty well.

48:17

Yeah. That's sad, though. You know, there were times, and so this is going to kind of back off a little bit.

48:25

Okay. To be a little bit more self -reflective. Sure. There were times when you and I doing the what videos or doing the podcast, we've tried to pull our kids into this.

48:37

So there were times when we were sitting around doing devotions, and I would just sit the recorder down, and we would do devotions.

48:44

Because our kids are so hilarious. They are. And they will say the funniest things. They do. And it's like, you know, you want to capture those moments.

48:52

Like, I want to hear this again, because that was just really funny. There was one tonight.

48:57

What was it? I was trying to remember what it was. Oh, no. It wasn't tonight. I remembered it tonight. It was last week.

49:04

Okay. It was when we got back from New Orleans. Okay. So the kids announced to us that Opa, your dad, had fixed our toilet.

49:12

Okay. We have this toilet downstairs that's been running real slow. Oh, it took like four minutes to fill up the tank.

49:18

Four and a half minutes. Yeah, to fill up the tank so you could flush it again, because it didn't flush right the first time. Right. Precisely.

49:23

Anyway, you're hearing about our bathroom, by the way. This is really podcast material.

49:29

And then it was taking like ten minutes. Like lately, it was taking up to ten minutes. Yeah, then it got longer. And I'm like, don't even use it.

49:35

It's pointless. Yeah. We've been living in this house for two years. It's been slow since we moved in. Oh, yeah.

49:41

But then it just got slower and slower. Well, Opa figured it out. Yes. He's so smart.

49:47

And he took the pipe out, emptied a bunch of sand out of it or something like that. He said whenever the water line gets worked on or whatever, you know what it is, it has that dirt.

49:55

Oh, yeah. And then he said, don't turn on your sinks inside, do the ones outside.

50:01

So that way it doesn't flood all that dirt through your pipes. I gotcha. Yeah. He must have told that to you.

50:07

I don't remember hearing that. Okay. Anyway, so the kids were announcing to us that our toilet now runs great.

50:13

Yeah. You know? And Zeed said something like, and now it runs like a toilet's supposed to run.

50:18

You know? Something to that effect. I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was like, now it runs as it should have been running in the first place.

50:28

Anyway, the way he said it just cracked me up. Yeah. He's so funny. I'm busted laughing.

50:34

So there have been times when our kids will say something cute in devotions. So we started recording that and the kids would ask me, are you going to put that on the podcast?

50:43

And I told them, yeah, it would actually be pretty cool to have like a family devotion that airs on Saturday.

50:49

Because I've always kind of figured, what am I trying to do with Saturday anyway? Right. So maybe our family devotions will air on Saturday.

50:57

Because we get a lot of questions too from people saying, how do you do devotions? How can I do it better with my family?

51:03

So we record ours and you hear us doing devotions and then we also even get those funny memories of things the kids say and stuff.

51:10

So we've talked about doing that in the past. Something would always happen though, where I just, maybe

51:16

I was just busy and I would never take the audio and do the editing to it that I needed to do and then get it on the podcast.

51:24

Because I don't just take the raw audio and get it on. If the kids are in the background, it's going to be quiet.

51:30

So I need to increase the volume in certain places and things like that. So I just never got around to that. It was more work.

51:36

I didn't have time for it. So it never happened. And looking back, I'm glad I didn't.

51:42

Because our kids would be growing up on the podcast and it's almost like we're, it's not our objective to make celebrities out of them.

51:49

Because we're not making money off of this podcast. That wouldn't be the aim, certainly.

51:55

But it's still, I'm glad we didn't do that with our kids. Our devotional time is our devotional time.

52:01

It's not for public consumption. You know what I mean? So we need to have things we do as a family.

52:08

The podcast, we get on together and we talk scripture and we answer questions and things like that.

52:14

But, you know, it's not putting our family on display, except sharing funny toilet memories like we just did.

52:20

Apparently. So all that to say, I get the temptation and you can even think, because Jim Bob rationalized it this way.

52:31

You can think that we're meeting people for Christ. Our kids, our platform, we're using this to minister with the gospel of Christ to people.

52:43

That's what Jim Bob thought he was doing. But then he got too caught up in the stardom of it.

52:48

He got too caught up in making a fortune off of it and then trying to use that to catapult his political career or a business or something to that effect.

52:58

And so, yeah, then it ends up, because we're human beings. We're sinful and we're flawed.

53:04

We're going to mess up whatever could have been done nobly for the kingdom of God. And so I'm glad I didn't.

53:11

I'm glad we didn't take our kids and kind of use them in that way. I get the temptation. You can even think that you're doing it for a good purpose or a good cause.

53:20

But like I said earlier, bringing up your kids in the public eye like that, nothing good can come from that.

53:30

Let them make their own decisions about that later on. Or teach your kids, because this is good too.

53:36

This is out of First Thessalonians. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.

53:45

There you go. Just as we taught you to do. Maybe don't even pursue the whole social media thing at all.

53:52

Now with me doing the What Videos, the podcast and stuff, this is totally different.

53:58

I was raised in Christian radio. So this is actually taking something that for a while was my job.

54:04

It was my career until I left this to become a pastor. I left the radio world to pastor a church.

54:11

But all of that experience that I brought from radio, I brought into doing a podcast. So this isn't just...

54:17

And that was for church. Yeah. And that was for our church. Right. We were meeting the needs of our church with that originally in the very beginning.

54:24

And I think we still are. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of folks from our church listen to this as well. So anyway, bringing that expertise into it.

54:32

But since I had a radio show from the time that I was seven years old, I did kind of have that experience in being raised in the public eye.

54:40

Now it wasn't like being on TV, but I could stand in line at Walmart as a teenager.

54:45

And if I started talking, there were people that would turn around and go, hey, wait, I know that voice. So I did kind of have a public persona when

54:55

I was a kid. Thankfully, the Lord protected me from... I was arrogant, but He protected me from growing up in that arrogance and humbling me and bringing me to points of failure that caused me to humble myself before God and say, forgive me for my sin.

55:13

Yeah. I understand. I wanted to be famous. In high school,

55:19

I would sign everybody's yearbook and say, keep that for when I'm famous. Yeah.

55:25

Yeah. I know that's not going to happen. And I'm okay with that. That's right. I'd rather not.

55:32

It's better. It's better to lead the quiet life. Oh, yes. But we do appreciate that we've got people that listen to this and share it with others.

55:39

And we thank you so much for sending your questions. So you can send those questions to understandthetext at gmail .com.

55:45

Please do. And God willing. Give us something to chat about. That's right. Sorry, I've been talking over you a lot. No, it's fine.

55:51

It's good. They still hear me. Barely. They want to hear you. That's why they tune in for the

55:57

Friday broadcast. Right. We listen to Gabe all week. We're here to hear Becky. No. Well, let's finish with prayer.

56:06

Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for making your dwelling place with your church, as we talked about in the very beginning reading from Psalm 68.

56:15

And then in the Lord's Prayer, you have forgiven us our sins. So teach us to forgive others.

56:22

If we have the grace of God, the forgiveness of Christ that's been poured into our hearts, may we extend that forgiveness to others and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

56:35

The temptation to want to be famous, to earn the admiration of others or get rich quick or whatever it might happen to be.

56:44

Teach us to have an ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind our own business and to do all that we do unto the glory and praise of God, our

56:55

King. Thank you for giving us the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died on a cross for our sins, who rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but we will have everlasting life.

57:11

Help us to hold on to that gospel, to live out that gospel and to give the message of the gospel to others.

57:17

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Amen. What do you call a pile of cats?

57:34

A cat pile? I don't know, I'll find out in a minute. Why are you asking me this question if you don't know the answer?

57:44

Well, I guess that's why you asked me the question. Yeah, exactly. That was a stupid question. There's no such thing as a stupid question.

57:55

That was dumb. That was a dumb question. But so is what do you call a pile of cats?

58:04

Also a stupid question. Okay, so the other question was, what did the storm troopers say when they entered the church?

58:25

I don't know. Pew, pew, pew, pew. All right, good one.

58:30

Okay, what was the cat question? My response to that was, but they missed them all. But they missed them all, that's right.

58:38

Yep. Okay, so then the cat thing, what do you call a pile of cats? A meowton.

58:45

Okay, so a pile of dogs is a dog pile. A pile of cats is a meowton. Meowton. All right.

58:53

Well, a segue from that into this is we're going to talk about a mountain here.

59:00

Oh, there we go. Coming back to Psalm 68. All right, you got your script?

59:05

Probably not a meowton. I sent your script. Oh, no, I don't have my script. That's not a meowton. Oh, dear.