Bad Meme-ology

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome in to the Think Deeper podcast, presented by Focus Press. We have a fantastic episode that is actually very interesting, something that Jack has been thinking about. We've been talking about this for a little while, and so he's put together some things that we want to get into. But before we do that, we want to remind everybody we've gone on and on about this. Focus plus is still a thing. We're still doing Focus Plus content pretty much every single day. Premium content that I think is fantastic. There's parts of the free shipping and you get discounts and you get premium access on certain things, along with Jack's scriptural Focus videos. We're doing revelation class. Jack and I have been teaching through Revelation and are understudied. I will be coming out with Song of Solomon. Once we're done with that, we got all sorts of content and another new thing that we're considering rolling out. And we need your comments. 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It's been very interesting to see how social media has been used to push the faith and people to share their faith and in some really good ways and some bad ways. And one of the first things that started happening was bad ideas proliferate really quickly. A lot of times this happens through memes of people sharing things. And one of the things we've talked about before is things that sound really good until you take a second look at them, until you really think about, okay, what is this actually saying? Some of these things, if you're a listener and we cover a meme that maybe you've shared before, we're not dropping the hammer on you, but it's just, okay, let's think about the things we're sharing and think about what these are saying. Think about maybe the implications behind them, but also biblically, how should we think about them? So we've got a few we're going to go through we've got five specific ones, and then we're going to go through kind of a couple of genres of meme that get shared a lot. One thing we did agree to try not to do was describe things too visually. They're mostly going to be text caption ones, and we might say a word or two about what it shows on the picture of the viral memes that go around. So we're not going to be saying, well, there's a guy standing and he's looking down at the thing. We're just going to read some quotes, quips things that get passed around quite a bit to you. Joe had mentioned Focus Plus. If you are a Focus Plus subscriber, you have access to the video edition of Think Deeper. And so you can see, I'm going to do some screen sharing here to share the one that we're talking about as we go through this. But let's go ahead and get started. Let's start off with just a really popular one, and this predates Facebook, predates social media, but it's one that you see very well meaning when somebody passes away. Heaven got another angel. And just the pictures of the clouds or a harp or gates or things like that that are usually set with it, why not heaven got another angel? What do we got against this one? [00:04:36] Speaker A: Well, it sounds really good. I mean, it sounds very spiritual, as. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Do all of these. [00:04:41] Speaker A: It sounds comforting. Exactly. It sounds very comforting of like, wow, they've gone up to be with God and they got another angel. Well, the problem with that is it goes against scripture. First and foremost, we are made to be a little while lower than the angels. I think that's talking about Christ, but also us as we will be judging the angels. There's a clear delineation between man and angel in Scripture that's shown lots is the delineation between those. Revelation is very strong on that of like and all the way throughout, right. Michael the archangel. And you see angels show up from time to time, but we are the pinnacle of God's creation. And so I think the idea that heaven got another angel, we're not angels, nor will we ever be. As a matter of fact, we'll judge the angels and we will be higher than the angels. And I also think you see that concept in Revelation quite a bit as well. [00:05:33] Speaker C: I'm very curious where this line of thinking originated because I'll be honest, I haven't seen this one on social media as much. But where I have seen or I guess heard this one is people will talk about how they are at a visitation or a funeral for a loved one and they'll hear people that will verbally say this haven't got another angel. And it's kind of meant to kind of be a comforting again, I guess, again, the same thing as how people share it on social media. I'm just curious where it originated because as Joe said, I don't have a lot to add there, not in scripture. In fact, it pretty well violates our not violates contradicts our understanding of scripture in the sense that we don't become angels when we die. So, yeah, that's just kind of me thinking out loud. I'm curious as to where, because I've heard of people that will, again, verbally say this out loud who aren't on social media. So I don't think it's a social media engineered thing. I think that somewhere along the way we've come to this a lot of people, I should say, have come to this false misunderstanding or this false understanding of the afterlife to the point where they think basically we become angels when we die. And maybe that's simply because they're equating heaven and anybody who's not God up in heaven is an angel. Obviously, again, that contradicts scripture, but I don't know. Guys, any thoughts on kind of where this has originated? [00:06:59] Speaker A: Jack may know better than me, but what comes to my mind, they've been showing cherubim as little babies with wings for a long time. I mean, that's going back into classic art and such. So I don't know. I mean, it could be that there is some ties to that of the baby with the wings. And so when you go up there, we call kind of get our wings, so to speak, and that goes back into what, the Renaissance and maybe even before. So I think this idea of kind of bringing the two together has been going on for a long time. [00:07:31] Speaker C: What's the famous It's a Wonderful Life thing where every time something happens, an angel gets its wings? Bell Rings there you go. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah, arby's is great for that. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Everybody walks out of the Arby's. You ever go there? You ever walk out of an Arby's? [00:07:47] Speaker C: Where they have the I do not frequent Arby's, Joe. [00:07:51] Speaker B: I haven't been in an Arby's in years. But now it's like, oh, well, they're helping populate heaven. [00:07:56] Speaker A: That's right. Arby's is the OG with that little, hey, ring the bell for good service. Like, all right, I'll ring that. [00:08:02] Speaker B: I was totally unaware. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Sorry guys, missed the reference. [00:08:07] Speaker C: We digress. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Very mean. Again, it is a very much thing that predates social media, as you said. I've got stuff pulled up how even Eastern religion, the stuff of reincarnation, like what do we become after we die? But you go to Job and it talks about the sons of God shouted for joy when he created. And so this idea, they were there before us, revelation, as Joe mentioned, we're teaching through it's going up on focus. Plus the angels are there around the throne and angels are being sent on these missions doing different things like that you see in the Old Testament, angels being sent down to deliver messages or prophecy. Hey, this thing's going to happen even with Jesus's birth. And that is part of their job as a messenger. In fact, it's one of those, especially in the Greek, the word can be a little interchangeable. Messenger, angel, servant of just one that is sent to do the bidding. I guess it is because we have such a limited concept of heaven and for so many people it is the harps, the clouds, whatever else. And man, I think the worst version of this, when we talk about comforting people, there's like a poem and I've even seen this printed on funeral programs, the one about like, well, God, we weren't ready for you to go, but God needed you kind of thing. God needed another angel. So you're saying that God killed this person because he didn't have enough employees? No, let's not go down that road. And so this is one of the easier ones. We're going to get into some more controversial ones. I don't think this is all that controversial for anyone who knows anything. But man, it's so popular and I think it would help people because this is one of those pseudo religious things of people who know just enough about religion to know about heaven, angels, God. And so they kind of put pieces together. This is one of those like, hey, actually there's more depth to this than you think and so let's make sure we get this right and maybe it opens a door there. [00:10:17] Speaker A: I think our Angels and Demons was one of our best episodes, best listened to episodes. People are fascinated by it and the church doesn't talk about it. I think that's how a lot of this happens. It's just we're not talking about demonology and angels and kind of the spiritual realm and how that works. And so a lot of these things do get shared and they just don't know any better. And so I think that's a really good point, Jack, of maybe use this as an opportunity to reel people in right and to get them to know a little bit better and for non Christians who share it to open up for further discussion. So I like that. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Well, before we get to that, just you had mentioned Hebrews 114. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation? You had mentioned elsewhere that we'll judge the angels. We're actually better we're above them in the we're differentiated from them. Yeah. And not to get too deep down the Revelation rabbit hole, but the casting down the crowns and we say, oh, we cast down our crowns. No, they cast down their crowns and they step back because it's our turn with Jesus. He was a little while lower than the angels, and then he raises up ascends into heaven and he's bringing us with Him right up to reign with Him. They don't reign, we reign. We are better off than them. And so I think that's another important part of it. All right, let's move on to the next one here. Going back to I'll put this on the screen, very popular one. God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. This comes in a million different forms. I've seen this. And anytime somebody's going through a hard time, some people share it for themselves, some people share it to others and say, well, just be strong because God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. All right, what do we think about this one? Agree, disagree. [00:12:04] Speaker C: So I think we first of all need to think about the implications of that. That's a very nice poetic thing to say, but think about what that implies, which is God is basically sending trials and hardships specifically to certain people in such a way of predetermining this person's stronger. So I'm going to give them this difficulty and this person really can handle this. Again, just follow up the logical implications. This person can handle their loved one dying. So that's what I'm going to give them. You know what mean like that to me is very dangerous territory to get into. The other thing, though, and Joe, I'll hand it over to you and maybe you can comment on it. I do think that there is an element of providence where God does test us, that there are times where our faith is tested, trials in our way, maybe. Yeah, exactly. And so you know what level of again, I guess I think we brought up in class a few Wednesday nights ago in our home congregation, the concept of we're not deists. We don't believe that God just created us and then stepped back completely out of the picture to know he's not involved at all. And so he is involved, at least to some extent. However, I don't know. Joe, what do you think about this one? Again, just the thought process, the concept of yeah, God thought that I could handle me losing my job and so that's why he let me lose my job. Or God thought that I could handle my child passing away. So that's why he gave it to him. It's in a way putting too much on the responsibility of God that God preselected certain people to die or God preselected certain tragedies to strike. And I don't think that's how it works. [00:13:47] Speaker A: I got two separate thoughts on this one. You consider the other side of it, meaning God never gives difficult trials to weak people. How do you think the weak get to be strong? First off is yes, the weak are tempted, they're tested, they're tried. God doesn't tempt people. Right, I'm not talking about that. But they do have trials, they have issues. And if this was the case, if the implication is, well, God gives medium battles or kind of light battles to those that he recognizes. No, everybody's dealing with struggles. The second thing that I would say is define strongest to his strongest or to his toughest warriors or whatever it is, like who gives you strength? Where do you get that from? And what I see is those who are grounded in Christ, and maybe that's what the Meme is trying to say is those who are grounded in Christ get the toughest battles, but it has this idea of like those who are I don't know. It's a difficult thing because there's part of it where you go, yeah, everybody gets really tough battles and that kind of puts it to rest. And then there's other times where the reason we shared is because we're trying to help people feel like they have this. They're strong, they're tough. And so it's a way to encourage people to let them know, like, hey. [00:15:02] Speaker C: The flip side of it is, think about let's say there's a really strong Christian who hasn't gone through any trials or struggles. That's implying, well, you're not a very strong soul, god hasn't sent you any tough trials or anything. That's a bad implication of that as well. [00:15:16] Speaker A: The opposite side is what I struggle with is that assumes that the weak people either never have trials or if you don't have trials, then you're weak. I mean, the implications there, I think, is what I struggle with. Jack, what are your thoughts? [00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we've kind of danced around two corinthians twelve. Of course, Paul with the thorn in the flesh and I mean, more than anything, verse nine. He has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness most gladly. Therefore I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I'm well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. And especially when somebody shares this for know like, I'm going through a lot, but God gives us okay, glory in your weakness, not in oh, wow, I'm so strong that I got selected for this awful thing to and I think you guys are on to something about God not sending it. There is another side of this of the would it's very hard to say that we're all job that anytime somebody suffers one of those tragedies will that you enumerated that it was God and Satan going well, they haven't had it hard enough. Let's give Satan saying, let's give them a try. Let's see if I don't think that's the no, no. I think job is a fairly unique situation. But that did happen and so we'll throw that in here as well. And maybe even Abraham sacrificing know that was quite a test even though that's a little different than a tragedy suffered or things like that. [00:16:41] Speaker C: That's why I brought up I do think that a has a part to play, I guess in sending certain tests and trials our way. I'm just not scripturally intelligent enough to tell you at what point basically how far that goes, if that makes sense. I think it'd be foolish for us to think that God is not involved in our lives to any extent to the point where anything we go through just mere coincidence. I don't necessarily think that's the case. But again, the logical implications of I'm going to send this loved one passing away to this person and I don't think it quite because they can handle it. [00:17:15] Speaker A: But then there's a lot of people that don't that fall away. Well, they weren't toughest. [00:17:19] Speaker C: They want a tough soldier, right? [00:17:21] Speaker A: God's responsible for them falling away. That's not good either. [00:17:25] Speaker B: That's where you kind of strike that balance between open theism of God's just letting this thing play out and seeing what happens versus kind of the hypercalvanism of there's no free will. Everything's predetermined. He's moving all the chess pieces at all times. [00:17:39] Speaker C: It's somewhere in the middle. [00:17:40] Speaker B: It's a big debate there and obviously we do fall somewhere in the middle. We do believe there's free will and God allows people to make bad choices know bad things to happen. I mean, like some of these bad things that happen, an unexpected death or a sickness or whatever happened because free will God allowed sin, Adam and Eve to sin. And they did. And the consequences of that came down. And I mean, it's this big, long theological thing which I don't think people understand, that they're wading into when they share. God gives his strongest battles to his toughest soldiers. But I don't think you know, just the humility there to say what Paul said of okay, this is really hard because I think the other side of this that often gets shared and we didn't add this one to our list but it's very similar is the God wouldn't give you more than you can handle. Yeah, he would. I mean that's kind of the idea here is he does because then you have to lean on him. If everything's a burden that you can bear on your own, then you're not leaning on him like Paul's getting at here. Okay. [00:18:36] Speaker C: So I think at the end here, we're going to get into a discussion about sharing these in general. Is this something that we should be doing? But I did want to say, and Jack, you sort of referenced this for stuff like this, god gives his toughest battles with strongest soldiers. I do think it's very well meaning if people share this to somebody else, somebody who's going through something and whatnot Jack, as you brought up the person who shares that on behalf of themselves, and I'm not trying to be harsh or anything like that. I don't think that's super well meaning, and I don't think that that's something that we really have any business doing because it is a boastful thing. It is kind of a the other thing, this is not a social media episode necessarily. It's an attention thing in a lot of ways. And for a lot of these that we're going to get into, it very much could be perceived that way. So again, we'll save the should we be posting these at all? Discussion for the end? For stuff like this, I would encourage everybody, if you're posting it for yourself, maybe take a step back and reflect a little further on it before you do that. [00:19:33] Speaker B: I think there's also the nature of suffering is it can become competitive. Oh, yeah, well, you lost your job. Well, my spouse died. Okay. We're not saying they're the same thing or comparable. Yes, some tragedies probably are categorically much worse than others, but in the moment, they're all still hard. [00:19:54] Speaker C: That's the plague of social media, though, is it gets us into that mindset of the biggest victim, biggest like you said, it's competition in a way, for a lot of people. [00:20:01] Speaker B: Right, yeah. Kind of judging the well, there's two extreme or two superlative statements. There his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Okay, so strongest, that's relative. Toughest. That's relative. It's such a weird way of looking at things rather than just kind of I don't know, there's a little bit of Matthew Six in this of each day has enough trouble for its own. And just worry about what you got in front of you. As Joe brought up James one, consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. And I don't know, I just don't think it's the right way to look at trials in general. But man, I think of all that we're going to go through here, that's probably the one I see shared most frequently on social media. All right, anything else on this one? [00:20:50] Speaker A: No. [00:20:50] Speaker B: All right, let's move on number three. [00:20:52] Speaker A: And you get to start on this one because I started will started. Now you get to start on this next one. [00:20:57] Speaker C: He's going to pick an easy one. [00:20:59] Speaker B: This is the next one on the list. I will describe this one briefly. It's Jesus, a cartoon Jesus dragging away a man, a Bible thumping man who's yelling at an atheist or whatever, and it says Christ called you to win souls, not to win arguments. [00:21:16] Speaker A: So annoying. [00:21:17] Speaker C: So annoying. [00:21:19] Speaker B: Part of winning a soul is winning an argument because the person's soul is lost because they're wrong. [00:21:26] Speaker C: It implies that you can win the soul without winning the argument. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Right? That you can just love somebody into salvation, which we're going to have a little bit more about love a little bit later, but I don't know, there's very much this idea that debate is bad, that Christians shouldn't engage in debate. Yeah, I've got quite a few thoughts on this. In fact, I've got an article I'm going to release put out here soon through my site. We totally misread John Four, the woman at the well, and there's so much stuff about Jesus crossing cultural barriers and showing love and all that. It's true. You look at that, it's like a two to three minute conversation at most, right? And Jesus says you're wrong about religion and you're in like it is totally confrontational. He is debating her. He's arguing with her about, no, you actually are not worshiping in the right place. Yeah. Your lifestyle is wrong. Yeah, actually, you're not actually married to the guy you're with. You are in sin after five other guys. And I mean, that whole thing is incredibly confrontational. But then you look at Acts two. I mean, Peter getting up saying, you guys killed Jesus in Acts 17 of Paul going up and saying, well, hey, you got this unknown God. Let me tell you about him. Let me tell you about the God that you don't know because all your other gods aren't any good. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Even in acts seven. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it is heavy. Confrontation is the only thing that moved the gospel forward throughout the book of Acts was going and saying, you're wrong and you need to learn about Jesus, because when you call somebody to repent, what is the message behind that? You got to change. Yeah, you got to change. Well, why would somebody believe they need to change if they're not told they're wrong? Go ahead, I'll get to that point in a bit. [00:23:11] Speaker C: Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say I've got a few thoughts on this. I think the underlying problems with this are found in again, it's the idea that you can win their soul without any debate. Don't worry about the arguments, worry about their soul. That's enveloped in the topic. When you're trying to save somebody's soul, there's probably going to be disagreement, there's possibly going to be debate and argument. And so that's kind of inevitable in a lot of ways, especially the more people are wrapped up in the world. I mean, think about the John Ford, the Samaritan woman. She was very clearly wrapped up in the world in her lifestyle and sin. And listen, calling people out of sin and calling people out of a lifestyle, a pattern of behavior that they want to do. Yeah, that's probably going to involve an argument or two that you have to win. And I see this from two different areas. First of all, from people who want to be as appealing to the world as possible, people who want the pat on the back, the Thawn looks, from people who are, again in the world. And so they'll post stuff like this, or they'll even say stuff like this as kind of a shot at people who, again, like with the abortion thing when Roe v. Wade was overturned and how a lot of us got celebrated, right. What would the world think? And it's in the same vein of we just need to worry about their soul. Don't worry about being right about abortion or don't worry about being right about racial stuff or transgenderism or whatever. No part of winning their soul is being right about that and making sure we know that it's not us being right, it's that God's right and we're on God's side. And that's the most important thing. It's not about, Well, I want to be right and I want to come out on top of the argument. It's that God's right on this and I'm on God's side, and that's what makes it right. The other thing, and might get me in a little trouble about this, I see this a lot, jack, your article that was not loved by a lot of people about low testosterone men not being able to handle confrontation. Again, I think that plays into this here, I think that plays into this type of thinking, this type of meme, where it's like, listen, we shouldn't be confrontational. We shouldn't be trying to win arguments. I see that a lot from guys who, again, guys are afraid of confrontation a lot. And we've said before, we are the ones pushing masculinity in the church the most, at least as far as we know. We have a whole nother podcast about masculinity, the Godly Young Men podcast, shameless plug. Part of masculinity is the ability to handle and the ability to not necessarily seek out, but the ability to handle, I guess, is the best way to put it, confrontation and the ability to Godly and righteously handle confrontation. And what I see from a lot of guys, and maybe the obese, overweight, lack of testosterone thing as a symptom of it, a lot of guys would just rather post stuff like this and say, well, let's not worry about the argument, let's just worry about souls. [00:26:11] Speaker B: I was going to say, Joe, I'll let you jump in here in a minute, but right before you got to that, it hit me, this is our nice guyism episode as applied to Evangelism. Exactly. I'm in full agreement with your point here and the deep thinkers. Obviously, you've been keeping up with this. That was about a month ago, but if you didn't, that was a pretty well received episode, because I think. It touches on a lot of important things, and this is one manifestation of it. And we talked about nice Guyism has the COVID contract thing. I'm going to be really nice. I'm going to be a good boy, and then you're going to give me what I want with their wife of, well, I did the dishes, honey, so now you got to give me sex. And it's like, that's not right. Well, the same thing of, all right, lost people, I was really nice to you. I didn't argue with you. I didn't ever tell you. I didn't try to win an argument. Well, even Benevolence, look, we fed the homeless and we did all this stuff, so you guys are going to become Christians now, right. And then they don't do it. And then we're surprised, like, well, what happened? Well, is that covert contract? We never said that they were supposed to. We never brought them around to those things. And so what you end up with is lost people who don't want to follow Jesus at all going, well, those are sure some nice Christians, at least they're not the judgmental type. Like, well, okay, you're going to love them straight into hell. And so again it's nice guyism as applied to Evangelism Joe. Go ahead. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah, no, the one thing that I'll say in standing up for the meme, it's got the guy shaking his fist. There is a way to talk with people. [00:27:37] Speaker B: There's a little bit of truth here. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Correct. I want to just say that, like, for the people that want to maybe say, well, no, sure, granted, we want to say, like, you can't beat people into the ground with it. The Bible thumpers, as we talk about I don't like the term Bible thumpers because, yeah, we ought to be thumping the Bible. Like, that's where we stand. We stand on scripture. So go for it. Go for it. Right. However, I do see, like the Westboro Baptist, for instance, now, a lot of what they do is horrible. Obviously, they're not standing on scripture for clear reasons. But that idea of attacking people almost, I see some Christians love to engage in the debates, the arguments, just to kind of attack people and to do. [00:28:18] Speaker C: That just for the sake of argument. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Just for the sake of argument, like yes, exactly. They're kind of the alpha male going after it. I don't like the idea of alpha males have to back down type of thing. No, but we don't want to seek out arguments for the sake of it. We have to be willing to stand up and argue when it presents itself and when we are standing for the truth. And I think there is a strong difference there of those seeking out arguments with atheists just trying to beat them into the ground versus, I'm absolutely going to defend what I believe. And if it gets into an argument, okay, I'm standing on scripture, you know, what I mean? There's a difference there. [00:28:49] Speaker C: That's why I brought up it's not about I want to come out on top of this argument. I want to be right. I want to make sure they know I'm right. It's God's word is right. God is right. I'm on his is. This is what believe. And Joe, I do think there is a clear difference, and I think most people can tell the difference versus people who just want to be Mr. Right and just want to be Mr. Argumentative. And again, come out on top of the argument versus people who are just genuinely passionate about what they believe and they know that it's right because it's in God's word and they're defending it. And again, there are very few instances, I guess I'll say, where you can correctly or I guess effectively I should say evangelize or reach somebody's soul without stepping on their toes to some extent, without bringing in some kind of argument about maybe they're living with their boyfriend girlfriend, maybe they're pro abortion, maybe they're pro transgenderism. There's all kind of things. And to have this, I think the biggest problem with it, as we started with this meme, it implies that you can win souls without necessarily being right on things and without winning arguments necessarily. That the only word has to win the argument. [00:30:00] Speaker A: That's right. The only way to win souls, it pits them against one another. And you can't do that. You can't pit arguments and souls against one another. [00:30:07] Speaker B: It's funny, the scripture that's used to make Jesus into this kind of nice guy caricature people make is usually the Sermon on the Mount. Where does he start off? In the Sermon on the Mount right after the beatitudes. You have heard that it was said this, but I say that, hey, the rabbis are wrong. This thing that all of you guys have been taught your whole life growing up, no, we're not doing it that way anymore. And that was wrong from the beginning. Hey, your marriage no, not good. He goes into that over and over. And then also in the Sermon on the Mount, as you're saying about not just getting into these round and round arguments, matthew seven, I think it's verse six, don't cast your pearls before swine. That's also part of this. It's not about just yelling at who can be loudest. Some of these first take kind of or Fox News, CNN, kind of like these debates you see all over TV. Yeah, that's pretty useless. But having the conversation to say you're wrong, because with all of these, again, I think they all introduce other bad ideas that are out there. And one that's really popular is preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. No, the gospel is good news. You have to speak good news. And that sometimes means repent. That's at the heart of the gospel message. And so, yeah, this one again, there is a kernel of truth in there, because sometimes you hear people say, well, I spoke the truth, and that's the most loving thing you could do. No, there's a reason Paul says, speak the truth in love. There's a reason. There's those first few verses of First Corinthians 13 of you're a clanging symbol if you're just bashing people over the head. And so, yeah, don't do that, but still don't go the other way. And never tell somebody they're wrong. They need to change, they need to repent or whatever. All right, any more on that one? All right, we got two more. And then, like I said, kind of a couple of generic discussions here. Let me pull up our next one here. Oh, a classic. You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. This is attributed to C. S. Lewis. It's never anything he said, in fact, kind of goes against some of the things he did say. But this idea that we know eternal souls that occupy a body, it's like this vessel, this shell that holds us for a little while, and that's the only thing that really matters. [00:32:25] Speaker A: It's called gnosticism. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:29] Speaker A: Go ahead, jack's Dogma podcast on this, because I think they did a great episode on it. That is the problem, is they act like our physical bodies don't matter. Like, oh, well, those will be cast aside except for the fact that we'll have new bodies in heaven, right? That we will be raised up. And we see this for Sicilian sport. Like, you can get into discussions. Jesus has this new body, right? When he comes back, he returns from the grave. That's what we're all going to get. And we see this. And so there is a physical element to this. And when we talk about God made man in his image, that we can get into a lot of different things. It's dominion, it's a lot of things, breath of life, things like that. But we almost look at it as well. He also made the body. Do you have any idea how complex the human body is? And you could say, well, yeah, so is a snail. They're complex, too. [00:33:15] Speaker C: It's not like God just threw it together. Like, I guess this will work. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Correct. This is incredibly important. And I genuinely do believe and this may get us in the hot water, depending on where you're at. I genuinely do believe we will have a very similar body in heaven. A very similar body, I think, one that doesn't undergo any aging, things like that. But I think we will have a heavenly physical body. And a meme like this kind of hits it. No, we're just going to be these ethereal souls floating around this white space with God in heaven. I really don't think that's how things work. And so it's almost a new heavens, new earth type meme, when you think about it. [00:33:53] Speaker C: Well, the way that memes like this kind of manifest themselves is everything is constantly, always about the spiritual. Physical doesn't matter at all. The body doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter how you treat your body, doesn't matter basically anything about your body, just your soul. Spiritual, he's right. I mean, that's the most important thing, right? And man, I just think about Jesus in his 33 years or 30 years, however many years he was on the earth. Bible doesn't say this. I tend to believe he treated his body very well. I tend to think he did not view his body as something that, well, I'm going to get killed on the cross here in a few years, so it doesn't really matter how I treat it. I don't see Jesus doing that. And yet that's what a lot of people, that's the perspective that a lot of people have is that kind of man just got to get to the afterlife, just got to get to heaven. So it doesn't matter about my life on this one. And listen, of course we need to be focusing on heaven and emphasizing and prioritizing the life after this one that's colossians three, set your mind on spiritual things and heavenly things rather than strictly earthly things, but to do so at the expense of your life here on this earth. I mean, God placed us here for a reason, and it wasn't to just twiddle our thumbs and kill time until heaven. It wasn't just to kill time until the afterlife. And we talked about this a lot on this podcast and on the Godly Young Men podcast as well. About, listen, Christ is to rule and reign over all of our lives and have dominion over everything in this life. And that includes the way we treat our bodies, that includes the things that we eat, the way that we exercise, that includes finances, that includes a lot of things that memes like this and this type of mindset kind of ignore. Again, it's just about the spiritual and there's nothing else matters. Spiritual is the most important, without a doubt. But to say or to imply that's the only thing that matters to me simply is a misunderstanding of why God placed us on this Earth to begin with. [00:35:45] Speaker B: Jack well, yeah, so Joe went back to Genesis one. God creates it. It's very good. Sin corrupts. Sin brings, as we just mentioned a few minutes ago, the death and the disease and all the things that corrupt the body. And so your view on that is God's view to come and be like, yep, that thing's terrible. Let's just throw it away, or let's find a way to redeem. Let's let's bring this back. And Jesus takes on flesh himself, which is a really big deal that he went to do that because the other thing that gets missed in this is the soul lives on forever, no matter what. I mean, if you believe in hell as eternal conscious torment, which is pretty much the standard belief of Christianity, that soul is going to live on consciously even though it's in torment, it's not in a good place. It's still living. And so if your sense of eternal life is just a soul that goes on forever, well, then those going to hell also have eternal life. Eternal life has to mean something different and better for those that are saved. And when we talk about resurrection, I think that's one of the other things that's a bit of a paradox to me. Not a paradox, but a conundrum, I guess, for this idea is if we have eternal life and they have eternal life and it just means living in different places, that doesn't make sense. And so the resurrection is part of that, but the other is so Jesus is going to come back. We're all going to be raised from the dead. We're going to meet Him in the air. We're going to be reunited with our bodies for a good five minutes maybe, and then we shed them like husks again. Why? What's the point? Why does he need to come back for us if we can just be transferred straight to again, we're that white glowing orb or an angel or whatever form we take where we don't actually have a body anymore, why does he need to come back and raise us from the dead? We're already alive in that sense that eternal life goes on forever. These things don't add up together, but I don't think we spend a lot of time thinking about them. And then to Will's point, it matters how you treat the body. That whole it's all going to burn mentality. We all have things like this where you go to the store and you buy the cheap tool and it's like, okay, I'm not really going to take care of this thing because I know it's not going to be around for long. But then there's the things that you buy and they're nice and you want to preserve them, want to take care of them because they matter. Well, the same thing goes on. Goes to Will's point about the body is, no, this is important. God created it. He called it very good, the redemption of the body. I wanted to read Philippians 321. It talks about us in verse 20. Eagerly waiting for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory. Well, we saw the body of his glory. It was pretty amazing. He was teleporting. Everything that happened after the Resurrection was pretty crazy. On the other hand, they touched, they felt the holes. He was real. He was actually there. And it was a very gnostic thing to be like, well, no, he wasn't actually. He got rid of the flesh or he never actually was here in the flesh or no, the fact that God took on flesh. Joe mentioned who let the dogma out. We did an episode on kind of the theology of the body and gnosticism in the first season. And in this last one we did. Why? It matters that Jesus became a human. So you want to deep dive on those? I'd go check out those episodes. But yeah, I mean, this is one of those that the standard way of explaining these things just doesn't make sense to me. [00:39:04] Speaker A: And once again, another one of those that opens up into a much more difficult discussion. And so packaging it into a cute little meme sounds good, but there's a lot more spiritual implications underneath it that I just think are wrong and a lot of presuppositions that are made. And specifically, it's the same thing with angels and demons. We don't discuss souls very much. It's a spiritual realm thing because we don't know it. And this is a big problem in the Church of Christ. We've hit this before if we don't have a thousand percent clarity on what is what like black and white, holy Spirit being one of them, angels and demons, we can't fully know. And so we'd rather just disengage from the discussion altogether that's the struggle with this soul. It's a very interesting and delicate discussion when we're talking about what is coming in the afterlife. Right? What does heaven look like? What does eternal life mean? Do we have that eternal body? And a lot of people, either they shut down the discourse about it and they label you as a heretic, or they just don't want to have the discourse at all. And so we get bad memes like this that get shared. And so it's just interesting to see. Most of these are well meaning. This one to me is just I don't understand what relevancy this has. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Right? [00:40:16] Speaker A: The other ones are trying to encourage people, trying to lift them up, whatever it is. What are we getting out of this? [00:40:23] Speaker B: I think it's trying to tell people to focus on the spiritual, but yes. [00:40:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's important for Christians to kind of get back to, hey, this life does matter because I think one of the things we overdo this sounds bad. And people get mad when I say it. We overemphasize heaven, where it's like, well, all of this, whatever happens here yeah. Get through this. Because when we die, then it gets good. It's like, no, it starts being good here as a Christian and there's a lot to live for here that's going to echo into eternity. So treat it that way. All right, we got one more, I believe. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Number five. [00:41:03] Speaker B: Number five, classic. They will know you are my disciples by your and it has crossed out rules, theology, righteousness, power, rhetoric, purity, or clubs and then circles, love. They'll know your disciples by your love. John 1335. We could add infinite things to this list. Well, it doesn't say they'll know your disciples by your waffles doesn't say they'll know you're my disciples by your car you drive. It doesn't say they'll know you're my disciples by your football team. Yeah, you can throw a million it. [00:41:40] Speaker C: Does say you'll throw your politics on there. [00:41:43] Speaker B: But acting as if our rules, our theology, our righteousness, that those things, that our own purity is not part of our witness. [00:41:52] Speaker C: I mean, okay, this is what's maddening about memes like this. It is, again, the kind of the manifestation of the well, love God, love others as the extent of the New Testament commands it literally memes like this. And again, people who have this mindset literally act as if love is the only characteristic that Christians are supposed to have. That's it, that's the list. [00:42:13] Speaker B: And the funny thing is they reject doctrine so we can't define love. [00:42:17] Speaker A: That's exactly it, right? What is love? [00:42:20] Speaker B: Don't do it, baby, don't hurt. [00:42:25] Speaker C: Yikes yikes. [00:42:27] Speaker A: But if you're looking at thought I'm so sorry, Will. [00:42:30] Speaker C: No, I was just going to say again, I always go to what are the logical implications of this and the logical implications of this as you go back to that meme is your purity doesn't matter, your righteousness doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is love. And that's simply not the case. That's simply not the case. Go ahead. [00:42:50] Speaker A: No, I was just going to say Matthew seven. They'll know you by your fruits, right. You'll be able to understand, well, that's not in John 1335. And so therefore it's like, well, the fruit that you produce is something that we can know whether you're good or bad from. So where does that enter into the discussion? How do we have good fruits? [00:43:07] Speaker B: You're the light of the everything on the list. You're the salt of the earth. I mean, is that not your purity, your righteousness? Are some of those things on that list? If it's not yeah, I mean, obviously, love is, we're not saying this to downplay love, the love of the church for each other, the unity of the church. He gets back to in John 17, in his prayer in 20 through 23, that they're going to know that he was sent from the Father because we are one. That's a really important thing is our relationships with each other. But as if that's the only thing, as if holiness, because again, we don't respect the Old Testament enough. You go to the Old Testament, God said, come out from among them and be separate, the whole world is going to know and you're going to be a light to the nations. That's one of the ways they failed is they were supposed to be a light to the nations by being different. We don't worship your gods, we don't sacrifice the way you do. We don't engage in sexual activity the way you do. We're not like you, we're different. And that was supposed to be part of their way of being a light. And now Jesus says you are the light of the world. [00:44:07] Speaker C: Well and even having that theology crossed out, they will know you are my disciples by your nope, not theology like, I'm sorry, I pretty well know who a disciple of Christ is based on their theology. You know what can pretty that can pretty easily disqualify somebody from being a disciple. You love everybody and your theology is messed up. Sorry, that's just the way it works. We could go for a while on this. It's frustrating that the, again, love God, love others has been kind of elevated to the pedestal of this is the chief concern basically to eliminate all the other concerns. The rest of the New Testament does exist. As you said, walk in the spirit, don't walk according to the flesh. There's all kind of things that are indicators of whether or not we're a disciple, but people in the world and. [00:44:56] Speaker B: That'S the other thing. [00:44:57] Speaker C: If people in the world share this, that's one thing. They don't understand scripture. They are misinformed. I don't want to say ignorant, but they're in the world. When people in the church are sharing stuff like this, that's a major red flag as to once again your understanding of the New Testament and your understanding of the way Christians are supposed to live in this life. As always, this is typically just a cover up for let's tolerate everything, let's approve everything. Let's show the world how loving we are. Forget theology, forget rules, forget doctrine, forget purity, forget righteousness. Yeah, I don't really see Jesus making that implication in John 13. [00:45:33] Speaker A: But it's winsome, right? I mean, that's really what it comes down to. It's winsome and therefore you can share this with your buddies. Anybody, any Christian could share this. Who in the world other than us, we'd come out and go say, hey, that's wrong. Who in the world is going to be like, that's not right? All your gay friends or whatever else. See, that's exactly it. So yeah, you're attempting to kind of be winsome and you're missing the entire boat because how do you work back from this one? Once you put this forward and everybody knows you as love anytime, you take a stand and go, hey, but dude, it's not okay to be a homosexual. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You just said that they'll know you by your love. And now you've weaponized John 1335 against you. Because every time you share this, anybody who you disagree with going back to the arguments one, but anybody who you disagree with, all of a sudden you can no longer have the trump card session because they got the trump card. That's not loving. That's not loving. You failed to define love and you've chopped yourself off at the knees because everything that helps you define love, you just crossed out. Way to go. So don't weaponize love. Don't weaponize these things against yourself. By sharing these memes stand up for all of those things. [00:46:48] Speaker C: Let's speak real quick and jack. Then I'll hand it to you to the true side of this meme which know being a loving people, being a kind people that should differentiate christians like people should be able to see a difference between followers of Christ and those who are not followers of Christ based on, again, the acts of kindness that we perform, the love that we show to people. And of course that needs to be a major aspect of our lives as Christians. But the problem with memes like this once again, and thought processes and perspectives like this is yeah, that's not to the detriment or to the what am I saying? Exclusion of all these other things that also are very much indicators of being a Christian. So there is truth to it. It's just very misleading. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a false dichotomy. Oh, well, theology doesn't matter because love no, but you're right. Love can be our foot in the door. And if you don't have that, the grumpy little old church lady who tells the visitor, you're in my seat, okay, they don't know your disciples by your love. Yeah, that is the proper application of this and our love for each other. And as I say a lot in given my church reset lessons, the love God, love others thing, it's so basic. Love others is great. Bible doesn't say that. It says love your neighbor as yourself. That's a really high calling too. But then what Jesus is saying here is to your church family, love one another as I have loved you. Like be willing to die for each other, love others better than yourself. That is a really challenging thing. And so even this undercuts the power in that love. But that's not just our well, they see a bunch of nice people and they're going to want to no. Again, it's your foot in the door to which you can use to explain your theology and what righteousness means and all of those different things. I don't know, I think well, even on there they'll know you're my disciples, not by your clubs. Well, it's going to look like a club to the world when we love each other more than we love anybody else, when we care for each other, when there is an exclusivity to this and anyone can come be a part of it. But also you don't just get the benefits of the church without converting and being a disciple and being part of it and committing yourself. There's a million ways this is wrong. Again, obviously the Bible verse is true. What they're doing with it is quite an abuse of it. [00:49:12] Speaker C: Kind of pull a verse out of context, just plop it into a meme or into an argument and kind of ignore the surrounding context. So that's all the memes that we had. Guys, did y'all want to talk any more about those, or are we ready to move on to kind of this last section here? [00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I want to say a. [00:49:28] Speaker A: Quick thing, because, Jack, I think you did have one more that you had shared. [00:49:31] Speaker B: No, I'm not even going to post it because I have a problem. [00:49:34] Speaker A: I wouldn't didn't post it, and I was actually going to ask you not to, because we wanted to have a brief word on the AI generated images of Jesus and such. [00:49:44] Speaker B: Not even just that reverence in general and reverence. There's so many of know, the little cartoon guys, the Wojag or whatever, talking to Know and Jesus talking back to man. And it's kind of the same thing. There used to be the whole preacher joke, well, God and Peter, we're out on the golf course like, no, right, have a little reverence. But the AI generated one, somebody had posted one of I asked AI for a picture of Jesus flipping over tables, and it was Jesus doing a show. It's a picture of a Jesus esque figure doing a backflip over a table. Don't post that. Or I saw somebody post Jesus taking a selfie at the Last Supper. What are you doing? [00:50:25] Speaker A: Right? [00:50:26] Speaker C: What are we doing. [00:50:29] Speaker B: Saying, how is that reverent at all? [00:50:31] Speaker A: There's no reverence. Read Revelation and come to that conclusion that it's okay to treat Jesus in that way. Like the reverence that we ought to have the holy, holy, holy we see it in Isaiah six, right? They're calling that out. They've been doing this the entire time. Holy, holy, holy. Same thing in Revelation Four. Like, the reverence that they have in heaven for God is unparalleled. And that's the reverence we're supposed to have. You're standing on holy ground, Moses. Take your shoes off. [00:50:56] Speaker B: And we have the gall. [00:50:58] Speaker A: And I was telling you guys this off, like and this is just a kind of go to quick go to thing for you. If you're ever thinking about typing Jesus or any image of Jesus into AI, just stop. Just don't. There is no reason, in my opinion, to do it. We're looking for a laugh. We're looking for whatever else. Do not bring him down to our level. He's not on our level, nor should he be. There needs to be a serious reverence about it. So we just want to make that point as well, because you see those images getting shared on social media, make sure that everything that you're sharing comes through kind of passes through the reverence lens of, is this reverential to our God and Father and to Jesus Christ? Most of those things just aren't. [00:51:37] Speaker C: I think this gets us into this last section of this. [00:51:41] Speaker B: I want to say two more things on the reverence. First is I just think about the stories of the scribes in the Old Testament or the Masoretic or the Essene, whichever one it is. I'm forgetting which one that transcribed the Old Testament. That when they came to, the Yahweh name would put the pen down, get a new pen, go wash their hands, wash themselves, come back, write God's name, go back and wash like, I'm not worthy of writing this name. And we're over here. Oh, let's see if we can do Jesus getting a backflip. No, stop it, number one. But number two, there's a very interesting debate to be had which we don't have time for at the end of this, of the idea of the Second Commandment violation. You should not make any images of God and pictures of Jesus, comics of Jesus. You can get into TV shows, of know movies of Jesus, things like that. A lot of people think it's a Second Commandment violation. Like I said, I don't come down firmly on that one way or to. [00:52:36] Speaker C: I was going to hold you on that, Jack. Maybe a deep end discussion. [00:52:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say I need to think about it a little bit more, but I'm just going to float it out there of like, it may even rise to that level, and even if it doesn't, it's just not reverence. So I wanted to make those two points. We will push that to the deep end, but let's go ahead to this last point you had there. [00:52:51] Speaker C: Will well, I think they tie together. That's why I was getting into it is kind of the way that social media has watered down presentation of the gospel, kind of watered down spiritual things and obviously these memes and things like that are a manifestation of it kind of where we wanted to end here is basically should we be sharing stuff like this at all? Obviously, the ones that we've specifically pointed out, all of us are in agreement there's problems with them, some of them, multiple problems with them, and therefore we shouldn't share those. But just kind of the Christian meme culture, I guess, of just sharing these things to our Facebook and sharing these things to our Instagram or whatever. Should we be doing it at? Let me let me kind of frame it in such a way where people aren't just going to go, okay, really? They're saying we shouldn't share Christian things on our social media. I think there could be several problems with it. First of all, I think it can give people kind of a false sense of evangelism in the sense of, like, this is my evangelism, is that I share a, you know, screenshot or I share, again, a Christian meme. And man, I sure am reaching the world, aren't I? First of all, no, you're not. I don't know of anybody who's ever been converted because, oh, man, that scripture that they posted on their Instagram story caused me to go obey the gospel. I don't think that happens, first of all, but second of all, I think it's such a lazy way of, again, saying that you're pretending that you're carrying out the great commission by sharing stuff like this. But then the other side of it is I think it can kind of be a look at me, look how spiritual I am kind of thing where the people who do and I'm not trying to cast aspersions on everybody who does it. I know that there are I'm sure there are listeners that we have that post stuff like this. And listen, I'm not trying to cast aspersions on it. What I'm trying to do and what we're trying to do with this last section is get us to think a little deeper about it. What's the point of it? What's the purpose of it? Again, we can talk about the problems with these memes that we brought up just sharing stuff like this in general. What is the point? What is the purpose? Is it to reach people with the gospel? Again, you're probably not doing that. Is it to kind of float out there? Again, look how spiritual I am. That's a very cynical way of looking at things. I do think people do do it for that reason. And so I guess that's where I would open up the discussion and encourage all of our listeners. Just ask yourself, if you are somebody who is kind of a perpetual poster of things like that, what is the purpose behind it? Because as we've seen, I think a lot of it can water down the gospel so much and water down God's word so much that again, just taking a bite size scripture, putting it in a meme or even just one verse, ignoring context, all these things, in my opinion, I think it can do more harm than good. So I am not a Christian meme. Scripture screenshot sharer, guys. I don't know what thoughts you have to add on whether or not this is a good idea for Christians at all. [00:55:44] Speaker A: I think it can be an encouragement from time to time. I'm more in your camp than not. I don't post on social media. I don't remember the last post that I had other than maybe sharing a Focus Press thing or something. I think you can run everything through that filter, everything you post. Is this helpful? What is the reason I'm doing this? [00:56:03] Speaker C: What's the point? Right? [00:56:04] Speaker A: I'm going to tell you all about my amazing trip to such and such or to my amazing marriage. Are you trying to convince us or convince yourself or what's that for? Right? Almost everything on social media I think you could say that to. But I will say I'll give the benefit of the doubt. I think there's some people that are genuinely trying to be encouraging. They're trying to post some things that are uplifting or whatever else the caution would be make sure that what you're posting is actually legitimately biblical as we're seeing a couple of these things. Sure, they're attempting, hey, you must be one of God's strongest soldiers. No, you're trying to encourage, but why don't you just pick up the phone and call them? Oh, wait, because this is social media and we can't do that. That's the problem with it. There are ways to encourage, I think, that are way better. I'm not going to tell you that. Obviously this is not a sin issue or anything like that. But to your point, Will, I don't know that it's wise. I think, like you said, it has potential to do more harm than good a lot of times. Doesn't mean always doesn't mean there's not some really nice ones with the guy climbing the mountaintop, and it just has something else. A lot of times it'll have Philippians 413. It's like, that's not really what it's talking about either. We didn't get into that. But you see that a lot, too. [00:57:18] Speaker C: That's my point, though. It waters it down. [00:57:19] Speaker A: Point is, yes, it waters a lot of things down, and it tries to take and what we see in this episode is it takes a huge concept, and it puts it down into a bite size little meme that you can share. And it's like, man, there's so much underneath this that that really doesn't either capture all of what it's trying to say or that's just flat out wrong. And now we have to explain everything else, those that are just a scripture. Okay, again, you're not wrong for posting it, but genuinely ask yourself why everything that you post on social media, ask yourself why you're doing it. And I think nine times out of ten, you'll come to the conclusion you're looking to get people to engage in some form or the other. Go get people to engage in your real life. That would be my point. [00:58:01] Speaker C: Jack, that's a great way to put it. [00:58:02] Speaker B: As the one guy here who actually posts on social media, I think there's value in it in spreading ideas. I mean, that's why and whether it's articles, podcasts, or just the images, especially, hey, deep thinkers, while you're listening, we post image quotes of our episodes every week. Don't listen to Will and Joe. You should share those because they're so full of wisdom. Yeah, you get bonus heaven points for those, I guess, or something. But no, I think it is very much what is your motive? It is very much what does this accomplish? I will fully admit there are some that I just throw out there to stir the pot, just to be obnoxious. Oh, I don't do that very often. [00:58:41] Speaker C: Pushes the controversial button I have, grabbing. [00:58:45] Speaker A: Jack by the scruff of the neck and pulling him away from the argument. [00:58:48] Speaker B: I've outgrown that I am not nearly the hot button or hot take guy that I used to be, which makes. [00:58:55] Speaker C: Facebook for me a little bit less entertaining, be honest with you. [00:58:58] Speaker A: That is true. [00:58:59] Speaker B: So much to do. I don't have time to babysit the arguments that come up from that there was one. I did the Stephen crowder meme of the change my know with whatever, you put something on the sign. And I said that a growing lectureship culture in the church. A growing lectureship culture is a sign of an unhealthy church. Oh, man. I got unfriended by a number of people. I don't do that stuff as much anymore. And so the idea of putting an idea out there, an encouraging idea, something to think about. There are a couple of actually tweets I screenshotted and posted this week that I just thought taught useful truths in bite sized sentences. And so it's something to be careful with. There's a lot of obnoxious stuff. I think Christians politically share some very stupid stuff, some very kicking the hornets nest kind of stuff, or just, hey, calling other people idiots. I think there's room for political I disagree with my former take that we shouldn't argue that stuff online. I think there's room for it. I just think it's like, man, your character needs to come through there as well. And so there's a lot of give and take here. I can see some of the logic in what you guys are saying. I think there's logic on the other side. It is something to be very careful with. [01:00:20] Speaker C: I would say just think deeper about it is all of is I would rather Facebook and social media be filled with that kind of stuff than some of the stuff it is filled with. And so I'm not trying to say just completely eliminate all Christian sharing stuff on Facebook. I would encourage people think a little bit deeper because I do think there are a lot of people who are it's a look at me, look how spiritual I am. If that's you, please reevaluate how you measure your spirituality. But other than that, like y'all are saying, if it's for encouraging, if it's to stir up some thought, stir up some know, again, a lot of the stuff Jack does is not just posting a Bible verse. It's posting maybe again, a thought. That's a thought provoking idea or something like that. That's great. I was not trying to paint with a broad brush, but I would encourage. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Everybody what we're going to get is people are going to be like, so Will and Joe just don't want people to post scripture on social media, is what I'm hearing. [01:01:15] Speaker B: That's what I'm hearing, too. Once again, your favorite host standing for truth over here. No? Okay. I did have one a while back where I said, look, here's my coffee in my Bible. I'm having my devo time. That's supposed to be between you and God. Matthew six. So be careful with that stuff. [01:01:35] Speaker A: That's more what we're talking about. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And so yeah, no, I definitely think it's something for wisdom. [01:01:40] Speaker C: So Jack does agree with us. He's just trying to be a man of the people right now. [01:01:45] Speaker B: Win some, win some, lose. Some. All right, so we're going to talk second commandment violation in the deep end. We're also going to get to the comments from the deep thinkers, especially in Focus Plus on Friday. So remember, just check that out. We plugged it at the start. Is there anything else, joe, you had. [01:02:05] Speaker A: Something if you have a meme that you're interested in that yes, I like that. Submit it. Submit it. [01:02:11] Speaker B: That's really good. [01:02:12] Speaker A: Either what are your thoughts on this and we'll talk about it, or if you have found some that are blatantly wrong. These are ones that Jack has run across, and we've seen these over the, I think of the course of months. You've kind of been compiling this. If you have one, send them in. We'll talk about it. [01:02:25] Speaker C: Obviously, if you are a Focus Plus subscriber, you'll get to watch the deep end, and we'll get to react live to your meme that you submit. But even if you're not, put it in the Facebook comments on social media, let us know. We want to see more of these. We'll discuss more in the deep end. If you're just so painfully curious about what are they going to say about the particular meme, hey, I don't encourage this subscribe for a month. Watch that deep end. But I know we're going to make. [01:02:49] Speaker B: When we put a thing out saying, hey, share your bad memes, and somebody's going to share one of our quote. Yeah, make it one of Joe's hot takes. We'll do now. [01:02:59] Speaker A: Hey, now that is quality content. [01:03:02] Speaker B: All right. Anything else? Let's go ahead and get out of here, and we'll talk to you guys next week.