Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast, presented by Focus Press. Jack Wilkie, Joe Wilkie and Will Herb with you. As always, excited to get into this week's topic. Before we do, I want to remind you guys, we sometimes put an ad in the middle, but if you're like me, you hit skip on those ads. So I'll just throw this out real quick at the start about Focus plus, and it's our Patreon, lots of extras. You get the deep end exclusive episode, kind of like a second Think Deeper every week.
And daily devos and teaching series through Revelation and Romans and the law and the minor prophets is what we're currently doing. And so a lot of exciting resources on there. So check that out focuspress.org/ Become a Supporter There and get access to all those resources. So just wanted to remind you of that before we get into it, but this week we're talking about something that if you follow my work on the side, outside of Think Deeper, you've seen me talk about this a little bit. And so these guys kind of wanted to jump into that conversation. And that's about a Sabbath, a day of rest, whether that's Saturday or another day of the week forms that that can take.
It's an idea growing in popularity. We're going to talk a little bit about Charlie Kirk. His final book was released posthumously.
That was on that idea of taking a day of rest. It's something that a lot of people are interested in, a lot of people are practicing in different ways. And so we're going to talk and what that looks like and the biblical precedent for that and just all kinds of different angles to take a look at it here. So I'm excited to see, as I said, I've been talking about it. I'm excited to see what these guys have to say on it as we get into this idea of a Sabbath rest.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Yes. I wanted to say too, as we kind of get started, if we got to talk to you at cyc, we really enjoyed that. Appreciate. I know we had a lot of people come up and say that they listen and they appreciate the podcast and we appreciate that. So thank you for the support and it was good to meet you.
Yeah. Jack, I'm excited for this episode, too. I've read your articles on it. I haven't read the Kirk book. I did watch Your review on YouTube of the Charlie Kirk book was great.
I think the reason I'm most intrigued by this is because speaking from a personal perspective, anecdotally, if you will, not anecdotally real ones will know the reference there.
Anecdotally speaking, this is a struggle for me, just the idea of taking a full day of rest. And we're going to talk about what that means exactly, practically, what does that look like? But really, from the time I got married, I was doing some kind of work every single day, basically. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was preaching when I got married every single Sunday. And so regardless of the fact that I was still there to worship, it is still work. The idea of getting up there and preaching or teaching class as well, went to work for Amazon, continued to preach. So my Sundays were still, you know, I would say there was kind of work there working Saturdays of course, and then went to be a minister. So same thing.
So I guess I say all that to say and even now it's difficult for me to picture this idea of taking a full day. I don't want to speak for Joe, I'd imagine he can echo that full day of basically no responsibilities. And so, yeah, I'm excited to get into the practical to hear from Jack as he's kind of put this into practice. But I guess I would start this to say I do think this is extremely valuable in a world that is never, never ending productivity chase, basically always chasing productivity, always chasing, making another dollar, always chasing the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. This concept of rest is fairly brushed aside in society. And so, yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. Joe, what introductory thoughts do you have?
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah, same, same. This has been on my radar, especially Jack, since you started doing that.
Shout out to my mother in law. She got me Charlie, Charlie Kirk's book for Christmas and I have not had a chance to read it. And so that is on my docket. That'll be one of the next ones that I read. And I'm excited. I'm fascinated by the concept because we've grown up, I've heard stories or heard sermons on it rather. Voddie Bauckham, you know, the late Voddie Bauckham, he had a great one on Sabbath and just kind of giving some alternative takes from what you usually hear. Because the easy thing is to go, well, it's old testamen, we don't have to worry about it, you know, it's just, it's the only 10 of the 10 commandments that we don't actually engage with. But you know, that's just an Old Testament thing. We can move on and then we leave it at that. And it's A pretty basic understanding. We're not necessarily digging into it. So to echo you guys, that's what we're going to do. We want to dig into that. We want to ask a few questions. Does it have to be on set? You know, should we do it? Does it need to be on Saturday?
What is the purpose of it? All of those types of things. What does Charlie Kirk's book have to say? Jack read that. I'm curious to pick his brain on that.
And also what Jack's doing currently is he referenced, you know, so we want to go into that and just give, as we always say, an alternate take. We want to think deeper on it. That's what we're here for. Rather than just the Patty answers of, well, we don't need to do it and move on. There's a little more here. So, Jack, I'll throw it back to you. As far as kicking us, kicking us off, getting us into the outline, maybe where we'd start is just kind of defining terms surrounding the Sabbath, where we initially get it, you know, God's God, putting that into practice, and then some of the terms and things surrounding that.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Right. So obviously when we say Sabbath, you're looking back to the Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. And so in the. The strictly most direct definition, it's the seventh day, it's Saturday. And that's as Israel. There were so many laws around that. And. And in the camp there about picking up sticks, they put somebody to death, right, for violating the Sabbath. And God's law about the.
Even before this, the manna of gather it in six days, the sixth day, you're going to get extra so you don't have to go out on the seventh day. And so this was an idea of day of rest had been established. And so when I wrote about this or did the book review on Charlie Kirk, I had people saying, well, Sabbath just means Saturday. And so, like making it another day of the week for a day of rest. That's not it. And we'll talk some about is Sunday the Christian Sabbath. And that idea, that's out there as well. But when we're starting, we are drawing on the concept from the Ten Commandments that, yes, technically was Saturday, but the idea, the principle of it was a day of rest. And that's not just from the Ten Commandments. That goes back to creation. And I think that was something I thought Charlie Kirk, in his book, did a really good job of establishing that this is a universally needed thing. And the seven day week is a universal thing. And something I didn't realize is cultures that have tried to reject God, like communist Russia, like France after the French Revolution, tried to get rid of the seven day week.
They tried to overlap it, do like ten day working cycles. They were trying to get more work out of the workers, they were trying to divide families, send mom and dad and the kids different directions, different days of the week. And one of the biggest things was taking away a day of rest where everybody could go to church. You can't have church if everyone's working different days.
It's. You can't have that day of rest and gathering or whatever. And so that was something. And it didn't work, obviously it didn't last. Everybody basically around the world goes off of the seven day week and that day of rest. And so having the concept of stopping, putting things down, leaving your work behind as you can. And I mean there are caveats to this. There are people who, you know, currently their job will send them in on Sunday from time to time. Joe, you had a training thing that you have to keep up for your practice that they would not, they would let the Jewish people take off for the Saturday sessions. They didn't let the Christians off for the Sunday sessions. And so we're not talking about those extreme exceptions, but in general this idea of day of rest goes back to the first day full day that human beings were alive on earth was the day of rest. And so keeping that in our a calendar is a really good idea.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: I love your point, first of all. Yeah, I mean I was just looking up where's the first use of that word Sabbath. And of course it's Exodus 16, verse 23, right before the Ten Commandments. But your point about this was this well preceded, you know, the Mosaic law and the ten commandments, this concept of a day of rest. I think we can zero in on that word Sabbath. And we think old law, we think, you know, all those things day of rest did precede that. But you even see other times or other places in the old law, not just about Sabbath, but this importance of rest. There's that idea of the on the seventh year what the land resting, right, that you'd gather, produce and then you let the land rest for seven years. Like this is this is inherent throughout kind of God's design is this, this need and this value to taking a day of rest. And your point about what the anti God societies really push for is fascinating to me of you know, taking away the day that everybody goes to Church and splitting the families and demanding that. And, you know, I think the value that you get as a. So first of all, our culture obviously has already devalued family, you know, completely in the sense of the biblical family, the nuclear family.
It's trying to argue for, you know, man and men marrying men, women marrying women, changing gender. Like just the concept of family is under attack in our society right now. So then it makes sense that also the idea of rest is under attack as well. And so, yeah, that's. I really like that point. Kind of as we get into it,
[00:09:27] Speaker A: that's exactly where I went is Exodus 16. And as we were thinking about that, that's one of the things that kind of broke my brain the first time. Well, it's a 10 commandment, of course. That's when God instituted like. No, it's not.
It is. They observed the Sabbath as they're heading into the wilderness. Again, Exodus 16 starting in that verse 22, you know, now on the sixth day, they gather twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders, the congregation, came and told Moses, then he said to them, this is what the Lord meant. Tomorrow is the Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath of the Lord.
Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning. And so they're already making preparations. This is before the law is given. So we already have precedent for something that is outside the law. To your guys's point, going back to Genesis, that's clearly outside the law of a day of rest. Our bodies, you know, cyclically, I think our bodies are looking for these things as well. And we go off the seven days. And so, yeah, to speak to the point of, well, it's just in the old law. No, it's not. That's really what we get out of this is it's not just an old law observance thing of like, well, once we do away with the Leviticus and all the crazy stuff, you know, then we don't really need to observe it. Like, that's not the case. What's interesting is I was looking at the early church fathers and they did kind of believe that. That this is just an old law thing that we don't really need to observe anymore. I think it was.
Had it pulled up here.
I believe it was Augustine that argued that all the Ten Commandments, of all the Ten Commandments, only the Sabbath commandment was meant to be interpreted. Interpreted figuratively rather than literally, which is going to get us into a little more of what we're discussing today. Maybe not the command part, but there's a ton of them. They get into it of like, hey, we no longer observe the Sabbath. We no longer observe the Sabbath. So from a strict, hey, it has to be on Saturday.
They're looking at it as the Jewish Sabbath. We don't have to engage with that, what we're talking about. And this is why it's important for us to break into terms.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: We're.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: We're talking about a day of rest. Should Christians observe a day of rest? If you're going to look at it and say, well, we don't have to observe the Sabbath anymore. That goes into Romans 14 and, you know, the feast days and Sabbaths, we don't have to observe that. That's a strictly Jewish thing from Friday night to Saturday night, you know, Friday sundown, Saturday sundown. That's a Jewish thing. Okay, granted, yes, that is a Jewish thing that we are no longer having to observe.
Based off of the fact that, you know, some of the, you know, New Testament, and we're seeing the first day of the week being given to God. The concept is not whether we should do that. The concept is, do we observe a day and then, you know, we kind of break into what that kind of looks like. But what are your thoughts on that, fellows?
[00:11:57] Speaker C: I think we have to establish first, and Jack and I hand it back to you.
People get so hung up on, is it a command or not? Is it wrong if I don't? Is it a sin if I don't? And so I think that's. Obviously, we have addressed time and time again on this podcast, the error of that mindset, kind of the, the faulty lens through which people can see the Bible is, well, do I have to? If not, great. You know, if I have to, okay, fine, I will.
This is not a command for us as New Testament Christians in the sense of, you know, somebody is in sin if they're not taking a day of rest or a Sabbath or whatever you want to call it. And so I, I would think that most people listening to that kind of already know that that's pretty clear that we are. That nobody is arguing it is now a command that must be followed by, this is where the good, better, best principles come in, which is what we're discussing of. Is it. Is it a good idea? Is it a. Is a good principle for a Christian family who is supposed to be, again, think deeper kind of standard here, different than the world in the way we educate Our kids, the way that we dress ourselves, the way that we entertain ourselves, the way that we live our lives.
While the rest of the world might not take a day of rest, is it a good principle, Is it a good idea for us as Christians to be taking a day of rest? That's the question at hand. Not, is it a command? Or is, are you insane if you don't?
So again, I feel like that was, you know, one of those that it goes without saying, but we had to say it there. So, Jack, any thoughts kind of on that tied into Joe's point?
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the idea here, is this is a good thing for you to do. Not, this is something we have to do. And we'll get into the legalistic side of it because it can become legalistic. I was kind of telling you guys about, like, some of my own things that I've added to it, like, okay, but it's not a law. It's just something I'm doing.
As Jesus said that Sabbath was created for man, not man for Sabbath. And you go back to again to creation.
God didn't take a day of rest because he was tired. Like, oh man, six days of creating the world and boy, are my arms tired. Yeah, you know, like, no, that's not how that worked. That was to set a precedent for us. And that didn't go away. This is one of those. Old Testament was physical, New Testament was spiritual. And so you can get into Hebrews and there remains a Sabbath rest. And Jesus is our Sabbath rest and heaven is our Sabbath rest. Amen to all of that. But you're still a human too. And that, that seven day cycle. And again, we're not gonna. This is not a book based on Charlie Kirk's episode or his. An episode based on Charlie Kirk's book. If you want that, you can go check it out on the Church Reset podcast or on YouTube where I reviewed it. But he made a really good point of, like, our, our bodies crave that day of rest about once every seven. And like, no wonder.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: Even beyond that, what's interesting about human anatomy, why did God design us to need sleep?
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Right?
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Why didn't he just Design us to 24 hours a day, man? We can crank stuff out.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: We're productive. Evolutionarily, one third of your life being slept away is not very productive or survival of the fittest or anything like that.
[00:14:43] Speaker C: Exactly. But he designed our bodies to need that seven, eight hours of sleep. And in fact, talk about all the studies that are coming out basically showing. Yeah, if you get Less than seven or eight hours of sleep, you are taking years off of your life. We know that as people who work out, if you're, you know, lifting all these weights and you're getting four hours of sleep every night, it's just not doing much like you. Your body needs that recovery. And so that's daily the way that God designed us. So it obviously makes sense that that would extrapolate outward to, you know, the point you just made Jack, about every seven days, taking a day of. And because what's interesting. So what I just brought up is obviously like physical rest and sleep, right? That you're not doing anything, you're sleeping.
Is there not an argument to be made that a lot of what we're talking about here on this day of rest, at least for me, it's going to be mental rest. With a lot of jobs being white collar, right? A lot of like, there's way less physical manual labor going on. Obviously some people, a lot of people still do, but like there's a mental rest that we're talking about here. Again, if you have a white collar job or if you've got a high stress job or if you've got, you know, something where you're having to just be, you know, on the clock constantly or, you know, talking to people or whatever it is, there's a mental aspect of this rest that I think is incredibly valuable. But yeah, I just go back to the fact that God could have designed us to function 24 hours a day if he wanted to. He didn't. We, we need seven, eight hours of sleep to reset and to kind of be healthier as human beings. I think that ties into this.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: We look at rest as kind of a pejorative. Like it's a, it's a four letter word, which, yes, I know it is, but you know, it's, it's a four letter word, a bad word. Because of the hustle culture of our time.
Because we're going and going and going and picking up a second and a third job and we're doing doordash or we're doing, you know, that was all rage for people still do doordash, right? So I don't know, but there for a while, like everybody was picking up a second DoorDash job or Uber or whatever it may be, and they're constantly working. Even when they're off the clock of their job, they're trying to figure out another thing or starting a side project or whatever. So hustle culture, our culture just goes all the time, you know, this idea of like, well, is New York? And is that a bad.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Is that a bad thing? Not to. Not to, you know, kind of divert your point here, but I think that's an interesting question. I think we have spoken positively before about hustle culture. So is that a bad thing, you think?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: I think the idea of forsaking rest, the more I'm coming to realize, the more I think it's not super healthy. Our culture is not healthy in the least about work. And it's because we put a premium on work. This is why women don't want to stay home, is because we have a premium on, well, if you make money and if you go into the workplace, that's where your true value is. That's not true at all. But when you attach your value to what you get done in the workplace and when you attach it to money making and things like that, we have a really tough time stopping. New York and Vegas are known as the cities that never sleep. Like New York is known as city that never sleeps. But we know Vegas is, you know, at least at one point, I think it just the lights are always on type of thing.
And they were weird for that. You know, like, everybody knew that's kind of what you'd go there for is it's just a city that never sleeps. Everybody else does. That's not true anymore. Like, every city is a city that never sleeps is what it seems like where everybody's going all the time.
Rest is really important. And so to your point, Will, for godly young men, yes. We talk on that podcast a lot about make sure you're not slacking off doing the 20 hours a week going, oh, it's a lot, you know, too much work. Like, work is really good. And we do want to be able to provide for our families, and it's good to have side projects where possible and things like that.
But so much of our hustle culture is taking away from rest. We don't engage with rest. We have no idea how to engage with it. And this speaks to me when I do have a day to myself and I don't have something to do. It's really weird.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Like, I don't know.
Right.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Exactly. I don't know what to do with myself. Right. I don't know what to do with rest. That's a problem.
That is what we're trying to get at here is, as a healthy Christian, God designed rest from the very beginning, saying, I don't care how busy you are, you might create an entire universe in six days. You still need rest, you know, and again, God doesn't need rest. He's setting that, as you said, Jack, the precedent. But it's like, it's really important, especially the more that we're getting done in the, in the hustle culture to have this.
And you see Christians, and I've done this as well. Sunday gets filled up as well. That should be our day of rest. That should be our Sabbath type of thing of we're going to church, we're really making it about God and how many times do we end up, oh, we got to do this and we got to do that. And I'm setting up for the week and, you know, I'm going and visiting certain things or going to the store and I'm working and working, working, working that even when it's like housework, Sunday is still filled with work, work in church, and that's it. Like, when do we just get to be. We don't know what it looks like to just be in our culture. And I think that's one of the reasons we have such a mental health crisis. Nobody understands how to rest. So we do self care. And self care gets ripped way out of context.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Like, oh, just go shopping, you binge, you watch Netflix, you know, like for six straight hours, you go out and get junk food. Yeah, that's the world's attempt at a
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Sabbath, in my opinion. They know they need it and so the world is.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: They cram their rest in. Yeah, correct.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: And it's really unhealthy because we don't know how to stop.
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That's, you know, I think deeper. Classic the Two Ditches. No, we're not advocating laziness, but I follow. There was a group of guys on Twitter there for a while. It was called the Bow Tide Jungle or Mafia or something. Like that. And it was all different accounts where it was a bow tie, you know, this, that or the other thing was like this brand they had and they had a lot of good advice and there were people on, like experts in all kinds of different fields. And a lot of it was like building a website, doing E commerce, sales, things like that, training people, you know, how to get ahead in life. And they would just always have like the alright, Sunday, the real ones are working today. The real ones are, you know, while everyone else is out at the lake or watching football, you're, you're getting ahead. And, and then I noticed like on holidays, you know, the 4th of July and Thanksgiving, like, all right, here's your chance. Where everybody else is slacking and you know, eating too much turkey.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Here's your chance.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: And it's like, this is awful. This is not, this is no way to live. You're living like a bug. Yeah, you're living like a bug at that point. And we also have this thing of like, well, we bring in these people and Amazon and all these companies. Well, we've got people that will just work, you know, 10 times harder and never take a break and all that. Like, yeah, that's awful. We don't, we built a country in which you can have breaks and Christianity again. This is why the Mosaic law was revolutionary of like everybody, including the slaves get a day off because you're supposed to have it. God wants you to have this kind of rest. And now we're getting to this point where it's like, well, you're gonna fall behind and you know, shout out to Chick Fil A like, they don't fall behind. They there's something valuable in getting your work done in six days.
Well, before we get on the Chick Fil a thing, well, I had a
[00:21:55] Speaker C: different point before the Chick Fil a point, but you go ahead.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, so, but just the days of the year, like the black FR thing with Walmart where they used to just open it like six on Thanksgiving. I hate that Walmart should be closed on Thanksgiving.
Kroger should be closed on Thanksgiving on Christmas and days like that. And so it's this culture of rest. And you go back to when that happens. People are like, oh man, the store's closed all day long. What are you gonna do? Like, you realize every store used to be closed one day a week and you had to do what Israel did and go get your gathering done.
So you, you know, you can't go get it that day. And that makes you think ahead and Plan ahead. And so I'm getting ahead a little bit far. So Will, why don't you come in with your point? Before we get to that side of
[00:22:36] Speaker C: it, a couple things. One, you brought up that, you know, there's these companies that will just push and push and push and we got people that work I was going through. There's a Starbucks right beside where I work. So I try to strike up a, you know, good relationship with, with the people that are working there. I try to, I do some off site work over there. I was going through the drive thru. This was two days before Thanksgiving.
And you know, just chatting it up with the guy at the drive. I think he was the manager or something like that. And so you guys ready for the holiday? He said, oh, yeah, what are y'?
[00:23:03] Speaker A: All?
[00:23:03] Speaker C: What are yalls hours? Like we'll be closed Thanksgiving Day and you know, we'll be back the next day. And said, how about y'? All? He said, oh, we'll be here Thanksgiving day. Normal hours Thanksgiving Day. I even, I was like, and Christmas Day. Same Christmas Eve. Yeah, Christmas Eve. I think they closed early, but still open Christmas Eve. Open Christmas Day.
And that's like, man, that's just like.
I'm familiar with the restaurant industry enough to know you can live with a day of being closed. Like, you will pay the bills. It will be fine.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: That's also like a decidedly Christian company and a decidedly non Christian Christian company. That's, that's not just a business decision there. There's so much more behind that.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: The other thing I was gonna bring up was Dave Ramsey's company is right in our backyard here in Franklin.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:46] Speaker C: And one thing I know about their company is they mandate that you take a lunch break and they mandate that you're out of the building by 5 unless there's like other circumstances. And that nobody works Saturday. Sunday.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:23:56] Speaker C: Like, they'll let, from what I understand, they'll let you choose. You can work like 6 to 2, 7 to 3, 8 to 4, whatever. Like you can choose that. But basically you got to be out of the building at a certain time and you got to take a lunch break. And you cannot be here Saturday and you certainly can't be here Sunday. Like that is their policy as opposed to other companies where it's like, no, you've got to be here for these certain days. And so again, different industries are different. I get that. It's not like what Dave Ramsey and their company does is absolutely essential and needs, but in my opinion, you just said that, Joe.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Neither is Starbucks.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: Starbucks doesn't need to be open on Thanksgiving Day. Like, so. Yeah, I just. I do find that fascinating, Jack, your point about what are the values of your company seems to. Seems to kind of indicate what, you know, the way you treat your employees that need to be off Thanksgiving Day. But, yeah, we just don't appreciate rest. So. Yeah, just the different examples of companies kind of stuck out to me that there.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Well, I do want to come around, though, to the Chick Fil A principle, the blue laws, the things like that. I mean, it used to be, as you said, Jack, like, that was a standard thing.
When did we get off of that? We've talked a lot about the boomer. You know, we. We get off on people from time to time. You know, like, get. Get.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: There are people in, like, in living memory who will tell me, yeah, when I was a kid, everything was closed. There's a lot of people who, like, live to see that and are still around. So we're talking about 50, 60 years ago. They were still doing this in a lot of the.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: Now, what is the number one revenue day of the week for restaurants? By far, it's Sunday. Sunday night and close. Yeah.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So we incentivized it. So, I mean, is there a.
Well, first, when do you think that happened? Is this a World War II thing? Is this a. Like, I'm just trying to figure out, why did that happen?
We talk a lot about Christians not standing up, especially for kids, sports on Sunday and things like that. Like that is a huge cultural shift to go from having a Sabbath, basically having a day of rest, having a day off, a church day, to not. Was this a slow progression or from your guys study in that, like, did this happen at once?
[00:25:54] Speaker B: I don't think it happened at once, but you think about, okay, a business is open, and okay, well, you know, enough people will patronize it to where it happens. And again, you talk about Sunday being the biggest day for restaurants. A big part of that is because Christians go to restaurants on Sunday, like Christians are.
You go to most restaurants in a town, you're gonna see people that are coming in from church. And so we're part of it, the youth sports thing. As we've said, if Christians had said, no, you're playing without us, good luck. There were enough Christians at the time, it would have been unfeasible, but they just went along with it. And so, like, just slowly but surely. And you can also see regionally places that, like, down here in the south, the no Sunday games thing hung out longer. Even when I was a kid, there were some things like Sunday games. They tried to be respectful of people's schedules or they try and put them on Sunday night and. And like. And just slowly encroached. And it got to where from the time I was 8 to the time I was 15 or 16, like, that question was just gone. Like, there wasn't even any attempt. There was not. And none, none of the rink owners were trying to be respectful or anything like that. It was just is what it is. Show up or not. You know, it was very fast.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: There's a saying in, in the NFL, specifically the NFL is a copycat league. My answer, Joe, would be that the slow, gradual progression for like these businesses and the restaurants is copycat league in the sense of, oh, they're open.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Oh, wow, they're revenue, they're making money.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Oh, wow, they're doing copycat. Let's do it, you know. And then just slowly you started to see more businesses that did that. The fact that Chick Fil A has remained, and what's so interesting about Chick Fil? A, of course, is that they are privately owned, they're not publicly traded. And so they have one family that basically gets to say, yeah, we don't care that we could literally, the estimates are that they lose a billion dollars a year by not being open on Sunday. What the estimates are.
And the fact that you can have a family that says, yep, we'll pass on a billion dollars a year to keep our principles is just mind blowing. You know, the fact that they never go ahead.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: It's funny though, like, that's the raw numbers. But on another sense, they do so much better in the six days because people respect their values because they would actually lose money. Yeah, Everything that like, goes into it. And so it, like, it's a short term thing. Short term. You look at it be like, man, a billion dollars, we gotta get that billion dollars. But you sell something of yourself, that makes you the company that maybe wouldn't make a billion dollars. Because people, everything that makes a clean restaurant, all those things we've talked about, like the efficiency. Yeah. The culture that's behind it is also the culture that says close on Sunday. And that's really what led me to start thinking about all this a few years ago was like, we all agree, man, that is so cool that they're closed on Sundays. They let their workers go to work. They don't force them to go to work. But if you had to.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Church.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: But if, if they want to go to church, you're free to do that on Sunday. You're free to have a day for family. And I'm like, so I love the Chick Fil A does that. And so because they're closed, I'll go to the Mexican restaurant instead and make their people like that. It was like a mental thing.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Like, that's weird.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: That doesn't make sense. That's inconsistent.
[00:28:47] Speaker C: You see those memes, you know, going around during holiday time where it's like the old person in the line at the grocery store, like, oh, they're making you work today. It's like, yeah, because.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Because you're here. That's why.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: My question, Jack, to you would be, again, not. We're not legalistically making a law here.
Do you think it's a good idea for Christians to say, we're not going to eat out on Sunday? I mean, because, I mean, raise hand here. I think I ate out last Sunday. You know, like, is that something that you think Christians should do as a. As a principle, As a good, better, best principle? I think I know your answer, but I'm curious, kind of your thoughts here.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't bind that on anybody, but it became a personal conviction of, I want to live in a world where blue laws are around again. And the only way to have that happen, like, to even start working, working in that direction, is that I stop participating, is that I personally observe a blue law. And if by example, by, you know, I'll advocate for it. I'll advocate for it right here. I say, man, if I could get tons and tons of Christians to be like, yeah, I don't.
I'm just not going to the restaurant on Sunday. And again, I'm not, like, dogmatic. It's a sin.
I really do, to the best of my ability, try not to patronize businesses on Sunday. And I, at first, it was not going to restaurants and like, okay, I'm not going to pop into the grocery store. And I, like, one time we forgot something for potluck, and I did. And like, okay, I try not to do that, but, you know, I'll make the exception here because again, it's not. It's not a law. It's not a thing. And so, and then this, it went to, like, tv, NFL games. They're working on Sundays. And I, I would love it if the NFL moved to Saturday eventually. Like, if you had a country that got so Christian, they're like, you know What? We got 80,000 people in 30 different cities. 32 different cities. Well, 16 different cities, I guess, skipping Church to go to the football game on Sunday morning.
That's not healthy. We're gonna move football to Sunset. Like, I want to see these things happen. And I know I can't make that happen by me not watching the NFL, but, like, for my own consistency, I move in that direction. But then, like last week I was telling you guys, okay, I caved and I watch the replay of the gold medal game, the USA Hockey, and yeah, okay, so I'm not 100% consistent on it. If I were, I wouldn't have done that. But I believe it'd be a better world if we didn't have sporting events on Sundays. If the Mexican restaurant could close because the Christians stopped showing up and those people could go to church and are they all going to. No. Are there some of them that might if they didn't, or are there people who are kind of marginally Christian but need a bump in the right direction that could go if nobody was showing up to work?
Maybe, you know, like that. That's. And so it's very general, but I think it's just a healthier world to live in. To move in that direction is where I got to. The not patronizing businesses on Sunday, personally.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Well, it's difficult because it's kind of like the voting. What's one vote? You know, it doesn't really matter.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Like.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but every vote does count. And if everybody did. Did things the way that I did things, which. What is the turnout? And if everybody did what I do. Yes, I frequent a local Mexican place probably more often than I should. And a lot of times that is on Sunday. And so, yeah, I mean, it gets you thinking. And I know you've done this for a long time. I think as we're. We're talking about it, that's something my wife and I are actually trying to do now is to the best of our ability. We're trying to come home, she's doing crock pot meals, things like that. And that's what people used to do this every single Sunday, you know, oh, we had the big roast. Everybody had a roast.
[00:32:09] Speaker C: Sunday lunch. Sunday home cooked lunch was a big deal.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a big deal.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: People would tell me about, like, visitors would show up to church and you would get invited to somebody's house and like that.
That feels very strange. Like somebody you've never met before, hey, come on over. We're having a roast kind of thing. And I know it's a different world. I know. Trust. And just things like that. I 100% get that. I'm not exactly comfortable with that myself. But how you can move the world back in that direction a little bit or inviting just church members over. Hospitality's hard. Finding lining up schedules to have somebody over on a Tuesday night's hard.
You've got an hour after church on Sunday and just, you know, come on home and let's have soup together. And that's a lot healthier to me.
[00:32:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I like that. A couple things I'm thinking about here as we talk about this. The first thing is as a. Well, first thought I had was let's, let's say you make Saturday your day of rest. Jack, do you think you would still have that same conviction about Sunday, like if you took your Sabbath on Saturday, for instance?
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
That is one of the things that I got a little bit of pushback on was like, hey, Sabbath is Saturday.
And so, and one Charlie Kirk, his day of rest was Saturday. And so, you know, he didn't have the same hang up of NFL games or things like that. And so there's, it's how you apply it again as individual. There isn't a law on this.
And that's why I have moved it to Sunday. Is it is. It's not the Christian Sabbath as we talked about. That's not exactly what the New Testament paints it as, but it is our day of worship and so it makes sense. Well, the Lord's day, I like the idea of it being the Lord's day. That's another way to frame it of this is for God. Therefore, it's not for me to catch up on work for the week. It's not for me to, you know, go out and have a big old time on the town. It's family time, it's fellowship time, it's worship time. I, you know, trying to get through the Bible in a year, it's very, you know, you don't always get to it every day I catch up every Sunday, you know, I get an extra time, another hour or so and just blaze through 10, 15 chapters and that'll help you catch up or whatever. And so that kind of thing, I just see Sunday as a way more natural fit for it than Saturday. Because the other thing is a lot of your Sunday already is blocked off Sunday, whether you have Sunday night worship or whatever. So to take all of Saturday off from activities and going out and things like that and then do that again on Sunday, in a lot of ways it's just cleaner for to move it all to Sunday in my personal practice
[00:34:34] Speaker A: because I was gonna ask, like, what if somebody is off on Tuesdays? They have a weird work schedule. Could this theoretically be done just as we're talking like a day of rest remove Saturday, Sunday.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Could they do it on a Tuesday? You know, is the principle still there?
[00:34:47] Speaker B: That's the other form we haven't really gotten to, is just the full day of rest. And this is what Charlie Kirk advocated. I hadn't been doing this until I read his book. Turn the phone off, turn the TV off, leave your computer shut, that kind of thing. And every now and then, you know, because we have our Sunday night study that we have to coordinate, and so I'll, like, have to pop on. But I very much to the best of my ability, avoid getting on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, avoid checking other messages just to say, all right, when are we getting together tonight, whatever it may be. So that kind of thing. But, man, is it nice. It is. It's such a. You're not scrolling. And it also. And so you can do that on Tuesday is what I'm getting at here. Of you can.
If you don't have work or whatever, if that's your day off of work, okay, you can be detached or at the very least, leave your phone plugged in in a different room. And if you've got to check messages, go back once every few hours, check messages, then leave it there. Don't scroll or whatever. And one of the things I found from that is it makes me better about not scrolling mindlessly the rest of the week because you realize I don't need this. I don't.
This doom scrolling loop that you get stuck in.
Yeah. You know, like that. Oh, I've got to find the latest news.
You really don't like major things. What?
[00:35:59] Speaker C: I also.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: That's not like I missed any huge calls. And like I say, I leave the phone on so I can go check, you know, once or twice in the day if anything major comes down and I'm two hours late to it. Okay.
Again, you just really get this world for all time. Yeah, exactly. You get to. It just doesn't matter that much.
[00:36:18] Speaker C: Yeah. We're in a culture now where you feel like you have to respond to things instantly. Right. Oh, I got. I got to get to this. And, you know, I'll have that. Where, of course, because it makes this difficult. So. And this is why it is such a blessing to work for Chick Fil A, to be honest, because I think I mentioned the start of the episode, like, worked for a company that was partnered with Amazon. It was seven days a week, 18 hours a day, basically. So I. I was, you know, my boss was gracious enough to let me off on a lot on most of the Sundays, but still, I'm taking calls. I'm, you know, checking to see how things are going. And then obviously, being a minister as well, it's different. But, you know, there's still responsibilities and still hours that are logged on Sunday.
With Chick Fil a, that's not the case. And that's a huge blessing because as somebody who is kind of directly responsible for a pretty large company and employees and organizations like, I do feel the pressure to be checking my phone and to respond to stuff right away and to answer the calls and stuff like that. The fact that my company has said Sundays were just not, you know, we're not going to be open kind of naturally gives me that. But, Joe, to your point, there are people who off every Friday or something, or, you know, like you said, off every Tuesday. And so I want to get to principles here. And I feel bad. We feel. I feel like we're kind of interviewing Jack here, but obviously he's. He's the one that's the most knowledgeable on this. The couple questions that I have are, first of all, from a principal perspective, how should you spend your day? I know you mentioned some things, Jack, about, obviously, I think multiple instances of family worship or family vibrating time. I love the idea personally, of I was talking to somebody about this. They do this around the holiday time. Every person in their family grabs a book or multiple books and just sits down in the living room and just reads silently together by them or, you know, individually their own books. But it's just quiet time. There's no screens on. I love that idea that comes to mind right away. Obviously, family, you know, walks or exercise or whatever it is, but just family time. So that was my first question, is kind of, you know, what, how should our time be spent? Those are the first couple things that come to mind. And then the second question was, what should be off limits?
We've talked a lot about the screens and the TV and probably don't make that your Netflix binge day. But as we're just talking about principles here, I've got my own ideas of kind of what I would make off limits. But again, Jack, you're the one that's kind of put this into practice over the last several months or so. And so those are, yeah, what should you do and what should you not do? I guess is kind of the best way to sum up my questions.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: Yeah, those are good questions. And I think that's the beauty of it, is you can fit it to what your family needs.
And so the. We do practice the thing. We send the boys to their room, the girls to their room, and then Alison and I go back to ours for a quiet time. And, you know, the twins are almost four, and so we can get 20 or 30 minutes of. They go back there with some of their favorite books to flip through and a couple of toys or whatever, and we just say, all right, stay in the room. We'll come get you when we're done. A couple of times they've gotten to playing in there and just kind of quietly going about their business. We've gotten to an hour of just where that's where I catch up on my Bible reading, or Alison and I will do a devo together, or a couple times we've just sat and done a crossword puzzle together and just kind of had some time to slow down and reconnect and the kids quiet down. But then also we take times for games. You know, we play Uno together and things like that. And you kind of realize, all right, I need to reconnect with the kids. You get going in the week, things get busy. They've got their school, I've got work, we've got events. We got Wednesday night church and Tuesday night events and things like that. And like, man, I haven't actually taken time for the kids.
Yeah. And so the kids just need some bonding time and they love playing Uno with us. So we just sit down and play an hour of Uno and it's great. You know, everybody's around the table and we have a big old time.
And, yeah, you can do that elsewhere. But when you have a day for it and everyone just kind of knows, hey, we're going to chill. We're going to take some quiet time with books. We're going to take some Bible time, some family devo time or whatever, man.
And this isn't just me. This is, you know, as again, Charlie Kirk wrote about it. I know I am not a fan at all of John Mark Comer, but he's very popular in some corners of Christianity that he advocates a Sabbath rest.
And for them, I think it's more Saturday. But I'm not quite sure about all that. But everyone who does anything like this is like, man, best day of the week. And Sunday, really making Sunday an event, because as we talked about, like, the Sabbath was an event for Israel of gather your manna, get ready, get in your house with your Family, have everything ready to go. Know what you're going to do. Think about it ahead of time.
You got to think about, all right, what are we going to eat? We're not going to go through the drive through on the way home from church. We're going to have to have a meal planned. We're gonna figure out what we're gonna do. I'm gonna figure out like what reading I want to do on this Sunday and just relax, take a break, I've got some time, all of that stuff and man, you come out of it ready for Monday in just a whole different way. And so again, some of the pushback I got was we don't have to do this anymore. This is legalism. This is like just try it. Just, just see that? As I said, it gets you out of the doom scrolling loop. It gets you out of the phone. Addiction really helps. Cut back on that and also to the hustle culture thing.
I love this point. I read in a book, I don't remember who made it. Six days of creation and then God rested. Adam was created. His first day was rest. Man works from a place of rest. God rested from his work. And so you rest up to go get your work done because your work is important. So you need to be rested to do a good job with your work. So you take that day, you're rested, you've reconnected with God, you've reconnected with your family, you've reprioritized, you know, the phone, you've put it away and TV and entertainment and all that, like you get to that eventually but you know, don't put it front and center and just have some time to get away from that.
Your work week, your again, your mindfulness, all of that is centered to be ready to go hard that week.
Whereas you know, as you're saying the Amazon thing or all those companies, the Starbucks, there is no mental reset. There is no, it's just constant go, go, go. And, and as you guys were saying, when your rest is go, go, go, when you're cramming it in and I got to get all I can out of the weekend, it doesn't work the same. But when you just really slow down, man, it's such a blessing. And so I'm, I've only been. The businesses thing I've been doing for a few years. The phone free thing I've been doing just this year since, since reading Charlie Kirk's book.
Man, whatever degree you can do this, just give it a try for like a month and Again, I recommend Sundays. It doesn't have to be your Sunday, whatever day of the week.
It's really, really cool for yourself, but for the whole family.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Hey, guys.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Jack here. I'm excited to tell you about my new book. You Are the Christian's Assurance. For too many years, I have run into Christians who aren't really sure where they're going to go when they die. They don't feel like they can say that they are righteous. And so I set out to write a book to give you confidence and assurance of your salvation. It's laid out in 13 chapters for churches to study as a Bible class with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. And of course, you can just read it on your own either. It's for individuals, it's for classes. However you would like to approach it, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on Focus Press. We offer discounts for group sales of it in groups of 5 and 10 on Focus Press. So if you're going to study it with your church, be sure to check that out and get that deal. So be sure to check out. You are saved today once again on Amazon and Focus.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: I do wonder how much this would solve the mental health crisis. You know, so much what we're dealing with, of just having that family connection, time, even if you don't have a family, even just time alone, of being in God's word, you know, getting some, some reading done, whatever it may be. As you're talking about, I was thinking about, like, where would somebody get started? And you hit the nail on the head of where did. Does your family need it most? Because as we're talking about it, what, why did it stop in the first place? Money. Well, what keeps us from rest now? Screens, you know, tech TV and phones. Always. And iPads. And so it's like you look around and say, what are the enemies of rest in my home, right? What keeps me from that? And then even sometimes I think it could be family cleaning, where you're just cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Especially us with four kids.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Mary.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: Mary yeah, exactly. Sunday ends up being a day where it's like, we'll catch up on all the cleaning and there's no rest in that. You're just busy around the house and cleaning out the garage and doing everything, everything else. So it's like, what steals your rest during the week?
Maybe consider putting that aside. I mean, it's already got me thinking on some of the things that I think I can do. I do want to try this because I think it's a.
As you said, it's not a command. But from a best standpoint, as a Christian, I think we absolutely can make that case.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Well, just briefly on that, on the, like, the catching up on chores, the laundry and dishes kind of thing. This is another thing where your whole week you're thinking about your day of rest, your reconnection with God, because it's like, it's not that I'm not going to do it. I've got to get ahead on this so I can rest.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I was just going to say there's another enemy of this, I think that people combat, and I'll speak for myself, and that is there's a FOMO element to this. Right.
Fear of missing out. Because I think about our Sundays right now. We do do our diligence. I'm an NFL fan, and so obviously I have football games on, but that's not the case right now. And so we do our best to have the kids go up to our room for quiet time. Of course we have church in the morning, and then we don't. Of course, we're kind of maniacal about spending money out to eat anyway. But, you know, so we'll. We'll come home for lunch, and then it's rest time, you know, nap time or whatever it is, and then it's family time with the kids. The obstacle that we run into is almost like a fear missing out from a social perspective of, you know, families at church, right. That invite us out or invite us to their house or obviously we love spending time with my family that lives close by, and so we want to go over to their house and then just kind of. I know you guys are, you know, close to your parents as well. So similar to me, as I think about the biggest, you know, kind of obstacle to our family for this, it would be kind of that, that. That desire for social interaction, because I do, from speaking for my family personally. And Jack, I know this gets to your point about. It's just, hey, whatever, you know, whatever works for your family because everybody's family situation is different. I work two nights a week. I'm at church two more nights a week. And so the kind of the, the social interaction aspect of. There's not a ton of outlet for that. And so we use Sundays for that sometimes.
That is something, you know, as I'm just sitting here thinking about kind of the value of a entire day. Reconnect with kids, reconnect with God. Devote time to no responsibilities and no social outing. But that's an element to that, I think, Joe, is your question of, you know, what is the enemy to it, that that one came to mind as well. It's like you feel, you know, you feel like you're missing out on and, you know, stuff like that. Because there is an element, that's what's interesting, Jack, about this, of Sundays being a time for you to connect with your church family as well. So just to. Not to play devil's advocate necessarily, but to present a different perspective. And that's maybe where some would argue for Saturday, I suppose, is, hey, Sundays are a day to connect with your church family and, you know, go over to people's house or whatever it is. Well, then you're not really necessarily taking a day of rest. So just wanted to throw that element in there again. I would imagine that's where people would argue for. For Saturday being a good day for it.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Right. And that's one of those, like, trying to integrate, hey, getting with our church family is part of our family's rest like that, because we go to my mom and dad's house every Sunday night, too. And, like, that's part of our day of rest. But that's cool.
That's not a detraction from what we're trying to do. And so looking at our church family that way.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Is there some work in having people over and feeding them? Yeah. And having the house, it doesn't have to be spotless, but presentable enough where you feel like you can have somebody over. But that's another mental preparation for. All right, somebody's coming over after church, gotta get the crock pot meal ready and things like that. And, you know, looking at that is not taking away from your rest if you prepare for it properly. And so making that, it's another booster to your morale, your psyche, to everything you're trying to get out of this, I think can be done the right way with that. But it's an interesting question as part of it.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: So you teased this earlier, and I want to shift a little bit.
This can go to the legalistic realm.
We see this obviously, in Judaism where there's the craziest thing. You know, there's wires wrapped around New York. I don't know if people realize this. There's wires wrapped around New York. And it was from rabbis that just wanted to extend the neighborhood, basically, of where they could walk on the Sabbath. And so if you ever look up in New York, you will see, like, thin, thin metal wires basically roped around that rabbis got up and put around Manhattan so that they inspect it every
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Friday and that counts as your home. You haven't left home. If you stay inside that wire, you can do business. You can do all kinds of stuff. It's. It's crazy.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: If wires are broken then it's. It doesn't count. That's why they have to inspect it every Friday.
So this is the type of stuff they have it where they have lampshades where you can turn it on and you can close it and turn off. That way you're not killing electricity.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Well, in your, your oven and your fridge might have Sabbath mode where they've come up with where you're not making it work by turning on electricity. And this goes back to Jesus and the Pharisees, you know the picking grains and healing people on the Sabbath. And yeah, I mean just multiple clashes over hey, you can't do that on the Sabbath. Like where does it say that even
[00:49:10] Speaker A: elevators to say they can't go on an elevator like a gentile.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: They can't push the button.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: They can't push the button. They can go on it, but a gentile can push the button for them. So they might wait until somebody comes in but they can't push the button. Or they have one where it goes to every floor and that way you're not killing the current or making it work. Yeah. Where it stops at every single floor.
[00:49:27] Speaker C: This is the legalistic as a gift.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Exactly. And the brain dead things that you can get to when you are legalistic with it. And so we would just say.
I was curious if you guys had other thoughts on that maybe where it might come in as Christians. Jack or. Well, I'm curious to get your guys's thoughts on can we make it too legalistic. But we see and it goes to Mark 2:27 I think is, you know, man was create or man was not created for the Sabbath. Sabbath is created for the man. And so Jesus is clearly making a point of. It really is about the rest. And it's about how we come to God and things like that. It's not about the legalism here.
Where might we see that from a Christian who does want to try this? Maybe some cautions of. And will you kind of asked this earlier of what not to do but just cautions of where we might get to the legalistic standpoint.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you have to be careful with like it's not a sin. And like I said earlier, I don't think you guys go to Mexican, you know, eat your chips and salsa on Sunday. I don't think you're sinning this is a personal conviction that I.
Right, there you go. Right. You know, and. And so, you know, that that time I had to run into the Dollar General to grab something for the potluck was I sending, you know, you know, with your own conscience, you need to get to a place that you're okay with what you're doing. And there's been times with travel and things like that, but in general, I would like the world to be a place where there's a lot less stuff open the hospitals and that's about it kind of thing. And so with that being the case, trying to. To live in such a way. But there. There are times where it's awkward and like, the first few times I've had to tell somebody, you know, hey, you want to go out on Sunday? Like, I'm really not trying to, like, avoid you, but hey, this is just a personal thing. I don't, you know, and so we'd love to have you over or if you want to get together somewhere else, you know, picnic at the park kind of thing, whatever. That's cool.
Doing that without coming off as judgmental, like, oh, you guys go to the restaurant. No, it's not that at all. And so you being careful about that and not.
Not setting up rules to, like, trip yourself into sin because you see that with the Jews, where the stuff with the Pharisees, like, oh, I did this. Is this okay? Did I. Like, you're missing the whole point, man. And coming back to that, it was made for man and man was not made for it. And so that's a very good guiding principle to not take it too far, not bind things that aren't bound on other people.
And so really, when I talk about it, it's very much just, again, give it a try. And I think the world would be a better place if we all did this.
That's the extent of it. And. And to get any more, to take it any farther, to add all of these extra rules around it. Are we in sin if we turn the TV on on Sunday? No, you know, like that. That kind of thing.
It's.
That is one of the beauty. And this kind of goes back to our recent episodes on. On polygamy and slavery and things like that of like, the development, the growth, the getting to a better place. And not that this is like those things, but it's just a general.
Hey, as Christianity. Well, Christianity gave us so much of the workers, dignity, weekends, things like that, and companies not taking advantage of people and things like that. And now that that's going away and we're seeing. They don't want to give you Sunday, they don't want to give you days of rest. They don't want to. That's not good. And so where Christian influence comes into the world, it's just a general moving toward more rest, more connection with God, more connection with each other.
[00:52:40] Speaker C: I think my closing thoughts would be similar to my opening thoughts. And that is, or I guess similar.
It wasn't necessarily my opening thoughts, but early in the episode we have such an aversion to principled teaching and principled preaching. Could you imagine if somebody got up in the pulpit and talked about and preached about how good an idea it is to take a day of rest? The amount of people be like, well, you know, my job makes me do this. Well, you know, I like to do like we need pulpits that are comfortable presenting this idea under the guy, you know, with the full qualifier of listen if you choose not to. It's not a sin, but it's a very good idea to Biblically speaking pulpits don't touch that stuff because it's not black and white necessarily. It's not again, sin if you do or sin if you don't, righteous if you do.
We just don't teach principle. We don't teach the. This is a very good biblical thing to do. This is a positive thing to do. And listen, does every sermon need to be that? No, I don't think so. Obviously you need to be, you know, preaching the black and white, but you don't need to avoid the gray. And I think this is one of those things that I just, I do wish that there was more discussion about this, maybe more sermons about this, more classes about this, without everybody's hand immediately going up saying, well, sir, you saying it's a sin because I like to do X, Y, Z.
Like you're just, you're just missing the point at that point. And so that, that's kind of, again, I know I said that early in the episode, but that's kind of where I would wrap my thoughts up with,
[00:54:04] Speaker A: that's a great thought. The only other thing is, same as you, what I said earlier in the episode, rest is really, really important to God. It is not a four letter word in that sense. It is a, it is a great thing. And our culture has lost that. And our culture is trying to gain it in negative ways. And this is a way to get, give it over to God, to give him a full day to just focus on his goodness, his greatness and to focus on all the blessings of life that he's given us and to enjoy those blessings, you know, that's eat, eat, drink and be merry, as Solomon would say in Ecclesiastes multiple times. That's an opportunity to do so.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: These are my actual final thoughts. Sorry, I had one other thought.
I've seen the value of this concept of quiet and rest just in my own like a day to day type of thing. So for instance, my mornings now, every morning since I got back from vacation early in January, I start with 30 minutes of just prayer and Bible reading. Quiet. It's normally 6 to 6:30 is generally the time if I have to be at work at 7. If I have to be work earlier than it's 4 to 4:30 which is just brutal.
But I've seen the value in the kids aren't up yet. It's quiet.
I'm not listening to a podcast or got music playing like no, it's just time with God, reading the Bible, praying. My wife will join me most mornings and there's just something very, I don't know, like it resets you in a way, which is weird because it's the first thing that I do every morning.
But it really does set the stage well for the rest of the day. And I think that maybe is a microcosm of what Jack's talking about with Sunday kind of setting you up well for the rest of the week, just taking that time without the outside noise. I try to keep my phone, you know, unavailable until 6:30 or whatever it is. And so yeah, that's just every day. But you know, that principle obviously, you know, I would say serves me very well from a day to day perspective. So it makes sense that it would serve you well from a week to week perspective.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, this is an interesting one. I'm glad you guys wanted to talk about it.
I'm not telling anybody what to do.
I just think you would enjoy it. And then again, I want to live in a world where things move more in this direction than they currently are. And so hopefully we gave you something to think about with this one.
With that we are going to jump into a brief think fast. And this is a pretty interesting one. This was a tweet that came out. Let me pull it up here.
Can you guys see that? Okay. Yep.
A recent study found that giving men a pay raise led them to have more children, while giving women a pay raise led them to have fewer children.
I think that has some very interesting implications.
You guys, what are your thoughts on this one?
[00:56:34] Speaker A: Let me Just say, we're not the only one saying this. Obviously on the masculinity, femininity, getting our roles right, things like that.
Stats are going to prove our, you know, prove the value of our points. Over and over, they're going to prove them to be true. It seems like every stat that comes out, everything that we're kind of coming around to is pretty much like, yeah, we're right. Women need to stay home and raise children because when they do this, they're too busy chasing their dreams, so to speak, in the corporate ladder. Men, on the other hand, realize money and work is for a purpose, which is to have a family, to raise a family and to have kids. And there's a beauty to that of, and such a purpose of why I go to work. It is to help my family. Women don't do that. Women go to work because they're trying to find a false sense of value that they can't give themselves. That, you know, actually family would give them. And having proper roles in the home and having kids would give them more value than they could ever imagine. But they're robbing themselves and desperately trying to find that value outside in the workplace. And so when they get the raise, it furthers their like, yeah, yeah, I'm doing good, guys get the raise. And it's like, hey, I can go do things with this. I can go have a family. And so it's just completely different viewpoints. And women being in the workplace, this is why they don't handle it well. People get mad at us all day long. They can, they can call us legalistic, they call us sexist, they call us anything. The stats are going to bear out and I assume we're going to see, I expect to see a lot more of these stats in the next decade that are basically going to be a big pat myself on the back moment.
Because it's biblical early, correct? We're just telling you what's biblical. Telling you what we've known for thousands of years, we forgot for 50, 60, 70 years. We're going to get back to it, hopefully. And so, I don't know. I was intrigued by it. What are your thoughts?
[00:58:17] Speaker C: I don't have, you know, Joe added some very valuable thoughts there. I wouldn't have much more to add. There's so many interesting implications from that stat.
The idea that, okay, so, you know, it's the more men that are in the workplace, the more men that are getting the raises, the bigger families you're going to have, theoretically. Right. Is an implication you get from that, which is a blessing on multiple levels. And does it boost the economy? Because I don't know. Again, just the implications from that of more kids typically equals. Because there's also this question of, does having more children force men to work harder and therefore make more money?
I think that's a very interesting question.
To me, that is derived from this, because you hear people that are like, man, I don't know if we can afford a kid. And in some ways, it just drives men to, you know, work harder, maybe get promoted. That's kind of the reverse of the stat. But I'm not arguing that you need to just, you know, have kids without being prepared for it. But I don't know. The implications of the more men in the workforce generally means more men are getting raises, getting promoted, more kids being in place is a. Or being born is a very good thing for women. Yeah. I mean, to me, that's just not surprising. That's just common sense of, like, if a woman's getting a raise, she's probably getting promoted to a higher position. More responsibilities, more demands, less time at home, less time for kids.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Duh.
[00:59:37] Speaker C: Gonna have less children. Like, should be pretty common sense. And so there's, again, the question of, like, what's better for society? Deep down, we all know what's better for society. We just. Feminism has brainwashed us. It is. It has warped our brains to say, whoa, you can't. You can't say that. You know, you should be given equal opportunity.
I can tell you what's better for society, and stats can tell you what's better for society. And again, no matter how much feminism wants to try to warp your brain to say otherwise, the stats back it up. So those are kind of my thoughts there.
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you're getting at the have it all mindset. Like, you can't. That was never true. That was always a lie. Pushed to get you to choose the.
[01:00:13] Speaker C: You got to choose your life.
[01:00:15] Speaker B: Right. Opportunity cost. And that. It just brings to mind for me the quote about, these people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Like, hey, higher wages. Like, okay, but the value.
What are you losing in that? And you see the price and go, that's great, but the value that you lose.
And people listening to this, there will be people who still don't see the value, still think that, hey, the price is great. Value must be, too. No, it's really not.
And when you look at Titus, two women be keepers at home. And in first Timothy five of basically, if they're young and widow, tell them to get married again, have more children, keep the house. That's. That's one Timothy. I said one Timothy five, Titus two, first Timothy two about women are saved through childbearing.
These are verses that we just do our best to get around. In fact, I've started a new project. I don't know if this will end up a book or not. I just showed you guys. Picked up a whole stack of books. I've got more coming where I'm buying every marriage, every popular marriage book, every popular masculinity book, every popular femininity book in Christianity that I can get a hold of and. And trying to figure out, when did it change? When did the messaging change? Where we started being afraid of those verses, where Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3, we started explaining all the things they don't mean, but never telling people what it does.
Christianity has failed people on this. We have dropped the ball.
These stats are just revealing. Nature didn't go away, but we're pretending that it did. We figured out a way to make the Bible agree with sociology.
Shame on everybody who's had a part in that. And that's why I'm taking up that writing project is this is despicable. Every shred of discussion I've heard on masculinity and femininity and roles in marriage doesn't touch any of the hard stuff in the Bible. I mean, like, it is.
I just. I get angry thinking about it. Everything I've read, it's not even close. And the false dichotomy of man, if you go towards this, you must want to just dominate your wife, and you just want her barefoot and pregnant in front of the stove. And, like, what was wrong with that when we had big families and wives keeping the house and the guy bringing home the bacon? And are we better off now, really? And I don't know, there's just so much to be said. Like I said, there will be a lot to come. I'm writing on it currently. And I don't know, stats like this just tell you exactly what you're saying, Joe. Like the eye test and the stats and the Bible test all line up and we're just deceiving ourselves to be running away from it, going, no, it's not. No, it's not right? So we've got to get back in touch with reality.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: And that means to the young fathers, why we have the Godly Amen podcast. As you raise your little girls, raise them to be wives and moms, your little girl is going to get all
[01:02:50] Speaker B: raise your sons to take care of them.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Correct. Raise your sons to choose a career path. Not working at Starbucks for his life. Choose a career path that's going to allow for big families where he can take care of his wife and kids. And it's a beautiful thing.
Raise them up to be men of God and raise them up to be women of God. Where you say, you know what, we're not going into the workforce because the only thing, the worst thing that can happen is to get a raise. Because clearly you're not going to want kids. Well, to your point, it makes sense that they wouldn't. So the worst thing that can happen is if they actually are very successful when it comes to godly values, having families, things like that.
So why start them off on that in the first place?
[01:03:28] Speaker B: Interesting thought. Again, that's still very unpopular. But as I said, not new territory
[01:03:35] Speaker C: for us though, right?
[01:03:35] Speaker B: As I said when I posted this on Facebook, you know the Back to the Future quote, You guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it. So we're getting there. We're gonna keep saying it. So that's our Think Fast for this week if you're catching this. As always, this is the end of a full episode. The full episode was on Sabbath and rests and taking days off and all of the implications of that. So be sure to catch that on Monday if you're just catching the thing fast. And to close off the whole episode, we thank you guys for listening. And once again, check out our Patreon focusedpress.org lots more content, lots more to get into over there. So check that out if you're interested and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.
