Epstein, Bad Bunny, and the Outrage Cycle

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Your co host Will Harrop, joined by Joe and Jack Wilke. If you are here for part two of the kind of controversial topics in the Bible, we covered slavery and genocide last week and we discussed waiting another, waiting a week to do polygamy, maybe a couple other ones, treatment of women and such. And if you are here for that, you will have to wait one more week. We've got our thoughts, we are ready to roll with it. But there's been a lot in the news over the last week or so that we felt like it maybe be a missed opportunity if we did not cover. And so again we're pushing the polygamy and the treatment of women in the Bible discussion to next week. We'll be covering that a week from now. But again, there's just been a lot going on culturally. One of the things we always try to do with this podcast is take what is going on in the culture and discuss what should a Christian's response be? How should we react, how should we respond, how should we converse about these things? And so that's what we're gonna do with this episode. We have less of an agenda and more so just we kind of want to throw it back and forth free flowing style conversation about obviously the Epstein files, the biggest story in the news I would say over the last week or so. And then we're going to talk a little bit about Bad Bunny halftime show, the controversy surrounding that, the TP USA alternate halftime show, stuff like that. And so yeah, that's, that's where we're, that's where we're going with the episode today. Guys, any introductory thoughts? Again, there's less of an agenda with this episode and more so just want to talk about some of the things been going on in the world. [00:01:41] Speaker C: Man. It just, it seems like it's all coming to a head of the division in our country that you can see in these topics. And I think that's one of the things that makes this interesting to us is everything that comes down the pike, everybody reacts to it. I say everybody, a lot of people react to it and it's kind of the, the camps kind of predict how you're gonna react to it. And I'm sure people would say that about me and you know, things I say or write or whatever, like, oh, I know what you're gonna say and you know, you're on this side so you believe this and you try not to be that predictable. We're gonna talk about that some. But I don't know, feels like the, the speed on these things. It's just one after the other after the other. As you said. Epstein, bad bunny. The. And we're not even going to talk about but the Trump, Obama's video, Lion King video thing. And I mean just every day you're getting, you're given something to get outraged at. And I just, I think it's, it shows a lot about us. And so I think this should be an interesting episode on that front. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Well, yeah, this is on the heels of the Somalian stuff taking place in Minnesota, the daycare fraud, you know, all the things taking place up there. The rioting that was happening with ICE that just gets shoved to the back while all of this kind of comes to the forefront. And it just makes you wonder like how much can we possibly as humans take in bandwidth wise? You know, at what point do we run out of bandwidth and shut down and become numb to a lot of these things? And I think that has spiritual implications when we've numbed out. But this episode, because it's been such a busy week and there's been so many things, more than anything we wanted to get on and talk about some things as to how to handle like kind of broader principles I guess we could say to handling the news, things like that Jack, you've written some good articles on these things, but a lot of different angles and so it's a little more free flowing. We don't necessarily have too much of an outline other than what's been taking place. But yeah, we want to use this as a putting our flag out there on these particular topics. But how do we approach topics in the future? There's going to be weeks and months like this where just the news goes crazy. What do we do in those moments? [00:03:36] Speaker B: So that's kind of where I want to start, guys. I'm very curious to just kind of start this discussion and I'll kind of share my call it struggle. I suppose obviously there. We've done episodes before about kind of the dangers of social media. Right. Everybody knows that social media can be very dangerous. It's a time suck. You can spend too much time on it. You can be Mr. Pessimist all the time, all those things. We know all that already. One of the struggles that I've had is especially lately, it feels like way more so lately is how to balance the need to stay in the know on things. I don't want to be the guy that's like, you know, Jeffrey Epstein, files dropped like you Know, are the Epstein files dropped? Like what? Like, I don't want to be that guy. Or, you know, the people that are, like, who was at the Super Bowl? Like, obviously I want to be very informed. At the same time, I do find myself shying away quite a bit from social media lately. Again, more so the last couple weeks. And I think the reason for that is, number one, I try to put limits on it. So it's not really the time thing for me. It's just that there is so much A, negativity and B, like, I don't know what to believe. And maybe that's my, my X algorithm that's feeding me all the Candace Owen stuff about Erica Kirk. But even, even, you know, not just her, like, other stuff that's coming out about the Kirk stuff and obviously the Epstein files and all those things. It's like, at this point, I just don't feel like having to sift through what is an AI deep fake, what is real. And so I'm just kind of curious. Obviously all three of us are more aware and online of cultural things maybe more than the average person. And the other thing is, I tried to delete social media through the work week, like Monday through Friday, which I really enjoyed. The problem is I found myself a little bit ill prepared for stuff like this. For podcasts and for, you know, we have another podcast, we do that, you know, just things happening in the world make for good illustrations, stuff like that. And so I don't know, that's kind of, that's kind of the balance I'm trying to figure out how to strike is like, how do we stay in the know without just getting absolutely down the rabbit hole and on just about everything going on in the world? Because it seems like there's more and more stuff every single day. [00:05:42] Speaker A: I mean, do you think there's some level of like, so plugged in online, of course, has the movie reviews, somebody's got to go watch those. And we've talked before, like, is this a Christian? Is this not a Christian? They ingest all the stuff so you don't have to type of thing. And I wonder if there's a level of that of like, you know, having a few trusted sources that you might go to that's going to ingest all the information. They're going to be online a bunch. They're going to help you understand the world. I do think that we to some degree are that for some people, we may let people in on what's going on in the culture where maybe they're previously unaware of those things. And so is there a duty to. For some Christians, like, we will. So you don't have to. And we'll kind of pass down the information. As weird as that sounds, that's what comes to my mind is maybe some people are more better suited to be on social media more often. I'm with you, Will. I'm not on very often. I got on. We were kind of researching, thinking about the Epstein stuff, and I've been keeping up with it pretty close tabs, but especially last night, going a little more on the deep dive. And I mean, it's just dark. And I found myself on X for probably an hour last night, which is the longest I've spent a long time on it. And you don't feel great after, so I get it. I kind of pull away from it. But I also feel like, to your point, there's a little bit of a duty so we can inform people of what's going on. So I'm not adding a ton to the discussion other than to say, I wonder if for that purpose it justifies a little bit more. But, Jack, what are your thoughts on that? [00:07:04] Speaker C: There is a balance, right? And that's what I wrote on earlier this week is like the, the people who don't pay attention to this stuff at all and just, oh, well, I know it's bad out there. Like, no, you. You kind of need to know, because there are. And I acknowledge, I noted this, pointed to this in the article. There are people in the world who are seeing this stuff and going, I gotta find a church. Like, this is the evil that's out there. And I think it's helpful for Christians to know what people are looking for, what people are talking about, what's on their hearts and minds. And on the other hand, as you said, you spend much time on there. You're angry, you're upset, you're just, you're on edge. The anxiety rises. It's. It's learned helplessness because you can't do anything about it. But, man, you're just looking at all this evil. And so there definitely is a balance there. And so it's one of those, as you guys kind of said, having a few resources you can look at from time to time or just short update podcasts or YouTube personality, somebody that you're not just giving your brain to them, but you kind of trust them to put some stories in front of you and check in with that, check back out. You know, the less time I spend on that site, the better in general. But I still do need to stay informed, want to stay informed on things. And so it's difficult. It's not like it used to be where you get the newspaper in the morning and you'd have the news and that was about it. And it was the same news that. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Your neighbor was reading and. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:27] Speaker C: And even if you knew there was a bias, you, you knew what it was and knew how to like counter, to weigh, you know, like, all right, take this with this grain of salt, take 70% of this or realize they're coming from this angle. Whereas this, when there are a million outlets, you don't know what any of them's angle is. You don't know what their funding is. And one last thing that's kind of come out of this Epstein stuff is even people like them have ties where they are manipulating stuff that's going into the news, they're manipulating online trends and stuff like that. And so it is. We have no idea the degree to which ideas are being planted in our heads. [00:09:02] Speaker A: It's just such a, we live in such a tough time for people to engage and not lose themselves in it or to completely disengage. And so I think we are getting more and more and more and more on the polar opposites, the extreme ends of people that just want to give up. Like basically do the, the Ron Swanson throw the computer in the trash and walk away, you know, and go live in a cabin in the middle of Montana and not talk to anybody. Uni Bobber type stuff. Not quite to the, to that degree, but you know what I mean, where you're kind of getting away from everything versus the ultra plugged in, wants to know everything. The FOMO fear missing out. So you see both sides. People are gravitating toward one or the other and finding equilibrium. Balance is really difficult. Not to throw you guys on the spot, but while we're thinking about it, do you have a go to source of somebody that you trust their takes, like if somebody's listening, they go, well, how do you guys, where do you guys go? [00:09:50] Speaker B: You're a Ben Shapiro guy, right? Joe, don't even joke about kidding. [00:09:56] Speaker A: Sorry. No, I can't stand the guy personally. Sorry. I know there's, there's a few listeners maybe. Does Reese listen to our podcast? I know he still likes Ben. Probably not, but he's probably not. [00:10:05] Speaker B: He's a fanatic. [00:10:06] Speaker A: I can't, cannot stand that guy. But I like Matt Walsh. I think he's got some pretty grounded takes. So, you know, I'll read Some of his stuff, there's nobody that I look at and every take they have is like, wow, this is great. I like Jack's takes, but there you go. I don't know. Who do you guys go to? [00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I like Matt Walsh a lot. I think he can be a little bit overboard on some things sometimes. Almost like he's going for the shock factor sometimes. But overall I do, I do like him. I actually like Brett Cooper a lot. She's a female, but she's, she's my age and tries to. Basically she's independent, isn't, isn't under the Shapiro umbrella anymore or anything like that. [00:10:45] Speaker A: And so the way you said that was hilarious. She's a female. If you can get around. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Well then just cuz the name Brett, you know. But it is weird. But I like her stuff. The way that, you know, kind of, she reacts to certain things other than that, man, like it is kind of crazy. I don't really do Shapiro anymore. Certainly don't do Candace Owens anymore. So yeah, not, not very many others. From a, you know, far as a YouTube video perspective, there's some ex accounts and stuff that maybe are a little bit better. But I'm curious, curious, Jack, what your thoughts are. [00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I would, I hesitate to say any names because I do try to aggregate because yeah, you know, this guy's going to be pushing you this way, this guy's going to be pushing you that way. And so you've got to kind of take five or six of them and like try and meet in the middle, you know, like pars out. All right, this guy's coming with this. Buy it. You know, like Tucker Carlson, you know, I like some of the things he says. Some of the other things like you're an idiot, like what are you talking about? You know, and so that's one of those, like you keep tabs on what he's saying. But I'm not like, all right, Tucker saying it. It's gospel. Like that's. And that's just one example. Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles seems to do some good stuff. And so these are all, you know, conservative commentators but they can. You kind of more than anything not. You're not just taking their takes, but the things they are talking about are the things that people probably care about. And so yeah, that's a way to kind of help with those things to some degree. [00:12:10] Speaker B: The other thing is what are their, what are their values? [00:12:13] Speaker C: Right? [00:12:13] Speaker B: I mean you think about Matt Walsh, for instance, wasn't he the one that went into Vanderbilt and basically shut down their. I mean that's. That's huge. Obviously married, kids. Brett Cooper's the same. Like that's. You can't run that as the filter through everything. But honestly it is like a. Do you believe in God? Are you a faithful. Are you faithfully married? Believe in children, believe in big families? I mean Charlie Kirk. Right. I mean that was one for sure. Like I didn't watch a ton of his stuff, but I knew we aligned on a lot of things and so. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Holds the same values. [00:12:43] Speaker B: I think what makes it difficult and maybe why this is, you know, why we go listen to these types of people number There's. There's two things that I think people are really looking for and they're kind of related. And I bring this up a lot. The first one is genuineness. Is this person genuine? The take that they're giving or the way that they're reacting to a story or the. You know, the things that they're sharing. Is it. Are they just doing it for clicks? Like you can kind of tell, right? To be honest and my mom listens to this faithful, faithful Candace Owens listener You can kind of tell Candace sometimes just does things for clicks, right. Like at least that's what it. That's very much how it appears. And so people are looking for the genuineness and you know, the just the. Here's what I genuinely think. And then the other thing they're looking for is truth. [00:13:26] Speaker A: What. What. [00:13:27] Speaker B: What is truth? You know, what is actually being said here? What can I believe? Because again, just due to the all the AI stuff deep fakes and AI generated images and you know, all these things I had. I listened to a take from somebody that said is. It was very interesting is the reason why they just now dropped. Had that big Epstein files drop is because AI has been so developed even within the last six months and so they knew if they dropped it now the Internet would run wild with again the AI generated emails and the pictures that are fake and all these things. Did they do that knowing it would add the confusion? I don't think that's a terrible take. I. Because it's so hard to sift through and find truth. So yeah, that's kind of the thought that I had is people are looking for genuineness and they're also looking for what is true. Can I go to somebody who I trust is going to tell me at least they're not going to misrepresent the story or something like that. [00:14:16] Speaker A: This is what makes it so difficult though is because the genuineness in order to find somebody that's genuine. A lot of times the true genuine aren't big because they have to have clickbait in order to get big enough to be in your regular feed in order for that to come about. And so some of the underground guys of like kind of off the beaten path, they're going to be a little more genuine. They're going to shoot straight with you. They may say some out of pocket things from time to time or whatever else, but that they have some takes. It's like, that's very interesting. Those are a lot harder to find. Well, how do you find them? You're on there a lot. You're on there a lot. So that's the difficulty. And I agree with you, people are gravitating toward that. But that's very much the difficulty of that. Of like, I don't know how much time do you spend curating your list? And once you have it, do you then just stick to your list? But I had an interesting angle that I was curious. We didn't talk about this before. I think I've kicked this around, maybe Jack, with you before. What are your thoughts on keeping our wives from ingesting too much news? That it's a man's job to protect his family from these things. It's a man's job to know what's going on in the world. But using that as a form of protection, not as a. Why women aren't allowed to know those things. No, but we know women are prone to gossip. I think that's why one of the, this Nancy Guthrie thing is just exploding. I was telling Will off air about, I think it's a Netflix documentary taking place in real time and people are captivated. Who drives a lot of that? [00:15:37] Speaker C: Women. [00:15:38] Speaker A: They want to know the gossip. They want to know, you know, they're the ones buying People magazine or Inquirer or whatever it is, National Enquirer, like. But I also think that their stress response is a lot higher because they're not. I don't think they do well with, with ingesting all of these things. Now people may look at that as very misogynistic, as, you know, very sexist, whatever you want to say. At the end of the day, I do personally think that there's an element of, like, I don't need my wife reading everything of what's going on because I do think that puts undue stress on her. And guys, in my opinion, and I think statistically this bears out, do a better job of ingesting news and Knowing what to do with it. But I was curious to throw that out to you guys. Like, what are your thoughts? Is this a way to protect our families, to protect our wives and even our kids from kind of what's going on in the world? But also that on the flip side, makes a little more of our duty as men to ingest some of these things so we're not caught off guard. [00:16:32] Speaker C: It goes back to Adam, you know, Adam having the outward facing role, her having the inward facing role. Right. And him kind of going out and trying to make an impact on the world and shape the world and go be the breadwinner in the world. All those things and her taking care of the home. And you do see news obsessed women. And that's where Paul tells Timothy, like, hey, they're gonna. You gotta be careful with these women that just want to get caught up in gossip. That's something he says in Timothy and Titus that gossip is one of those things that being busy bodies is something that they have to guard against. And when they can't do it with, you know, the local gossip their national gossip serves works really well for that. And so I think that's an interesting point and something. It is not letting the serpent into your house, kind of taking stock of not just your wife, but your kids. Like, what's everyone consuming if your kid is consuming some extremist content? I mean, this shooting in Canada was another kid that was trans by Reddit, essentially. And like, you've got to know what is coming in through your walls with stuff like this. And I think that's one angle of it. [00:17:39] Speaker B: I definitely think it's more the responsibility weighs far heavier on the husband or on the father to make sure they're very well informed. If you're the guy that's like, again, plug your ears. I don't know what's going on, but your wife is kind of making sure that she's filtering through. Like, what are the kids? Like, okay, buddy, that's your job. You need to make sure that you're like, the responsibility weighs heavier on your shoulders. I'd agree with that. The struggle that I have is so my wife is not news does not stay up to date on the news, like at all. Interestingly enough, she did. She did know about the Guthrie story before I did. But like, you know, some of the more so like the political side of things, like the Epstein stuff and some of the other things that have come out, she's just gonna be pretty late to the party on. Because she. She doesn't look into that stuff. And on the one hand, I'm curious. I'll swing it back to you, Joe. I'm curious your thoughts. On the one hand, I think that's good. I don't want my wife weighed down with all the horrific things that you read about there or even just horrible news stories, stuff like that. Like, I would rather her joy not be taken away because women are more prone to the emotional swings based off of the things that they see, hear, read, whatever. At the same time, you know, my wife's my best friend. I love to talk to her about stuff and I want her to be informed enough to where we can kind of bounce ideas off of each other, if that makes sense and kind of theorize and, well, what are your thoughts on this? And obviously if she's completely uninformed, that's pretty much taken off the board. It'd be similar to one of you guys getting on the podcast. All right, guys, let's talk about this. And you're like, I don't even know anything about that. I haven't even read it, you know, so that's kind of, I guess the other side of the coin is that I want her to be informed enough to where we can get into why, why is this happening again? What are your thoughts? What are your theories, stuff like that. So interesting question, Joe may swing it back to you. What are your thoughts on kind of that other side of the coin there? [00:19:32] Speaker C: In depth, but easy to understand. That's how war in heaven, war on earth. What the book of Revelation meant to the original readers and what it means for us today has been described. An Amazon reviewer said it was the best commentary on Revelation he had read in 50 years. Bradley Cobb spent literally thousands of hours researching and putting together this material showing how first century Christians, the ones the book was written to, would have understood the book, how it matches with the rest of the Bible and how it was something that was about to happen when John wrote it. Thoroughly biblical in his approach, including the dating of the book and supported with first century history, this 550 page book does not gloss over any details and includes points of application throughout each of the book's 48 studies. Great for personal study or for a year long Bible class. Available on Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback or Kindle. [00:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just looking up some stats while we were talking on this goes to Covid Times. Gender differences of depression. This is a journal article. National Library of Medicine. Gender differences of depression Anxiety among social media users during the COVID 19 outbreak in China. Cross sectional study, females are experiencing more severe stress and anxiety symptoms while males showed better resilience to stress. And there's stats and things like that. But I think that's interesting that again, statistically that bears out. That's not just me once again being misogynist saying that statistically it bears out that I think we have a duty to protect and that means we do have a duty to be informed. On the flip side, and I think this gets us into maybe a little more on the church end of things though that's all related on a husband protecting his family. As Jack, as you said, get the serpent out. Reddit, get it. I think I saw you tweet that like get, read it out of your life. Don't, don't let Reddit into your home at all. It's horrible, horrible. But I think the man being informed, we also know a lot of guys that can tell you everything of what's going on in the news. Their ex feed is boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean they're on there every single day. But if you ask them to quote a scripture, if you ask them to say a prayer, if you ask them to get up and say something, everything runs through the political perspective and everything runs through modern events. And I think that can be dangerous as well. We want to be men who are grounded in God's word. We're aware of how these things affect us in the day to day life, but we're not letting that sway us and we're not letting those, those constant news barrages sway us one side or the other. And we have more talking points other than the newest news item of the week. And to me, well, let me throw it out to you guys. What you know, when you think about from a man's perspective, like how does a man balance those things? We've been talking about balancing those things, but specifically with the bent toward Christianity toward those things, we have the guys who are like, well, just study the Bible and don't worry about it. I don't know, I think that's a. We talk about protecting your family. We're talking about how much to consume. But I feel like there is a duty for a man to know scripture before he gets on Twitter and to be able to be grounded enough to the point that like what he's finding, or sorry, X not Twitter, but what he's finding online, he can adequately like run through the filter of where does this connect? And that also seems to be maybe something that can help him figure out what do I need to let the family know, what do we absolutely need to protect against? So for instance, you gotta have an understanding of what do we do about AI, what do we do about Reddit? What do we do about, you know, do the Epstein files have any bearing on our life, especially from a biblical perspective? And to me that's where a lot of guys fall short. And so maybe roundabout way, let me get to this question. Why do you think we are more prone to news cycle items than to biblical discussion? [00:23:03] Speaker C: I think not just being more prone to those kind of things, but something I've seen is people that get super, super into that and are that guy that can tell you every news story if you ask them what they're doing locally, nothing. Do you go to your local meetings? You, are you involved in any local service? Are you any of those kind? No, no, it's. And so it's a spectator sport. It's their version of football, it's their version of celebrity gossip, it's their version of, it's just intrigue. It's just, oh, did you hear about what happened today? Like, all right, what are you going to do with that information? What does that do for you? And so as I totally agree with you say what you say, there like there is value in this. The people who say there's no value in knowing anything that's going on in the world, that's insanity to me. But again, it's that value to a point. And if you have no practical follow up, or as you say, if your home life is falling off, if there are responsibilities right in front of you that you're not taking care of, you don't need to be spending time on and getting obsessed with and having conversations and, and being that guy, though it's good to be able to discuss current events. I mean the, the guy who is not involved in that is, I've heard it say that like you go back to the, the etymology of the idiot. It's basically somebody who doesn't know anything, like, doesn't, isn't aware of what's going on around them and so don't be that guy. But yeah, very much. Let it inform your action. If it doesn't inform your action. I mean it's, it's almost, it's almost like a pornography of sorts. Like you're, there's, there's nothing to act on here. It's just stimulation. [00:24:38] Speaker B: That's a very interesting, that's a very interesting point, the spectator sport angle, because I see guys like, I hate to make everything generational, but like Gen Xers and Boomers, primarily. I don't watch sports. I can't stand sports. Like, yeah, and you spend three hours a day with your political sport, right? Again, like you reading everything, watching YouTube videos and, you know, Fox News, whatever it is. Like, buddy, it's the same thing. Just, you know, maybe a little bit more relevance. But to your point, Jack, like, are you doing anything about it? Well, no, not really. And so my thought on this is this was a take that I was sharing before we started the episode, which is I do think there are a lot of specifically older guys who need to spend way less time, personally, the time that they are spending going down the rabbit hole, even chasing conspiracy theories, not to try. I know you guys are a little bit more in the conspiracy theory realm than I. They're not theories, but people like the amount of time you could spend going down the rabbit hole reading Reddit threads, watching YouTube, all those things. Like, how about you sit down and eat dinner with your kids type of thing, you know, like, how about why don't you go out back and play with your kids? Or for older guys, I guess, kids out of house, why don't you call up and see if you can take your grandkids for the afternoon, stuff like that. And you know, I'm not trying to cast aspersions on people who spend a lot of time. I obviously think the younger your kids are, probably the less time you should spend ingesting, you know, all those things, you need to be spending it with them. If you're an empty nester or something, that's one thing. But even then I still think there would be responsibilities in front of you that you could be neglecting. The more time that you spend just going down rabbit holes and this conspiracy theory and reading all this, and I do think it is kind of a. It goes, it comes down to what reason do you have for doing it? Are you doing it so that you can, are you an elder and you are really trying to stay very well informed of what's going on? What are people dealing with? Well, that's one thing, right? That's different. Are you somebody who literally, it's your form of entertainment is to just kind of scroll and read and YouTube like, then that probably needs to be regulated a little bit better. And so I hate to say it kind of depends on the situation, but it really does. I do think, for the most part, and I'll speak generally here, I think people probably should spend a little bit less time than what they actually or than what they currently do and more time again, you know, coming up with dinner conversations for their, for their family at the dinner table or, you know, again, making sure that they're making time for their children or planning a special, you know, evening with their wife or whatever it is. Like, I just feel like for the most part we could spend a little bit less time on social media. I'm becoming more and more anti social media by the day, essentially. And I think a lot of it is just due to the neglect of the family. How it divides everybody, everybody's on their screens. Like, I, I just don't like that. [00:27:22] Speaker A: I think the two things that I'm hearing from both of you is grounding and purpose are kind of the two things. Be grounded in reality and grounded locally. Right. Be grounded with your family, be grounded with your local community. Be doing stuff. And then the purpose of it, you have to have a strong purpose. If it's mindless entertainment, yes. If it's the sporting event type thing, and I'm not saying there's not frivolity, what's the purpose of me watching hockey? Like, yeah, there's an enjoyment element, but if all I was doing was watching hockey three, four hours a day instead of the other things, that comes back to being grounded in reality. But the purpose is to equip your family. It is to know how should we think about this modern thing through a biblical lens and have an understanding of it. And Jack, to your point, it ought to drive action. So to me, the grounding and the purpose is kind of what we're getting at here, especially from man's perspective. But this goes for women as well. What is the purpose of me being on X for two hours a day if that was the case? Like, am I gaining something? Is this helping me be better in my local community? Is this helping me be a better father? And then the other part of this is that, man, my ex feet is actually fantastic. Like, I curated a pretty good one. I get a lot of fatherhood material. I get a lot of just really good material in general. A lot of masculinity and things like that. So it's gym related stuff. Yes, God, lay men, but also actually gymnasium gym related stuff. And it's a lot of masculine related stuff and then some political things and obviously some Christian stuff. And so it's a pretty good curation. Do you know how many things I've bookmarked that I've never come back to? Yeah, I mean, it's really good stuff, but it's like, oh, this is gonna, this could Change everything. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Don't have time right now. [00:28:51] Speaker A: Correct. And then I move on, and then I move on, and then I move on. And so I have bookmarks, probably a hundred different bookmarks of things that would be really good if I stopped and applied. And it's like, you know, if I just stopped instead of bookmarking all of these things and stopped scrolling past all this great advice and actually just took one of those and worked on it throughout the week or month, my life would drastically improve. But there is. We get addicted. Jack. This kind of goes to your mental pornography point. There is, I don't know if we want to use the word, but that is a phrase. Mental self pleasuring, basically that goes along with. We have the appearance of growing because we're ingesting all of this information, but. [00:29:25] Speaker B: We'Re never actually growing. [00:29:26] Speaker A: But we're never actually doing it. We don't actually sit down and go, okay, I'm going to apply. Boom, boom, boom, boom. We don't have accountability surrounding these things. All the things we discuss on, yes, the gym podcast, but also on this. [00:29:36] Speaker B: But it feels productive because we're reading. [00:29:37] Speaker A: It feels very productive. So we are. [00:29:39] Speaker C: Well. And there's a reason at the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, like, it wears you out. The books are endless. You can read a million books, but you're just going to get worn out at a certain point. There's a limit to how much. It's the kind of diminishing returns thing. I'm not quoting it directly, but reference to what he says in Ecclesiastes. [00:29:56] Speaker A: So let me ask you this. How does that apply spiritually for us, for us in the church? Taking that concept, what does that tangibly mean? Because I'll say mine. I'm curious to get your thoughts. What that gets me thinking about is first off, a deep dive Bible study I think will beat just a cursory glance of the text. I'm reading through the Bible. That's fantastic. There are nights I'm really tired and it's like, did I fully understand what I was reading? Not necessarily, but I ingested it. Right. I got it. I think doing more of a deep dive study, but from an evangelism point of view, I also think about that of like sometimes just focusing on one person rather than praying for 100 people, focus on one person and focus on being in their lives consistently. It's a consistency and will, to go back to your point, the genuineness that really wins people over rather than the cookie cutter approach. The I don't Want to again, to use your phrase, cast aspersions on anybody. But there is a church wide program that a lot of churches use. That to me, feels forced, feels a little bit. It does not feel genuine to me. So we went to a congregation recently. I don't even know if we have listeners from this congregation. Very, you know, kind people. We've gotten, I kid you not, I bet you we've gotten two dozen cards in the mail. But they're all the same thing. And you know, it's just part of their monthly rotation of trying to bring people in. And it's like we cast a huge net. But did anybody. There were very few actually. It was a friendly congregation as a whole, but like very few actually came up and talked to us. You tell they're talking to one another and things like that. But okay, so we got 24, 25 cards in the mail, but we didn't get that. And to me that's kind of the same thing of we can trick ourselves into thinking we're friendly because we have these programs, or we can trick ourselves into thinking that we're evangelistic because we're praying for 100 people. But are we getting down on the individual level and really engaging on that? The same way that I can have 100 tabs or 100 bookmarks on X, but am I really focusing on just doing one in my life? I think we can. I love the idea of doing this, but do I actually love the action of it? Does that make sense? Sorry, I was going on and on right now, but I'm just curious. [00:32:03] Speaker B: No, it does. [00:32:04] Speaker C: You're drinking from a fire hose. You're probably not going to get anything at all. [00:32:07] Speaker A: Correct? Yes. Maybe that's exactly the way it's. [00:32:09] Speaker C: It. [00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:10] Speaker B: I mean, I think honestly it just comes down to the question of what, what are you doing? Like, what specifically are you doing? And to your point, Joe, like just reading, you know, something. Reading a financial help, you know, how to get better financially. [00:32:24] Speaker A: All. [00:32:25] Speaker B: You're not actually doing anything. You haven't started budgeting, you haven't started investing. Like you're just reading at that point. So ask him, what are you doing from an evangelism standpoint, applying to the church? Like how many non Christians are you actively talking to or engaged in a Bible study with or inviting to your home or, you know, whatever it may be, as opposed to, you know, as you said, you know, and obviously it's important to pray for those opportunities and things. Like, we're not saying that that's something that's bad. Like, what are you doing specifically? [00:32:51] Speaker A: Are you taking, you know. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Well, I give money to the church and the church uses it for this evangelism program or whatever it is. One other. Sorry, not to Jack. I'm sure you got a thought on that. I want to bring something in that I was bringing up a second ago because it relates to evangelism. I. I was bringing it in off air. Is there value to less social media promoting of your thoughts and in favor of more face to face, you know, promoting of your thoughts? So the example that I give, let's say I got somebody at work and there's, you know, all this stuff going on. Epstein, the halftime show, all these things, right? Or in name, you know, fill in the blank. Political thing. And I'm somebody who posts three, four times a day on Facebook or whatever it is. And now I'm just giving my thoughts about why I hated the halftime show or why, you know, whatever. Again, that's just kind of the most prominent recent thing. The guy at work, from an evangelism perspective, he can just look up my Facebook and let's say he comes from a different perspective. He's gonna be immediately turned off. Oh, we disagree. Okay, here's where this guy stands, right? As opposed to. I never. I don't post about. Or maybe I do every now and then, but like, I'm not posting my every last thought on every single controversial thing. I work with this guy and he asked me over coffee or over the lunch table or lunch break or whatever. Hey, what are your thoughts on this? We can still totally disagree, but that disagreement is going to be received a whole lot better from my perspective across a cup of coffee face to face, as opposed to. Let me read this guy who posts nonstop about XYZ political stuff, you know, cultural conservative things, Right? So I guess my point in that is I do think there is value in maybe not posting 247 about everything, mainly from an evangelism perspective. I guess this would more so apply to people who, you know, you work with a lot of non Christians or whatever, in favor of people asking you in person at work or whatever it is. Hey, what are your thoughts on this that's going on right now? And again, even if you still totally disagree with them, I just feel like that disagreement is going to be more well received from personal experience. Like, I have a lot of people that ask me my thoughts. I don't go volunteer them. If they ask me, I'll share. It's the same guy. It's the same type of thing of where, like, if you're always the guy that just is immediately telling everybody, well, I did this, this weekend and I, I had this much fun and this is what I'd like at the end of the day, like, nobody cares, right? You're not fun to be around because you're just volunteering that versus hey, Joe, how was your weekend? What'd you do? Okay, well, then you can share. So that's kind of a long winded way to say. I do think sometimes there is value in holding some of those cards a little bit closer to the vest so that you can, again, somebody asks you at work, what are your thoughts on this? That relationship can be built a little bit better. What are your thoughts on that? And then I did kind of railroad Joe's question there. So I apologize. [00:35:39] Speaker A: There you go. [00:35:39] Speaker C: Well, no, that's. There, there's, there's context to that because if I were in a secular job, I definitely would pull back on what I do. There's value in what Brad and I do in kind of putting a flag out for the church and saying, hey, as a Christian, this side is also represented because there's so much that go. There's so much, I don't know, stuff that I feel like the dominant side or the dominant narrative sometimes from the Christians. I see postings like, no, this is terrible and somebody needs to be out on this other side of it. And that's where we get people's thanks of like, yeah, I'm glad you said this, that, or the other thing. And kind of represent. In fact, I had that recently where I nagged the Christian Chronicle for so long about their bias in one direction. They asked me to write something from the other direction, which was nice. I wasn't promoting myself and saying, hey, pick me. Just saying, hey, this other side. And so, like, I think there's some value in that with, internally, externally, I think you're exactly right. But even internally, we don't have to react to every last thing. I didn't react to the Trump, Obama's video. I wasn't gonna react to the halftime show. I didn't. In fact, I didn't react to the halftime show. I reacted to all the people posting about the halftime show, trying to own all the, you know, like, oh, this is a beautiful sign of immigration. Like, that guy said some horrible things up there. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's okay. You know, like, that's so. But even that, it's like you're getting sucked in Every single day, there's something to react to. And if you're just a reactive person, that's not healthy. You don't have to have a take on everything. One of the other things is sometimes it's better to wait and figure out what's, you know, as you say, with the AI Thing. And even that Trump Obama's video. The original clip that went around just showed the video like, oh, he posted a video of them as monkeys. And it was like, well, it was a blip in a minute long thing. And like, it looked like an accident. And so all the things that came out, but, man, the people that posted originally that morning ended up being wrong about it. And then they, of course, they don't retract it. They don't say, oh, well, it's the. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Same thing with the COVID originating in a lab or whatever. [00:37:45] Speaker C: Right, right, right. Just no retractions ever. Just on to the next thing. And so you don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be the person saying things wrong. And so I think we're sometimes wait a little bit. I mean, there's a lot of proverbs. There's a lot of wisdom on this kind of thing of holding your tongue, not having to have something to say about everything. A man that gets involved in controversies that aren't really his business. And so there's. Again, there's a balance here. But if you're Mr. Reactive, that's not a healthy thing either. [00:38:12] Speaker B: That's what I was gonna say is I. I do like, I think it's fine to have a take on everything. You don't have to share your take on everything. Like, that's the difference is I'm gonna go tell everybody, or again, I'm gonna volunteer how great my weekend was when nobody asked. That's where I would kind of, you know, disagree there so much of this goes. [00:38:29] Speaker C: You. [00:38:29] Speaker B: I'm just saying disagree with, you know, the people that would just always share what they think. [00:38:33] Speaker A: Well, so much of this just goes back to knowing what matters. You know, what matters. And, yeah, what's taking place in the world does matter, but it's to. You have to have degrees. If everything matters the exact same, I think you just get burnt out. There's just too much. You know, if Epstein matters the same as Bad Bunny matters the same as family worship with my family, and I'm giving same amount. And nobody would actually cognitively say that to you. Consciously say that subconsciously, though. Yeah. The time that you give to it, the. The amount that you ingest these things and, you know, spending time developing takes online and things like that, are we putting as much time and effort into other things? And, Jack, from your standpoint, I very much agree that there's a. A huge use in what you and Brad do and guys like that that are willing to get out there and, you know, give the opposite side. You sent us a Russell Moore article. It's just dumb. I'm sorry. It's just dumb. But that's. How many people are reading that. So there does need to be. And he's Christian. You know what I mean? Like, so how many other people are reading that? Yes, they need an alternate view. On the other point, though, when you talk about the reactivity, I think it's important to be proactive. And that, to me, is where you have this understanding of what does matter to you, what's most important in your life, and can I be proactive in those areas? And I think you'll find social media goes way down the list just naturally when you're taking care of everything else that's supposed to matter, to the point that, yes, there's still room in your life. But I think that part gets figured out the more the other things are prioritized. So if you have eaten, you know, around the family dinner table and your job, you're doing the best you can at your job, you're getting your own personal Bible study, and you're spending time with your wife and your kids, you're doing family worship. All of these other things we very much push for and try to emulate in our own lives and do consistently. By the time I get done, at the end of the day, and especially when I'm trying to prioritize sleep and health, there's just not much room left for this. So there's enough to get on in just a little bit. But to me, it's like your priorities getting straight straightens a lot of this out, a lot of the things that we're discussing, in my opinion. [00:40:34] Speaker B: So let me spin it in this direction. We'll talk about Epstein for a second. One of the angles of this is, first of all, that whole. The whole file drop, it's so convoluted. But what sticks out to me about this is you can have people on three or four completely different sides of the aisle all saying, see, this confirms what. What I was saying. You know, you have the left that says, oh, see, this is clearly an indictment of Trump. You have Trump that says, see, I'm clearly absolved. It's like they're the same thing, but yet you're both coming to it with, you know, saying completely different. You have people that say, see, obviously all these conspiracy theories were correct, and yet people saying, I can't get there. Like, you know, and so that's what makes a lot of this difficult. And just to use the Epstein files as kind of our example here. But this applies to a lot of stuff. You can look at it and be looking at the exact same news story and two sides will be completely opposed and say, see, this proves this. Like the. The Renee, whatever her last name was, you know that story. Yeah, that one comes to mind. Again, same exact thing where two opposed sides both use that story to say, see, we're clearly right here. And what makes it difficult from a young person's perspective who kind of just doesn't trust what he reads, doesn't really trust the news, is I see people who basically will open up a story like that or look at a story and say, okay, what are the two sides? You know, which side do I more, you know, in the sense of, like, if I'm conservative, what is Matt Walsh saying about this? That's which side I'll go with. Or what is, I don't even know, a leftist? You know, what is Keith Olber saying about it, whatever it is, versus let me look at it myself and think for myself, you know, what are the conclusions that I come to? There's not really much of that. It's more, so what are the two opposed sides saying and which side am I going to join? And so that's what makes a lot of this difficult as well, I think, for Christians. [00:42:30] Speaker C: Hey, guys. 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 Press. [00:43:16] Speaker A: But it's complicated because what stories come out, you know, well, initially, the news reports, and you could say right wing, left wing. It depends on where you find your news. Oh, she didn't even touch him with the car. And then the reports come out like another guy's got, like, broken ribs and things like that. Whatever it was, I mean, it was bad. Like, the car absolutely hit him in that news story. Well, that doesn't initially come out. And so it's like, where do you go to find all the facts? Because they're not going to give you all of those. And so you kind of have to. So in order to make up your own mind, it really is. Where do you get your facts? Because some are going to point to one. The Epstein thing. I was looking at this last night. I was looking at the anti and the pro Trump and the pro Trump. Having that 2006 article of him seemingly absol. Like, that is what absolves him, allegedly, because he lets them know, like, hey, these people are bad news. You need to go after them. I'm so grateful that somebody's onto them. Then there's other things in that file that very much seem incriminating. And his name is use in bad ways. And so. Well, who do you trust or what do you trust in that moment? Well, this one's fake and this one's not. There. There are biblical things we do with this as well that I think we're very. This coming up. Will definitely knows where I'm going with this. Every single time that it's mentioned, it's like, well, that's the bad one and this is the good one. Like, it doesn't work that way, you know, but it's really difficult to parse out. So I think a lot of times what ends up happening is people get down the rabbit hole and you finally go, okay, then nothing matters, you know, and you pull away from all of it completely, which is where a lot of people are getting to. I'm really shocked. Jack, you put out that poll on your Facebook. People didn't seem, like, super duper interested in this to me. This is one of the biggest news stories in, like, the last five years. [00:44:52] Speaker B: But I. I think it's due to. This has been a story for two years and nothing has come of it. And so at this, I mean, I had one of them. It's like, I'm just gonna throw up my hands at this point, like, nothing's ever gonna happen. There's never even with this big drop, what has come out that has been concrete. And nobody's getting arrested for a bunch of speculation. It's still. And what they have. Right, exactly. So that's interested. Like, I, I'll defend the people who aren't very interested. It's like, man, this has been a story for three years and nothing has come of it. [00:45:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:19] Speaker C: So, yeah, I mean, there is the. The kind of two sides of the truth angle of this, and then there's the okay, so what good does it do you angle. So let's stick on the two sides of the truth angle. And this is the, well, there's your side, my side, and the truth. And there's always that case a little bit. But there is going to be. It's going to shade one more than the other. Your side or my side. You know, one of us is a little bit more in touch with reality. And I, I mean, just genuinely, we've got so much evidence right now that reality is more in touch with the right side than the left. You go back to Covid all the things that were lied about, all the. They call gaslighting of just telling you you're not seeing what you're seeing and making things up and stand six feet apart. Well, why do we do that? Well, I don't know. You know, like. And so you go from that and just a million other things. As you say, though, well, she didn't hit him with the car. Well, then the video comes out, okay, well, she did, you know, and okay, why do you keep lying? And so, but that doesn't mean the other side is immune to untruths. I've seen so much stuff that has been run out there. And, you know, like, it'll say, this Epstein email reveals that they did such and such and such and such. And it'll have the screen capture with it. And the picture of the email doesn't say what the guy said. Like, he contradicts. He posted the evidence that he was wrong right under his claim of what he said. And you just go, okay, yeah, I can't trust this. So you do need to be very, very discerning. But I think part of that discerning is knowing, all right, these people almost never tell the truth. These people can struggle to tell the truth. And so, like, you kind of rank your, your approaches to it. And so, I don't know, the, the bad bunny thing, you know, some of the things people say, oh, it was a wholesome it showed a marriage. It had, you know, just this wholesome traditional family thing, like brain dead. [00:47:09] Speaker B: Making that take. Sorry. [00:47:11] Speaker C: It is. Because it's also like. Let me show you the other screen grabs of the way people were dancing up there. Like, this is the gay couple. Yeah. What are we even doing here? Like, and so it tells me if you're willing to do that, you're not honest, you're not interested in the truth. You're trying to score a point here. And that's. That is one of the biggest issues. All of all this is trying to score a point. And who are you trying to score the point with? Who are you trying to score the point over? And it's always the other guy and the people that came out defending. Oh, this is just a beautiful picture of the love of all people. And that. [00:47:44] Speaker B: The banner or whatever. [00:47:46] Speaker C: Yeah, the banner. You know, the only thing more powerful, powerful than love is hate. Like, okay, that. But what do you. What do you mean practically by that? Yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, more powerful than hate is love. But that's great. I guess the. To sum all this up is kind of like. [00:48:07] Speaker B: Why. [00:48:08] Speaker C: What makes a person jump to those sides and not have the discernment to go, okay, let me hit the brakes and just step back for a second again, don't react immediately. And you're going to save yourself a lot of stupidity. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Because it's hard. I mean, it's hard to take in all of the evidence, and it shuts you down very quickly. Because by the time you take in all of the Epstein evidence, the bad bunny thing, it's already moved on. It's the nature of the news. [00:48:31] Speaker C: There's more value in being first than being truthful in a lot of these times. [00:48:36] Speaker A: Because you spent, let's say, 15 hours combing through Epstein, you go, this is my take. Nobody cares. Because there's a billion other people talking about it who got there first, who have a catchier title than you or whatever it is. And so you may be absolutely right. And next week we'll move on to the next news story and it'll be Nancy Guthrie. And next week it'll be something else, and the next week it'll be something else. And so you can spend all your time getting these. These rock hard takes. Like, I've done the research, I've looked at all the evidence. That's the very difficult thing. So we have to be very good at being discerning very quickly. But that takes time as well to get discerning pretty quickly. But I mean, I Mean, the more we talk about it, the more it's like, I understand why people shut down. I do understand, as you said, I know that's to both. That's a different discussion here, Jack. But I see why it would shut people down because it is very difficult to spend the time enough that it would take to see both sides and make the, you know, have a discerning. I've toward it. Sorry. [00:49:29] Speaker B: So to that, Joe, this ties in, I feel like, to what Jack is saying. You had the two halftime shows, right? You had Bad Bunny and then you had the Turning Point USA one. I'll put. Joe, you've been putting us on the spotlight. So, Joe, I'll put you on the spot. Was the Turning Point USA halftime show a good idea? No, because. Okay, see, because that's, that's absolutely my take. And yet what it to the Jacks, let's score a point thing. It very much was. And I thought it was really cool. I was talking to somebody at work who they were watching. They, you know, of course, that's all the. What everybody's talking about super bowl and halftime show. And they were like, honestly, we didn't watch either one. We just chose to worship for those 20 minutes instead of watching the halftime show. Like just, you know, sing praises to God or whatever. It's like, that's really cool. But you had so many people that were rushing to, you know. I think the Turning Point halftime show was just a terrible idea. Personally, I think it sets it up to. Basically, I thought it was pretty cringe worthy. I thought it was like, this is just a kind of. You're, you're putting conservatives in a pretty bad light by trotting up these kind of washed up performers just to try. Just to try to score a political point. Just to. Oh, you know, we're conservative, we're right wing. We're not gonna like if. [00:50:43] Speaker A: Listen, I'm. [00:50:44] Speaker B: I was. As opposed to the Bad Bunny performances. I didn't watch it. I'm opposed to it. It was in Spanish, for goodness sakes. Like, it's ridiculous. Don't watch it then turn it off, whatever it is. Because again, my other take is. Let's not pretend like previous halftime shows have been great. They've been terrible for decades. Like, and so it's never worth watching. Yeah, right, exactly. And so I guess my point is to piggyback on Jack. We were so quitted. People want to score points so bad. Well, I watched the Turning Point halftime show. It's like, I'm gonna look at it and Say they both were really, really bad ideas. Sure, maybe one was less bad idea than the other, but, like, Kid Rock is your headliner. [00:51:16] Speaker A: If you've seen. [00:51:17] Speaker B: Read some of his lyrics, he's, you know, I've used, you know, his moral character. And so this is where I feel like people on the right and just in general, sometimes we can miss the mark is, you know, let's. Let's try to score a point by going to this side when that side ain't great either. And no, they're not equal. I'm not trying to both sides. It. My point is, I think you should be able to look at it and say, okay, I think both were really, really bad ideas and go from there. But it seemed like a lot of people, to Jack's point, that were in support of the Bad Bunny one just to try to score a political point. Like, I'm one of those loving Christians that accepts immigrants. Like, did you read the lyrics in English of what he was saying? Did you again watch the. Some of the performance? Like, it was just. To me, it was a bad night for America all the way around. [00:51:57] Speaker C: Conceptually, I like the idea of an alternative one because there is no counterculture. Like, Christian counterculture has been veggietales and left behind and God's not dead. And so, like, having that. Well, but it's like. But that's not Christian counterculture. When you get Kid Rock, you know, like, conceptually the idea, they wanted to say, hey, we'll offer you a wholesome alternative, but then they didn't do that. And so that's even worse. And so. But yeah, that it is reactive, that it is scoring a point, that it is taking sides. I will say this. I saw a lot of people performatively rush out and go, oh, the Bad Bunny thing was great. In fact, I saw a guy basically praising it. And I celebrate with all my Latino brethren what this means for you. And then later in the day, he took that post. I was like, gee, I didn't realize what he said. My apologies. I didn't, you know, like. Like, yeah, because you had to react. You had to show them that you're one of the good guys. And. And I think that's one of the other sides we can look at. This is the. What Joe Rigney calls the progressive gaze that we're just always worried about what the left Winger's saying. I think I talked about this a couple episodes ago. Like, as a Christian, I have to show every person to my left, hey, I'm cool. I'm like you. And so I'm pro Bad Bunny. Oh, I was against the Trump post in that video. And, oh, the racism. He's clearly racist. Like, you don't have to do all this, you know, to perform in that way. There is right wing performative stuff as well, like Kid Rock or whatever. [00:53:20] Speaker B: Right? That's. Yeah. [00:53:20] Speaker C: All of this is not. I just do see more of it from the side of, like, letting the world know, oh, I'm cool. I'm a good one. And so, you know, where else it. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Gets ridiculous to keep it in the music realm? When Taylor Swift released her. Her album that, you know, took quite a few potshots at Christianity. [00:53:38] Speaker A: Border. [00:53:39] Speaker B: Borderline or was bordering on being sacrilegious. How many, you know, Christians, even ministers, were like, you know, it's such a shame that the church has brought people like Taylor Swift to this conclusion. You know that. [00:53:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it was our fault. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Sorry, Joe, I'm sure you got some thoughts. [00:53:53] Speaker A: No, you're. You're good. Jack posted something, reposted a guy's thoughts the other day that I thought was really good. Who are you afraid of disappointing? You know, who are you afraid of disappointing? And I think the church is strongest when we're afraid of disappointing. Mom, dad, the elders, you know, people. [00:54:11] Speaker C: Within the church, God, ultimately. [00:54:13] Speaker A: Ultimately God. [00:54:14] Speaker C: You know, like, that we're afraid through those things. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Yeah, Correct. And so it's like, you know, if I were to ever walk away from the faith, I'd be really disappointing a lot of people in my life, and I don't want to do that. I'm not looking to. And it's not like that's the only reason I stay in the church, but I think there's a big point to that. This goes to your point, Jack, on the. We're really. I don't want to disappoint my, you know, atheist buddies. I don't want to disappoint my LGBTQ friends. I don't want to. Like, when did that become the worry here? And I do think that public school plays a big part. We'll take as many pot shots of public school as we possibly can. I think that plays a big part in, like, I don't want to let my buddies down. Everybody that sees me here. I don't want to let my teachers down. I don't let. And so it takes. It removes the focal point being the home and being your relationship with God, and it moves it to other people. And I think this. You grow up and you get on social media. Guess who we're afraid of disappointing. I don't want to disappoint the world. I don't want, you know, my co workers to think I'm X, Y and Z. I don't want my, you know, I got a gay buddy on my Facebook and I just think he's going to, you know, get really upset at this. Therefore, I'm not going to say anything about anything else because it might offend them. And so we're really afraid of disappointing. I don't know. I think that's pretty weak. When we have people that are, again, they're quick to rush out to a take. They take a baseball bat to Christianity. If a person is pro Christian, it's like, you know, hey, alright, we tried them out. And if they're anti Christian, well, the church needs to do better. To the Taylor Swift point, like, at what point do we recognize that bashing the body of Christ and trying to win points with the world, a really bad idea? And that just seems like what takes place with all of these news stories is you see a lot of Christians that are quick to run to bashing Trump because that's what's in vogue. Quick to, yeah, standing up for bad money, standing up for immigration and hey, we hate ice, you know, what they're doing and all these things like why? And it goes back to who are you afraid of disappointing? So I don't know. I think it's a question everybody needs to be asking themselves. I thought it was a really good point, Jack, when you reposted it. But fellas, we're about 54 minutes in. I don't know, I don't know if we've rambled. I don't know how everybody feels about, you know, if they're still with us, if you're still here. Thank you. I know we're kicking around a lot of different ideas, taking different angles on the media and things like that. But as far as it goes with the church, I think the ingesting of a lot of this information, it comes so, so fast that people just get used to in one ear and out the other. And so if I were going to say anything else, I don't know if there's other things you guys want to get into. But as I was thinking about it, like it really does boil down to, you got to get your priorities straight. As we talked about, we talked about grounding, we talked about purpose, knowing what you're all about. But I also think that genuineness and consistency matters. Showing up consistently, especially the people in your life, things like that, because so much of this is just in one ear and out the other, and it shows up. And week by week, there's something new to be enraged about. I'd say find the things that matter to you. Let those drive your emotional locus. Whatever you want to say, locus of control. Let those drive your emotions. More than anything else, my family should drive my emotions and my relationship with God and my relationship with the church family and things like that. Not every news event that takes place. I do think it's important to be informed for those that are saying, well, why be informed about any of this stuff? Because it all stinks. I think it's important to be informed of what's going on in the world because those that aren't often are the ones that are duped. Those that are that go along easy. What happened? Kind of. [00:57:32] Speaker B: Their kids are on TikTok, right? [00:57:34] Speaker A: Correct. Your kids want to know. So you do need to be able to be in the know. On the other hand, man, if that's where you're. You're finding all your time going, if that's where you're finding your mental energy, your emotional energy all through that filter, take a step back, get very local. Think about your home, look around your home and go, man, what am I controlling in my life? Very much the Jordan Peterson, like, hey, make your own bed, clean your own room before you go, try to change the world. I'd say make sure your house is in order before you jump on social media and try to get everybody out everybody else's house in order, in my opinion. So I don't know, fellas, any other thoughts? [00:58:07] Speaker B: I think you summed it up well. I'll let Jack wrap us up here. I. I think my thoughts boil down to quit trying to be. Just don't be performative. Like, and that goes for either side, to Jack's point. Like, if you're just trying to be, you know, the guy that, you know, stands with the world and is, you know, you know, turns your back to, you know, slightly turns your back to Christianity so that you can kind of buddy up to the world again with Bad Bunny or whatever. There's been so many. The ICE thing is a great example. Like, a lot of that's really performative and people can just tell, right, you're trying to be loving and not really take a stand on the. On the. Obviously on the other side. I think you can do that as well, like with social media takes or whatever. Like, just don't be performative with. It would be my take and I love what you said Joe, about like. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Is your house in order? [00:58:50] Speaker B: Are your kid. I mean we just had a great, we did a, I think deeper seminar. Leoma Church, Christ, shout out to them, appreciate them. Having us out was a great time. It was a men's day, really good. One of the points we made within that was like not only should you have a kind of Bible study, Bible knowledge type of plan you need, if you're a dad, you need to know what your, what your kids are reading as well and you need to be directing that for them as well. And so if I would say like if those things aren't in order, you need to really pipe down on social media, maybe read a little bit less obviously if things are going great, sure. Maybe that's where you engage a little bit more. Maybe you teach Bible class and you want to bring some of these things in, that's one thing. But those are. Joe, you wrapped it up really well. Those would be the thoughts I contribute to it. [00:59:30] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good stuff. I'll close with the political cost of this kind of stuff. I mean the evangelistic cost of political stuff. That's one of the biggest reasons people say I just don't pay attention at all because keeps me away from people. I don't know that that's as true as people think it is. I think that being on the right side of certain things is put again, it puts a flag out to truth seekers. It puts a flag out to people who are like man, there is evil in this world and I want to know how to combat it and things like that. And so this idea of man, we've just got to shut up about everything. But you need to be careful. You need to be careful not to be saying things that are false. As Will said, you don't need to be performative. People can tell when it's fake, people can tell when it's self serving. People can tell somebody who's just reactive and unstable. Stability goes a long way and you can react to things in the world today and be stable and just have your head on straight and be somebody who's interested in truth. And that is a beacon to those who are seeking truth. That is something that you will reach those in the world around you and so be selective with it, be careful about what you do. But I think there is value in being informed, knowing what's going on, you know, as I wrote recently, John the Baptist knew about Herod's marriage. Jesus commented on some social issues of his day. Paul was very much in tune with the world around him. Be in tune with the world around you within reason. Be careful about what, what you're spreading about, what you're. You're deep diving into. As these guys said, focus on the local, get things done around you. Make sure you're grounded in your relationship with God. And yeah, as we just engage right now, it's Epstein and Bad Bunny and things like that, it's going to be something else by the time this episod out. That'll be outdated and there'll be another outrage cycle going on. Just take stock. Just take stock of where you stand with it. So we're gonna close right there. We appreciate everyone for listening. If you're watching on YouTube as always, hit like hit subscribe. Drop us a comment if you got one and we'd love to hear from you. We'll be back to you to talk to you guys on next week. As always, you can join us in Focus/FocusedPress.org/ to react. Get your comments in and join us for the Deep end on Friday. But if there's nothing else, we'll talk to you guys on the next one.