Get a Backbone

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome to Think Deeper podcast. Jack Wilkie here with Joe and Will once again with a live episode. We mentioned when we did this about a month ago, we talked about and hey, we need to do this more often. Well, usually we record at six in the morning or something like that. Not a lot of live viewers. Nobody wants to get up and watch that. So here we are doing a night recording. Figured we'd go live for this. If you catch this and you're like, I gotta go to bed, it'll be on the podcast feed like usual. Come back for that. Or if you're listening on the podcast feed. Thanks for joining us, but keep an eye out for these lives in case you want to join us and watch when we go live, comment in the section here. If you're watching, leave us a comment in the chat. It's just a nice twist we like doing every now and then. [00:00:50] Speaker C: You know how Netflix shows will have like the cliffhangers at the end that keep people watching late into the night so they don't go to bed. We need to do that every five minutes, I guess just people with a cliffhanger so that they don't go to bed and stick around for the whole episode. [00:01:02] Speaker B: There it is. All right, so what we want to talk about on this week's episode is, and I don't have a title for it yet, we're titling it here on the stream. Get a backbone. But what we think is one of the most critical characteristics, virtues, whatever you want to call it in Christianity, that it's especially important today, but it's always important. And I like this CS Lewis quote to get us started. He said, courage is not simply one of the virtues or one of the virtues, but, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. So everything that you're going to do, standing for truth and loving people and really serving anything that you do, courage has to be the foundation underneath it or it's not going to go very far. It's not going to stand up to scrutiny, it's not going to stand up to pushback. If you're going to do it the right way, if you're going to have, and we're going to be church focused on some of this, but really it's in your home, you need courage in your workplace, you need courage in your personal life. When you, when the doors are closed and you're the only one in there, you need courage to stand up to yourself, to tell yourself the truth and to do the right thing. And so having that backbone is really, really important. We're going to talk about an example of that we've seen in recent weeks. But before we get into that, do you guys have any opening thoughts? [00:02:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say as you think about the society that we live in, having a backbone is frowned upon. Having a backbone, saying things in a very direct fashion is not looked very highly upon. And you look at all kinds of realms of life, obviously being politically correct, not wanting to offend, kind of walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around things rather than to say it, even things like gentle parenting. Because you might think that, okay, well, this is just an episode for guys or for men. And obviously we would believe that men need to have very strong backbone. But I think obviously there's elements of this that apply to women as well, whether it's just standing for truth in general, whether it's standing up to, you know, another woman or another family that's, you know, maybe not doing something correct or, you know, whether it's, again, like, from a parenting perspective, standing up to your kid, standing up to your kids. Again, gentle parenting says basically, don't have a backbone with your kids. Obviously it applies within marriage as far as men standing up to their wives and, you know, not bowing the knee to feminism and things like that. But yeah, I guess my introductory thoughts are just that this need for a backbone is something that is growing increasingly, is growing increasingly with the state of the society that we're in, because it's the society that we're in is constantly telling us, don't have a backbone, don't stand for truth, don't say the obvious, don't use common sense, say what you're supposed to say again, deny common sense and all those things. And so, yeah, the church more than ever now needs a backbone, especially when you consider, as we've belabored before, church is dying collectively. As far as the in the United States of America, the numbers are dwindling. And I would position or my position would be I would put forth the idea that our numbers would be shrinking a lot less if more of us in the church had a backbone, if more leaders in the church had a backbone, if more ministers, elders, parents, dads specifically had a backbone, I think our numbers would be dwindling a whole lot less than they are. So I'll get kind of out in front of you on that pretty early and say, I do think that's a pretty big reason, because we just don't have a backbone in a lot of instances. But, Joe, what introductory thoughts do you have? [00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, I think the church actually discourages a lot of backbone through things like being winsome. The way of the cross. That's not the way of the cross, brother. To maybe stand up and call out sin or to say specific things to specific people like, whoa, we don't want to hurt our witness. Right. So you'll hear things like that. And yes, there's a difference between being an absolute jerk and how you say something versus being bold and having this backbone and having courage to stand up and say things that are unpopular. We really mix that in the church, and we've allowed it to be something that is a negative. And so you'll get that frowned upon. Not just the world telling you you're wrong. The world has a backbone. Actually, the world is the backbone that goes, hey, women's rights. And they're willing to scream it in your face. And that means that we can get abortions at nine months and. And, you know, or at any point. And then with the lgbtq. And so they seem to have more of a backbone where they're send. They'll stand up and proudly proclaim their stuff. But the moment that we step up and go, that's wrong. You get the world shouting us down. And so often you get other preachers, other Christians, other, you know, people out in the world or people in the church saying, brother, that's just not the way we should go about it. You're very angry. Why are you so angry about these things? Like, because we should be. We have a backbone and we want to stand up and do something about it. So that's just my preliminary thoughts is sometimes I think we get in our own way as a church where we are taking the courage away from people, and we wonder why we have those that are flocking to orthodoxy and such that are willing to give more of a backbone to a lot of these people and say things the way that they think needs to be said. So, yeah, I think we could do a better job of that. But, Jack, I wanted to. We'll come back around to what you were talking about. The thing that got us thinking on this is that Hegseth, Pete Hegseth speech. If you have not seen it, make sure to look it up. I haven't seen the whole thing Will was just talking about. It's like a 45 minute speech. I saw several clips of the speech. I mean, the parts that I saw, the several minutes that I saw were fantastic. I think he said so many things that needed to be said. He was courageous and such. But, Jack, I Wanted to kick that off for you. What were your key takeaways? Why did you find that so powerful? [00:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I did a whole video audio thing on it on our YouTube channel. And a couple weeks ago when it first came out, because it really was powerful because you were seeing somebody saying things that, like, difficult truths, truths people don't really like, things that are pretty obvious, like, hey, we need standards in the military. We need to not just let people get away with things, not just let people do whatever they want, but we've also lowered the bar for what's required of people for women and things like that. And we've given promotions that maybe weren't deserved. And we're just going to go back to this is on merit. This is something that we are doing for a reason, which is to be safe, to protect our nation, to protect our fellow soldier, things like that. And so we got to do it right. And I think that to me is the biggest takeaway is you can either, like, have a backbone and constant or consistency with a purpose, like, hey, we're doing this and we're going to stand by it and this is our goal and we're going to do what it takes to get to that goal. Or you can have everybody like you. It's one or the other. And yeah, not everybody liked what he had to say, but you can't argue with the goal that he has in mind. [00:07:55] Speaker C: So two quick takeaways from the speech itself. I would encourage you, if you have time, I understand time is very valuable, but if you have time to watch the whole speech, I would encourage you to watch. Every minute of. Was very, very powerful. But the two thoughts that I had, I mean, one is just how many different aspects of life it applies to. I was founding myself, wanting to send it to some of my, some of my leadership team at work. I wanted to show it to my wife. Obviously, I knew, I knew we were going to talk about it. I think it obviously applies to the church. It just applies to so many different things. The idea of not lowering standards, maintaining standards, calling things as they are, obviously so many different things he covered in that speech. But the other thought that I had, and this is kind of a thing deeper, special than we talked about before. But how many people within the church who listened, who, who either did or would listen to that and say, you know, I just don't like the way he said that. I don't like the tone. I don't like the, you know, I don't really. [00:08:55] Speaker B: I agree with what he said. The way he said, yeah. [00:08:58] Speaker C: And so it's almost as if to kind of nullify the things that he said. And this is where I will, you know, kind of give a plea to. Can we, can we start addressing what the content of what somebody said? Is it right? Is it wrong? Does it need to be said? I mean, I think, to me, that's one of the laziest positions to take, is. Well, you know, you know, I'm not saying it wasn't right or. Well, I'm not saying that I disagree, but, man, I just don't like the way it came across, man. That's, that's, that's, that's the problem. That's why we have so many people that don't have a backbone, is because we're spending all of our time focusing on the tone and the policing of that versus man. Listen, that speech, pretty much everything you said was spot on as far as just, you know, from a, from a conceptual standpoint about, again, not lowering our standards and making sure that we hold those standards high, that we don't have undisciplined, you know, generals and leaders. And he talked about the importance of leadership, like, really, really good stuff. And for somebody to kind of take it and say, well, I don't really like the way he said it, so I'm just going to kind of discount the whole thing. It's a lazy position. And this is. But, but what my takeaway was, once again, this is where the church, I do think struggles quite a bit is that's the, that. That is the takeaway that a lot of people would have, would be the tone policing thing. Joe. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Well, it takes courage, and it takes a backbone to get up and say it. It also takes it to hear it and to be the type that is willing to go, you know what? He makes a point. [00:10:18] Speaker C: I can stomachache. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I can stomach it. Like, I don't necessarily. Like, I don't have to like every part of it to be impressed, to be respected. And I thought it was, again, the parts that I saw and from all the reaction, but it's the ability to stomach those things and to have the courage to say, man, let this encourage us and give us that courage to go on and to be better, especially as a military. Why would you not want that as the military? But as you said, there's so many facets of life that I think the concepts he was bringing forth apply. And the fact that there's so many people that couldn't handle. It's like, yeah, that's the Problem. They have zero courage to be able to stomach those things. Zero backbone to say, man, it may be harsh, he's right. And that goes across the board. You hear this in sermons. Preacher will say something very difficult, and the first thing that gets thrown up is some person has a problem, they're going to go to the elders and take it up with them and it's going to be a big issue. And everything else, like, they don't have ears to hear, as Jesus might say. They don't have this. This backbone to accept the hard truth. That is a job of a leader to do exactly what Hegseth did, which is to steal up your, you know, the backbone of your members and of the people that are around you, of your families, if you're a father, whatever it may look like, so that you can handle hard truths. That is something that's grown. It's not something that is naturally occurring. [00:11:33] Speaker C: Let me ask this, Jack, and then I guess I'll hand it to you here for the answer to this question. Why do you think so many people. And we can focus on the church, of course, maybe even within the family or whatever it may be. Why do you think there are so many people who lack a backbone? Why do you feel like there are so many people who again, would tone police it or who would, you know, again, not be able to stomach those tough things that were said, those direct things. The, you know, he literally said, like, we don't. We don't need fat generals. We don't need fat leaders. Like, I know a lot of people are like, whoa, can he actually say that? Like, yeah, he can. And he's correct. A lot of people can't stomach it. So I'll kind of kick that to you to say, why do you think that is? I'm sure there's a multitude of reasons, but what would you say? [00:12:15] Speaker B: What these things reveal is what our purpose is. And his purpose is we need to keep our country safe. We need to keep each other safe when we're out in battle. We need to rise up, raise the bar. Yeah. He said, our kids are going to die if we don't get this right. And that is his purpose. And when that's the purpose. Yeah, you need people who are in shape. You need people who earned their role. You need all of those things. If somebody doesn't have that backbone, that means their purpose is something else. It's not to win, it's not to protect. It's not. And in the same thing in the church, it's not to please The Lord. It's not to do the right thing and spread the gospel or anything like that. So what is it? Well, usually it's to appease people. It's to keep somebody happy. It's to. Honestly, most of the time, it's to get myself out of trouble, to keep me from having to deal with difficult things to make my life easier. Well, there's cost to that that people just don't see. But. So we don't have that. You see the. The weaponized empathy thing. Well, you hurt somebody's feelings. And that's the. Even when he makes a comment like that in that speech, you know, how dare he say that? That was just disrespectful. Disrespectful to call out. You know, these people aren't in shape. Like. But was he right? Is his point true? Like, those are the questions people don't ask. And I've seen this in church conflicts. You've seen it. You see it across the board. People who don't have a backbone can't ask those questions. They don't ask what's the right thing to do, and they want you to get stuck in those procedural questions. Did you say it the right way? Were people happy with it? Yeah. You know, and there you speak the truth in love, for sure. I mean, we have obligations here. But there's kind of this idea of like, well, but if somebody thinks the truth wasn't loving, then you probably shouldn't have said it. No, the point here is to speak truth. And so there's again, that weaponized empathy of, well, we got to look around and see how everybody's taking it. You just revealed what your real purpose is. [00:14:12] Speaker A: I think we've convinced ourselves, and I think it's easy to convince ourselves that it's more loving to not stand up, that the loving thing is to just endure with one another. Right. To bear with one another as though that's what it's talking about. And so it goes back to what I was talking about at the very beginning of churches. That kind of tamp down. All of the boldness that comes from these guys is that it's. Is that loving? Is that the most loving way we can handle it? And so, yes, the tone, please, comes out. But then we look at it as if I say nothing. And we just try to show by. We lead by example. Don't call it out, just lead by example, and that will bring them out. And this is the servant leadership we rail against, of being on the bottom and the loving thing to do. Is don't actually reprove, don't actually do any of the rebuke exhorters we'll get into. Don't actually do any of those things. Lead from the bottom and really just try to lead by example and push people up. And that's servant leadership. Like, that's not loving. What's loving in this situation is you think about again, the life and death situation when we're in a war. Yeah, I need the most qualified man out there. And if you got passed over in training because you're not qualified, that probably just saves somebody in war. We have to think about the spiritual warfare that we are undergoing. It is not okay to have unqualified people going out there fighting spiritual battles when the preachers are kicking back and doing nothing about this. The church leadership and such. We got to be preparing people for war, giving them the backbone and teaching them that man, it's not loving to just push these things aside. The most loving thing I can do is call you to a higher standard. Even if you don't necessarily, again, like how it's said, that's still the loving, right thing to do. [00:15:41] Speaker C: To piggyback on both of those. I love the purpose point that Jack brought up about if you understand your greater purpose, it's not that the ends justify the means by any, by any sense, but it is that I'm going to. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. And that is including maybe saying some things that are going to hurt some feelings that, you know, including maybe offending some people. And he was of course talking about, you know, keeping your country safe, our kids, you know, sons and daughters not dying. Obviously that applies spiritually. Joe, you were just talking about spiritual warfare. We need leaders within the church who have the backbone to say, I don't really care how it's said. We have got hordes of young people walking away from the church at an unbelievable clip. They're in spiritual danger. They are in eternal danger. Just like Hegseth understood. My purpose is to make sure that our country stays safe and our sons and daughters have a safe country to live in and aren't dying. That's the. Again, to me, that is the number one purpose that I feel like our church leaders need to have is, hey, how do we keep our disciples or our kids Disciple. How do we keep our families? Disciple. How do we take care of the well being of our children and our young people? And if we keep that as kind of the greater purpose, as the overall purpose for us as leaders within the church, it does kind of tell you, okay, maybe I don't need to be worried quite so much about whether this offends somebody. Maybe I need to be more. A little more worried about the truth or about again, doing whatever it takes to make sure this young person gets to heaven. Obviously this applies to again, the homes and dads with their own kids. But it just feels like, and this is a hill that I will continue to try to die on, it feels like that's not the main focus in a lot of congregations is keeping the kids faithful. Yeah, we'll do, you know, we'll do. We'll have a youth group, we'll have a youth minister, we'll throw some youth events. We'll send them to cyc. We'll make sure they're in lads of leaders where, you know, and not that any of those things are bad, but it's like, well, it ain't working according, according to the stats. And so. I love the purpose point, Jack. I think if, if you view it, if you view the Pete Hegseth speech where he was talking about keeping our country and our kids safe in, in the spiritual, you know, put a spiritual lens on it. Keeping your kids spiritually safe, man. To me, it perfectly applies. [00:17:52] Speaker B: You know, the funny thing is, you will always see these. Everybody has a backbone about the thing they care about most, that all of a sudden the people who couldn't take a stand for the truth, they will rage against the person who did take a stand for the truth, and they will turn and oppose that to the death. And the people in the middle who, well, don't really want to, you know, get on anyone's bad side, they will turn and oppose the person who caused the problem by taking a stand. I mean, like, this is textbook. You just see it happen over and over and over. And so if you're going to have a backbone, have it pointed in the right direction is one of the biggest takeaways here. And so with that, it's. I'll add that it's very easy to convince ourselves that's the loving thing to do. Backing down on doctrine, backing down on these teachings the families need to hear. But you know what? If you were a doctor, if you diagnose someone with some terrible disease, it's probably the worst day of that person's life. Hearing that out of your mouth that you have. Fill in the blank, whatever sickness, shouldn't you tell them anyway? Because maybe you have a chance to treat them. Maybe by giving them that information is how you can help them. And they Might get mad at you and storm out of the office and say, I don't want your treatment. Okay. But at least you did your part by helping them. What? It would be the worst doctor in the world to say they're gonna get really mad at me if I tell them they're really sick. So, you know, the loving thing would be to not hurt their feelings and not tell them that. No, you got to have the backbone to tell them that so they have a chance to get out of it. Well, we're doing the same thing with the truth of God's word or a criminal. [00:19:23] Speaker C: You know, like, it would be the. You know, would it be really loving to condemn this person to a life sentence? Like, well, I don't know. Is it just. Is it what they deserve? Like, obviously, there's an element of. And we got a comment here, Jack, if you want to read it here in a second. Exactly. You know, exactly as you're talking about with the doctor example, like, wouldn't that be the best thing for. The best thing for somebody is not always just to kind of further their happiness, I guess is kind of the point there that I wanted to make. [00:19:54] Speaker B: Hey, guys. Jack Wilke here. I wanted to tell you about our seminars at Focus Press. Each of us involved in the work have a series of lessons that we have prepared to encourage churches to help you understand the word better, how to navigate this culture. We cover a wide range of topics, from things like evolution and apologetics to cultural issues to the family to the godly young men. Kind of content that Joe and Will do to church reset, which is, of course, my passion to schedule one of us. Whether Dr. Brad Harab, will Harb, Joe Wilkie, or me, Jack Wilkey. Reach out to [email protected] if you'd like to talk to me or if you'd like to talk to one of the others, I'll pass your information along to them. We'd love to come and encourage your church and put on one of our Focus Press seminars. Yeah, and just a great comment from John here said we don't need feminist men who are scared of teaching and dealing with sin as God has said to do. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Happened so many times. But to get to why this matters so much, let's talk about the costs of lacking a backbone. When somebody caves in, when somebody. For the sake of feelings, when. When there's pushback on. On something and we go, okay, well, we'll give the people what they want. There are A number of costs. And the first one is that bad ideas go unopposed. Whether it's false doctrine, whether it's a new direction or putting the church's resources into something. Or again, all of these. You can go top to bottom with any organization, with the family. If your wife comes home and says, honey, if your husband comes home and says, hey, we're gonna do this, if your kids, whoever it may be, like all of those things, if somebody doesn't have the backbone to stand up and say, no, let's not do that, you're gonna go some very bad places. You're going to suffer some dire consequences. And again, in the moment, the easiest thing to do is just go, I'm not gonna make a scene out of this. It's a snowball. It gets worse. You allow the thing now, it's gonna devour you down the road if you don't take that first stand. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think it's not just bad ideas, though. It's bad behaviors, right? Those get rewarded. The bad ideas are allowed to stand, which is bad enough as is. This is how you get drag queen story hour and things like that. Is there's somebody lacked the backbone at some point to go, what? Absolutely not. So the bad idea. And. And those who really are the progressives are great at this. The Marxists and the progressives and the homosexuals and such, they're really great at this, is they. They throw out an idea. And you see this on, you know, on tv, the way they used to do this, where it's like, okay, they throw out. They love that. The. The one gay character, he's kind of funny one, and he gets ingratiated type of thing, right? And then they. There's another one and another one. And. And so it just grows from there. And it's the idea that wasn't opposed, but it's the behavior that then gets rewarded. When there's a lack of backbone, when there's a lack of courage. It's the same as. I mean, you look at any kid, like any parent that lacks a backbone with their kid. Will mentioned gentle parenting earlier. What does that do? It establishes for the kid, these are my parameters, which basically means I don't have parameters. I can do whatever I want. It's so detrimental to those that are needing. And everybody needs boundaries, everybody needs parameters, but it's so detrimental to those who are desperately looking, such as kids, such as people, you know, underneath a government. What are the parameters here? Yes, we punish those who shoot other people and murder other people like that's. Okay, and we have the backbone to uphold that. But notice what we don't have the backbone to uphold these days. Like again, going back to drag queen story or whatever it is. There's a ton of different examples of like, the behavior ultimately gets rewarded because we're not squashing it. You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. How many things are we just putting up with and rewarding because somebody doesn't have the backbone to get up and say it? And if they did, once again, I'd go to the other side, which is we may have the backbone to say it, we don't have the backbone to hear it. And so Karen and her posse, you know, all of the Karens, no offense to Karens that listen to this, but all of the Karens of the world are the ones that end up getting super upset. And they make us think about it and they go to their local school board and everything else, and you got a bunch of guys on the school board or wherever it may be, they go, okay, okay, you're right. We hurt some feelings and they back down. There's no backbone there. And so this bad behavior just perpetuates. It gets rewarded. [00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll get us into the next one in a second. But it's literally as simple as with kids. If you don't have a backbone with your 2 year old when they are talking back to you or hitting you in the face or just blatantly disobeying you, and you don't have a backbone for that, what's going to happen when the kid's 8 years old? What's going to happen when the kid's 16 years old? Guess what they are going to have been told, huh? My bad behavior. Nothing really happens. I don't get in trouble. I'm not disciplined. And so guess what? They're like, they're going to continue to do it. It's very simple. It's the exact same thing, you know, with what you're taught, with what you guys are talking about. Hegseth, of course, in the speech, really, you know, honed in on the idea of having soldiers and, you know, military who meet a certain standard, who are not undisciplined, who are not out of shape, who are fit, who are able to again, maintain a certain standard. If you don't have a backbone to enforce that standard, then what does that encourage? It encourages undisciplined soldiers. It encourages, again, out of shape, undisciplined, all those things. And so what does that Lead to lower performance, lower execution, poorer performance. That was his entire point. And so you guys are exactly right. The next one obviously kind of tying to that is that good people get shut down. You know, it's the whole idea of, you know, classroom. If everybody get, if the teachers hands out A's to everybody, regardless of, you know, the quality of the work, the quality of the assignment that's submitted, the kids that are actually smart, the kids that are really going to try to put in the effort to make the grade, man, if everybody gets an A, why do I need to try? You know, why, why do I need to really put in the effort if everybody's, if we're all going to get the same grade, if we're all going to get a B, for instance, regardless of the work, why do I need to try? And so similarly, when somebody does not have a backbone to stand up to either something that's wrong or bad behavior, whatever it is, somebody who's on the right track, somebody who is doing things the way that they're supposed to be. Yeah, they're not going to be incentivized to continue because the bad behavior, as you guys just spoke to, the bad ideas that are unopposed, the bad behavior that's rewarded, that's going to rule the day. And so what does it tell somebody? Yeah, you know, well, again, take the parenting example, kid, you know, you get, let's say it's an eight year old that talks back to his parents, still disobeys, hits people, whatever, never gets disciplined. What does the good kid learn? Well, I don't really get anything for not hitting kids or for not sneaking candy or whatever it is. And so I know I'm just kind of further in the parenting analogy, but man, it just makes perfect sense here. And so bad ideas going unopposed, bad behavior getting rewarded, good people getting shut down. And Jack, the last thing we've got on here, I'll hand it back to you, is the incentive structure. You know, what gets rewarded gets repeated. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Right? And if, as you say, church members or of any group, what they see, they're gonna think, okay, either I need to operate that way, I need to be the squeaky wheel, I need to throw a temper tantrum, I need to whatever to get my way because that's what's being rewarded. That's not healthy. You do not want to set that incentive structure in place. But the other thing you see with this is so many times, and I just wrote on this because I Had so many Christians reaching out to me, frustrated with their situations in church. These are the active people. These are the people trying to serve. These are the people really trying to evangelize, trying to get the church closer together or whatever else. And the elders, the leaders, the church, whoever it may be, their minister shuts them down. And meanwhile, the bad behavior is always what they're dealing with, what's being catered to. You know, people throw a fit, people want to get their way. People say, what about me, me, me? And you end up with that. And as you said, same thing in the family, same thing in the church. All of these things happen, and somebody's got to put the foot down. Somebody's got to draw the line. But again, when that snowball has been rolling for 50 years, which we've got a great comment here that I wholeheartedly endorse, the erosion began with elders not having faithful children past 18. That's another one of those. And we've talked about. People get mad about it because our purpose is not having faithful churches, having faithful kids, keeping the next generation saved. That's not our purpose. Our purpose is feeling good about ourselves. And so you allow things like that, which leads to this incentive structure of allowing more and allowing more. And now that we're at this point where all of this has been allowed, anybody who tries to stop the snowball rolling down the hill at 100 miles an hour, a, they're getting hit really hard, but B, that snowball does not want to stop. You know, like, there's a lot of bad reactions that come up. And so, man, yes, it's hard to turn these things around. We have to be ready to. We have to put in that work. And when you see somebody, courage does beget courage. There's that. There's a term preference, cascade or something like that. Like, people might be thinking it, but they need to see one or two people stand up and say, I'm going to take this stand. And then other people might jump on board. But it takes somebody having a backbone. And you think about John the Baptist, right, telling Herod, no, you're not supposed to have that wife. That took serious backbone. You think about all of the Pharisees and Sadducees. None of them could have said that. None of them could have taken that stand. One guy did, and he lost his head for it. I mean, just examples like that. Yeah, yeah. One guy, they go out and kill him, you know, and obviously, thankfully, Stephen emboldened the rest of the Christians to go preaching, so that had A positive effect. But so many times it doesn't. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Sorry, Will you. [00:29:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I was just going to read. So Hecseth had a quote that I wanted to read in relation to exactly what Jack's talking about. He says, and obviously this is in military terms. He says, we've weeded out so called toxic leaders under the guise of double blind psychology assessments promoting risk averse go along to get along conformists. Risk averse go along to get along conformists. And I just. And it's unfortunate. And I know people think, hey, you guys just bash the church all the time. We don't. We love the church. We really love the church. We want to, you know, hopefully point out the areas the church can improve. But this is one of those things where risk averse go along to get along conformist. That does seem to be the philosophy for a lot of church leaders, a lot of elders, a lot of ministers. Let's just go along to get along. Let's keep the doors open, let's keep everybody coming to worship. Let's keep the contribution up, let's not stir the pot, let's. And so the people that do have a backbone to. Again, the first part of the Hegseth quote is they weed out these so called toxic leaders. What that means is the ones that will stand up against stuff, the ones that are not really afraid of controversy, the ones that are not afraid to tell people, sorry, you can't act that way. I was just going back and listening to an episode that we had. Somebody had asked a question about one of our episodes recently. And so I went back to listen to it and it was about the seven acceptable sins, quote unquote, and talked about modesty and how elders, why not just have a dress code for worship? Like this should be something we're able to do. And how many people would get up in arms at a dress code for worship? It's like, I'm sorry, there is a standard. God has a standard. And that's when he. Again, not to keep referring back to the Hegseth speech, but he says in that speech, talking to the soldiers, you guys aren't civilians. You don't get the rights of civilians. You're soldiers. You're set apart. That's what we as Christians are. We're not part of the world. We are set apart as well. And so we should have that exact same mentality of just because everybody else can dress like that, speaking to the modesty point, doesn't mean that I can. Just because other people can act like that doesn't mean that Christians can. And so again, the risk averse goal on to get along conformists. I thought that summed it up pretty well. And you see that, you see that in families as well. Going back to the dad thing of dads that just try to keep the peace and don't stir the pot, just keep everybody happy. It's a problem. It's a serious problem. [00:31:35] Speaker A: I think that's exactly where it comes from. I think I've ranted on this before. You guys are so sick of me talking about attachment. But you know, you go back to women working outside the home, go back to World War II, what you end up getting is a bunch of guys that just want to please mom and a bunch of husbands who are afraid to, you know, get on the wife's bad side. And so it's happy wife, happy life. If mom ain't happy, then nobody's happy. All of these phrases that you hear repeated and you hear this before you ever get married and people think that it's hilarious to tell you all of those things are what keeps guys from having a backbone. Because they know that they're not going to be able to have relations with their wives because that's going to be off the table or their wife is going to have them sleep on the couch or they're going to be in the doghouse or whatever. And they're not willing to stand up in that moment and go, there's no such thing as the doghouse. I refuse to allow that. I'm not going to sleep on the couch. This is my house. Like guys that are willing to stand up to their own wives, that often comes from they have poor relationships with their dads. That's your relationship with your dad will mirror your relationship with yourself. And you got to be strong enough internally to be able to stand up against different things, stand up against bullies, stand up against your wife. If necessary, stand up against even yourself. At times that starts with a guy's relationship with his dad. And most of the time they're just trying to please the mom. They want the mom's love that they never got. And so they will do that with their wives. And then you see the way this is played in church. How many of us know where the elder's wife, there's the elder's wife who runs the church, or little Miss so and so who runs the church. He's always been in an elder's ear. This is a stereotype for a reason. And it happens because nobody wants to stand up and go, no that's wrong. So we go back to the why. And Jack, I know you already covered some of that with the, the weaponized empathy and things like that, but so often I think it's because we have a bunch of guys that cannot stomach the thought of being separated from love and that they don't get the respect from their wife. And so they just play into it and they decide that the way I'm going to get respect, the way I'm going to get love, the way I'm going to get relations, you know, sexual relations, everything else is by keeping the peace and being a good boy and being a nice guy. And nice guys finish last, as they say. I'm all for being nice. I'm all for being kind of. Not at the expense of courage, not at the expense of what needs to be done. So you translate this into the church and once again, you have a lot of guys, a lot of preachers that are there to keep the peace and they want to make sure that people aren't mad at them and make sure that because, and this is, as I'm ranting, where elders have to come in. Elders don't stomach it because elders listen to that. Where somebody comes in and gets ticked and they go, okay, your head's on the chopping block. Very much John the Baptist esque. And they kick the guy out and he's got two weeks to go move states and find another work with his wife and kids because somebody got upset at what he preached. This has absolutely happened. I personally know people that this happened to. And we stomach these things in church and we think that that's okay. No wonder why we have a courage problem in the church when we don't have guys that are willing to stand together to say, absolutely not. Every elder in that room should go, ma', am, that's sinful, that's wrong. You need to either go take it up with him or you're just flat out wrong. They don't have the stomach for it. And because they won't do that, they will sacrifice the easy guy, the guy who's actually trying to do the right thing. And then he goes, man, he gets burnt out. We've had people leave the ministry. We've had people leave church, you know, leave the church because of things like this happening. And it comes back to zero backbone. You have to have a group of guys that are willing to get together and say, I'm here through thick and thin. We're doing the right thing no matter what. The best elderships get that the Worst elderships are just trying to appease everybody. And that goes back to the women, the guys trying to appease their wives at home. And they have no idea how, because what wives want is leadership. They want a guy who has a backbone. They're not pleased with the good boy. They're pleased with the guy who's willing to go out and make things happen and be courageous. And it drives me nuts. [00:35:09] Speaker B: I think it's interesting you bring up the desire to be loved is part of it. And on the back end of this, we're going to talk about fear of God versus fear of man. I think that's a big part of that. But you get into other purposes and we said preserving everybody's feelings, not hurting feelings. But there's always a why behind that. Okay, well, why do you not want to hurt people's feelings? Well, you want to feel loved. You don't want them to hate you, whatever that might be. The other one is numbers, as you said. Well, somebody's gonna leave if we. You're asking the wrong question. And it always comes back to what is your purpose? If your purpose is numbers, then yes, this is logically consistent behavior to try and play the game, to see how many people we can get in, how many people will leave or whatever. If your purpose is what's pleasing to God, which is what it should be, there's ways to go about it. And the nice thing is God's made it really clear for us. And so you can know if that's somebody's purpose or not, because it's very easy. When God tells you how to handle these things, God tells you when to stand up and what stands to take. You know, what, what the prophets did in the Old Testament, what elders are called to do, why, why we need elders, all the things that, that are there. And so really on that, that idea of why there, there's a bunch of different whys, and none of them are good ones. None of them are that main why, which is let's do what God says. [00:36:21] Speaker C: Jack, you've got at the end of our outline something about the idea of people that act backbone in the Bible. And I'm not trying to jump the outline here. [00:36:27] Speaker B: No, bring him in. [00:36:28] Speaker C: But as I think about Jesus and I think about all the things that he said and all the interactions he had, obviously our minds typically go to the scribes and the Pharisees and kind of the way that, you know, he really had a backbone against them, and obviously the overturn of the tables in the temple and obviously that's important. Think about the things that Jesus said that elicited so many different reactions. You obviously had the Pharisees and the scribes that hated him. You had people that, you know, you know, people that sought after him, that wanted to make him king, that were, you know, kind of in a frenzy following him. You had disciples that left him in John 6 because he said something that was difficult. They didn't want to kill him, they didn't hate him. But they're like, you know what? We're out because of what this guy said. Jesus had the backbone to say whatever he did say. And the truth, the truth of God's word, the truth that he came to speak, regardless of people's reaction, regardless of, again, John chapter 6, 6, 66, they walked with him no more to the point where he turns his disciples, his apostles and say, and says, basically, you're going to leave too. And then of course, Peter with the, the very famous statement, it's not like he said, man. Well, if I say this, people are going to leave, man, I'm going to lose all these people that have come with me. I guess I just won't say it. He didn't do that. In Matthew 23, when he is ripping into the scribes and Pharisees, he's, you don't see him go, man, man, is this really what I should be saying? I mean, they were not going to like this all that much when he's, when he's on the Sermon on the Mount and he is completely, you know, to their ears. Obviously he wasn't necessarily doing this, but kind of uprooting a lot of the Jewish teaching of the old law and saying, hey, you've heard it said this, I say to you, this, completing, fulfilling the old law. Taking a step further, a lot of people would have heard that as contradictory. He wasn't self filtering saying, man, what are they? What is their reaction going to be? And so you've got several other examples on here, but I wanted to highlight, when you think about Jesus, it does go beyond just the scribes and the Pharisees that hated him, wanted to kill him. It's even again the people in John 6 that just left him because of the difficult things he said. He was not constantly overanalyzing the reaction to what people are going to say. And then this is the fundamental difference between men, sometimes is the men that will say what is true. That's what I'm going to say and that's what I'm going to present and stand for. And You've got other men that say, what is everybody's reaction going to be? You know, what is the reaction going to be if I say this versus is this true? If so, I'm going to say it. And so that's the fundamental difference to me. But I wanted to bring in Jesus there because it's all over the Gospels. He had a backbone, obviously, more than anybody else in the Bible. [00:39:00] Speaker B: Well, the funny thing is he's presented as not as, you know, that everybody liked him. And I saw a thing today, it said where people say, you know what? If you Christians were all more like Jesus, everybody would love you. Like, yeah, they killed Jesus. This is not how it works. And he wasn't a controversialist where every day he was looking to go out and throw out the hottest take to get people mad. But he also, as you said, did not shy back. He said what needed to be said in the moment. I'm reading a really great book on leadership called A Failure of Nerve, where he's talking about how organizations go through this and people throwing their fits and people trying to get their way. And he said the number one thing, and this guy was a therapist and a rabbi and like, all of these different political consultant. I mean, like, he's done basically any organization you can conceive of. He has worked to help them have cohesion and work together. And he said, these organizations aren't different. They all work the same way in that if they have a well differentiated leader, they're healthy. If they don't, if he is dependent, if he's looking around, if he's taking a poll, if he's checking the way the wind's blowing, they're not gonna go. They're all gonna be, you know, competing and fighting against each other for control and things like that. But if he has purpose, if he knows who he is and what he stands for, everybody else falls in line. Like they can get with the program and not they can leave if they want, I guess. But, you know, as far as the functioning of the organization, it works when he has that because that allows everybody else to find their role in what he and the vision that he has set and to conform to it. If he's conforming to them, then they're going to lose themselves. And so this is a beautiful picture of the body of Christ as the head and the church as the body. In 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 and Ephesians 4, where it talks about those body parts that every individual has a part to play, that what every joint supplies. You have to have that well differentiated leadership. Well, Jesus provides it, but then he trickles that down to us through elders and preachers and that list he gives there in Ephesians 4:11. If they're not well differentiated, if they don't have a purpose and say, this is what we do here. This is how it's going to be, nobody's going to have the opportunity to be what every joint supplies because they're all going to be just basically what we did. An entire episode on the choose your own adventure Christianity. I get to do whatever I want. If I want to be a squeaky wheel, that's what I'm going to do. If I want to slide out the back door, that's what I'm going to do. You've got to have that purpose as leaders. And so I'm adding on to your point there, Will, that Jesus demonstrated this better than anybody. He knew what he was here for. He didn't let anybody knock him off that purpose. He didn't ever calculate popularity contests. He didn't ever take a poll. In fact, when he did, he asked him, who do people say that I am? Well, they say you're this or that. Well, you're this. And immediately he turns around and rebukes Peter. Right after that, after he praises Peter. [00:41:51] Speaker C: For his answer, he turns around and. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Calls him Satan, you know, because he wasn't afraid of Peter's. He wasn't desperate for Peter's approval. And so it was all about the purpose. Hey folks, you've probably heard us talk about Focus plus and the Deep End. If you're wondering what that is, Focus plus is our subscription service available through Patreon. Every week members get all kinds of Christian content for your walk, including daily devotionals, a sermon of the week, and our understudied teaching series, which Joe and I lead through observation and less covered books of the Bible like Leviticus and Revelation. We also have the Deep End, of course, which is our bonus segment exclusively for Think Deeper listeners, where you can submit your comments on an episode and we will respond and have a bit of a Q and A each and every week. That drops every Friday. So if you're interested and want to know more, check that out. Go to patreon.com and search focus or go to focuspress.org/plus. [00:42:48] Speaker A: I love that. Well, definitely differentiated good therapy term there. As, as you get into that concept. Like I think the the key is knowing, as you said, knowing your purpose, knowing it from God. Because what as you were talking, what went through My mind is like Daniel and Joseph being in these high levels of leadership because as you're talking these, these leaderships and we're talking guys that are like second in command to the biggest nations in the world. What did they have on their side? How, how did they have the well differentiated? They knew exactly where their power came from. They knew exactly who they were and what their goal was. And it's like Joseph clearly points back to. Yes, I have. I can interpret these divisions based on God. He gives all the glory to God. Daniel is the same way. He's praying to God, right? He even in the midst of the lion's den, he's praying three separate times. So you see these guys that are so grounded in their faith and they're grounded in God. It's the faith in God that creates for the well differentiated. Whereas we're talking about the faith in men, the faith in numbers, the faith in, in so many things. As we think about the church and the lack of courage in the church, the faith in the women liking the message or whatever it may be. We put our faith in a million other things rather than just in what does God want, as you guys talked about. But that's the key when you see these leaders is knowing who they are in Christ. Yes, Christ himself knowing who he is in God. But leaders who know who they are in Christ and they understand the call of Christ, which is men, you may be put in a position to. For the husbands, you're put in position to lead your wife, for the elders, you're put in position to lead your church. God is going to put you in a specific position to be the courageous person you need to be. If you are a woman, God has put you in the position to courageously and boldly submit and to follow. So God will have you exactly where he wants you. And if the closer you get to him, the more relationship you have with him, the more you're going to understand your own place. And that's going to create well differentiated. So yes, the leader needs to be well differentiated. He will then help all of the followers be well differentiated because he can help them better understand their own place in the system. And that is the purpose is the individual matters. But the individual also knows who he is within the system. And those two things create, well, differentiation. And if you know the system, but you're kind of lost and bouncing around and where do I fit? You look at how many people in the church don't know their own spiritual gifts. They don't know where they fit. They don't know what, what courage would even look like for them. The well differentiated leader can disseminate that or what's the term I'm looking for? Like, can basically bring that information down to the people underneath. And that's what Jesus did best, is he takes his twelve apostles and he gets this information out to them and allows them to go be well differentiated on their own. And clearly they do. So I think that's the goal, is to create these leaders. And this goes to Jack. I don't know if you could put that up. Grace's comment, it's a great comment on, you know, mentoring the younger generation. We want to train up the next generation of elders who to your point, Jagger and to the point of the book, Failure Nerve are well differentiated. And that's going to start with a consistent eye for how do we get them to think outside the box, how do we get them to have a deep relationship with God and how do we get them to crave pleasing God more than everything else? And if we can build that out, that's going to start from, yes, the Father and the parents in everybody in the church being on the same page. And how do we get that elderships, you know, how do we get the elder, like it just trickles down, I suppose. [00:46:02] Speaker C: So I want to bring up something. I know we're probably getting close to the end here and now we're about the 45 minute mark. But it can be very easy to feign having a backbone to kind of pretend, maybe not pretend, have a backbone in the wrong place, be bold. But it's kind of a fake bold. The example I think of this is, this is a Joe classic. Loves bringing this up of the. The dad who sends his daughter out on a date but says, you know, I'm gonna have my shotgun, you know, at the house, you know, wait, you better have her back by 10 o'. Clock. And it's, it's a very fake, bold, like manly thing. Like first of all, you're sending your daughter out with a 17 year old, you know, for four hours. But yeah, sure, you're the tough guy with the shotgun. Like, give me a break. But yeah, it kind of, it's fake protection, right? It's fake, you know, manliness. And the dad's really not doing his job. Where that, you know, kind of metaphor brings me here is the idea of like, yeah, I'm really, I have, I have a strong backbone against instrumental music or against homosexuality or again, you know, like things that are not that controversial. You know, you get up in most churches of Christ, you get up in the pulpit and preach a hellfire and brimstone sermon on homosexuality. Not going to get a lot of disagreement. [00:47:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:18] Speaker C: Not that we shouldn't preach on, obviously, it is an abomination. Right. But you're not going to get a lot of disagreement. Or again, about instrumental music or about baptism. Important topics. But listen, if you're in a church of Christ pulpit most of the time, that's not going to be controversial. That can be somebody kind of thinking that they have a backbone when it's like, yeah, it's easy to quote, unquote, have a backbone if you're saying things that is not controversial. What's more controversial, to relate it back to some of these points is to say, hey, Christian girls, quit wearing two piece bathing suits to the beach. Hey Christian guys, quit taking your shirt off at the beach. Hey Christian parents, quit sending your kids away for 12 hours a day and letting the world disciple them. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Hey. [00:48:00] Speaker C: Christian couples, make sure that you are actively discipling your kids by not letting them watch certain shows or whatever it is. Like, that's the controversial stuff. That's the really difficult things to say. But getting up and saying, you know, I don't care what the Baptists say, we shouldn't be using a guitar in worship, regardless of if it's true, which it is. That's not, that's not boldness. That's, that's not having a backbone. And so these are familiar themes and concepts that we've talked about throughout the Think Deeper history here, the catalog, so to speak. But I think it's important to bring up here in the, in this instance of, yeah, you can, you can have a backbone on issues that aren't really all that controversial. That doesn't make you bold. Whereas again, Hegseth coming out in a speech and saying, no more fat generals, sorry if you're a woman and can't make the cut is what it is. You know, like that that's controversial. And he had the guts to stand up and say that. And so, Jack, I'll hand it to you. You put that on the outline. What thoughts do you have kind of on that concept of pretending to have a backbone or kind of, again, the, the dad with the shotgun type of backbone there? [00:49:03] Speaker B: Yeah, the boldness is like the potential cost. Is it going to cost you to say this? Is there going to be backlash? Are you going to have to deal with something? You kind of see that sometimes that. You know what, I don't care. Anybody who hears anybody I don't care who hears me say it. And they just say something that everybody in the room agrees with. Like, cool. You know, that's great. And you see this in politics too, you know, like speaking to all of their supporters, like, well, this is just how it is. And yeah, of course they agree with that, you know, and that's fine. Like, that's. It's okay sometimes to have the circle the wagons, rally the troops kind of thing. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Sure. [00:49:40] Speaker B: But there is that boldness, taking stands on things that aren't really that pressing. The other side is lack of specificity of man. I'm gonna get up and I'm just gonna say, we got to talk about this. And this came up on our Charlie Kirk episode. You know what? Political violence is bad. Yeah, it is. [00:49:59] Speaker C: Get specific with it. [00:50:00] Speaker A: Right? [00:50:00] Speaker B: Get specific as we talk about the time. Don't give me this both sides ism. Don't give me this. Well, you know, I. We're just gonna get generically gloss over it and say that we did. No, the courage, the cost here is in saying something that some of the people who are on the wrong side of this are gonna have a problem with. And there's. And not just about that one issue, but on all kinds of things. And I really love the way a guy said it. I heard it on a podcast or a lesson I was listening to recently, where part of the gospel message is the call to repent. Repent of what? And when we won't address the sins that people love, the sins of the people in our pew, when we won't address the sins of the outsiders. And we want them to just kind of come in and kind of like us, you know, be cool with us, let them know that we're the cool Christians, that, hey, you know, you're safe here. You're not calling them to repent. And even if you say the word repent, if you won't give those specifics of what it looks like for them to repent, that's not boldness, that's not backbone. And so the performative but fake, really cost free backbone, that's not cutting it. And especially in this day and age, that is something that people can sniff out a mile away. They really can see when a guy is up there kind of patting himself on the back for courage of a take that nobody in his orbit has any problem with, or even a guy. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Who, like you said, is him hawing. And given. I think the specific point really hits home because we see this a lot of like on the political spectrum so you think about last year and the election that took place. A lot of preachers getting up. Not the. What is it? Not the elephant, not the donkey, but the. The lamb or the lion. [00:51:45] Speaker B: The lamb. Yeah. [00:51:46] Speaker C: In. [00:51:48] Speaker A: Okay. But at the end of the day. Well, you know, I'm just going to be bold and saying it like, we have to follow Jesus. Thanks, Sherlock. We get that one. That doesn't mean that. That doesn't mean that we don't follow Jesus or. I'm not mocking that. I'm mocking the idea that, like, boy, that's a real controversial. Take note. The controversial thing, and the bold thing is to say you cannot be a Democrat. You cannot vote for. For a Democrat party as a Christian. You just can't. Doesn't mean you have to vote for the other one. That. That may be a. You know. Wow. You can't say those things. You absolutely can't. The. The party that's going to support lgbtq, the party that supports abortion, the party that supports everything. Well, the other party as well. And then we get into it and it shuts everything down because the other party does it just much like. No, they don't. They genuinely don't. My. The. The party that. That is, you know, that was in charge back in 2016 shut down Roe v. Wade. The party that's in charge now is shutting down all sorts of craziness and the military stuff and everything else. So, yeah, let's not. Let's not do the. Both sides is as well. They both do it type of thing. And then we hide behind and we say we're bold, but we hide behind all the generalities. That doesn't help anybody. But the other one that you see sometimes it just grinds my gears is somebody who's bold, but they're kind of too late on the take. Like, it's easy to be bold now, now that it's come into the public consciousness. The zeitgeist, maybe, as you might say. Like, now everybody's saying it. Yes, I'll come out and say it. Where were you? [00:53:07] Speaker B: I'm going to say you're going to see that a lot in the next few years. You're going to see guys that got mad at us for talking about feminism three years ago running out there talking about feminism. Yeah. You saw the same thing with COVID. [00:53:17] Speaker A: Say Covid is the thing that comes to my mind. [00:53:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:20] Speaker B: The takes that we're going around in 2020. Some of these guys, 2022 got up. We can no longer afford to not do the work of the church. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Like, you're two years late, bro. [00:53:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:28] Speaker B: Good for you, buddy. You know, like, everybody's been back in the building for a year at this point, and now you're. You're coming out, letting everybody know. No. And that was. People always say name names. That was the Christian Chronicle, you know, my favorite newspaper. But just I. My jaw dropped when I saw that. But you're right. I mean, the too late thing, and this is with all of this, it reminds me of that C.S. lewis quote about the. From the Screwtape letters of, like, get them running around with fire extinguishers when there's a flood. Basically, they're going with the wrong tool for the wrong problem, or the right tool, I guess I should say, for the wrong problem. And so when you hear things like, you know, feminism or whatever, or you hear a sermon on Ephesians 5 in marriage and you're gonna. The husbands are gonna get hammered for being overbe. That's not so much the culture that we live in. The idea of. A while back, they had that term the idolatry of the family. Christians just make an idol out of the family. I think we're going the other direction. [00:54:26] Speaker C: Actually, with our 1.7 kids on average. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And people not getting married and putting it off and all those things. Like, come on. But again, you're taking a bold stand on the things that the world will pat your back on. That the people outside your doors are going to go, oh, yeah, cool. Good for you. They're not coming in your doors. The people who are in there, the people who have come to hear the gospel message, they want to hear it. And yes, some of the people are going to get mad, but that's part of it. That's part of having a backbone. Another great comment here. We really appreciate you guys. It's getting late, but I'm glad folks are still tuning in with us. Said heard recently, if you aren't being persecuted for your belief or stance and you aren't even standing for the things Christ stood for because Jesus said you'll be persecuted, if you follow me. And that is one. When you look at it like, oh, well, there's not that much persecution. No, the persecution you're gonna get is from cultural lukewarm Christians. If you're not getting that, then you aren't saying those things. [00:55:23] Speaker A: That's a great take. That's a great take. That's what we talk about. Church trauma and people leaving the church and how difficult it is to see. I hate to say it, that's where exactly, as you said, you're gonna get the most pushback is from Christians. Because most of the time, yes, the world is going to push back, but they kind of. The world's the world. We kind of come to expect that it is the pushback from the Christians. If you can't say those things, and that's wrong, and, you know, you might offend so and so, like, and then you end up being the, again, the jerk and the non conformist and the one that everybody kind of looks at skeptically or whatever in your church. And that goes to the point that you made, Jack, I think you text me about what, like, five different people that reached out to you over the course of a week where these things are taking place. They're trying to take bold stances. And it's the Christians in their church telling them basically to sit down and shut up. That hurts. That hurts. And so there's a lot of people that are dealing with that. The bold thing is continue. You got to continue in that. And yeah, you might face persecution, but to Brandy's point, that's just the way that it is. You know, that as Christians, we are going to be persecuted from time to time, even from those within our own. Our own congregation sometimes. And so the hurt is real, but the boldness, that shouldn't wane. You know, our boldness shouldn't wane because of the persecution we're facing. If anything, just say, man, we've hit the spot because the right people hate me, if that makes sense. [00:56:40] Speaker C: I got two final thoughts. The first one is, you know, probably an unnecessary qualifier to add, but, like, I'll speak for all of us when I say we're not saying be abrasive on purpose or be unkind or, you know, just go around, you know, looking to verbally beat people up necessarily. That's not it at all. What we're saying is stand for truth and be bold in your stance for truth. Because what you're going to find. This is where I'd really, again, last point I'll make is that I think the church misses the mark when they think, hey, the nicer we are to people, the better our evangelism will work if we can just get them to like us. If we can just kind of present a neutral, you know, overall positive, again, just good front, man, the world will like us. People are going to be drawn to the bold stances for truth. You might not agree with everything Pete Hexth said in that speech, man, when I listened to that, I was like, yeah, I would follow that guy if I was, you know, in the military. That's. That's, you know, I don't want to follow a leader who's kind of wishy washy and clearly saying manicured things to try to get people to like him. No, nobody wants to follow that. I think our evangelism, our witness to the world, right, Is kind of the. The buzzword there. Our witness to the world, the way that we can again disciple our kids. The bolder we are, again, not abrasive, not unkind, not anything like that. But the bolder we are, the more backbone that we have in our stances for truth. That is appealing. That is something that people are going to want to follow. Again, going back to Jesus, Jesus did have a lot of followers because he said those things. They did leave him at some point. And I think that's, you know, it's not to say that you're going to be the most popular person in the world, but I do think that is what people are looking for, is somebody who will speak the truth boldly and have the backbone. And so I guess that point I'm trying to make is that I think it'll do more for our evangelism than we think it will in the sense of kind of the appeal to the world. [00:58:28] Speaker A: You can't read the Apostle Paul any of his letters without going, man, that guy is bold. [00:58:32] Speaker C: He had some backbone. [00:58:32] Speaker A: He has some backbone. [00:58:33] Speaker C: He had some backbone. [00:58:34] Speaker A: He went out and said it and didn't really, man, you got to figure. [00:58:39] Speaker C: Out how many of the people that Sorry that Paul called out. He called out Peter. He called out Yodi and Syntyche. He called out by name, like Demas. He called out like, he's just calling people out left and right without any. [00:58:53] Speaker A: Hesitation, not including the entire Corinthian Church. [00:58:57] Speaker C: The church of Galatia. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah, like, you know, he just said it and you look at it like, wow, that's so mean. That's what was necessary at the time. And that's really what boldness comes down to, is we are rising to meet the needs of the moment. And the need of the moment in that situation was, man, the folks in Galatia had to get it together. They are deserting and taking a false gospel, the judaizing gospel. Yes. The moment did not demand for, hey, let's get together and sing Kumbaya. Let me talk to you kind of softly about it. It's like you stand condemned is what he tells peter in Galatians 2. But, you know, as he tells them, like, Accursed is the word that he uses. Anybody who comes in to preach a different gospel should be accursed. And that's exactly what you guys are buying into. And that takes boldness. You look at these struggles of the time, you have to rise to meet the moment, and the courage and backbone demands we rise to say these things are wrong. Feminism in the church, all of those things. This is. It's, it's. And we got the comment on birth control and things like that. Vaccines, like these are real topics, real issues people need bold stances on. I love your point, Will. On the evangelism. It's the same thing as the nice guy is going to make for a really good husband, really good father. Most of the time, that's not what the woman actually wants. She wants a guy who's kind, but she wants a guy who's bold. She wants a guy who will lead her. And the same thing, I think, for those that are coming to Christ is they want to see a boldness that is. That is going out and making a difference in the world that is going to attract people way more than just, hey, I met a nice person once. There's a lot of nice atheists as well. A lot of nice people that don't believe in God. What's going to be different about us, man? We're boldly proclaiming and living out our faith, and that will attract the right people. Jack, any other closing comments? [01:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah, just two to finish. One, Everybody can give lip service to this. Oh, yeah, do the hard thing, say. Say the hard truth. Say the thing that needs to be said. But when somebody starts doing it, it's a whole different matter. Then all of a sudden, well, but that person got upset like, well, hang on, we got to rethink this whole thing. You know, I knew of a church situation with a guy that was doing 100% the wrong thing and got up and gave a sermon on do the right thing. Even when nobody else you know is standing with you, you got to take that stand. Like, you know, this is where push comes to shove. It goes back to that quote we started with. The courage is the testing point of all the virtues. So, yeah, it's easy to amen this, go out and do it. And when people start throwing stones, then what happens? It's that whole everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. What are you going to do? And that brings me back to my second point. What is your purpose? It is at that point you figure out what your purpose is. Is it to be liked? Is it to smooth, you know, coast by smoothly without any, any bumps in the road? Is it to keep everybody happy? Is it to keep the numbers up? Or is it to do what God wants? Is it to keep the Lord happy? That needs. If that's not your number one, you don't need to be anywhere near decision making, advocating, anything like that. You need to get behind people who are willing to do that. I mean, Paul told the elders in Ephesus, you're going to have to fight off savage wolves. This is not for the faint of heart. We got to do it the right way. You got to have that purpose to say this is the right thing. We're going to do what God wants. So we're gonna have some more to say on this. I don't know if it'll be next week, but there's always more to say. As Will said, this kind of ties everything deeper topic together. It's not just the testing point of all the virtues. It's like the testing point of everything deeper concept we talk about is can we stand? Can the church stand behind these truths? And so there's some more to say. Whether it's next week or after, we'll see. But I really want to thank those who tuned in live. Again, that's kind of a special treat. We don't always know when we're to do that, but if you're catching it on the podcast feed, be sure to keep an eye on our Facebook page. You never know when we'll pop up and you can join us in the comments. If not, though, there is always the deep end every week on Focus plus, where you can get access to an exclusive episode. Ask us your questions, leave your comments. So check that [email protected] plus if there's nothing else, we'll go ahead and wrap with this one. I'll talk to you 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.