Kennedy, Mangione, Trump, Diddy, and More - 2024 In Review

January 01, 2025 01:01:52
Kennedy, Mangione, Trump, Diddy, and More - 2024 In Review
Think Deeper
Kennedy, Mangione, Trump, Diddy, and More - 2024 In Review

Jan 01 2025 | 01:01:52

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Show Notes

We review the biggest headlines from 2024, including:

and more!

With Will Harrub, Jack Wilkie, and Joe Wilkie

Check out our sponsor at cobbpublishing.com

Donate at focuspress.org/donate

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome into the Think Deeper podcasts presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host Will Hare, joined by Joe and Jack Wilke on the last Think deeper episode of 2024. That is crazy to think about. Guys, we are going on the end of our third full year. I want to take this time to just thank all the, the deep thinkers, all of our listeners that are with us every single week and participate, whether it be on social media, YouTube or you know, our, obviously our Patreon subscribers who give us our comments. Thank you for being with us for three years. It's been great. Normally we do, or at least we have in the past done kind of a year end review type of episode where we talk about goals, maybe resolutions and things. If you want like a kind of a full episode surrounding that, just check out the Golly Young Men podcast because Joe and I are, that's dropping tomorrow. Joe and I have an episode about that. Um, we're going to do something a little bit different today as far as kind of our last episode of the year. Something as far as I remember we have not done before. And that is we're just going to kind of be taking a look at what, what, what majorly happened in the culture in 2024, what are some, some major news events, what are some big time things that were kind of on people's minds across the year 2024 and just kind of give kind of our reaction to them, our takes on them, maybe rapid fire some of these things. We got a lot of good, good things on here. Again, these are things that dominated the headlines. These are things that if you are a social media user at all, you have probably, I mean you, for at least a week or so. These were stories that were, were probably on your Facebook perpetually, your ex or whatever social media you're on. And so yeah, that's, that's the purpose of, of the episode today is we're just going to kind of be talking about a lot of those things. So Jack, I'm going to kind of hand it to you to get started with. The first one we have on here is definitely as far as recency goes, the biggest news story over the last month or so. And I should have asked, I don't know if you have guys have any other introductory thoughts to the end of the year and three years would think deeper, move right past that. But if not, Jack, you can go ahead and go get us into that first, first topic that we have. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it is pretty wild. We've come this far. I was going to say our brief list of honorable mention did not make the the cut for what we're going to talk about the ongoing wars, obviously. Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, the AI continued rise. We did an episode on that about a year and a half ago. That's just kind of continued on. We're not going to talk about that. There was the eclipse this year, which was fun, but what do you. What are you going to say about that? God's really cool creator, but that's about all we had on that. The Baltimore Bridge collapse again, not a whole lot of takes to be had. And then, of course, the Chiefs winning the super bowl yet again because the NFL knows how to write a script, right, guys? So we're going to set those aside and talk about some. First of all, the Luigi Mangioni murder of the CEO of Health United. Did I get that right? I need to look that up. The Health United CEO, Healthcare United Healthcare United. Thank you. And on video, cold Blood in the street. And immediately became a hero of sorts to people of people supporting the guy and praising the actions and saying we need more of these and threatening other CEOs and where's the guy who's going to take out musk and things like that? A pretty wild thing. But. And I think this is a great addition, Will pointed out this has also happened at the same time as Daniel Penney, the man who took on an assailant on a New York City subway. The assailant later died and Penny was put on trial and was acquitted. And so people were kind of saying these are two sides of the same coin or you support one or the other. And yeah, vigilante justice is kind of the talking point. But there's a lot going on here. But especially the celebration, I guess, of making this Mangione guy a cult hero. Let's get into that a little bit. [00:03:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I find the vigilante justice to be very interesting. I'm glad we haven't seen more of it, to be honest with you, in the day and age where we live with Marvel superheroes and everything else, I'm glad we haven't seen more people try to do this. The shocking part to me was how big this went in terms of positivity. You know, positively looking at this man of fighting for justice because this CEO of this health care company who, yes, has his own family and yes, has made his own decisions and, you know, good, bad or otherwise, like he's a human being that does have value. And how many people are willing to throw it out the window because he's rich and because he works for a health care company that has hurt a lot of people. Okay. We could also easily make the case that there's health care companies that have helped a lot of people. It's less about that. It's more about the response to. Even if he ran a company that you know is bad, is it right to go kill the man in cold blood? There's a lot of guys that run a lot of bad companies around the world. Is it right to kill him in cold blood? This vigilante justice? And you had so many Americans who were so willing to, to jump to it that the first thought that I had in my mind is, Chuck this one up for another win for Jack on the Critical Theory episode. This is like, it's the power structure. Well, he's rich and powerful and works for an evil company, big corporation that does a lot of bad stuff. Therefore, we can do anything to him or even to his family, as you see in this, you know, some of the stuff that gets called out and such. We can do anything these people. And it's all justified and its ends justify as means. Like, because he's a bad guy, we can just kill him in cold blood. The, the biggest thing is like, Christians have to know we stand against that, even though we don't necessarily agree with everything that this guy did. And yes, the man's a sinner and yes, he's. I'm sure he's made some bad decisions all along the way. We as Christians have to stand up and say that is wrong. We don't take justice into our own hands. We have a government for that. There are systems and they say, well, the government's failed us. They backed these people. And yeah, maybe there's some legitimacy to that. In no way does that give any justification to go shoot a man in cold blood. I'm just shocked at how many people, Americans and I think some Christians that have gone along with this. [00:05:51] Speaker B: I wanted to add this data before. Will you get in here? A survey was done of 18 to 29 year olds. 41% of them viewed the killing as somewhat or completely acceptable. 40% somewhat completely or somewhat or completely unacceptable. So more 18, 29 year olds viewed it as a favorable or at least semi acceptable thing than not. That's just crazy. [00:06:12] Speaker A: That's wild. Yeah. I mean, what I couldn't get past because it felt to me like this story and then the Daniel Penny story were pretty well kind of going on simultaneously or at least kind of. My social media intake and news Feed. I was kind of seeing a lot of both. And what really struck out or what really stuck out to me, what really struck me is kind of the parallelism that was going on in the sense of like you have one guy who, you know, in Daniel Penny's case, who did he, he did things that led to the death of an individual. But it was for, you know, this individual was threatening to shoot, kill people. Like it was a, in a way, kind of a self defense type of thing. Really not even just a self defense, trying to protect other people. And you know, there's. You have that side and then you have the other, this other side with this Luigi. And I apologize if I don't pronounce it correctly. Mangioni. Is that how it's. How it's pronounced? Who, as Jack said on video, just guys walking down the street just kind of shoots him. Cold blood, no self defense, nothing going on. And to me there's a clear stark contrast between those two. Again, one guy is. Is threatening to shoot up a bus and kill a bunch of people or whatever it was. And, and so he is stopped and the other guy's just walking down the street. And yet what y'all been talking about, the celebration of one versus the criminalization of the other, the kind of ostracization, I should say, of Daniel Penny and the celebration of Luigi Mangione. What it really, and I know it fell kind of along political party lines, but what it really got me thinking about, guys, was just kind of the, the. The scripture that talks about those who call evil good and good evil. And the way that we kind of backwards sell, like what we celebrate nowadays is just so backwards in American culture and American society of this guy who again, walking down the street, Mangioni just shoots him. He's the hero. Whereas the guy who, I mean, for who knows what that individual on the, on the subway would have done. And he is stopped and he and Daniel by Daniel Penny. And Daniel Penny is again pretty well ostracized for it. And then, you know, he's gonna. Obviously he was acquitted and all those things, but I don't know, that's just what stuck out to me of the celebration of one versus the ostracization of the other. And just how backwards and revert or. And like perverted twisted our societies become to where he, Mangioni is the hero and Penny's the, The, you know, enemy, so to speak. [00:08:25] Speaker C: So here's your screwdriver theory for you. If the CEO is threatening to shoot somebody on the train and Daniel Penny comes in and does what he does and the CEO ends up dying. But he's a rich white guy. You know that that is powerful. How many people have a problem with it? [00:08:39] Speaker A: Not very many. [00:08:41] Speaker C: Very, very few. This is critical theory. It's. Yes, it's critical race there, but it's also critical theory of like the power dynamics of you have a homeless black man who clearly is not in his right frame of mind. He does pose an actual threat to the people on there, but that's irrelevant. He's a homeless black man. Therefore, and I'm not trying to make this about race, I'm trying to make this about power dynamics here as to the structure. Sure, it is the fact that he is a rich white man that has done bad things, quote, unquote. Forget the fact that the other man was actually threatening to kill people on, on the train. Forget that fact. We just look at in an enclosed. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Environment where it was very, you know, that's a very dangerous setting. Right. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Well, this is the other thing of as we devolve away from being a society that recognizes Christianity at least on some level, and biblical morality on some level, you're going to see more of this and people thinking it's a good thing because, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of CEOs, there's a lot of megacorps in this country who have done it dishonestly, who have done it on the backs of cheating people or whatever the case may be. And I don't really know enough about Brian Thompson the man and his decisions. I've heard some things that say, yeah, this is a really bad dude who's taken advantage of a lot of people in a lot of ways and they've just made huge money on bad business. And does that mean he should be shot? No, that means there should be some justice system in the United States where that happens. So when that doesn't happen, people go, well, I'll take this into my own hands. You don't get to do that. Again, biblical morality has to be the foundation for our society. And if it's not, this is what happens. And so it's a dark sign that usually these people create copycats. Usually when somebody sees, oh, wow, I'm cool, people think I'm a hero for doing that. I'll go do that. It's not a good trend. It's definitely going in a bad direction. So as far as the penny thing, yeah, I mean, I think that's a hero. A man who stands up and says, no, you don't get to threaten that mother and child. We're going to put a stop to this. And yeah, I mean, the fact that he was acquitted, even though the odds were kind of stacked against him with where the trial happened and all that, I think it's pretty safe to say, yeah, he was okay there. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Well, does that also kind of give you a sense of optimism? At least it did for me when I saw thing. [00:10:48] Speaker C: Yep. [00:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah. It would have been a very, very dark thing if it was. The indication was don't stand up for the people on the train next time. [00:10:56] Speaker C: Well, Jack, like you said, and we'll move on. It is important to remember this is not us backing the CEO, saying he's a good guy, anything like that. It's just where does justice come in? And you know, how do we specifically, as Christians, how do we navigate these things? And I think it is that we stand for true justice, which God. Romans 13. God has given the, you know, the, the government the power to do that, not individuals the power to go exact those things. So regardless, this is not us standing up, going. CEO is a great guy. No, it sounds like he really wasn't. It's just a matter of how we take things into our own hands and who we choose to protect and such. [00:11:32] Speaker A: Well, I think of. And maybe, you know, you could say, well, this is a lot easier to say when it hasn't happened or is hypothetical. And I would agree. But like, I think of it like the CEO of Planned Parenthood was gunned down in the streets. You're not going to hear any of us three celebrating, oh, yeah, let's go. Good for, you know, like, you know, that's at least not to speak for you guys. But, like, I'm assuming that's not going to be anything that's anywhere close to our minds. And so that's kind of, to me, the parallel, like, if the shoe was on the other foot, somebody that we highly disagree with, somebody who we, you know, I don't even know who the CEO of Planned Parenthood is, but for the sake of the hypothetical, again, like, I don't see that that would be the same thing on the other side. [00:12:05] Speaker B: I had somebody emailing me at one point advocating, we need to do that. We need to start taking these people out. It's one of those, like, are you a fed? Is this somebody, like, trying to set me up? And it was immediately like, no, and I'm not talking to you anymore because block, I'm, yeah. Getting a million miles away from you. You don't get to do that. I mean, like, you cry out, how long? Oh, Lord, you read those psalms of like, God, bring these people down. These are evil people and this needs to be stopped. But vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And so that's. But interestingly enough, as we talk about CEOs, we talk about some of the really being taken advantage of and people's frustration leads us really into this next one we have on our list, which is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It's funny, my voice is cracking up as I say his name. And his health push that he has, he kind of ran on the Make America Healthy again thing. He allied with President Donald Trump in the election mainly for that he wants a healthier country. He's very concerned about the food additives and about some. He's focused a lot on the environment, too, but on America is a very sickly country. America's not doing well. And. And so many of the corporations that he's talked about have just added garbage to their foods and things like that that are bad for the people. So, yeah, I think it's kind of a natural transition as we're talking about big corporations and people's venting their frustration toward them that we see this. What are your guys's thoughts on. I've talked about it before. I did a cultural breakdown, or Jack. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Was gonna go first on this one. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Well, I've done an rfk. I did the RFK junior Cultural breakdown. So if folks want to see me kind of rant that for 10 minutes, go for it on the YouTube channel. So what do you guys think about it? [00:13:41] Speaker A: I'll go first here, Joe. Then it's all you. Okay. I was just gonna say, like, I'm not near as studied and informed about it as I need to be. However, having kids really opens your eyes to a lot of things. And at least for me, over the last two, three years, the attention level that I have paid to what's in our food and, and what we're eating and kind of the, the, you know, the packages that you get of snacks or of drinks or whatever it is in the ingredient list is about three pages long on the back. Like, there's just, to me a common sense element of going, okay, something's not right there. Like, there's something wrong with that. If you've got something that again, has got 47 ingredients in it and it's a snack for my three year old. [00:14:28] Speaker B: And what that's briefly, you see, it didn't used to be that way. And you see, it's not that way in a lot of European countries. And so it doesn't have to be that way is the, the big kicker for me. [00:14:36] Speaker A: Exactly. And so I think for me personally, just my take on this is I'm appreciative of guys like RFK who are willing to kind of stand up and say, it doesn't have to be this way. I know he was making the rounds for, you know, calling out fast food places for, and then kind of imploring them to use beef tallow instead of canola oil and other seed oils and things like that. I think that'd be great. I mean, obviously he's got an uphill. I mean, we have an uphill battle in the sense of, like, it's a whole lot cheaper to use those things. And so obviously restaurants and places like that are not going to be incentivized to do that. But again, I just, for me personally, the, the eye opening to just how bad some of this stuff is. And again, the fast food world and all those things, it really does kind of make you think more about just how poorly American society. I mean, no wonder we're. We're in, like, one of the most obese countries in the world. Like, no wonder we're so unhealthy and, and sick. And as you think about all the, the issues that we have with COVID and all that, the food definitely played a part. But, Joe, what are your, what are your thoughts? [00:15:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I was just looking up statistics on this. This is CDC. New CDC population data from 2023 shows that in 23 states, more than 1 in 3 adults, 35%, has obesity. Before 2013, no state had an adult obesity prevalence at or above 35%. So in a decade, we've gone from no state to 23 states. Currently, at least 1 in 5 adults, 20% in each US state is living with obesity. Now, do I agree with the BMI completely? No. They're taking this off the bmi. I think the BMI is garbage in a lot of ways, but there is a legitimacy to this, which is like, okay, one in five is obese. Even if you were to hack that one in ten being obese, we do have a problem in this nation, and I do think it starts with food. But there's a lot of things that go into it. We look at other, other nations and go, man, they, they don't struggle with it as much. This one's difficult for me to quantify, and I, I do agree with RFK in a lot of ways, but this one's difficult for me to quantify because other nations, there's a lot more walking, they don't have as many cars. [00:16:26] Speaker B: They're. [00:16:26] Speaker C: They don't. You look back like man, people were, were way healthier back in the 70s or 60s. Yeah. They didn't have smartphones, they didn't, they walked a lot of other places. There were a lot of poorer people that didn't have cars to get them everywhere. And you know, their, their jobs were closer in situations. A lot of blue collar jobs. Now there's tech jobs where you 24, seven, like there's so many things that contribute to our degradation into obesity and, and you know, our health degradation that I think the food is a part of it. There are so many things to fix in this nation. The good thing is he's got a pulse on a lot of this stuff. It's not just food that he talks about. When he talks about making Make America healthy again, I think he's got a pretty good understanding of what all goes into it. And there's a lot of things like the getting kids up to go play, you know, we had to get out and play worked. Yeah. But have sunlight get outside. That's really good for kids staying off their screens, right? Correct. So those are the things that I think in the future and have to be fixed. But somebody's calling light to it and there's people that are waking up going, and this stuff is really bad. And I've never really understood all the additives we've allowed. When you do look at like take Fanta for instance. The orange color of Fanta in the UK is way different than the orange color here. And the additives, we have like four or five different additives. They don't have over there because they're. Now they have some things there that they allow that we don't allow here. But by and large we allow way more than they do. Why clearly they can make money in the uk otherwise they wouldn't sell there. So why do we have to have all of these things? I'm not saying every one of them is bad. I'm not a, like, I can't speak to all that because I don't know all of that. But I know when you have 30 ingredients when you really could probably be getting away with eight. Why? Yeah, somebody needs to call, you know, call attention to that and he's the guy to do it. So I like his work by and large. Doesn't mean I agree with everything he's ever said, but it does mean he's calling light to something that's waking people up, going, guys, we have a problem. We need to eat healthier, we need to get back to exercise, things like that. [00:18:22] Speaker B: He's one of those. What he's good about, he's really good about. What he's bad about, he's really bad about. And so you do have to have that grain of salt with it. The thing that's interesting to me, I'm going to write on this here in the next couple of days. The concept of noblesse. It depends on which dictionary you look at, how to pronounce it. Noblesse oblige. Noblesse oblige. The obligation of the nobles. We pretend we don't have nobility in America, but the name Kennedy carries some nobility. And nobility in the US has been become a CEO. Get really rich off the people, sell them garbage, ingredients, garbage, healthcare, whatever else, and you make a bunch of money. The idea of that concept is you're obligated to your people. You got rich off of them, you got famous off of them, you got powerful off of them, do something good for them. And to see somebody actually do that, somebody say, you know what? I'm going to use the Kennedy name to make the American people healthy. Like, that's, that moves me. That's important. And I think that's a concept we need top to bottom. I'm going to write about it in the church. And you need it in, in a lot of different ways in society of people taking responsibility for other people and saying, I'm going to help you. Like, it's not fair to the American. [00:19:22] Speaker A: That's a good needed point. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, they're being handed garbage, and you can't do that to my people. I care about my people. Like, nobody cares about us. And so to see somebody who does. Yeah, like I said, it moves me. I, I think it's really an important thing. [00:19:35] Speaker C: And I like that he's not necessarily. But I think there's a lot of charlatans that cash in on, you know, selling weird stuff that, you know, is the alternate side of the health world where they're getting rich off of their stuff as well. Selling supplements that are, you know. Well, they're not approved by the fda because the FDA is scared of it. Like, well, maybe yes, maybe no. There's a lot of people like that. He's not gaining hardly anything. As a matter of fact, every single time he goes to speak, people seem to be wanting to throw stuff at him. He's continuing to do it because of that. Like, I want America to be healthy. Again, you see his videos where he's got his shirt off and he's working out. The guy's 70 and he does, you know, looks better than I do. Like, it's just unbelievable how well he's taking care of his body and how much he cares about the American people for the sake of caring about the American people. I don't see him getting super rich. He's not selling his own. But if you take these Kennedy supplements for a, you know, one time payment of 59, 99 and we're going to. [00:20:23] Speaker A: Send you two pills a month after. [00:20:26] Speaker C: That, you know, exactly. There's none of that like he just cares about the American people. Man, that does your heart good to see that there are people out there that still care, that are willing to take on establishments, willing to take on people that hate them to try to help other people. Whether you agree with him or not, you got to respect that. You have to respect. He's willing to stand up. I love that. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey folks, Jack here and I wanted to tell you about some restoration movement resources from our new sponsor. If you're interested in the history of the church, Cobb Publishing has got what you need. From general overviews like FW Maddox's Eternal the History of the Church of Christ to biographies of restoration movement leaders like Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott Raccoon, John Smith and several others, you will be able to satisfy yourchurch history [email protected] shop. From classics like their bicentennial edition of Alexander Campbell's the Christian Baptist, the two volume complete Alabama Restoration Journal collection, or brand new books like out of the Women of the Restoration Movement, you will find the perfect gift for the restoration movement enthusiasts on your gift list. Find reliable histories of the church at cobbpublishing.com shop. That's Cobb C-O-B-B publishing.com shop all right, with this, we had a little more to talk about on this, but I think. Okay, let's go ahead. On the health side of things, another trend that's happened kind of started a couple years ago. It's really picked up this year was the, the pharmaceuticals for weight loss, semaglutide and then Tirzepatide. And they have a bunch of different brand names of Moonjaro, Wegovy, Ozempic. I'm sure people have heard of most of those. Ozempic's the one usually people talk about. And on the one hand people have results. You see just a lot of people thinner and they all of that and so they think, well, it works but then on the other hand, what are the long term? And so I'll put that to you guys first. Once again, everybody knows I have thoughts on some of these things, so I want to hear what you guys say. [00:22:28] Speaker C: Well, so my thoughts are, this is the same as any depression medication, anxiety medication, things like that. I really, really would say avoid those to the best of your ability because it is a short way. It is the cheap shortcut way to do, you know, to get around the work that you ought to be doing. In my opinion, it's a lot easier to take antidepressants than actually go through the work of processing through the things you need to. It's a lot easier to take these shots than actually hit the gym and eat healthy. It just is. And so there's a lot of people that want quick results. Yeah, they're getting quick results. You are the guinea pig. That, that's the crazy thing. It's the same as a couple other things that have come down the pike in the last few years that the government pushed quite a bit on us, that it's like you're the guinea pig. We don't know how this thing works. We'll figure it out. And we're finding out in that case, not. Well, I think we're going to find the same in this anytime where they are. It's transgender surgeries. That's another one. The people doing it nowadays, we don't have long term results because we didn't, we weren't morons back then. We didn't do those things. So we're doing it now. And if you get that surgery, you're the guinea pig. Same exact thing here. We're going to come out in 10 years and you know, all of the, you know, I'm Doug with mesothelioma and all these people that have like, you know, the, the commercials we've seen. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:40] Speaker C: We're realizing now this is a really bad deal. And hey, if you've been injured by xyz, make sure to make the phone call and we'll basically class action lawsuit. I'm calling it now. Within a decade. I think there's going to be some of those because you're going to see, you're see like ozempic face. Google Ozempic face. It's a legitimate thing. It's not good. Anytime we take shortcuts to get to something that God has already prescribed. I think how we can lose weight, which is like, it's the watch your calories, eat healthy, walk a lot, you know, and get some, lift some weights. That's pretty much a great way to lose weight. Everybody can do it. [00:24:09] Speaker A: He's out here taking all the good content. That's, that's what I was going to say is. No, no, I'm just messing with, this is a good point to me. It just, and I, I, I don't, I'm not trying to, you know, bash anybody who has taken it or anything like that. I just, from my perspective and some of the things that I've read about it and my observance of it, it seems like it is just that, a shortcut, kind of a cheap version of as you said, Joe, we know mathematically speaking, medically speaking, scientifically speaking, how to lose weight, how to get skinnier. You, you know, make sure that you are not taking in more calories than you are burning. Be in a caloric deficit, drink water, give up the sodas. Like I'm, you know, maybe I'm not trying to be insensitive. I know there's people that maybe struggle with some other things, but like for the most part it does feel like as you're just trying to skip a bunch of steps and get to the end result. It's the same thing of like, you know, you're wanting to get really muscular. Oh, okay, I'll take steroids. Like, no, go to the gym, put, you know, lift weights and you know, push ups or whatever. You know, people, we've talked about it before, like kind of the cheap version of sexuality is porn for people. I just want the quick thing. I want quick, easy access. The man. All the work about going into getting into a relationship and actually emotionally connecting with a woman. Like, no thanks, I'll just go look at pornography. That's a cheap version. You could do this for anything. Video games and, and you know, instead of actually going out and playing sports and kind of accomplishing things, now I'll just play video games. That'll suffice. What's the other one I had? Oh yeah, like instead of actually putting in the work, writing a paper, studying for it, now just put it in Chat GPT and they'll, they'll take care of it for me. Like to me it's just, it's right in line with some of those other, with some of those other things that in my opinion are harmful. I haven't used Chat GPT ever. I know there's a lot of good uses for it. It's because I don't, I don't want to lose my ability to problem solve. It's Reading the Spark Notes version instead of reading the actual book, like I could go on and on, but I think that kind of sums up my thoughts on it is like it's just go the extra mile and like do what has actually been proven for thousands of years will help you lose weight, quit eating so much junk, drink water, get out and exercise. Like that's, that's the, that's the path and, but instead, instead of just taking this drug or this shot or whatever that's going to do it for you, I don't know, just, just feels like a cheap version to me. Jack. What, what would the discussion. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's generally right. I mean it's calories in, calories out is undefeated. But there are also variables that go into how many calories you burn, how many you take in and things like that and what you're eating and the quality of what you're eating and something that just kind of circumvents all of that. The effects of everything that you're circumventing still are there. Like it still matters the kinds of foods you're eating. It still matters how much you're eating. And you need, I mean like I could go on for this for days. I've learned tons about this the last few years because it's not as simple as you think. Like you do need to actually eat more food and enough food and sometimes this makes people not eat enough food and so that creates its own series of problems. And yeah, you lose weight because you're not eating enough food. But then, I mean these things start stacking. The unintended consequences, I guess are what I'm getting at and it's just unnatural. Yeah, there's, I mean there's the age old saying of if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And I think that we're going to run into that, you know, maybe we'll see. If it's to the degree Joe's saying, I would not be surprised. But it's just part of this. And again, that health push, you've got that one side of it which is sunlight, natural ingredients, eating stuff that you know is healthy and things like that versus or just go in and take this a couple times a week and then, you know, it'll take care of itself. It doesn't work that way. So it's a very interesting thing that again is going to play out some more over the next few years as to what RFK can accomplish. And I mean even if he gets approved through the Senate, I Mean, that's, I think, still a challenge. And then the other side of it, of what happens with the effects of these as time goes on. So we're gonna have to move on from that one, keep things going next. We have, and I don't know how much we want to talk about this. There's some senses in which it's straightforward. There's another sense in which this could be a whole episode in itself. The election. Both Trump and Biden rolled through the primaries with little pushback. I mean, Trump had some challengers, but it didn't really matter. And then the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. And then, of course, another one that didn't quite come to fruition as much, but was still a bit of a scare there. And I believe it was in Florida on golf course. On the golf course. And then Joe Biden, he gets sick. Some. Some strange reporting starts swirling, and next thing you know, there's a Twitter announcement, an X announcement, I guess, that he's not running anymore. And immediately, almost immediately, endorses his vice president, Kamala Harris, who ends up going on to lose to Donald Trump in the election. So in hindsight, it's like, oh, yeah, Trump won the election. And then you start breaking down what happened all year. That was insane. We've never lived through an election like that. I mean, so I don't know if you guys have any takes. If one thing I will say, I guess I've put it off to you guys first each time. You had a lot of similar things, like with the Luigi Mangione thing of, oh, yeah, that. And what a hero. What a good guy. When the guy shot at Trump was like, oh, man, if only he had been just a little bit closer, a little, you know, if he hadn't missed, like, the people openly rooting for. Oh, we were so close to getting rid of him. I mean, a presidential candidate's head exploding on live television would have been. I mean, ask any boomer that lived through jfk. Like, this is. That wasn't even on live tv. Like, the way it was spread, the way that this would have been. It would have been horrifying. I mean, it would have changed the course of the entire planet. And people are like, oh, man, let's try, you know, somebody else do it. It's awful. And so I've got. I know we covered that a little. [00:29:52] Speaker C: Bit on the Louisiana thing, but that's. [00:29:54] Speaker B: All I wanted to say. Go ahead. [00:29:56] Speaker A: I've got, like, three events that I will always remember where I was, you know, when that I was too young for 9, 11. Don't remember that one. But Covid, when the world shut down for Covid, I'll always remember where I was for that. Oddly enough, when Kobe Bryant died, I'll always remember where I was for that. And when that announcement and then this one, like, I'll always remember what, what I was doing, what was going on, how I found out. It is. [00:30:15] Speaker B: It is. [00:30:16] Speaker A: It is by far to me the assassination attempt that is probably the biggest event of the year. But one of the things that I wanted to bring up with this whole election thing, and I was curious your guys thoughts on is. [00:30:25] Speaker B: It is. [00:30:26] Speaker A: It is very interesting to me that clearly as far as kind of the, the Democrats with Kamala Harris kind of just really throwing her out there with what, like 107 days until the election or something like that. It seemed like they were a lot more confident that this was going to work and in my opinion, why it didn't. And this is not me endorsing one side or the others. We always have to say Kamala Harris came across very much. There was, there was an inauthent, inauthenticity to her that I think a lot of people really sniffed out. And why I wanted to bring that up is I feel like we are American society and culture is shifting back into a realm where we are craving authenticity. We are craving somebody who is authentic, somebody who you can tell is genuine. You see that especially with like, you know, athletes, celebrities, social media, people. Like there's so much fake, just people who are not sincere, people who are not authentic, that when somebody finally is it, man, it sticks out so much. And I think people gravitate towards those things. And to me, that is a big reason why the election went the way it did is because people could see that she just wasn't very authentic. Like they were trying to kind of force feed the American people. This, this kind of, this, this person here, you know, let's give her a few celebrity endorsements and call it a day. And there was just an inauthenticity to it. And so I, I don't know. That was kind of my takeaway from the events over the last few months. Specifically, you know, leading up to the election is just kind of the, the way that I do feel like in a positive sense, American culture is craving a level of authenticity too. And you can even tell, like I was thinking about with the church and kind of the way sometimes you can see the preachers that are kind of, you know, little, little, little political, you know, kissing Babies and shaking hands. Like, not a lot of authenticity versus the people who are truly authentic with the way that they teach and preach. And, you know, that's not to call anybody out, but, like, we crave authenticity. Was my takeaway. What are your guys thought? Do you have anything to add to that or any thoughts on that? That was kind of my main takeaway. [00:32:23] Speaker C: I think that's a great point. [00:32:24] Speaker B: The. [00:32:25] Speaker C: The thing that stood out to me is I think they had forgotten that the American people, There's. There's a lot of people in the middle that aren't as polarized, you know, as. As. And maybe they are polarized, but, like, they forgot about 48 states, basically, other than New York and California. And I think that's interesting. But the authenticity point is very true because he surrounds himself with people like rfk, which very much seems like what you see is what you get. Good, better. Otherwise, what you see is what you get. Same thing with Elon Musk. I don't think he's pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. The way he tweets and what he talks about these men. The thing that stands out within, kind of dovetailing with your point is these are men's men, in my opinion. They are willing to say the tough stuff. They are willing to go to war, so to speak. They are like with Trump, him getting up. Because the thing that stands out to me over the course of the election is those three pictures of him and McDonald's, him in the trash truck, and obviously him after the assassination attempt. Like, there's so many men that said, that's it. That's the guy. That's a man's man. Like, somebody who's willing and able to do that after he gets shot at is like, that's who I want to follow. We still have this innate understanding of, yes, authenticity and also leadership. Leadership matters. And that comes through as so authentic of, like, again, this isn't endorsing. I mean, come on. People know. If they're listening to us, they know. But at the same time, we're not endorsing one way or the other, other than just to say. I think people saw that as true leadership. They see that Elon Musk's taking stands on things, or RFK taking a stand on things and getting all the blowback, but still doing it. There is a level of leadership and masculinity that goes along with it that is very appealing to the average guy. And you could call that pro, great patriarchy or whatever. All the. The negative stuff that they use. And I would say that matters more than anything when it comes to the world falling apart and the endless wars. Jack, as you talk about the ongoing wars, what's going on, you need somebody who's confident and you need somebody who's competent in that stands out to me over this election cycle is how Trump continued to stay relevant and continued with his pictures to cover. You know, the, the authenticity is the McDonald's picture, I know that's kind of a, you know, a goofy thing, but at the same time, like a guy who's willing to serve fries and out the window and he's waving and whatnot, like he comes across as an everyday guy, same thing in the trash truck. And then you have the confidence of him getting up and giving that after getting shot at. Like, those things stand out to me that we are craving that in America, but we're also craving that in the church. We're craving competent men, competent leaders, who, yes, are very authentic. They're willing to say things nobody else is willing to say. And people want that and they're willing to follow that. We just haven't seen that for a long time as we've given rise to the Tim Kellers and the Andy Stanley's and the guys like that in Christendom. Now all of a sudden, the Doug Wilsons and the Bodie Bawkins and guys like that have really started to make their way in, in the last decade. [00:34:59] Speaker B: Why? [00:34:59] Speaker C: Because somebody's craving. We talked about Doug Wilson before in 2020. He's one of the only ones saying, hey, hold on a second, guys, let's wait on this before we shut churches down. Like, maybe that's not a good idea. Same thing with John MacArthur. He started doing that. People follow that. They follow leadership, they follow competency. Somebody who's willing to say the tough things. That's what stands out to me with the election. [00:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that whatever side of it you're on, if that image of popping up after getting shot at and raising a fist in the air, as you said, the masculine side of it is kind of like, oh yeah, we can do things like that. It's not this apologetic, wimpy kind of like there was something to that. I think that clicked a lot of things in a lot of people's heads of like, wow, that we, we need more of that kind of spirit, regardless of who it is. And so a very interesting thing that is going to be the defining image of the year, as it should be. I mean, like that, that was really something else. Well, you're Muted. Go ahead. [00:35:53] Speaker A: I was gonna say might be of the decade, to be honest. [00:35:55] Speaker B: That century at this point. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:58] Speaker C: Of the 21st century. Yeah. [00:35:59] Speaker B: We'll pair it with another one that didn't make the list was the. The rocket catch. You know, the Elon Musk thing. But just things that show you, like, what is possible of American exceptionalism. Yeah, things like that. And so. And as you said, masculinity, things like that. So a very weird election, one I think that's going to be remembered for a long time and a lot going on. All right, moving through the year, we've got a few more to look at here. [00:36:23] Speaker C: Jack, I'm going to take this one because I, I do want you to lead off on this one because I think you have a very interesting take on it. And people may say, well, why is this one on there with the other ones that we have, which is Hurricane Helene? There's a couple hurricanes, I think, this year, but that was obviously the. That was massive. And there was all these issues more destructive. It went up into North Carolina or South Carolina. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Did it hit North Carolina? And Tennessee is where it really. The East Tennessee. Yeah, the word. The roads, washed out, highways, things like that. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:49] Speaker C: Oh, it's terrible. You know, and then, of course, this is a big point in the election, as we're building on this election idea of them going there and what's going to be done. And there's a big problem with FEMA and things like that. And Jack, I wanted you to speak to that a little bit because I think you have an interesting take on this that maybe we've spoken to a little bit before, but something that I think is highly relevant in the discussion of Hurricane Helene and particularly the government's response to it. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's people still homeless. They lost everything. They're out there living in tents, they're using, you know, kerosene heaters, stuff like that. No aid is coming. They were offered a few hundred bucks in a hotel, stay for a little bit, like it's not fixing anything. And meanwhile, at the same time, they couldn't get funds out to them. And it was. Well, basically, we're tapped out. There was the reporting that FEMA had given so much of their money to illegal immigrants coming to the country. The Haiti thing in Ohio, that was another big story we're not going to cover today, but. Oh, sorry, that money's already gone. We've already used it for people who shouldn't even be here. And at the same time, Congress was passing we're going to send another 22 billion over to Ukraine. It's like, that's an important war that's going on over here. But your first priority is to your people here. They lost everything. The federal insurance is supposed to help out with these. Once in a lifetime disasters is tapped out and there's nothing for them. Our own people are homeless months after the hurricane, and it's awful. And I think there is this fascination with the exotic and there's this idea of, well, our people will be fine. Things are fine over here. They can take care of themselves. We're going to go take care of everything else. And what we were talking about off air is churches do the same thing. And if you don't believe me, go in and say, I need money for a mission work in India or Tanzania. Then send a guy right after him and say, I need money to start a church in South Dakota. Go in and send a little old lady widow from church to go in and say, I need 200 bucks for my electric bill. Which one gets the most cash? Which one do they, you know, really? And people who have been in church leadership know there's always the. Oh, man, India. We've got the guy in India. And they baptize 500 people. Yeah. The church only has 13 members there on each Sunday. But boy, they baptized. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:38:48] Speaker B: This time they baptized 20,000 people in the last six months. And these things happen. And I'm not saying they're all scammers or things like that, but you get those things. And again, you go over to Tanzania. Everybody in Tanzania should be a Christian by now. They're not. So. But we'll send money to that just over and over and over and over to the mission work in South Dakota, where there's a church that's going to die if they don't get some reinforcement up there that's a little bit harder to pitch to. Again, the little old lady at church. And you look at Paul talking about widows being put on the payroll. What church has that? Paul talking about paying your own elders. What church has it? We don't have money for that. Well, why not? Well, because we're sending money all over the world. It's the same thing you're seeing with the government of, oh, sorry, North Carolina. I know you're our citizens, but figure it out. Zielinski needs another Ferrari. I mean, like, this is ridiculous. It's. And, and so it goes back to the RFK thing. I think so many of these are coming back to the same care for Your own people. Take care of your own people. Like prioritize your own people. That's not wrong. That's not a bad thing. [00:39:47] Speaker C: I was going to say the preacher that's making pennies while his wife has to work so they can make ends meet, you know, and he's just praying that he doesn't preach the wrong thing and get fired and kicked out in two weeks. Meanwhile, the church has an endless budget. [00:39:59] Speaker B: For knockdown, drag out men's meeting of whether can we give him a 2% cost of living raise, you know, this year? Like that's a thing that happens that a lot of preachers have been subjected to. And yeah, I mean, the, these kinds of things. Take care of your own people. Make sure your own. That everyone in your immediate vicinity is okay before you start looking elsewhere. I mean, it's the dad who, his own kids are starving but is handing out money to all the other neighbors. Make sure their kids have money, have food on the table, like feed your own kids first. Right? [00:40:28] Speaker C: And he looks like a nice guy to everybody else. And that's the key, is everybody in the neighborhood thinks he's a great guy and his kids hate him. Well, why? You know, because they're the ones that are most in need and he's taking care of everybody else. And we look like heroes to the rest of the world. And the church looks like heroes as we send out all our money to, to these foreign, you know, foreign countries. And it looks really good that we've got a thriving ministry going for, for all these missionaries. [00:40:54] Speaker A: 10, 15 people a year. [00:40:55] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Like, let's put a little time, let's put a little money, let's put a little effort into where we are here. But it's an immediate response. It's an immediate, like, man, we just, we sent out 500 bucks and we just got a report where they had 15 baptisms. Like, that's better than we could ever do here. Yeah, but that 500 bucks may be the thing that, that really helps boost a certain ministry or whatever it's going to be, or somebody here really needs it. And he's a great member and he encourages people every single day. You can't quantify that. You can't quantify Little Miss Betty or whoever it is, who is a bulwark in the church, man. Everybody knows her as, she's, she's a great member. She needs 150 bucks for her electric bill, whatever it may be. You can't quantify that because that's not baptisms. That's not, you know, we're going to go over there. We know that they're baptisms. Like have you visited any of those people? And I do hate to say it in the foreign works I visited, there's a lot of baptisms. The churches are not massive. Why, if you're seeing 500 baptisms here, there, we should be seeing mega churches over there. And I know there's a billion people in India and such and so I'm not calling anybody out per se. There are people that do really good work over there. On the other hand, yeah, I think we, we get enamored by the baptism numbers and we fail to realize some of the long term things that take place here. You're not going to get the immediate bump, 15, you know, 50 baptisms, whatever it is. But man, it matters. It matters. There's a quality here that matters. [00:42:15] Speaker B: Well, and I'm not saying that foreign missions don't matter. I mean, obviously that's something we should support if we can. I mean, you look at the New Testament, they weren't all supporting foreign missions. Some of them were receiving the support. Jerusalem was receiving the report from everybody else. And so that's part of it. And I wrote on this when we had that kind of bit of a dust up over is the church in a bad spot? And yeah, we're declining hard. We're closing doors, we're losing, you know, ministry and elders and all that stuff. And people always go, well, church over in Africa and India is doing great. Like, what does that do for my grandkids who need to marry Christians who need to have a church building to go to, who need to, you know, have people that they can fellowship with and worship and all that. Fix your own home. Like, why on earth should we be celebrating? If the church in India died out, I'd be sad about it. Well, of course I'm going to be sad if the church here is dying out. Like this is worry about your own people. I just, it really that mindset of I don't have to care about the people in my hometown because somebody I've never met and will never meet is doing great. Well, okay, but start at home. And again, the hurricane is kind of our starting point for this, but it's the same idea. [00:43:18] Speaker A: It's a question of priorities. Exactly what you're talking about with the hurricane stuff, where, you know what, what are your priorities in terms of where the money's going. But you guys are exactly right when it comes to the church and kind of the, the priority prioritization of leadership. The only addition that I'll have is. This is a kind of a hobby horse of mine, something that I've said before. You know how many church leadership structures and elders are really quick to jump up and, like you guys said, kind of dish out the. Write the checks and dish out the cash for the foreign missionary. But when it comes to the. The couple at their. At their congregation, who. The husband is addicted to pornography and the wife's threatening to leave them, it's like, man, throw up your hands. Like, I don't know what we're supposed to do with that. Prioritize taking care of the homes within your congregation, the. The parents and the children and the young people, and the really strengthening of the homes. Not. Not as much of that going on and generalizing. I understand, but, like, to me, that absolutely didn't parallel so well with. With this hurricane thing. That's why we brought it up. That absolutely should be. The priority is you think about just how fundamental the home is for, you know, raising children and. And, you know, the direction that America's headed is kind of centered around what does the home look like. It's even more so for the church. What's the direction of your church? Like, what. What's the spiritual level of your church? Well, a good way to kind of get a diagnosis of that pretty quickly, an evaluation of that. Take a look at the homes. What are the homes like? Do you have husbands that are leading faithfully? Do you have strong marriages? Do you have faithful children? Do you have, you know, basically discipled homes? That's not really a point of emphasis in a lot of congregations. It is, what is our baptism count? How much money are we given over here? And. And so, yeah, I don't. Again, that would be just my addition to. To this whole discussion is a. It's a misprioritization of what leadership is there for. And it is, take care of your own people, but specifically with the church. Take care of the homes. Make sure the homes are strong. Make sure the. The marriages are. The mayor. I mean, how many church leadership structures would you know of that are kind of. I'm going to say, hands off of this. This couple's marriage issue. People are going through stuff especially, you know, they're. Again, they're losing their kids. They're their. Their kids and grandkids are thinking about going transgender. Like, all these. These problems and these issues that are not really being faced because it is a whole lot easier to just write a check and send it off to a missionary in India. Like it's a whole lot easier you get again to, you get to have them over to your congregation and they get to do the presentation on a Sunday night that talks about all the baptisms and things. And again, not that that is bad. I would just say in a, again, in addition to y'all, it is a misprioritization of what is the most important. If you want a strong church, if you want a church that is growing, you got to have strong homes. And man, you look across the Bible belt, we just don't have strong homes. In fact, we have very weak homes, often weak marriages, weak parenting structures, weak disciples, all those things. [00:45:59] Speaker B: For sure. Yeah, there's more I could add. That's a great point. There's more I could do. But we're gonna, for time's sake, move on from that one. We also are going to skip over. We had the Olympics, we talked about that on an episode before. There was the controversy with the boxer, which has only gotten a little more confirmed in this direction, although they're still disputing it. And then the one with Last Supper. And so, yeah, that was a pretty wild time in itself. But we've, we've done that on an episode. We're going to skip that here. 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. There's one other story we have which is, I don't know why I left it as this the one to stop on because this is not a great one. It started off, it's the controversies surrounding the celebrities and sexual crimes, the accusations against Jay Z, the charges against Diddy and his house being raided, the rappers. And this all started with Cat Williams, who is a stand up comedian, was making these claims back in January on a podcast. And now this is a thing, this is something that, I mean there's, there's the Epstein thing we've known about for years. There's this, you can get into some wild theories about all these things going on, but it's something people are aware of. It's something that people talk about, people post about a lot, but I don't think we've talked about it a lot. And I don't see a lot of Christian commentary on these kinds of things because it is kind of a bit of a Nicky situation. It's a bit of a. It's a dark situation, number one. I mean, like, this is not a fun thing to talk about, but you see these things and I think some people just write off with, oh, bad people do bad things. Yeah. But I think there might be a little more to it. Joe, why don't you. What are your thoughts on that end? [00:47:57] Speaker C: A lot of conspiracy thoughts, I suppose, you know, surrounding a lot of this stuff. But the thing that strikes me the most, a couple different things. First off, sex trafficking is horrible. Horrible. And it's a much bigger problem than we could ever imagine. This happens all over the world. America has a ton of this and people don't really ever want to have to engage with that subject too much and think about what's taking place where these kids come from. Anytime where any. Anything comes out. Pizzagate or, you know, they had the thing with Wayfair and weird stuff. It's a conspiracy. Conspiracy. We immediately jump to conspiracy and try to act like it doesn't exist. Some people try to do with this and then it's like, oh, no, that's not a conspiracy. There are. They are having underage minors there. Whatever he's calling these things, like, this is really, really bad. This is a problem that I think Christians need to be aware of. To me, it's very much like the abortion thing, which is we need people to wake up and realize this is a problem. We need to be protecting kids at all costs. We need to be working on, you know, whether we can adopt kids. I know adoption agencies unfortunately, sometimes can be. It can be in on the trafficking. Like we just need to, I think, be more aware as Christians, in my opinion, on some of these things and see where we can help. But the second thing that hits me is how many celebrities know about this and do nothing about it. Hollywood and, and the music industry and all it is dead. It is an absolute horrid place because so many people know about these. They've made jokes. You go back and you look at some of the songs, you look at Ellen having P. Diddy on there and on her show and some of the jokes that are made, like, everybody knew this was taking place and nobody said a thing. That is horrible like that. That is awful that nobody came out and said, hey, we saw some crazy things that happened at the party. And that goes to show the power that. That, you know, is that they have over these people. The blackmail and how the entire music industry is really run off of blackmail. And Hollywood and everything else, really, really bad people out There. And I think by and large, Christians trying to get away from that with Angel Studios and some of the other stuff is probably a good thing. But, yeah, it's to the best of your ability. I would say it's going to be once again, in 10 years, you may want to start pulling away from the Hollywood things. I'm not saying you don't ever watch a movie. I'm not saying you don't, you know, listen to music and whatnot, but pulling away from some of the stuff like the Taylor Swifts of the world. There are some really bad people there that have done a lot of bad things, that keep a lot of bad secrets. And it's shocking to me how many people they can get to not open their mouth. [00:50:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that was my take, was the, or I guess my takeaway was just the corruption of the entertainment industry. And corruption is, to be honest, a bit of an understatement when you consider all the things that, you know, they've been accused of and, and all those things. And so, yeah, I don't have. I don't really have a super strong take. I, I would. I was thinking about bringing up, Joe, what you just brought up, which is should Christians do everything in their power to steer clear? Because what's difficult is like, well, obviously when it comes to content concerns, that's pretty easy to filter through. It's like, okay, what do I endorse versus what, you know, support maybe by watching or listening to versus what do. I don't. Sometimes it can be really hard to filter through. Like, you know, I think this person's an okay person and, or, maybe, you know, I don't know. And so, yeah, those. That's. That's the, the. What I was going to consider bringing up and I think is it's probably a little bit difficult and we don't really have time for on this episode. But yeah, just the overall corruption of the entertainment industry. Hollywood for sure. And you know that, you know, all the celebrities, I mean, you see these, like the White Party or whatever that what's his name throws that just, you've got every. A list celebrity that is, that is, that attends those types of things. And you're like, yeah, you're telling me that they didn't know or most of these people didn't know what was going on with, with Diddy and Jay Z and all these things. Like, I'm going to guess probably not. And like you said, Joe, the secret's kept. Doesn't come out. Doesn't come out. And then all Of a sudden, the floodgates open. It's just. It's as corrupt as I'll get out. [00:51:46] Speaker C: Let me say this real fast, Jack. I want your thoughts, but there's also a level of like, don't let your kids idolize these people, please. You can idolize ideals, Superman, things like that. Don't let them idolize Beyonce and. And all this. These people are morally bankrupt. They. They offer nothing to your kids. Please be aware of it. And the other thing is, please also stop shouting. And. And I'm sure there's a lot of Christians that, like, I'm speaking more to the world, I suppose, in this, but stop shouting conspiracy theory. Every single time something like this comes out, because it's the same thing. Remember Madison Cawthorn, when the. The. I think he's a senator. Was he a representative? Representative. Representative. And he comes out, it's like, yeah, they're just throwing these massive parties, you know, sexual parties with cocaine and everything else. Holy cow. I mean, it was like, cut this guy off at the knees, and we got to get him out of there. And this is ridiculous. And that's never happened. And then, well, why are you so scared about it, right? And then everybody shuts it down, like, oh, that guy's just off the deep end. He's nuts. Hold on a second. This happened, you know, the Epstein thing comes down. It's like, oh, a bunch of conspiracy theorists. And then, no, we're finding more and more things that this was not conspiracy. And so, so many people are quick to run to conspiracies because they want to act like these things don't exist. There's real evil in the world. And I think the more people are realizing there's real evil in the world, the more they're searching for God. So we are seeing a shift back to, like, people actually wanting to see or to find God in the situation. It's because they're looking at this daily stuff going, man, the people we revered as gods, quote, unquote, in these industries are horrible. And there's true evil in the world that we can't even begin to understand what's going on. There's got to be some good out there. So we have an opportunity, I think, as Christians to shine the light of Christ and to say, yeah, there is true evil. There's also true good. Jeff. [00:53:25] Speaker B: That's really all I was going to get at. It was the true evil thing and how directly you want to connect it to the demonic. These are just things that throughout history have been done about Sexual predatory actions being connected to power and things like that and fame and money and things. And, you know, do these people actually have a meeting with Satan and sign a contract to sell their soul? Probably not. But the actions are basically the same thing. And when people see that, I think to your point about people seeing evil in the world, is man. What is the good that is opposing this evil? So, as the church, this is why you should talk about things like this is to say there is a good that opposes this evil, and under the good, this kind of thing will be shut down, and it's okay to oppose it. But the other thing is like, yeah, in whatever sense, literal or metaphorical, that they're selling their soul, that tells you there is a soul. And you see these soulless people that have sold out for it. And so, yeah, take that for what it's worth. Interpret that how you will. But I think that is what a lot of people are learning from events like these. And so, yeah, as I said, that was a poor choice to make, that the one to finish on, because that is such a dark story. So let's do our thing. [00:54:29] Speaker A: We'll end with a positive think fast. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll have a think fast of kind of looking ahead to Lord Willing, 2025 and Joe, go ahead. And I think it's. It's your real fast. [00:54:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just gonna say, especially for our deep thinkers, if there's a major story or news thing that we missed that you would like, kind of our reaction to or take, make sure and comment those. Of course. I'm sure. Even if you're not subscribed to Focus plus and you want to put something out there on Facebook, maybe we can tackle that as well. But these were. These were the ones that made our list. [00:54:54] Speaker B: So I'm not talking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, but otherwise, let me know. [00:55:01] Speaker C: Let me say this. Also, people may wonder, and maybe you hit this at the top of the episode, but did we bring in a ton of scripture, bring in a ton of Bible on all these? Not necessarily. But the point of us engaging Christians have to engage with the culture. We can act like we're above it. We can rise above and be like, oh, no, these things don't matter. They do. They do matter to people. These are news stories. People are talking about them. It's good for us to wade into the conversations where people are to point them to the light of Christ. And sometimes it's a little bit difficult to make the, you know, where does. Where does Christ come in? Christ is Ruler overall, he's lord of all. So every one of these news stories we can tie into, how should Christians respond? What does this look like? But I think it's easy to respond by not responding at all and just going, oh, it doesn't matter. This world's not my home. This world's not my home. Right. I don't have to think about it. Somebody does. Sex trafficking is still taking place. You know, somebody has to think about these things. And so when Christians pull away from every one of these news articles and go, I'd just rather not even think about a politics or divisive. You have to wade into where people are. You know that Paul goes immediately to where the people are. Right. When he goes into these places, he doesn't just stand above these things. He's. He's taking on the concerns of the people because these are legitimate concerns. Things that, yeah, might be a little bit sticky. He's willing to delve into it. So we have to, as Christians, be willing to delve into some things, even if it seems fruitless at times. This is what everybody was talking about this year. And I do think that there are Christian elements, Christian principles that are at play in each one of these. So I just want to make that point. So getting into the Think fast to end on a positive note, Jack, as you said, we're looking toward 2025. This is dropping, I think, two days before the. We turned the calendar to 2025. And so this is the time of New Year's resolutions. All of us are big on New Year's resolution, All of us being all three of us, but our families are as well. A lot of people aren't. We would encourage you think about the new year. There are natural times in life where when the calendar turns, whether that be your birthday or different events throughout the year, specifically this one. There are times in life where you have an opportunity to make a difference, make a change in your life. And we would say we'd encourage everybody to do that. And so I wanted all of us to share one thing, one goal that you have for this new year, maybe one resolution that you are really hoping to accomplish in the year 2025. So who wants to go first? [00:57:09] Speaker B: Sure, I can go. Go ahead, knock yourself out. [00:57:12] Speaker A: All right, all right, I'll go first. [00:57:13] Speaker C: I've got a lot. [00:57:14] Speaker A: I'm not going to share all of them because, I mean, I always have just so many different things that I want to do differently. And I'll focus on. I'll share, I guess, to me, what is definitely the most important and that is I do a really good job. I feel like of praying with my kids every night, praying with Jackson before he goes to bed. I've got to get better at doing that with my wife every single day. Do it some days, but just not being consistent with it. And so like I said, I've got seven or eight goals that I could list and kind of things that I want to change that's going to be number one for sure is making sure at least some point whether it's in the morning or if it's going to be an early morning for me at work, definitely at night or even driving in the car on the way to church or something like just at some point during the day, making sure that I spend time with God, with my wife at least once a day is at the top of my list. I would say. [00:57:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great one. That's something I'm working on as well. A little more light hearted one. I'm the worst nail biter in the world and I was looking at my wife like there is not going to be anything left. So this, this has to change. So that, that's been one. You know, I've hit a lot of goals over the last few years and I'm very proud of that. It's like this is one that has persisted. You know, it's kind of like I've got that one vice I can keep. Okay, it's time to get rid of that one. [00:58:21] Speaker A: So what's your plan? Are you gonna put like hot sauce or something on your, on your name? [00:58:24] Speaker B: No, it's more of just a mental like check yourself. Notice the habit. Like you're just driving down the road and just absentmindedly. No, you know, just. And so getting the, the subconscious action out of there is, is kind of the, the challenge. [00:58:39] Speaker C: There are studies that prove like when people are quitting smoking, if you were very intentional on how does this actually make me feel? Do I really like the taste of my mouth? Do I really like this? Like the mere noticing of those things, noticing when you want it and kind of dealing with the creation just kind of subconsciously actually. Exactly. It brought it down significantly. Like people stopped. There are people that quit smoking just because they got more intentional about it. So it's a good call. I think that's interesting. So mine is going to be in the vein of Will's. Yours is more toward your wife. We do family stuff with the kids. I want to play more with my kids. I, I work a lot And I realize there are times where I probably avoid my kids more than I should. And I was the youngest of four. I don't know what it's like to play with kids. I've never been great with kids. My son was two like yesterday seemingly. You blank. And he's six, my oldest. I don't have infinite amount of time with him to play and to, you know, get on the skates and to teach him how to, how to roller skate and things like that. I know how, but the only way I know how is because people worked with me a lot and it's easy to just go by the wayside and not teach him some of these things. And I'm a little ashamed of that, that hockey is my thing and my 6 year old doesn't know how to skate. I want him to know those things. And so I want to be more intentional with my kids on playing with them, taking the time to do things. Because yes, it does take time consistently. Like I might skate with them once. You're going to need to do that weeks on end to really get good at it. I really want to challenge myself to do that, to be more intentional with the time I spend with the kids. So that's my goal for this year. And yeah, I probably need to stop biting my nails as well. So that's a tough one too. But yeah, fellas, I appreciate that. I know that's. That's our Think fast. We wanted to end on a positive note. We do hope you guys have some really good resolutions that, that you'll plan to stick to. And we got some stuff. If you are fans of the Jam podcast, the Godly Unman podcast, make sure to check that out. That drops tomorrow. We're going to be discussing some more of this on tomorrow's episode and we have a special thing that might help with accountability and such that we're going to be dropping too. So for the godly, I'm in. [01:00:39] Speaker A: But I'm sure there are other people, the crossover listeners. Any crossover. [01:00:43] Speaker B: Or if you've got a teen, I mean if you're a parent listening, you got a team. Put him on it too. I was also going to say 100th episode. Oh yeah, 100th episode. Congratulations to these guys. Very cool. Big accomplishment there. The it's the end of the year. Focus Press is a nonprofit, so donations are tax deductible. I know a lot of people look for that year end thing. So focuspress.org donate just for the podcast, for the books, for everything. We produce the free Think magazine now takes money and we've got some great donors. We appreciate everyone who does support or supports through Focus plus or my substack, Brad's substack. There's a lot of different ways that people support us. We appreciate that. But again, if you're looking for someplace to put your money, invest in the ministry work we're doing. I'll give that very brief plug here at the end of the year. FocusPress.org donate so there's nothing else. We'll leave it with that. And yeah, get your comments in on Focus plus wherever else you'd like to comment, and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.

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