The Error of “Follow Jesus, Not Paul”

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Joe Wilkie, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harab. Next week is 250. Fellas. We have arrived. We've made it. We. I don't know. I. I'm just excited about it. I. We were talking off air right before this about how far back some of our episodes were. We have a very cool offering coming next week, courtesy of Grokbot. I'll just be fully transparent. I asked it to go through and to give us a breakdown of every. Every episode. And so for 240, this will be 249. So I have to get one for this episode. For 249 episodes, it gives six key takeaways, key quotes, key verses that were used. A very cool thing. And it was doing this all in the background. The. The wonders of AI. I have been very against AI, but I thought that was pretty cool. So we're going to look to release that for free just for anybody that's interested coming up next week. But yeah, we're very, very excited for episode 250, but we're not there yet. So today Will has brought us a great one. We were talking about this last week and he threw this out and said, you know what, let's talk about Jesus versus Paul, because so many people these days. And there's a tweet and we'll get to that. But so many people these days are. Are putting the two against each other. They are. Well, they're. Yeah, that's what Paul said. That's not what Jesus said. And so we wanted to kind of dig into that as this is becoming more of a cultural norm, to really have those two go to battle against one another, which is insane to me, but this is happening. So, fellas, opening thoughts as we jump in. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll go because I know Jack's probably going to read the tweet. This was one that came across my timeline. I just kind of scrolled past it like, okay, one of these guys. Oh, then I think Jack, you know, tweets about that or something. And so I was reading some of the comments and Joe's right. This is not a. This is not a new thing. This is not something that, you know, just started within the last couple months. Really, for years now, Paul has been viewed as maybe the more strict, certainly the less popular of the individuals in God's word when it comes to the things that they taught. And so I want to explore why. But to Joe's point, it's not merely that People are teaching or trying to say that, well, Paul said this and Jesus said this, and those things are a little different. They're really pitting them against each other in some ways. And basically the implication is, well, you've got to choose. Who are you going to side with? Are you going to side with Paul? Are you going to side with Jesus? Presenting this kind of false dichotomy for Christians? Oh, man, do I really have to choose? Well, you know, who's going to choose Paul over Jesus? And so, you know, the teachings of Paul can kind of get discounted. And so, yeah, as I was kind of. As we were kind of talking about, you know, what episodes to record, I threw this out there. Like, what if we just kind of dove into what are all the areas that people try to allege that Paul and Jesus disagree, really examine? Okay, is it a disagreement or is it just something that, you know, different perspectives that align famously? This is not a Jesus and Paul thing. It's a Paul and James thing. The idea of faith and works. Right. And there have been a lot of people that have struggled with that concept of, well, man, you know, James really seems to emphasize works and that works are superseding faith. And then, you know, Paul, man, he really acts like it's faith alone, no works at all, man. How do those things go together? They do coincide, they do align. They're, you know, you just have to really kind of dive into what are the differences in the kind of context, of course, and the way they're using those words. But they don't contradict, they didn't disagree. And similarly with Paul and Jesus. So, Jack, I'll hand it to you. I'm sure you're going to read the tweet, but any kind of introductory thoughts for you as well. I'm sure you've seen this for a while, maybe dating back to even before this tweet. [00:03:38] Speaker C: Yeah, this has been a few years in the making, and that's something I'm going to highlight here in a minute. But let's. Let's get to the one that kind of kicked us off here. You guys see that on the screen? Yeah. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Who is Jacob Mendelssohn? Yes, we do. Jeff. Can't read this. [00:03:53] Speaker C: Random people just make. Yeah, [00:03:55] Speaker A: that sounds wonderful. [00:03:57] Speaker C: Bad takes. Yeah, he's a messianic Jew. He has the follower of Yeshua in his bio, which, if you know my take on that, you know, that's a red flag in itself. But he just. It was as simple as this unpopular Christian opinion. It's okay. To disagree with Paul. No, it's not. I mean, like that. That in itself is incredibly loaded. [00:04:18] Speaker B: We can wrap [00:04:18] Speaker C: the [00:04:18] Speaker B: episode right there. Like it's not okay, [00:04:20] Speaker C: right? [00:04:20] Speaker B: Moving on. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Just let that Stan stupid [00:04:23] Speaker C: take you. He doubles down. He continues on as people push back because it's got a lot of pushback. In fact, you can. This is what this called ratioed. 1300 people replying to him. Only 368 liked it. So a lot more people yelling at him than agreeing with him essentially is what that means. He goes on to say, theoretically, disagreeing with Paul doesn't mean rejecting Paul or calling him a liar, thinking God is not speaking through him. Paul had sharp disagreements with many apostles. Paul was a Jew and had many debates and disagreements. A. He didn't have sharp disagreements with many apostles. He had one with Peter. [00:04:55] Speaker B: I was going to say the fact that he should just make a blanket statement like that with no context or follow up is one of the problems with social media. [00:05:02] Speaker C: As if the early church was like at each other's throats about stuff. That's not true. He continued doubling down, tripling down. I guess at this point, Paul's writings are divinely inspired, authoritative and direct words from the Spirit. We should all read and follow his words at the same time. Paul is our brother in Christ, not our master. Jesus commands us to actually engage with the Spirit and be led into all truth. And then somebody sums up his words in a way he agrees with it that Paul was. Writings contain direct messages from God by the Spirit to individual communities. For those communities, Paul's letter was fully, directly authoritative and binding. God was telling them what to do and they needed to do it. You can see all the sleight of hand going on here. Right? You can see that it's just kind of dancing around and. Well, I'm not saying that Paul was a liar and I'm not saying anymore. I'm not like, come on. [00:05:48] Speaker B: Even that second tweet where he's, you know, Paul's writings are divinely inspired and authoritative. Like, that's kind of backing down a little bit. Like, oh, so. So if all of his words are divinely inspired and authoritatively backed by God, which ones are we allowed to disagree with? You know, it seems like that, you know, he's scaled back there. [00:06:06] Speaker A: I'm not saying it's not important. I'm not saying it. And then I love how he says somebody finally had the grace to listen. Like, no, somebody was finally dumb enough to go along with your point when you were Getting again, a 1.3 thousand blasted comments getting blasting you. Yeah. What a joke. [00:06:21] Speaker C: Well, and so, as I mentioned, he's not the only one. This is not a new take. Beth Moore, famously. And we'll get around to how she was using this here in a little bit, but five or six years ago, she's the big Baptist. Well, she used to be baptized. I don't know where she is now. She's been all over the place now. [00:06:38] Speaker B: I know that name more than I obviously know this guy's name. [00:06:40] Speaker C: Yeah, she was a big deal. She is a big deal. Sold millions of books. She said we have to reckon with the fact that we, myself included, went too far. We put limitations on women that exceed what Christ demonstrated. We did it. Instead of wrestling with the tension between the Gospels and the epistles, we're watching a backlash. The tension between the Gospels and epistles is saying the Bible contradicts itself. So then she came back around my basic take on life so far. If tons of folks say one thing and Jesus says another, I'd pretty well go with Jesus on it. No, I was not subtweeting the apostle, but I'd like to say something wholeheartedly. All scriptures inspired by God, authoritative truth, but the persons themselves, Paul and Jesus are not equals. I know this is hard for some to swallow, but Paul is not our Savior. Paul would be horrified, I believe, by the way he has been deified. Nobody is saying that Paul is equal with Jesus if we're saying his words are authoritative and inspired. That's not the argument. But that's what she has to make the argument. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Can we go ahead and just lay it out there why people say this? A lot of times it is due to exactly what she's pointing to, which is the women's roles that Paul was. Paul was too restrictive of women. He was oppressive of women. He was a single guy that only wanted men to. To teach. And there's other things that a lot of people would say they disagree on. But to me, this is the. This is the one where that most. Is the reason why most people want to pit them against each other is that Paul is the one that specifically said in the New Testament church, women are not to have leadership roles. They're not to. They're not to take authority over men. Jesus never explicitly said that. And so it's such an easy take to say, man, I just agree with Jesus right like you that in that quote that she says, like basically implying that anybody who says, well, I also agree with Paul does not agree with Jesus. And one thing that I wanted to get to and I'm going to open it up to you guys before I know I just kind of alluded to and previewed one of the areas that people would say they disagree. I wanted to ask you guys, why you. Why you think so many people are under that impression that Paul and Jesus disagreed and why people. Why is this such a theological sticking point for some people? My answer other than the again, I think it's a. It's mainly about people don't want to be sticklers about women leading in the church. But my answer would be I'm not saying Jesus didn't teach specific things. He obviously did. He got very specific. But he also taught in parables. There was some allegory. There was a lot more general statements about the Kingdom. And Matthew 5. Seven, Sermon on the Mount is just. Is kind of fairly general about just regular Christian living, right? Or I say regular Christian moral behavior. You know, not breaking your promises, not divorcing about things like that. Paul really got into the nitty gritty of Christian living. Really got into the nitty gritty of the church. And as we've talked about time and time before on this podcast, it's. It's real easy to amen the generic. It's real easy to amen the you know, you love your neighbor, things like that. And again, Jesus taught specific things too. My point is Paul got very nitty gritty on hey, once again, women, you're not allowed to teach or you know, things like that where that makes people a little more uncomfortable. And so that would be my hypothesis for why this is something that people would push. Curious what you guys think of why Paul is. Why is Paul viewed as the villain in the New Testament by. I say villain a little bit dramatically. Kind of like the, you know, the guy that was too harsh, I guess. What are yalls thoughts on that? [00:10:04] Speaker A: Well, I think that's the direct result of female pastors and that includes the men as well, if you know what I mean, that don't want to preach the nitty gritty. They don't want to preach the difficult stuff. I really do think that that women in leadership roles is kind of the linchpin to so much of this argumentation. I was curious because I didn't do enough research on this to know going all the way back to the early church fathers I know we have like Ignatius, I think Paul follows Paul and was supposedly his protege. Things along those lines, I could be way misspeaking on that. But that's my understanding is that There are, you know, those that, that follow different ones. And Paul, I think Ignatius became, what was it the Bishop of Rome. Was it that kind of follow Paul and so early church fathers, my understanding is they did not reject the apostle Paul at all. That's what I would love to know historically is I know this is not like a yesterday take. This has been around for a little while. I heard some of these things growing up. Not real loud, but I kind of heard some, you know, some of these things of. Well, I don't know. Paul. Paul's pretty harsh on some things. Jack. Do you know, insight wise, like when this came about. Cause that to me always enlightens why this to me I speak too well to your point, I think the women's roles was a key piece to this. And I think people didn't really want to have to sit around for some of the difficult things. The other thing is in the article that I sent you guys, it goes into, well, Jesus, you know, Jesus was talking more about the. Or it was talking about more about the identity of Christ. The Gospels were. And Paul's more about the work of Christ and it's just a different Gospel altogether. And you know, Paul was really big into like church doctrine, things like that. It's like. Yeah, because the church wasn't fully. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah, because all of those things coincide. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Correct. Pentecost hadn't happened. So it's kind of a big deal that Jesus was not doing that and Paul was. Those can come together. So I think there's a lot of like really poor Bible study. I think the women's roles and the harshness of Paul really stands, stands up and causes these issues. But sorry, Jack, I'll let you go. Do you know any of the history on this? [00:11:59] Speaker C: It's one of those that you can find things all over the place for a long way back. But it is kind of picking up and it's the usual suspects. There's Scott McKnight. He's one of these kind of squishy guys that, yeah, you read his stuff and it's one of those like, man, this guy doesn't really stand for much, but it's a very nice gospel kind of thing. And he had a Christianity Today article and again about this word, the tension between Paul and Jesus. When somebody says that, know that they're about to really start messing with the scriptures. Yeah, Tension. Tension means disagreement. Tension means like one or the other. There's two sides to. You can't have tension without two sides. Right. [00:12:43] Speaker B: And two sides pulling in opposite directions. Right. Two sides [00:12:46] Speaker C: implies that they are not on the same side. They're not together on these things. And it's like, yes, as you guys have just highlighted, they were talking about different things and they were sometimes talking in different ways. But there is this effort and we've. This is a thing that we've done episodes on and all that of to recast Jesus as just this soft, squishy, nice hippie guy, you know, arm around your shoulder at all times, hey, man, it's okay. And not. They don't know what to do with the turning tables Jesus. They don't know what to do with the brood of vipers. Jesus with the calling a woman a dog, Jesus with the any of those kinds of things. They don't know what to do with the revelation Jesus with the sword coming out of his mouth. They just want the Sermon on the Mount Jesus, which is great. The Sermon on the Mount is wonderful. But to do that, you have to just start cutting out verses. And so sometimes you get people who call themselves red letter Christians where it's only the words that Jesus said they're okay with. That means cutting out the Old Testament and the New. Others won't go that far, but they. They want to elevate certain parts of Jesus's character over all the rest, to, like, cancel out. Well, Jesus said, love your enemies. So when Paul says government bears a sword, they can't possibly practice the death penalty because you're supposed to turn the other cheek. Like, these are different categories. They're talking about different things. And where we have Jesus on the record about things like that, he's not against those things, but you have to make this version of Jesus that you can use as your trump card over Paul that. Well, sorry, Paul, I know you think that, but Jesus went this way. And therefore, because one of the other things they'll do is where Paul says in First Corinthians 7 about not I, but the Lord and that. And they say the implication is kind of that, yeah, he did that in that chapter, but he did that a lot. That a lot of the time. He was riffing and doing his own thing, basically taking [00:14:37] Speaker B: his own liberties. [00:14:38] Speaker C: Right? And, well, Jesus says this, but I'm going to teach you this. And we can come through and parse out which ones of those are under that category and we can just toss those out. Even in that chapter, he's not saying this isn't inspired. He's saying, here's a direct quote from Jesus. Here's what I have to say about it. It's still inspired scripture. It's still something we can learn from. And so people are very, they play a lot of games around this stuff. But I want to talk about here for a second. This is. Why not say real [00:15:08] Speaker B: fast, Jack, before you go in that direction, I'll give it back to you. This is why a comprehensive view of the Bible is so important and why it's so important for churches to make sure that they're doing everything they can. And all of us have argued before that, you know, Bible class programs and what you're, what you're teaching, not I'm talking about kids, but like adult, you know, when you come to Sunday school, when you come to Bible class on Sunday morning, this is why it should be icing on the cake. It should be extra. I get all that. Congregations need to make sure that they're not just only teaching from the New Testament that they're not. Because you'll see that in the Church of Christ specifically, I don't, I don't see a lot of, you know, just the red letter, only people. I'm sure there are some, a lot of people, it's pretty much ignoring the Old Testament. Maybe not ignoring it, but like, you'll hear people that will say, oh, that's Old Testament. So it doesn't really, doesn't really count. And, you know, making sure that we are teaching a comprehensive view of how the Old Testament does relate today. What we, what we learn about God's character from the Old Testament, a lot of the, the parallel principles that exist both in the Old Testament and New Testament. And that really the main difference is, you know, law versus Christ. I think that's one of those areas where the Church of Christ does not do a great job. I think it can lead to stuff like. This is my point, like, once again, we, and you know, I, I would say we should spend a lot of time in the Gospels learning about Christ and the parables. I should say we should spend a lot of time in the epistles, of course. But if you go your whole year and not a single Bible class in your congregation is going over an Old Testament book, a minor prophet going over the law, things like that, sure. This is arbitrary. This is just Will's opinion. I do think that, that, that is unhealthy. I think that tips the balance of power, so to speak, to where, yeah, you might. You're going to have a lesser understanding of the whole picture of the Bible, if that is. Is the structure of the way that your Bible classes go in your congregation. So just A little sidetrack there, but I do, I mean, this is why it's so important to make sure that you are fully grasping all of it. Otherwise it's like, oh, well, here's a story here. Here's what Jesus said here, here's what Paul said here. All of it is in alignment. All of it is one big, you know, message from God that's important for us to grasp. I do think, once again, I think they're extra and we should not view them as, you know, something that just every Christian depends on. But I mean, one hour, two hours of Bible class every single week, that's a lot of time. I mean, that's, that's, that's a good bit of time. It's 104 hours a week and so a year, I should say. And so I just think it's important to make sure that we're in the right direction on that. But sorry to cut in front of you, Jack. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. [00:17:40] Speaker C: Hey folks, I wanted to tell you about a couple of books from our friends over at Cobb Publishing. Holy Me and Grow Up. Holiness is frequently ignored or minimized. But in Holy Me, Paul Clements shows that it is at the center of the Christian Life. This simple 13 lesson study explains what holiness is, how we get it, and why it matters. Designed for both personal and Bible class study, this book will both encourage and challenge you to greater levels of dedication to God and Christianity. His latest book, Grow up, is a simple 13 lesson study on spiritual growth designed to help Christians understand the what, the why and the how of becoming a mature Christian. Both Holy Me and Grow up are available from Amazon.com and Cobb Publishing. Yeah, no, it's good to have that kind of balance. What I want to talk about a little bit is this is not just a thing within Christianity. And this is why it's frustrating when Christians start playing this game. Is it allies you with people who are not on the same page because we are lowering scripture, right? When we do this, when we say we put some books above others, when we kind of, well, the four Gospels, that's kind of the super Bible. And the rest of it is under that. And it's kind of up to our interpretation. When you do that, you have atheists who agree, you have Muslims who agree, people who also really hate Paul. And so I saw Joe Rogan talking about this. He said Paul was really the creator of Christianity. He never met Jesus. Jesus never spoke to him. Jesus never wrote anything down. And so this is a guy that's kind of exploring religion. And he comes to it and goes, well, yeah, but that Paul guy, he's, you know, you're kind of. It's an offshoot of what Jesus was trying to do. And so, because Joe Rogan's kind of got that whole be nice to everybody kind of thing, and he likes that part of Jesus. And so the idea that Paul was building on and flush or fleshing out everything that Jesus taught and kind of giving us a fuller version of that, you can either take that or you can go, well, Paul kind of took it and ran the other direction, which is what he's doing. The Muslims I was. I came across. I don't know if you guys did, in your research for this, a lot of Muslims taking shots at Paul because, remember, they consider Jesus a prophet. But if you add on what Paul had to say about Jesus, that does not fit with what they're trying to do with Jesus. They want to claim Jesus on some level, like, yeah, yeah, he actually is on our side. No, he's not. But to do that, you got to get rid of Paul. And so they do that. And so when we talk about these progressives in the church who are undermining Paul, they're opening the door for other people to go, yeah, you know what? The whole Bible, it does have some problems. You know, it's not. There's some things we kind of do need to look down on. No, we can't forfeit any territory here. And that's what they're doing. [00:20:22] Speaker A: I think when you look at Acts, you know, Acts 9 specifically, Joe Rogan talks about, he never met Jesus. He never talked to Jesus. And I saw that repeated time and again. He's not Jesus. He doesn't talk to Jesus. This is ridiculous. The apostles walked with Jesus. He never did. And yet what they're claiming is that Acts 9 basically is a figment of Luke's imagination. Okay, so now we're writing Luke out. Well, Luke wrote a gospel, so do we write Luke the gospel out? And if we write his gospel out, then do we write the other Gospels out? How can we trust. And [00:20:48] Speaker B: Luke wrote Acts too, so how do we trust Acts? [00:20:50] Speaker A: Correct. If Luke is going to write Luke and Acts, and if he's just going to throw in some figment of his imagination that Paul actually met Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, and that didn't really happen. He didn't really talk. Talk to Jesus. It doesn't really count. Okay, then what else are we throwing out? So now you have a problem with Luke and you have a problem with Paul. And if you have a problem with Luke, once again, where does that end? How do we know that the other ones are telling the truth? Because he seems to match pretty close. So the whole thing kind of falls in on itself when you start poking around going, why do they not [00:21:18] Speaker C: accept that he may have actually talked to Jesus, that that Acts 9 was not actually a lie, that Luke was a genuinely good historian that was writing down what happened? And yet all of these things are pretty much like, well, he never really met Jesus. And that's exactly what Rogan's saying. And they're bas. Basing it on that. And so this miracle that takes place of him being blinded, of Jesus coming down, why are you persecuting me like that? Very much is grounded in reality. That's exactly what happened. Paul repeats it, I think, a couple different times from Festus and such, to explain how he came around to being a Christian. That all gets tossed out the window. And to me, that's kind of the linchpin. It's almost the. It's the version of people that reject Jesus and the resurrection being the linchpin. Like, you just can't get around it. This, to me, is the lynchpin of if Jesus himself is seeing Paul and blinding Paul and all of these things happen. And Christians, he went from being a violent persecutor on record to not, you know, to. To being the foremost member, you [00:22:16] Speaker A: know, [00:22:16] Speaker C: apostle, quote, [00:22:17] Speaker B: foremost evangelist, like the [00:22:18] Speaker C: foremost evangelist for the church, doing so many things and writing more than half the New or almost half the New Testament, like 13 [00:22:24] Speaker A: epistles. [00:22:25] Speaker C: It really hinges on that moment. So to me, that's where people have to get it right is, did Jesus or did Jesus not come and talk to Paul on the road to Damascus, blind him and send him toward Ananias to be baptized. If he didn't, then we have nothing to talk about because you're going to throw everything else [00:22:39] Speaker A: out. And if he did, then what is the problem? [00:22:42] Speaker B: It's not just Acts 9. How many times does Paul recount that story when he's at least telling about his conversion? Yeah, when he's, you know, before, you know, the authorities and the Roman authorities and things like that. Like he. He recounts that that's exactly what happened. So it's not just the. The one spot in Acts, if they're in Acts 9, it's other places too. And so, Joe, I think that's a really good point that there's a level of, okay, you need to study your Bible a little bit more or read your Bible a little bit more. If your take is that Paul and Jesus never, never crossed paths, that they never had any interaction, that's literally one of the entire reasons why Paul claims so much authority. Obviously he's inspired, but like, listen, he got his. He got his commission essentially to go and preach to the Gentiles. From who? From Christ himself. That's a pretty central, you know, component of acts. That's a central, pretty central component of the entire start of Christianity. It's almost like that's getting discounted. So I think that's a really good point. I don't know if you guys are good to go ahead and get into some of the, you know, supposed differences where people disagree. Jack, [00:23:43] Speaker C: I want to do one more thing is talk about just the, on the surface defenses of this. And I think one of them is if you think that Jesus like that, that this plan that the, the Trinity came up with for Jesus to come and die and establish a kingdom and everything that Jesus is going to do, and on this rock I will build my church. And within 15 years, some former Pharisee comes in and co ops the whole thing and just runs it completely off the rails. How stupid do you think God is? Like, how incompetent do you think God is that he allowed his whole plan, this project that he died for, to be taken over? But that's what these people have to run with. That has to be the implication of it. Another one would be, we've got the writings of Peter, we've got the writings of John, we've got the writing. Everybody that was there in the first century. We have Peter interacting with Paul's writings and saying, you know, yeah, he's kind of hard to understand, but he's not saying, yeah, that guy's a heretic. We don't understand, hey, we walked with Jesus for three years and who is this guy? They didn't do that. They had every opportunity in the world to do that. There is zero evidence anywhere in church history that anybody on the ground was going, hey, who's this new guy and what is he doing to our movement? Why not? Why not? And so this guy who's going around planting churches, baptizing people all over, preaching all over, the most prominent in this section of the world, why wouldn't there be pushback? And so the idea, this is one of those, that people do this a lot of times, basically, like, yeah, we know now we're smarter than they were 2,000 years ago. We know Jesus better than the People on the ground in the first century actually did. And you see the same with like the women's roles kind of thing or whatever. Like. Well, we actually know what they missed. No, it doesn't work that way in the same sense. Wow. Well, they were hoodwinked by Paul, but thank goodness we came along and figured out that he was. It's things like that. Those are the implications when you start saying Paul versus Jesus. Well, I follow Jesus and not Paul and things like that. That Jesus let his movement be taken over by a heretic and that the rest of the church sat by and watched while he did it. That, to me, is ridiculous. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Especially when you consider how much of the New Testament that Paul wrote. Like God allowed that much information from Paul, that much writing from Paul to just be passed along as canon, [00:26:08] Speaker C: just [00:26:09] Speaker B: like all the other. Yeah. Preserved and passed along just like all the other Gospels. Yeah. [00:26:11] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say is the Paul fanboys did a real good job when it came to putting the canon together that they snuck in 13 of his books. Like, this is not Jude, which was kind of like, man, where do we. Does it fit? Does it not? And yes, Jude is canon. It should be in there. Yeah, that may [00:26:26] Speaker B: be debatable. More reason to at least question it than Paul's. Right, [00:26:30] Speaker A: right. A one chapter thing. Couple weird things in there type of thing. You could see people questioning that 13 books that everybody in Christendom goes, yeah, that, that's. Those we know for sure are the case. And yet people come in and go, well, what. And here's what I would push back on this guy, this Mendelssohn guy or whatever is, okay, so if we can disagree with Paul, what should we agree with him on? And what are we allowed to disagree [00:26:54] Speaker B: with? And who gets to decide and [00:26:56] Speaker A: whose authority? Correct. On whose standard are we choosing one way or the other? Because if you say, like to me, you write out all 13 books, if you say you can disagree, then you have fundamentally undercut all authority. This is why we're a big believer in things like patriarchy is once you cut down the authority, you cut them off at the knees. And there's just. Once you take a guy's authority away and you question everything, the elders and everything else. Like it collapses a system. And once you cut out, undercut and cut Paul out to the knees and go, well, we don't have to agree with everything, then you have to agree with nothing. And if you take out 13 books of the New Testament, what is our, our church doctrine like A lot of the church Doc. Correct. It's whatever you want because we're going [00:27:34] Speaker B: off Peter kind of what a lot of people want. [00:27:37] Speaker A: And I think that's really what it [00:27:38] Speaker B: is. Less hard and fast rules. This reminds me very much so dad, my dad obviously was, you know, taught creation evidences for the longest time and you know, there for a while and it's, it's still something that people do. I would say it's probably not quite as in vogue now as it used to be. Is question the literal nature of Genesis 1 through 11 of the creation account, Noah and the Flood. Basically the first 11 chapters or so of Genesis people would question, you know, it's allegorical, it's this kind of a people. Some people call it straight up call it a myth, but that the rest of the Bible, you know, we can take literally. And one of the points dad always made was, you know, he's, I'm sure was. He was not the only one to make this. But like, listen, if you can't Trust the first 11 books of the Bible that Jesus himself also referred back to, you know, Genesis 2, 24 and others, why would you trust anything else? And, and if you get to decide, okay, I'm not going to trust this one man, think about how much is then up for debate. For you to say, well, maybe I won't accept that as literal either. We talk Song of Solomon, man. Well, maybe that's allegorical. Or a lot of the, A lot of again, the historical accounts. Well, man, is that, is that really legitimate? A lot of the miracles of Christ, well, maybe those didn't actually happen. You just open the, the floodgates to just arbitrarily. And that's the key, Joe, with what you're saying is with this Paul kind of questioning, okay, it's okay to disagree with Paul when. And how do you know when it's okay to disagree with him? That's what the tweet didn't answer. Like, when is it okay to disagree with him? And how do you know when it's okay to disagree with him? Is it based on, once again, only when you can maybe sort of see a difference in what he says versus what Jesus says? Is it when you don't like what he says? Is it when a lot of the things that he says conflict with the way the culture is moving today? When do you get to decide? And the answer is it would be arbitrary. And that's why that tweet doesn't really elaborate on when you get to disagree with Paul. It just Kind of puts a blanket statement out there. But you're exactly right in that. That's why this inerrancy and sufficiency view of Scripture is so important for Christians understand. Yeah, you can trust the entire Bible. You don't have to run things through the filter of man. Is this legitimate? Like, is this something that was for me, am I supposed to, you know, is this inspired? Is authoritative? It's all authoritative. It's all inspired. And this is to Jack's point from a second ago. If you start poking holes in it, if you start, you know, lowering certain areas of scripture, elevating others, and making it kind of like almost a ranking system of, well, man, if these two disagree, I know I have to go with this one. You are making it a lot easier on the atheists to argue against us. You are making it a lot easier on skeptics of Christianity, of Christianity to say, yeah, these guys, you know, they can't. They can't agree on anything. Even their own book they've got disagreements on. And so that would just be kind of be my take on what you had to say there, Joe. [00:30:17] Speaker C: All right, well, fellas, let's get into. We've kind of danced around it. We've talked a few. Few things about it. What are the supposed differences? Because we can dunk on this all day long. We clearly, all three of us think this is a really stupid take, as well as Will's pointing out, it undercuts so many things. It undercuts all the scripture. It undercuts the Gospels. It undercuts everything. The inerrancy of scripture undercuts, you know, whether we can trust things or not, like, all sorts of stuff, church doctrine. So if you believe in this, even slightly believe in this, we have a real problem. And that's kind of what we're getting at, is like, man, this is one of those slippery slope type things. Once the domino starts falling, you have a lot of dominoes fall. But there are people that are going to say there actually are differences. And, Jack, I'll kick you off on this first one, the focus on the kingdom. Jesus focused on the kingdom and Paul did not. This is one of the big differences that I think in all our research we came across is kind of one of the first ones I think that I saw of the kingdom versus the church versus what Paul [00:31:16] Speaker A: decided to focus on, what Jesus really was focusing on. And there's a lot of Jewish stuff that going along with his kingdom things along those lines. So explain that one. Maybe flesh that out a Little bit more. And yeah, we'll get into our thoughts on that. [00:31:29] Speaker C: He did. I mean, that was the good news of the kingdom, the gospel he was preaching. And people will say that they preach different gospels. One comes along, two Jewish people who were looking for the kingdom and saying, hey, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And here are the signs of the kingdom. And this is what the kingdom is going to look like. And this is what the kingdom signifies, that it's going to be this, you know, mustard seed that grows into this tree, the birds of the air. You know, basically it's going to be this haven for all peoples and it's going to be this leaven that just fills the world and all of those things. That's what the kingdom's going to be. It's inaugurated by his death, burial and resurrection, the kingdom's opening. And then the next guy comes along, he's like, well, hey, he's not talking so much about the kingdom and what the kingdom's gonna look like when it gets here. No, he's talking about how to live inside the kingdom. And not that he doesn't use the term kingdom and those kinds of things, but the other thing is he's talking to a gentile audience. These are not people that had the promises of Isaiah and all the prophets that had prophesied the kingdom and what was coming and what Jesus meant to all that. It's a different kind of thing. And so understanding that and understanding this is somebody that in the same sense of the. If you went back in American history, the things that were written leading up to the American Revolution versus the things that were written in the early years of the country after it had been established, Those are different things. There's different points of emphasis. Then with this, you add on not just the different time period, but the different audience. They don't know what the Jewish kingdom is. They don't understand what, what that means, even what the idea of the Messiah is, other than this is the Lord, this is the. The God above the other gods, as he talks about that in Ephesians, where it's Jesus versus the authorities and principalities and powers, and what Paul did at Athens and basically my God versus your God, that's a different kind of discussion. And so of course it's going to take a different look at these kinds of things. And why, why would he go to them and preach the Jewish Anglican? Because you even see this in the Gospels themselves. The emphasis that Matthew has and the emphasis that Luke [00:33:36] Speaker B: has, [00:33:37] Speaker C: very different. And you know, that doesn't mean that Luke doesn't talk about the kingdom, but it's just going pointed in a much different direction. That doesn't mean it's changing what Jesus had to say. Hey, folks, I wanted to tell you about our new Christian book combo. It's two books [email protected], the first is Sunday School Catch Up. It's 150 Bible basics for those that maybe didn't grow up in the church or feel like they're lacking in the fundamentals of the Bible. And then starting line by Dr. Brad Harb and of course by Will on that one as well, on the basics of the Christian life, of what it means to be a Christian, to be part of the church, why the church does what it does, some doctrinal basics and things like that. And so with those two books, we've got them at a discount on our site when you buy them together. A great starter pack for anyone who wants to know more about the Christian faith. So check that out [email protected]. [00:34:31] Speaker B: well, Paul also, I mean, actually, you know, Paul uses the, the word kingdom and the concept of the kingdom more than Luke does, more than even Luke does. You know, it's not like Paul didn't even consider that as a, as a kind of concept just for some scripture. Romans 14:17 comes to mind about the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That's as he's wrapping up his book of Romans, talks a lot about The Kingdom in First Corinthians 6, 9 and 10, talks about the unrighteous not inheriting the kingdom of God, which is obviously, you know, more so probably referring to the eternal kingdom of God. But even Galatians 5 as well. Those who practice the works of the flesh. But Then first Thessalonians 2, verse 12 talks about the basically God calling believers into his own kingdom of glory. And so yes, Matthew especially, that is if you study Matthew, that is, that is a key word of the book of Matthew is the kingdom. The kingdom. The kingdom. He emphasizes it more than any of the other gospel writers. That's who was Matthew written to? Matthew was written to the Jews. Jack, I know you brought that up already. Who was looking for. They were looking for this kingdom. Paul is taking a different approach, not just from, from Jew to gentile, but as, as you're talking about. What does the kingdom of God look like today? Is one of the questions that Paul answers. And also he uses it to talk about eternity as well. But it's again, I just want to emphasize, it's not like he doesn't talk about it. It's not like he. This is not something that Paul even covers at all. It's just first of all, different approach. It's a different angle. But to say that these two. Joe, you sent us an article where that. This was. The first point was that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. Paul preached a couple of places, Gospel of God's grace, like. And why are those two things supposed to be in opposition to each other? It doesn't make sense. [00:36:16] Speaker A: If you take the kingdom as God's or is Christ's reign overall, which I think is accurate. I think you end the. The book of Matthew where, as you guys said, kingdom is heavily focused. What is the end of Matthew? The Great Commission. All authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth. Right. That. That overarching authority has been given. Christ reigns supreme over all of life, over all principalities, over everything. Oh, where does that sound? Where have we seen that before? Oh, yeah, let's go to Ephesians 1. Let's go to Ephesians 6. You know, let's go to. Paul talks about that in a lot of different places of Christ reigning supreme over all and being given, even every name shall bow. That's Philippians 2, 11, 12 somewhere right in there, right after he talks about Jesus coming down, taking on flesh. And that at every name, or at the name Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Christ is Lord. He is ruler over all. That is the kingdom. That's the purpose. Colossians 1 about him being the firstborn among the dead. Like Paul is expounding on this concept of Jesus reign over all. So when we're talking about kingdom focus and kingdom idea. Yes. It's not just the church, it's Christ reigning supreme, in my opinion. And I think Paul fleshes that out quite a bit and very well in a lot of his letters. He may not use kingdom every single time. The concept is certainly there. All right, number two, [00:37:30] Speaker C: one other thing to throw on that. The last verse of the book of Acts says that Paul was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered. That's what he was doing the whole time. I mean, that is the last thing. Yeah, but Luke wrote that. You [00:37:43] Speaker B: can't trust that, remember? [00:37:44] Speaker C: Right, [00:37:45] Speaker B: right. [00:37:46] Speaker C: So we tossed up the rest [00:37:47] Speaker A: of Acts. [00:37:48] Speaker C: Yeah, That's a perfect continuation from Luke into Acts. The guy that wrote about Jesus covered him the whole time. Also was with Paul and all of this. Not that Luke was there with Jesus, but that he got all the eyewitness stuff and he didn't see the difference between Jesus and Paul. In fact, he has Paul preaching the kingdom just like Jesus did. Sorry, carry on. He would have been the [00:38:06] Speaker A: perfect guy. He would have been the perfect guy to really categorize the difference between. I did all this research on the Gospels and it's like this guy's wackadoo. He's way off. There's none of that. It is perfectly seamless. Like Luke is, is the guy. But number two, obedience versus faith. Now this is, this goes back to Martin Luther and I think it's even before Martin Luther where this idea that, you know, the James is a straw faith and works. Yeah. That I think he, he took Paul, you know, Roman's side over James. Other people would say, well this is kind of the opposite of Jesus was really preaching, you know, the obedience. And you can read Matthew 5, you can read the Sermon on the Mount, he heavy on the obedience. Paul comes in and it's nothing but faith. There's, there's very little discussion of obedience in this framing framework of what they think is the difference and why they say this, [00:38:55] Speaker B: which is interesting. Just real fast, Joe, you would think that this is an area where if you're trying to appeal to the world and you're trying to make the most appealing message to, to anybody who will listen, wouldn't Paul come out on top here? You would take Paul's side, right. Because oh, you know, man, that obedience stuff like, like man, I actually have to do things. I actually have to do what God says now just give me the faith side. And I know nobody would come out and say that, but that's kind of unfortunately when living righteously and doing certain things the way that God instructed are viewed as oh well, that's viewed with the negative works connotation. They're typically looking at, you know, faith, faith alone from a very positive angle. And so I just think that's interesting that this would be maybe the one area where they allegedly, which they don't but allegedly disagree where Paul would kind of come out on top if you're trying to make a, a mass appeal message of Christianity. But you know, I, I, I think it's pretty obvious here that this is not something that Paul was not anti good works. Right. Paul was not anti obedience to the things that God instructed. There's, there's so much from Paul about works of the flesh, the works of the spirit. Galatians 5 comes to mind right away. Like if you walk in the spirit, these are the things you are going to do. If, if these are, if you walk in spirit, these are the behaviors that you are going to avoid. If you walk in the flesh, this is how you're going to act. I mean you think about everything that we see about behavior from Paul and the fact that yeah, Paul was not anti obedience. Paul was not, you know, oh, just faith, that's all you need. And once again I think this is one of the lower. Your Bible knowledge is not very high if you think Paul was, was only about faith and didn't have anything to say about obedience and works. Jack. [00:40:36] Speaker C: This is a, this is a problem. The faith alone people cause us though that they, they really can basically make it where you have to don't. You don't have to do anything. And yes, you want to avoid works based salvation. But Paul was in Jesus. This is not this discrepancy of. Because Jesus says he comes to give you rest, right. That he was not works based salvation. He was here to say that [00:40:58] Speaker B: Jesus was a gospel of retirement. Jack. Or Paul was a gospel of just you know, 60 hour work weeks basically. Right. [00:41:04] Speaker C: You [00:41:05] Speaker B: know, [00:41:05] Speaker C: workaholic. Yeah. Or the other way around, however people want to read it. So second Thessalonians 1, Paul says verse 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. So this idea that Paul was kind of anti obedience, that's not really true. And then you can go to Romans 6, you can go to all kinds of verses where Paul talks about obedience, submission to Christ, living this life, that's again the fleshing out the kingdom, submission to Jesus. And so this grace faith thing that people have cast onto Paul, that his whole message is basically do nothing. And then you go to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is giving us a way to live and the commands that he's expecting people to follow and things like that. But I guess part of this would be the way they treat the law. That's one of the ones people really focus on is Jesus says I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill. And in Ephesians Paul says that he abolished the, the I'm gonna have to read the verse so I get the, the wording just right. But that it makes it sound like well actually Jesus did abolish the law. And so in verse 15 of Ephesians chapter 2, by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. So Jesus said, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. And they'll look at this and say, well, Paul said that Jesus abolished the law here so that it's one of those. A lot of the Bible contradictions on surface reads don't look great, but you do have to look at it for a minute and you get to where you understand it. So anyone want to take that one or you want me to keep rolling with it? [00:42:43] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's pretty clear there that the emphasis he's making starting all the way back in verse 11 is the breakdown of the wall between Jews and Gentiles is the point that Paul has made starting all the way back in verse 11. Remember, you were once Gentiles in the flesh. You're called uncircumcision. Verse 12. At the time you were alien or you're without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covenants of promise. Verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse 14. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Then you get to the verse that you just read, Jack having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, one new man from the two. That's the emphasis here. Thus making peace, verse 16, that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. The, the context is the Jew gentile split. Essentially the divergent Paul is emphasizing no Christ abolished, that there is a, you know, coming together within Christianity, within the kingdom of God. As you spoke to earlier, Joe, where that wall of separation between are you a follower of God because you were born in the correct lineage, or were you a follower of God or are you a follow God due to your obedience to the Gospel, that wall of separation is broken. So that took me 30 seconds to read that and see that. Obviously I knew that from previous study, but anything else you guys would add to that, I mean, to me that's pretty clear that that's what he's talking about. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's where I was going to go with it. The law was intended for. And this. I saw this a lot on like the circumcision and Jerusalem Council being a big point. You know, of like, well, this is really where Paul kind of took over the church. And people just went along with Paul's version of Christianity at that point, because that way it was almost very much like, well, Paul just hated Jews is kind of what it came down to. Like, well, first off, he was Jewish. And no, that's not the case. And he wasn't trying to, you know, abolish the law. You know, like, Christ fulfilled it. Christ was the perfect fulfillment of the law. We no longer needed that, you know, for salvation. And then this concept of staying away from the Gentiles, obviously, Peter's the one that receives the vision and Cornelius and all of those things. And that never really gets brought up. And so we bring in Paul. Peter's kind of the linchpin in that moment of ushering in this new system with the Gentiles involved. Exactly what. What Paul's talking about in Ephesians 2. Peter's the one that had the keys to the kingdom to kind of open those things up to. To the Gentiles with Cornelius. So not Paul. Paul's the one that was a commission to go. He's. He's the apostle to the Gentiles. But that also gets left off quite a bit. That's like, oh, Paul, you know, with. With the law. Like, a lot of things had taken place before Paul that had already established these points as being pretty cut and dried. So I don't know. I could see where people might have a problem with it, but. Jack, any thoughts on that? [00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah, the other thing is misunderstanding. When Jesus said, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. That doesn't mean he came to just keep it intact completely the way that it is. He did fulfill it by perfectly keeping it, by dying, by being the sacrifice. And you can go to Galatians 3, where it says, the purpose of the law is this, tutor, to lead us to Christ the schoolmaster, and helps us understand our need for Christ, our shortcomings, our need for the perfect sacrifice, everything that it does, and he fulfills that. And so when he says, I didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill, he did change it. It's not the idea that because he declared foods clean and the kinds of changes that are shown there in the early church, saying, hey, we don't have to make Gentiles become Jews. They don't have to undergo circumcision, as you guys are pointing out here in Ephesians chapter two. That's not what Jesus meant by, I did not come to abolish was, yeah, I'm here to just keep this thing going the whole time. Because that's what the Torah observant people do. No, no, it's all still there. And either they'll say that Paul was in favor of that, or they'll understand that Paul wasn't. And they'll say, well, that's the problem. That's why. And that, I think, is that Jacob Mendelsohn guy is saying, well, we've got to kind of go around Paul to go back to keeping the law. That's not how this works. [00:46:35] Speaker B: All right, guys, we got to get to the. We're 45 minutes and we got to cover the women's roles thing. I know we alluded to it earlier. Any other thoughts on the law before we get to this? Because this is once again, as we started with, I think not all of this the law focus as well as you just spoke to. I think a lot of this pitting Paul against Jesus is due to this. So you have people who will, who will look at Jesus and they'll say, they'll look at, you know, the Samaritan woman account, John 4. They'll look at the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Obviously incredible passages, great passages, where Jesus, you know, essentially speaks to women, a Samaritan woman, specifically in John chapter four, where he, you know, that was something that people would have been appalled by. And so they'll look at Jesus as kind of elevating women. And then they'll look at Paul who obviously, 1st Corinthians 14, 1st Timothy 2, starting in verse 11. Let a woman learn in silence, with all submission. Do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. Interestingly enough, this was a bit of a point of debate with some people close to me recently who basically trying to argue the cultural point here from first Timothy, Timothy two, like, oh, well, that was the man. You have to understand a different culture back then. Let's, let's get into. I mean, we've covered this before. This is not new territory. But I, I, once again, I think this is exactly where or why I should say so many people want to have this difference between Paul and Christ. So, Joe, I guess I'll hand it to you next, any thoughts on, on kind of this alleged disagreement between how Jesus. Jesus elevated women, Jesus didn't cast the stone, and Jesus, you know, all these things even, even I forgot to mention. And man, the first people who saw Jesus rise from the dead were women. And how, you know, Mary Magdalene was elevated in the ministry of Jesus. And then you have Paul coming along, being oppressive and restricting women's voices. This is the framework that they try to present about Jesus and Paul when it comes to women's roles. [00:48:25] Speaker A: What breaks this down is actually paying attention to what's going on in scripture and people just are not honest with the text. With Jesus In John 4, he meets a woman at the well and he calls her out like, yeah, you've had five. [00:48:36] Speaker B: Had five husbands. Right? [00:48:37] Speaker A: Like he. He doesn't soft pedal it. Oh, you poor woman. Hey, you're worshiping at the wrong mountain. Your guys's religion is false is exactly what he's telling her in that moment. And he's telling her to make her her life. Right? Like, you know, and letting her, letting her know who he is. But this whole idea that, oh, he was so he talked to a woman at the well. It's like, yeah, because Jesus does love people. That. That is very much part of who Jesus is, is that he was a, you know, Jesus is love. And so sure, he talks to women at the well. We now take that as him talking to the woman at the well. As Jesus just allowed everything from women and allows women to lead in the church. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout. Same thing with the woman caught in adultery. Yeah, because you didn't. This was a rumor type of thing. Well, she was caught in the act of adultery. Okay, well, where's the guy? Because in order to stone her, you have to have both. They didn't have both. And so people go, oh, see, he gave grace when she deserved to be stoned. It's like, but the law stated he was following the law. They're trying to catch Jesus in something. The law stated both had to be present. The other guy wasn't there. And so Jesus was actually just following the law in that moment. And he says, go and sin no more. So he's still calling her out in that moment. Same thing with this, this whole idea. Like the chosen and everybody else, which that's. Boy, that's taking some serious Ls this week. We stand vindicated. But either way, with season six, sorry, the trailers [00:49:53] Speaker B: take his victory lap on that. [00:49:54] Speaker A: Oh, man, we do, we do. But. But either way, the chosen and places like that really glorify. You know, Jesus had. Mary Magdalene had all of these women followers that just did everything for him. Like, where do we read that in the text? Yes, we see that there are moments where they're following him. There are moments that they're there. We see Mary And Martha and Lazarus, you know, they, they're for sure there. And Jesus had good relationships with women. He had a good relationship with his mother. How do we take that of Jesus having a few good relationships with women and turn it into. They were just as pivotal. Basically. They were almost like the 13th apostle. They were getting to go out and do a what? That is not at all what's taking place. And yet we have like blown this out of proportion because we're desperate for it to say something that it doesn't say. Then we get to Paul and Paul goes, no, we actually. I don't permit a woman to speak. Which is like, wow, Paul, how could you? It's only been the last 5,000 years where women weren't allowed to be priests and, and to lead and everything else. [00:50:48] Speaker B: The first Timothy 2 thing. Hello, who. Who does he immediately bring up after that? Adam and Eve, the very first two human beings [00:50:54] Speaker A: going back to the, to the beginning of creation, you know, 4,000 years. I suppose at that time, like, from the beginning, this was already laid out in place. So. And then on the heels of, of First Timothy 2, what happens? We have First Timothy 3, which is all about elders and deacons and men rising up and into the leadership and, you know, husband, one wife and all these things. And so we look at and we go, well, that's just Paul being misogynist. That's Paul being a single man. He doesn't understand Jesus, really understood us. Like, Jesus talked to a few women, call them out on their sin and love them. How did we, how did we extrapolate from that, that they are now allowed to go and be these massive leaders of the church and elders and deaconesses and, you know, preachers and things along those lines? It's such a dishonest argument. And it starts with just this fan fiction of what Jesus did with all of these women. Drives me nuts. [00:51:40] Speaker B: Well, and you have to. And you have to. Sorry, Jack, before you go, you have to stretch things too. I remember Sadie Robertson coming out and saying, basically went the. The people that Jesus. I think it might have been the Samaritan woman. It was somebody like that who's like, man, she went and told everybody. And so that's why I [00:51:52] Speaker C: get. [00:51:53] Speaker B: That's why I get to preach. Like, how, how much stretching did you just have to do with the text when the [00:51:58] Speaker A: church. The church was not [00:51:59] Speaker B: established? We're not talking, you know, there's no elders and none of that, that Paul is actually getting into. But because Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman and she went and told somebody else, man. All right, cool. Now I'm able to preach once again. You said it, Joe. It's just. It's a dishonest reading of the text. Sorry, Jackson. [00:52:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Just to kind of sum up, to put it succinctly, if Paul and Jesus disagreed about women's roles, all Jesus had to do was one thing. One thing. Twelve apostle slots. Give one to a woman would have changed everything. That's all he had to do. He didn't do it. Okay? And so this idea that Paul was limiting women and Jesus had commissioned them and sent them out, you know, Jesus sent out 70 to go preach. 70 guys. He sent out the apostles to go preach. It was. Guys. He's not sending the women to do these jobs. And the fact that women went and told the apostles at the resurrection, all that. That is wonderful. That is not to downplay that. That does not make them church leadership. That does not make them preachers. That does not make them fill those roles given in Ephesians, Chapter four. They're not one of those things. And that's okay. But you have to, as you guys are saying, the stretch you have to make to put Jesus against Paul on this, like, man, Jesus had every opportunity in the world. All he had to do was just set them out preaching, make one of them an apostle. Just one. One out of 12. He had 12 tries, and not one of them went to a woman. How do you take that and then go, man, Paul sure was mean to women. I mean, come on. And every argument they make for these things is ridiculous. And I think they know it's ridiculous, but they're really, really pushing at an agenda, and that's where you end up with these things. So. Yeah, that was the Beth Moore thing we talked about earlier. The tension between. There's not tension here. [00:53:40] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna go with Jesus over Paul. Yeah. [00:53:42] Speaker C: There would be tension here if there was a woman apostle. There would be a great deal of tension. There's not. So there's no tension. All right, so. [00:53:49] Speaker A: Or if any of the other books that God inspired happen to mention that, like, just. Just one. First Peter, Second Peter, any of the Johns, Jude, any of those. Any of the other gospels. Like, can we get anything that allows. [00:54:02] Speaker B: Deborah was a judge. How could you forget [00:54:05] Speaker C: Junia was an apostle? The secret. That's [00:54:09] Speaker A: right. Phoebe is a. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, we've [00:54:13] Speaker B: debunked all those before. If you're a new listener. So just. I'm not sure what episode it was, but anyway. Sorry, Jack. [00:54:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:18] Speaker A: Every Episode. [00:54:19] Speaker C: All right. Yeah, well hey, you can check it out on the new soon to be released episode guide. It'll be searching. That's right, that'll you'll be able to find it on there. So it'll be for number 250. Any, anything we need to do to wrap up up Paul and Jesus here. Any final thoughts? [00:54:35] Speaker B: You've got a couple more there on. On there. Jack, I don't know if you just wanted to spend 20 seconds on each government. Obviously you talk about a great deal the idea of sin and grace. We covered the John 8 woman caught in adultery thing before but you know, I, I think we hit the big ones. These are obviously one of since again kind of the main drivers behind them pitting against each other. But the government one you alluded to earlier, Jack, you want to spend 30 seconds on it? [00:54:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I mentioned just the death penalty. Right. And, and that people use Jesus's words about turning the other cheek and things like that as anti death penalties. And of course Paul says government has the sword in Romans 13 and you've got everything in the Old Testament. So it's again people putting Jesus against the rest of the scripture. Jesus is the one. He's behind the command of Noah in Genesis 9. If you take a man's life by man's life, yours shall be taken. Like this is mandated by God by the same Jesus who said turn the other cheek. Personal enemies versus criminals is two totally different [00:55:25] Speaker A: things, [00:55:25] Speaker C: right? Yeah. And enemies of the public. I mean this is. People do some really crazy stuff with the Sermon on the Mount and you really have to be watching for all the ways it'll get twisted. All [00:55:36] Speaker A: right fellas, think fast. This week we got a few different things we could cover. We [00:55:40] Speaker B: do, we do. Where do you want to go? So obviously the biggest thing online was the, the all the Star wars prequel talk. Jack, by the time this comes out, your episode on your own church reset, Jack Wilkey. Church Reset YouTube subscription. That one will already be have been out for a week. Joe and I as we're recording this today on the, on the day that we released the Golly Men podcast episode on it. So I don't know if we want to cover that with all three of us. Most people are going to be able to find our takes. If you're not a Star wars fan, you're probably thinking that's super lame either way. But man, it did stir up a lot and I do mean a lot online debate and it is still going. So we can cover that and cover election which way do you guys want to go? [00:56:22] Speaker C: Well, the problem with the election is, yeah, we're not going to have the, the result. Let's do the chosen thing because I want to hear you guys, [00:56:28] Speaker B: I forgot about the [00:56:28] Speaker C: chosen. So they released a like 20 second trailer for season six, which is Jesus, I guess, being led out of the garden of Gethsemane. And it shows all of these like silverish blue people that look like they're from Avatar. [00:56:41] Speaker B: Avatar. [00:56:42] Speaker C: And one of them is like a Native American warrior with the bow and arrow and woman that looks like she came from Wakanda with a spear. And they're all gathering around as Jesus is being led through. Jesus. As the Jesus character is being led through. And they're about ready to start fighting and take out Jesus's enemies. And the Jesus character looks at them and softly shakes his head and they stand down. And of course I'm being told by a bunch of Mormons on X that this is. That Jesus could have called 12 legions of angels. That's what this verse is depicting. I don't think so. But what do you guys have to say about him? [00:57:20] Speaker B: Everything. It landed exactly. Basically everything. You already said basically, you know, two months ago or whenever you released that. I mean, anything like that. The first couple seasons, which I've, I don't think I have watched a single minute of the Chosen in my entire life. So I, I take that for what it's worth. But I would imagine the first couple seasons probably pretty close to, to accurate. Probably as far as like, you know, really depicting things that we actually read in the text. I, I understand that you have to maybe dramatize a few things. I'm sure they did. But man, as time goes on, you even see this with regular TV shows where like by season five and six, you're like, what are they doing? Like, this just doesn't make sense, you know, trying to fit too much, you know, different timelines or whatever it is. And that's all that I'm seeing here with this chosen thing. It's kind of like, all right, well, we've kind of run out of stuff. Let's add some more interesting things, some more dramatic things, some more entertainment based things. And that's the danger, I guess that's my main take is that is the danger with making, with, with making the Bible into something where the main purpose for it is entertainment. The Bible is not supposed to be entertainment. The Bible is not supposed to be something that we look at and say, this is how I want to entertain myself. I understand A lot of people would say, listen, it's a great. At least previous seasons were great for, you know, the family to sit around and watch as opposed to some, you know, secular TV show. I understand that argument. I think the doctrinal differences, the kind of, the ways that it doesn't really line up to the text, has gotten worse season to season, culminating in this basically Narnia episode, essentially that the trailer looks like it depicts, but so not a lot different than what Jack said. But, Joe, any thoughts from you? [00:59:00] Speaker A: One of the things I saw was like, you know, Christians will put up with gore, they'll put up with sexual content, they'll put up with all sorts of stuff in these movies. And then, you know, the. The chosen just decides to put some angels in there, and people get all up in arms and all the Christians come out the woodworks and it's like, well, yeah, because those aren't claiming to be Christian. I just spoke to this in a class. Like, we have to be very careful. It's the lie closest to the truth type of thing. It is the. A lot of kids go to Christian colleges and end up losing the faith or get into major trouble because it's like, well, it's Christian. It's good. It's okay. Like, your guard would have been way more up had you gone to a major party school. I like. And yet, yeah, Jack's got pulled up here. For anybody that has not seen, your guard would have been way more up. And I think in this situation, you got a bunch of kids and everybody else going, this is great. How many kids are going to be in a Bible class here in about a year going, hey, did you know that there were Native American angels, you know, around the Garden of Gethsemane, they were about to shoot arrows. Like, this is exactly what happened with Joseph. And what was it? Prince of Egypt and the other one from Moses, was it. Or maybe Moses was Prince of Egypt. The other ones. There was a Joseph one. What was that one that released? And man, those. Those casts were stacked back then, like just a ridiculous cast for a Moses movie and a Joseph movie. And in both of those situations, people would come into my mom's first grade classroom. These. These young kids would. And it'd be like, well, this is what happened. Like, that never actually happened, but in their mind it did because they watched a movie where it happened. Like, how many Christians are watching this? And in 10 years, everybody's going to be going, oh, that's exactly what happened. No, it didn't. So, yes, we had to be very close or very careful on the lie closest to the truth. Truth that people just take this as biblical. That's far from unbiblical. And Jesus, like Peter, already cut off Malchus's ear in the garden to try to defend Jesus. Jesus glued it back on. You know what I mean? He healed it, put it right back on, and it's like, hey, we're not doing that. So the idea that right after that takes place, all these angels are coming into the garden and they could really take them on. And Jesus having to tell him to stand down. He already told Peter to stand down. This was God's plan from the outset. From the. Before going to Ephesians 1 again, before the foundations of the world. This was God's plan. And we think that we have a bunch of. And, Jack, I think I saw this take from you on. On Twitter, which is great. On X. It's great. Like, man, I guess I didn't read that in my Bible that, you know, the. The angels were about to disobey the command of God going back from before the foundation of the world to try to get Jesus out of a pinch. Come on, man. I don't know. It's. It's another one of those. Our take is vindicated. Yeah, it's. I'm not a big fan of the Chosen, and this pretty much solidified. Like, wow, look at where they're going with it. And the last thing I'll say. Sorry. Sorry. While I'm still going. The last thing I'll say, we saw this where they were releasing pictures with the LGBTQ flag, and. And they had a few of the, you know, on the set, you know, in their trailers or whatever, and, you know, they had a few come out that were saying certain things, and I think is. Is Dallas Jenkins connected with the Mormons or whatever, and there's all these little things. I don't know if he is, but it kind of seems like it. And. And funding is what I've heard. Like, all of these things kind of release and come out. You go, huh, that's odd. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not the show, though. That's not the show. These things always leak in, man. They always do. And I know they're people, but when you start seeing LGBTQ flags, like, it won't be too long until things along those lines. Somehow we squeak that into. I don't know. It's reading the times. Things are changing, and I think this has been off for a while. [01:02:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Shout out to Ethan Wall. He had a great Take, he said, they say it's based off the Bible to pump it up, then say it's just a show to defend stuff like this. There's always that back and forth. Well, why should we watch? Well, it's based on the Bible. It's gonna. Okay, well, the Bible doesn't say that. Well, it's just a show, man. Like, pick one. Is this fan fiction or not? Is it actually biblical? Well, it makes you think about what they were thinking. No, it makes you think about what Dallas Jenkins and Jonathan Romy would think they were thinking, but it's not actually based on the text, and that's the danger you have. The one thing I'll say is I want to ask chosen fans, what line could they cross? At what point would you go, all right, that's because, man, everything. Well, it could have been this way. It could have been. You know, you never know. There could be Native American angels. Like, okay, sure, man. Like, I just. It starts off with, hey, a Bible show about Jesus. And now you're six seasons in. And the frog boiling in the pot thing, we're so far along here. And they'll just defend it all the way down the line. So I'm not. I'm not a fan. I know that's not always a popular take, but is there a line? Is there something they could do with Jesus and the chosen that would cross your line? I guess, is the question. I'd leave with people. So [01:03:19] Speaker B: if you have a defense for season, for season six trailer, let us. We would like to hear it. I think it'd be interesting. So, [01:03:26] Speaker C: yeah, were the angels actual. Does it disrespect the angels to say they were about to interfere and overturn God's plan to save the world? I would say so, but if you think not, tell me why not. So, all right, we're going to wrap right there. Next one is 250. We're pretty excited about that. Thank you to everyone who has been here the whole time, everyone who's jumped in along the way. It's been a lot of fun and looking forward to celebrating 250 next week. So. So any final thoughts, fellas? All right, we'll talk to you guys on the next one. Hey, guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars, and want to support. 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