Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Let'S get to this week's Think Fast, which is looking at President Trump has been in the Middle East. There's been a lot of negotiating. Saudi Arabia, Qatar.
The issue with them donating a temporary Air Force One plane.
Just headlines came out tonight about negotiations with Iran maybe going on and just things like that. But what I wanted to get at the angle of this is underneath all of this has been a, maybe a tension a little bit with the US And Israel.
We haven't been going along and taking Netanyahu and their leadership into these negotiations, kind of been dealing with the people they really don't like over there in the Middle east and leaving them out of it. And there's been reporting that the relationship with the US And Israel has cooled in the Christendom Christian world, whatever you want to call it, that's not going to go over very well. There are a lot of people who still think if we move away from Israel, if we are diplomatically cold toward Israel, we are turning our backs on God. And so for this, think fast as this stuff kind of develops. Maybe that's happening, maybe it's not. But that is kind of, there's rumblings about that right now.
What would you say to the broader Christian world on this issue of Israel and the US And American Christians and evangelicalism and where we stand on all this kind of stuff?
[00:01:40] Speaker C: I'd keep it pretty simple. Those who put their faith in Christ are God's chosen people.
I think that's pretty clear. We can go back and look at history. We can go back to AD 70. We can do a lot of different deep dives on stuff to say don't reject Christ and don't come up against the church.
I think those are general principles for Christianity and who God considers his chosen people. I do think it's shifted. I know that's not popular among a lot of evangelicals who are still sending money back for another temple. I don't think another temple's coming back.
I think that's been done away with. I think 80, 70 was God's judgment on that. And so God takes it pretty seriously. Don't reject my son, don't reject Christ.
So I look at it as look from a political standpoint too, correct? Yeah. The church, like I, I'm gonna stay out of any political discussion. I don't know what that looks like trade wise. I mean, I'm not a political analyst and that's not my area of expertise or anything like that. And so I don't know what that looks like going forward. But from an evangelical point of view, I think it's important for Christians to really put their minds at rest and say, okay, we are God's chosen people. I think we take away from that. That's a designation we should carry with joy. We should have pride in that. To say and, and not pride in terms of puffed up pride, but in like wow, you know, we are God's chosen people. He chose the church. That's incredible. Paul calls it, you know, the mystery of the Gentiles being included. And it just, it's an incredible gift and honor to be a part of this. And we throw, it's not really us, you know. Well, we got to send money back to them because that's God's chosen people.
I think we're missing out on a strong church theology.
You know, that's at least what's the ecclesiology. Ecclesia.
That's the one that I think we could really use in Christendom in general when we look at matters like this. What are your guys thoughts?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Well, the other interesting angle on this is, you know, some of the peace talks we can call or the previous ones were the Abraham Accords because the Muslims claim Abraham, the Jews claim Abraham, Christians claim Abraham and that's what a lot of Christians point to with their, the pro Israel, we must always back Israel stances.
You know, Abraham's children, God will, will bless those who bless them. And you know, essentially if we want to have God's blessings, we have to endorse Abraham's children. Well, we've been teaching through Romans and I, I think that's something Will you can speak to. I think you taught on chapter four about Abraham's part in understanding this properly.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah, and so I'll get to Romans in a second. My mind actually for this went to Galatians chapter three and, and the, the God's chosen people thing I think is, is kind of a point of contention in a lot of different areas. You hear people who, you know, will really push back on the idea of America being God's chosen people. And a lot of people will say that America is God's chosen, you know, we're chosen nation though they'll kind of miss misquote places in scripture that we're a chosen nation to try to apply that to America. I don't think that's accurate to, to use and then I think they'll do it as well for, for the Jews in, in today's times. And I don't think that's accurate either. Joe, I would echo everything that you said, that you said there of man. The church is God's chosen people. First Peter, what is it 1929 about you are a chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation.
That's no longer talking about the Israelites, that's not talking about America either. That's talking about the church. That's talking about, you know, Christians, those who choose to put their faith in Christ. As you spoke to Joe and Galatians 3:28 is, is where my mind went to again of the idea of like it's, it's being one in Christ Jesus. That's what it is now. There is no longer, you know, Jew nor Greek. There's not a distinction anymore between this, this person who's chosen of God. And it's like you're, you're all one in Christ Jesus is the point there. And so just further evidence to the idea of, yeah, you are God's chosen if you choose to follow Christ. But Jack, to your kind of point about Romans and chapter four, I don't, I don't want to get into the whole kind of rundown of Romans, but it's interesting how chapter four in Romans, Paul of seemingly sidetracked. It's not a sidetrack at all, but like he seemingly sidetracks to go and talk about Abraham when he's kind of been doing a big picture sin, sin of the Gentiles, sin of the Jews, how God is able to justify that sin. And then he zooms in seemingly on Abraham and in chapter four. And the point that, the entire point that he's making in Romans chapter four is that Abraham was not righteousness, was not credited to Abraham's bank, spiritual bank account, so to speak, because of the works that he did. It was because of his faith. It was his faith that was the reason why, you know, right. He was considered a righteous man.
It was his faith in God. It was his faith that, that, that what God said was going to happen. He goes into the idea, you know, the fact that Sarah, both of them were past childbearing age and Abraham was not weak in faith. He was strengthened in faith actually. And that's what account that was accounted in for righteousness. You see that phrase a lot. And of course the application for us tying into what was just said a second ago by Joe is like, it is our faith in God that's going to determine once again who is the righteous. Who is the righteous nation, the holy nation, those that have faith, just like Paul pointed out. And he's using that in the book of Romans to point out, hey, you Jews who think it's about how closely you can keep the law, even back to your most. Your most prized forefather here, that being Abraham, it was on the basis of his faith as well, not just how well he kept the law.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: And that's the link is the. The children of Abraham are those who have faith in Christ. That's the link there is those who have faith in God. And was. Was it Christ that said, you know, God can raise up children, children of Abraham from these stones. There's nothing special about that. It's, you know, do you have faith in God? Do you have faith in Christ? So the true children of Abraham, that's where he starts to shift. It is the Jews can, especially in. In chapter two, Romans, chapter two, kind of stand on the. Hey, we got. We're God's chosen people. And he's saying God's chosen people were all sinners. We've all been separated from God.
It was a blessing for them to have it. But God's chosen people, the children, the true children of Abraham, are those that live by faith.
And. And so that's where he kind of kicks off the rest of the book to me.
Yeah, once again, like, this has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with our understanding of scripture that I think Christendom in general, the evangelical world, has been bamboozled in a lot of ways. And we're talking out of millions and millions and millions of dollars being sent back so as to kind of help with the temple or whatever it is. God's chosen people.
It just saddens me because once again, we're missing out on the true blessing of being God's chosen people when we are busy giving it to them. And then you have the certain political commentators, you know, that Judeo Christian values, like we are opposed you. You.
We. You reject Christ. Like there, there is no Judeo Christian. Christian is. We are followers of Christ. Judeo is. You don't believe Christ is the Messiah. We are opposed. Those two things do not belong together.
And so to me, man, we got to be very careful as Christians when we try to bring the Judeo Christian values, like their values according to their book, the Mishnah, Christ is Jesus or the Talmud. Sorry, not the Misha. The Talmud. Jesus is burning an excrement like that's their book. We. That's not us. So I think we got to be careful as Christians, got to be real careful on some of those principles, some of those things, once again, not making a political point at all as much as, and I don't know what that looks like going forward. I don't know what Trump will decide.
But as Christians, stand firm that we are God's chosen people. That's a beautiful thing.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And as it relates to foreign policy, you know, you just want peace and. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that means talking to everybody, having open dialogue with everybody. And that, that would be a great thing if that's what comes about.
But I'm already seeing some who are very much clutching the pearls that this shouldn't be happening because, you know, our, the, the, God's chosen people don't want it to happen that way or whatever. That's, that's not part of the consideration. That's, you know, kind of keep those things separate because this is how, you know, how it operates now under the Christian system. So that's our Think Fast for this week. We do have the full Think Deeper episode. If you're catching this, we'll be out on Monday as we talk about Church of Christ language.
And if you're catching this in that full episode, we're gonna wrap right there. As always, get your comments in by Wednesday night. For the Deep End, I leave your comments. If you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook or wherever you like to contact us, we'll keep an eye out for those. But we appreciate everybody for listening and we'll talk to you guys next time.
