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Is it wrong to question if the Bible contradicts itself?
In this OTC Episode:
• We introduce a brand new Game: “What the heck is Jerod drinking!?!”
• We ponder some societal norms that push people towards drugs and alcohol and juxtaposing this idea with the principles of Jesus's small but powerful ministry.
• Together, we're exploring the power of deep relationships and how community building can be a strong antidote to harmful addictions.
• If you've ever wondered how to create your own ministry to make great money and build a name for yourself: Has Grant got a plan for you!
• As we dive deeper, we examine the teachings of Jesus, looking at his unique tactics and the reflections they bring in our lives today.
• We're pondering on spiritual disciplines like fasting, solitude, and service, and how they can guide us to lead lives akin to Jesus.
• We navigate through the contradictions in the Bible and seek to understand the value of questioning its teachings while still recognizing its absolute truth.
On the whole, this OTC was a good time and we hope it’s as much fun to listen to as it was to record :)
Connect with the Across the Counter Podcast:
Instagram: @acrossthecounterpod
Website: www.atcpodcast.com
Alright, you wanna start with this sound.
Speaker 2:So what you drinking over there? Man, we say across the counter, bring your beverage of choice. What is your beverage of choice today? Cause I tried it and I almost fricked through it.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good and you brought a Sam's bottle of water. First of all, I'm drinking out of a coffee cup that says the state of Kuwait and I'm just really intrigued by that. And what they chose to put on their coffee cup is an oil rig which is like pretty baller An oil rig and a can was the money's here. It's just interesting to me. So I don't like black coffee, I don't like coffee, but I started drinking coffee when I did foundation repair and I did sales. And when you're sitting across the table from somebody and you're walking through repair solutions, the counter. Yeah, yeah across the counter from someone. When somebody offers you a drink, like, the key rule in sales is you don't say no to anything, you don't introduce them. So I started drinking black coffee because it's also simple. You don't wanna be sitting with a client and they're like how do you like your coffee? And you're like I like two creams and three sugars and if you could mix that up, I like it in a cup. That, combined with the fact that I am not a morning person, has meant that I've grown a dependence on caffeine and I don't like that. Pulling back a little bit. Black coffee has some benefit of the water that you intake and a little bit of the caffeine. It's a diuretic but, like green tea, has a more valuable addition. It has a lot of antioxidants and other things. With caffeine, there's other things that are beneficial to you. Like, it's pretty common that in our culture we're deficient in magnesium and I'm not some health guru, I'm literally just trying to do better. And the last piece of all of that is, like turmeric is an anti-inflammatory, like sugar inflames your body and turmeric and other things anti-inflammatory. So this mixture that I made you try is I got up this morning and I ate a fresh clove of garlic. For all the antioxidants. It was terrible.
Speaker 2:So he's not a vampire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can just chewed on and swallowed a fresh clove of garlic and almost threw up. My wife's not around right now. She's at the beach with her mom and dad and her kids because I've been working. So that was terrible. But then I made a pot of green tea mixed in some turmeric powder, mixed in some zinc not zinc magnesium powder as well, and then I added a little dollop of butter to it because the fats help you not have crashes and it doesn't have carbs. It's called like bullet coffee, you've heard has butter in it and let's see Magnesium green tea butter. I forgot the lemon juice. I didn't do that. Oh, apple cider vinegar today which is what makes it smell like booty.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not that bad for all the things I just told you that are in it.
Speaker 2:I will give you one that bad.
Speaker 1:All the things I told you that are benefiting your body. It's not that bad.
Speaker 2:I'll give you that and a little honey. Yeah, a little honey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it smells bad and I know I smell bad, but you're welcome.
Speaker 2:Is it the mad honey or is it the right honey? No, not the mad honey.
Speaker 1:That would be a very interesting cup.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's facts. I called you a vampire. Something that I heard reasonably recently was that they thought that the early Christians were vampires. That's awesome, Because they were eating people's flesh and drinking their blood, they thought because of communion.
Speaker 1:What if Dracula was like a really, really solid saint?
Speaker 2:Like he legitimately was. I take communion three times a day.
Speaker 1:And then it just blossoms out. And then somebody gets raised from the dead and they're like you're dying, right, that's a vampire.
Speaker 2:It makes sense if you think about it. They're like these guys are vampires. And it makes a good bit of sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's good content.
Speaker 2:Or cannibals, or cannibals. They thought cannibals too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cannibals is easy, but vampire is interesting. Where did you hear that?
Speaker 2:From a Catholic man. Maybe he's a vampire.
Speaker 1:We hear some wild things from the Catholic man.
Speaker 2:That's a fact.
Speaker 1:What was the word Continue?
Speaker 2:He just showed like there's so many books, too, that they have, like they can trace back history to the letter.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what they say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what they say.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to be slapping or. Slapping no, clapping no slapping.
Speaker 2:This is not a debate podcast. This is a common ground podcast.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just crazy how they can trace so much history and it's not like they can't because, like legit, these are books from 200 years ago, 300 years ago, stuff like that. I don't know how old it was older than that, I think but it's just crazy that they have access to all that stuff. You go to your local Presbyterian church. They ain't got that. Yeah, they don't have saint, whoever from those writings on daily life and I just think that's cool.
Speaker 1:I think it's really really cool. I think one an organization that is tied in some areas loosely, or in some areas, very, very tightly.
Speaker 2:You got the hiccups from that guy.
Speaker 1:I did get the hiccups From that green tea, from my tincture of life Coffee's better for you. I almost scared to it. No, I would have to be pooping right now. It is cool that they're tied to the Christian faith. Some areas better and worse, but we won't get into that. But I think the way that I take that is it's cool to see the integrity of someone keeping a long history and like keeping record. But men were lying 500 years ago and like history is always written by the winner, so there's always different perspectives.
Speaker 2:So for me, keep your hands off the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Animal. I swear to you we're not going to do another one of those.
Speaker 1:I keep like clapping and touching my nose.
Speaker 2:We're not doing that again.
Speaker 1:So for all of you, for what Grant is referencing in our interviews, when we have somebody in person or ourselves, if a coffee cup hits the table or someone slaps the table to make a point, it makes a terrible podcast Because you've told us.
Speaker 2:It was a good time recording it. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're trying, that's what we're saying, and Grant is trying.
Speaker 2:Just got my hands neatly folded in my lap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything's fine, yeah I should be able to perceive everything Any who the book mark on that point is just the idea of checking your sources, like how do you check sources of something that's 500 years old, because there's so many different opinions and to some degree, like anybody could Like any notes of a person. They said this is what happened, like maybe, or maybe from their perspective, this is how it looked, like what happened. So that's just an interesting thought to me which is, up until recently, I was fascinated that the Bible. It's weird that Matthew, mark, luke, john, you have four, recount four, accounts. I'm just the same thing. It's like, why, like, why are all these accounts here? And then it occurs to me from, like a historians perspective, you have four separate accounts with different individual perspectives that are aligning to it to say basically the same thing, and so it's more. It's more historically accurate because the multiplicity of accounts and the Catholic Church has a lot of that too as well with some of their History why were you talking to a Catholic man about vampires?
Speaker 2:You do you, I'm gonna do me. All right, it's one of those things. It's just. It's one of those things I don't even know if I should go into that. It's a whole, it's a whole deal, let's see. So you've recently read ruthless elimination, hurry, ruthless elimination of hurry, and you Listen to it. You then read it oh, first of all, your pansy cuz books come in. You know pages.
Speaker 1:I have the physical copy.
Speaker 2:I just get it.
Speaker 1:I did a run-through. It's only a four-hour audiobook and I needed to hurry through it.
Speaker 2:I had to listen to it while I was doing other things.
Speaker 1:I was deeply convicted at how bad of a person I was as I listen. So now I purchased a $21 hard copy because apparently there aren't paperbacks of John Mark Homer's books. That's not always true, but it's just nicer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and God has a name was paperback. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:God what.
Speaker 2:God has a name.
Speaker 1:Was paperback.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That's a John Mark. I love the flex of just. I produce hard cover books and if you want one, you're gonna have to buy it.
Speaker 2:If I ever read a book, that's it's gotta be, it's gotta be a hard cover.
Speaker 1:Let's just how she goes if you ever read a book, we're writing a book. Yeah, we're trying and we're taking a swing at a book. Yeah, but it may never be produced. Yeah, it's gonna take us 10 years, but we're gonna do we drop the name just for interest and what that? No, we just hold that out.
Speaker 2:But we hold that out. We got to keep it secret, keep it safe.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:Get that, I get the Italian in me so I want to keep going on the ruthless elimination of hurry and you don't be distracted from what your point was. I don't want to be distracted. On this one I talk a lot, on the other ones I don't. Apparently that's what people say. They say the things you do say are pretty good, but you don't say a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, about you. Yeah yeah, my favorite comment so far, as Grant is awesome. Jared has rants and on occasion, he'll say something valuable.
Speaker 2:It's so stupid, but the the whole idea, because I really have been delving into the subject of silent solitude, rest, all that jazz. I've been going through Jesus habits, so to speak, of every week. I'll focus on a different one of like how Jesus disciple people, how he prayed, how he went to the desolate places, what he did, how he, like, had freedom in his schedule, how he was where he needed to be at the exact right time and he was able, along his journey, to be able to stop and do things that seemed Not to the point of his ministry. If I was doing ministry, I wouldn't do it the way Jesus did. You'd figure out a plan and what's the best way to bring ministry to market, kind of thing. And it's like he was just so in tune with the father and he just did what his father did and that's said what he says. What is that verse? I do what my father in heaven does and I say what my father in heaven says. Yeah, only yeah, only yeah yeah. And that's just super valuable to me and I've just been trying to do that.
Speaker 1:Go deeper into. It feels like a cheap out a lot of times when Christians say I wouldn't do ministry the way.
Speaker 2:That's terrible pulls up the chair.
Speaker 1:I'm too far away and waiting back. I wouldn't do ministry the way Jesus did, take it to market the other and then Often Christians won't say what they mean by the way Jesus did ministry. Like on a practical level. Why are so many of things that he did so contrary to the way that you would do it? Does that make sense? Go into Like why?
Speaker 2:okay, I can do that first. First one he started incredibly small and I've been. That's what I've been doing with my young life guys on just Trying to work through Jesus habits and what he did and how he did it and how that should apply to our modern day culture, because it's hard to it's reasonably hard to figure out how to apply it in a Culture where you do need to work and you do need to. There's a set schedule for you and busy is the kind of mantra for life mantra not and basically Jesus started small and he went incredibly deep with his disciples on Living life of them. So he obviously had the three, the big three that he poured into More than anybody else, and then he had the 12 that he was constantly living life with and then he had a massive crowd of people, or Sometimes a small crowd of people, and there was a bunch of women around and different characters throughout the way. But just that idea of starting small, creating depth and real relationship and then Forming it out of that, instead of just saying, hey, I want to, I want to get a hundred people together and Start a church, or hey, I want to get a couple thousand people together and start a nonprofit, or something like that. He just lived his life intentionally, with the people that Were around him. That he chose, obviously, but still it's just, he picked him out of nothing, he picked him out of obscurity, and then they were the biggest leaders, the church, obviously. So Just that idea of starting small instead of going and getting a hundred people together and going big.
Speaker 1:Yes, and now like juxtapose. So like you just described the way a lot of human, humans in pursuit of Maximizing output, efficiency growth, etc. Like you just described all the things that are that are untasteful to them in how to do that. So then now describe juxtapose how you would Like I know we're recognizing that. Like you're saying Jesus did it wrong, here's how I would do it. But just go from that story point like how would you do it?
Speaker 2:Oh Jesus did it right I know, but he did.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying like in this vein of language, when we think about how he did it, we're like us. Our flesh says that's wrong. I'm not saying that you actually believe that's wrong. I'm saying so. But how Speak from the most, you're gonna build God's kingdom. Like, how would you do it?
Speaker 2:You find the biggest, baddest boys that are in the Christian spaces. You get a guy with a PhD that's really eloquent and talking and speaking and that guy is your teaching passer. You get a guy that's currently involved in nonprofits and all that jazz and that's Serving the community well and he's your deacon. He's the head of the deacons, and then you let him go with the deacons and you let the church vote on who picks deacons and whatnot. And I'm assuming that we built a church here. But First thing you do is you get the best speaking passer you can. You get a guy that's really good at organized Like organizational ministry, that like is super well connected, that has a bunch of friends and a bunch of people that he could bring in, so to speak, and then you probably, once you got some traction, would probably Try to partner with a struggling church or something like that and, quote-unquote, hossily, take over their congregation easy rebrand. Yeah, rebrand their thing under your banner and then take their building to. Yeah, so that you have a building and you have people because it's probably paid for yeah, either that or it's got a ton of debt, yeah, which is might be why they're struggling as a church. You never know yeah but that's probably more how I would do it from like a business standpoint. That makes any sense. Yeah, but I am definitely learning on the value of just having a couple of people and Going like in depth with them and living life with them. Because Reagan right now is reading a book about community. It's been really cool and there's I don't know the title, but there's like the village, the people that like is your community. There's like your close inner circle that's basically your rider dies, super close friends, and then there's massive acquaintances that like I Don't know. It's hard to find depth in this world right now.
Speaker 1:That's a word.
Speaker 2:That is a word Christ here, but yeah, so that's been.
Speaker 1:That's just one of the many Crazy things that Jesus did this is a random aside, as most things that come out of my face Whole are Reagan's year. It's the one who you kindly call your sweetheart baby cakes. Yeah, yeah it's your bride. Do you think the reason that people lean so deeply into Alcohol, drugs, hallucinogenics, is a desire to feel something deep? Like a deep longing for something yeah, like you have deep longings and everything I don't know how to explain, like taste shallow or feel shallow. Is there some degree of motivation that we're just like man, just like to make me feel something real deep also, to me it means real.
Speaker 2:I think that's definitely a piece to it. I think that there's multiple reasons why people fall into addiction and stuff like that, and that's something that's near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mine too. Yeah, we've both been addicted to different either substances or porn, and by the grace of God, we've been not healed from a body that likes addiction, but given the discipline and endurance to grow and had freedom found in those areas. Yeah, there's obviously because you want to heal yourself from pain and you want to yeah, there's safety. There's all kind of reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, escapism, escapism, it's definitely one. Rest, yeah, rest, yeah, that's what I lean towards. Yeah, is the rest category of golly. I just need rest, which is another Jesus habit is just figuring out, I mean it's. This sounds so silly, but just the idea that Jesus took a Sabbath and like that it's. We're being dumb as Christians if we don't take it, if we don't take a Sabbath, it's like you can like critique whatever on what day it is, and that's fine. Some people are like die hard, it's on Saturday and forget everything. Some people are on Sunday. I don't really care the day like it, make it a Wednesday, it's, just keep the Sabbath day and make it holy. You know, anywhere you look at seven days in a week, you could say that a day is the seventh day it doesn't matter to me but that's just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Gregorian calendar that we follow now does not dictate the exact perfect harmony. It's interesting that it's shifted on the day of his resurrection.
Speaker 2:It's what if you work in NFL football and your whole job is on Sunday? Yeah you know what I mean. Does that just mean, oh, can't have a Sabbath, so it's just, or whatever? Same thing goes for Saturday too. If your job is event planning and your events are on Saturday and that's your means of income, are you just gonna not have a Sabbath?
Speaker 1:Let's say you're a young mother, or a single mother, of four to five kids under seven or eight years old, especially if you're even feeding a few of them with your own body, like when does she Sabbath? Yeah you can have a full day, but two babies won't eat for the whole day. You just yeah. Anyway, that's an ongoing yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's more, it's complex but also pretty simple of just clearly God wants you to rest a day out of the week yeah, so let's circle back then to the, to that idea, like we're on that concept of the ruthless elimination of hurry.
Speaker 1:This line hit me earlier when you started talking about like the way Jesus started and he started walking on the beach. You feel me? I'm pretty sure the scriptural evidence we have is his house was near the water to some degree, because it maybe not scholars, biblical fiends for perfect rightness at some point he was somewhere where people fish, that's a fact I could chew me up, it's fine he was somewhere where people fish but along the line of, and his ministry began, it's like he was walking on a beach. That picture just I don't know it, because then the next thing he does is he calls some fishermen and the different not gonna touch the table. The different explanations of that are that some, like some of the Gospels, it would say that he saw them multiple times or one time, but they left everything and even left the servants, and they came and they followed him yeah so he's by the water when we hold what you said. Because, like you just described man, how would a businessman build the church and, yeah, the eloquent guy to lead the nonprofit, got around the deaconship work, work, the nonprofit work and let him run, find the guy who's a killer COO like in business, that the coordination's dude and operations dude, that's well connected and bring in some partners and then, like you said, just go out there and connect with quote, failing churches, unquote, and have some little not hostile takeover. But yeah, you believe in this vision essentially, get a good enough vision that some dudes have control over and then just run that into the freaking sky like the Tower of Babel, like just, let's just build it and human beings are made in the image of God, like they can do some stuff. So what God did when he showed up, what's interesting to me, like he starts with a walk on the beach and you said went incredibly deep with three and then nine more the three, three, four sets of three the first three that he went incredibly deep with and three more sets of three, that makes twelve and like often went to crowds. But then you see in scripture where he'd come back and like the things that he would say weren't completely digestible to all the crowds, but then he'd come back and explain everything into the twelve and to the three. So there's these huge crowds and he's telling people that are healed don't tell anybody and people that are like being impacted. He's running from crowds. He's literally doing everything possible from the outside perspective not to grow. Why?
Speaker 2:that was gonna be my question no, I give it to you. I don't know, I'm just gonna take a stab at it. Clearly I don't have the answers, but I will take a stab. There's a time and a place for Jesus to be crucified and die and he knows that's coming, obviously, and he knows when that needs to happen and how it needs to happen. So it's to me that would be a setup for him to. I don't know, it's not like he's like running away. I guess he is run away he says he runs away, so you know, literally says he gets in a boat and tries basically the fleece. Yeah, I just feel bad about saying that, but that's in the Bible, so hey, let's go with it.
Speaker 1:But just like he evades capture, so to speak, or what somehow until, like, his time is there's a one time that they're trying to literally throw him off a cliff and he just says and he just, he just got out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean I'm like sinking into the ground. Yeah, it's just like like when, in the end of John and whatever, it was like if we wrote everything he did, there wouldn't be enough paper in the world to capture. It's things like that I think about like the disciples saw something and it is like I don't know man. I wish he would have wrote a little longer they were going, the hundreds of people they knew who he was.
Speaker 2:They were going to throw him off a cliff and then he just he just got out to me, like all that sort of thing, is just like there was a time for him to die and he knew when that was and he knew the right time. Yeah, and none of that was that time and the crowds would have freakin killed him. So I had to get out of there that's good.
Speaker 1:Maybe go deeper because? So if we dig deeper into the idea of running away like tactful, retreat tactful retreat. Let's go. That's good work right there, tactfully evasion yeah, or not even retreat, constant advancement, but tactfully vision. That's good, actually vision because he's not running away from his purpose and he's not running away from what his father in heaven has set before him to be about. He's constantly tactfully evading and running towards death yeah which is crazy, like he's tactfully evading everything but the cross yeah, so I think, yeah, that's valid and even in the way he makes disciples like because, alright, he was the Messiah, he is the Messiah and his messianic contribution of being crucified, the veil was torn. Everything changed, but in many ways nothing about the process of deeply having a heart discipled changed. It's always been slow. It's always been the turtle and the hair or the tortoise and the hair close enough. Yeah, what's up? I'll take a lot of sugar and the hair hair in Spanish y'all can comment close enough so that's like a principle of reality, right, like the fast, quick way to make it happen is not the way to long, enduring life. But we just don't believe that like we're what you described of like why don't we believe that? Because we could build a great church. It would do all the stuff, it would have the ministry work and it have the best man and it would have the in there and we would be on team, whatever the name of that church is, and it would build community team generic.
Speaker 2:What is it to generic words? Team wash by the water team.
Speaker 1:Apostolic grace. So I guess the question that to be asked is the ends, the outcomes desired, dictate the work committed to. So Israel was looking for a conquering king. They were under the rule of Rome. It had been 400 years since Malachi, the last prophet, had spoken. They're waiting for Messiah, they're waiting for Messiah. They're waiting for Messiah and they're looking for conqueror in the physical reality, like someone is going to come. We're the chosen people. Messiah is gonna come and he is going to destroy everybody and we're gonna be lifted up and we're gonna be cared for and put it in place. And that is the end reality. But it's not just Israel or it's not just the nationality of Israel, it's the spiritual, emotional, physical Israel. Like the veil was torn and now these two Gentiles right here recording a podcast, like we're Israel, like we're part of the tribe of Israel to some degree. So Jesus's end outcome that was desired was not just to save that national what's a good language like tribe and place of people from that Roman Empire, because desire was to save every son and daughter of God, from every Egypt, across all time, across all space. So how would that change the way we look? Because I don't think our motivation is wrong when we say we need to be about participating in the building of the Kingdom of God, we need to be about mercy, we need about justice, all that is, and as much urgency as or a friend of mine been talking about this as much intentionality as possible.
Speaker 2:But this idea that-. So let's take on the heavy yoke and get going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 2:Let's take on the heavy one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to be about saving the world, so let's get about it.
Speaker 2:Let's get on the heavy yoke, not the easy and light one.
Speaker 1:So what shifts? Like? Because Logan was in on our podcast and I sent him a message. I was like do you think Jesus lived a life of urgency? And then Logan I love Logan. He was like that depends on how you define the word urgency.
Speaker 2:Oh that guy.
Speaker 1:And this is John Piper's fault Like we grew up. Not grew up, but we were greatly impacted in early years of 20s and 30s. Christian faith with John Piper who is always what do you mean by that word? I was like I don't know man. There's a difference between the concept in my mind and I may be wrong, but there's a difference between the word urgency and intentionality. But I believe Jesus lived an incredibly intentional life. You could say he was always beset with a longing for urgency that the kingdom come, that will be done. But there's some attachment to urgency that's connected to anxiety. It has to get done, at least culturally right now. It may not have always been that way, but do you, when you hear the word urgency, do you think peace?
Speaker 2:No, but do you hear repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near, chill.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not feeling restful. But it's repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. But I'm not saying that's not. I'm not saying Jesus was urgent, but certainly that message is an urgent message.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's a good point. So there's light and dark right. Like the saints who have stepped over the line and died to self, they step into the easy yoke. But the word to the ones who have not taken on the easy yoke, who have not gone through that white funeral of death to self and taken on the blood of Christ and died with him, that they'd be raised by his spirit, that's an urgent word.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's good, so we're good point like valid.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the urgent somewhere.
Speaker 1:But once you receive that, once there's this, I can do nothing. What type of? Is there still an account? How would I say this? Does speed matter anymore?
Speaker 2:What do you mean to speed matter? What Does speed matter?
Speaker 1:So all of a sudden you've stepped into the inherited blessing and the revelation of Christ, this kingdom. Come souls to be saved. Mercy, justice, goodness, speed matters to those who are hurting, but can it be like a, can it be a thing that the Christian is constantly looking at as like their measure of success? Because the way that you describe like how to build a lot of time in a business sense is like how do we stay? I may be wrong, in this year a businessman more than me but like a lot of times it's like how do we stay as far ahead of as possible of inflation? Like how do we just keep going to the next level? Can that be a motivator of a Christian life?
Speaker 2:Speed doesn't. Let's see, I do want to go back to that.
Speaker 1:Keep on to something else.
Speaker 2:No, I like this, I like this thing. But when Jesus says I only do what my Father in heaven does and I only say what my Father in heaven says oh man, he's pouring some of that tonic again it's a tincture of life. When Jesus says that it's just such a I don't want to say this because this is something that's super, something that I've found out recently that matters to me, that's helped me a lot is just like the depth with Jesus. First of, I don't know that just going in and everything that comes out of you as best of your ability is from Jesus, like knowing the Father's voice well enough and knowing what he's doing in this world and being able to pray and meditate and be able to see it for what it is and then invite because he invites you into that and actually step in to that role that he's created you before. But also not that's not like a quick process. Jesus works on our heart, our whole lives, and he cares about the heart a whole bunch. So it's that idea that he cares way more about the heart than what it looks like. So there's a thousand people that are lukewarm and that are reasonable and but whatever? And there's three dudes that have try to have a pure heart with the Lord and they're not lukewarm and they go 100% after the kingdom. Which do you think would be more valuable to God?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sodom and Gomorrah is a great example of when Abram says, well, you still destroy it if there's even just one he doesn't know. Or Daniel is a good example. There's one man that impacts empires because he's just sold out to the Lord. So I would say, yeah, God seems to say the true. The true heart is of much more value, or the faithful heart of as much more value than thousands of partially faithful or maybe the faithful is not the right word Honest, sincere.
Speaker 2:But when Daniel is in prison, did that seem fast Joseph? Joseph is the guy that, like, became the ruler and had the wife and the pharaoh and whatever when he was in prison, was that a fast process? That looks very counterintuitive.
Speaker 1:That was years imprisoned wrongly. Literally did the best job of any servant for Potiphar.
Speaker 2:He's a great prisoner.
Speaker 1:Great, even in the first house imprisoned, for somebody trying to break their marriage vows and force him into having an adulterous affair with him in prison wrongly, and then just becomes model prisoner like running the prison, basically, and building like a relationship. I see him as like just doing everything possible to be helpful to the jailmen. The jailmen yeah, the man that's like chaining him is not. I can imagine like the years it took the jailmen to be like jailmen, such as to be where.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1:The jailmen to be like the guards. Yeah, prison master to be like jail man. Jail man, could you imagine a prisoner coming up? He's like, hey, I'm here to help you make this prison operate as smoothly as possible, and he's you trying to escape? He's like you're a liar. Yeah, you're trying to get out of this bed. Can you imagine the years that, like the jailmen goes through this thing in his brain? This man's crazy in prison wrongly and he's really he just serving food and he just taken care of and he until one day, finally, he's not, you run the thing. I don't even have to do a job If you're here. that's such a bizarre thing, but anyway nothing about that.
Speaker 2:Process was fast.
Speaker 1:Nothing about. It was fast. And then the whole point of me welcome to another Ramble, the whole point of me saying all the garbage and maybe it's not the value of that is even when there was an opportunity where he sees a real opportunity, when the wine taster and the baker I think it is are going to be before the king and he advocates for himself. He's remember me and could you imagine the hope in that that's the first time there's an opportunity says remember me, and then he's literally forgotten about. Like they go before the emperor, the king, whatever the great who have Egypt, and that one dude gets his head cut off, the other dude that I think the wine taster like is still apparently in the good graces and he literally just forgets about Joseph for like years. You imagine the despair, the. I don't think about these people as nonhuman, if that makes sense. I don't think about them as like paragons of perfect faith, like he was just in jail and just always like we're good, god's good, this is going to be good. Seven more years, no problem, no, like I think about the tension, the anxiety, the turmoil. Do the right thing, do the right thing. Do the right thing Like Lord, kill me I need to die. And then finally he's brought forward and it was because it is funny. It's almost the way, like human beings always are you don't care about anybody until you need them for something. The wine tasters Yo, I know a guy. He interpreted a dream. I also told him that I would remember him. It was years ago but technically I'm remembering now, so that was not fast Circle. Back then I. Here's the way that I have to stop talking because I've been on a little roll of a ram before a while and I think about speed and the idea that an orchestra, you ever say a word, a lot, and then it just doesn't sound like a word.
Speaker 2:Orchestra.
Speaker 1:Okay, thanks. What Grant said Sounds weird in my mouth.
Speaker 2:Orchestra.
Speaker 1:Sounds weird in my mouth.
Speaker 2:How many times have you been saying orchestra Probably a lot, a lot. Yeah, you're a music guy, even though you don't play instruments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't carry a tune in a bag, but I love music. I think about it in this way. Speed is incredibly important to having a good piece of music Right, like the whole thing that the dude does at the front what's his name? With the hands and the sticks, conduct it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the hands and the sticks.
Speaker 1:Alright. So you ever contemplate the fact that, like with one hand he's keeping a tempo in one direction, like almost a horizontal tempo, if that makes sense, and then with the other hand, at the exact same time, he's doing like the volume to some degree, like that's fascinating to me. But each instrument is not concerned with their speed, with their perfect, they're not primarily concerned with the whole orchestra's speed, tempo, timing. What are they doing?
Speaker 2:Playing their diagram thing.
Speaker 1:And who are they looking at?
Speaker 2:Conduct it.
Speaker 1:Okay, take that to the idea of Sabbath and the idea of getting with the father. If the whole world is noise and you need to be able to have attention on the conductor, who's the only one that has the right tempo and the right tune and the right speed, how would you live in that, in your seat, and play well?
Speaker 2:Go, go. Oh Jesus, you should do what Jesus did.
Speaker 1:No, just kidding. What a freaking fancy. Just lay down and Jesus.
Speaker 2:Just take his principles and apply them to your life. All right, guys, that's a good podcast, easy peasy. That's the that's one of the big things is okay, that's something that I talk to the guys about a lot. It's just okay. He did that. What do we do in our culture and our as a high school student or as an adult, as a working guy, as a husband and Jesus wasn't a husband Like, what do you? Like? How am I supposed to look at Jesus and love my wife? Because I don't have the perfect example of marriage through Jesus, right? And then obviously there's the Paul thing about Jesus in the church and that whole thing, and you can apply like a lot of Jesus's principles to your marriage and stuff like that. But it's and that applies like to anybody Like, how do I be a good grandma? Jesus wasn't a grandma. You know what I mean. So, and we're in a whole different culture, in a whole different time, with different rules, different laws, different ideologies. So how do we apply that to our lives? And how do we make this old book, this old New Testament and Old Testament Bible, apply to today? And there's tons of fantastic principles in there, but at the end of the day. There's a living God that wants to be a part of your life, that you can look to and that will actually reveal things to you in this time. He does new things, which is cool. So there's obviously the wisdom of old, and the Bible is an errant. I believe the Bible is an errant and at least truth-wise. Saying an errant's a weird thing, but I believe the Bible has absolute truth in it.
Speaker 1:That's a better way to.
Speaker 2:You know it's, it's said 5,000 people here, and it's, it's what it said, true? Well, there's not facts, or what I Is it true, though? Does it point you in a good spot? Yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah. Is it the only absolute source of physical truth we can look to?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so just to make that clear if any of our listeners are struggling with the Bible or that it legitimately I believe it legitimately does contradict itself, Like I really do. Great work.
Speaker 1:We have 10 minutes left in this pot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I started on a whole.
Speaker 2:This is me ranting now, but there are places in the Bible and we can edit all this out. No, we're not. I don't care what anybody says. There are places in the Bible where it contradicts itself, where it's not historically accurate.
Speaker 1:Or it's, or maybe better said, it's historically questionable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, you don't know yeah yeah, it's historically questionable.
Speaker 2:There are different numbers for different things. So, like you know, an easy example would be 5,000 people. How many people? But like the heart of it is just like. I saw a lot of people over there.
Speaker 1:And then there's weird stuff, like maybe Matthew was counting men and the other dude was counting families, whatever.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden, it's this contradicts Truth contradicting or the details contradicting in relation to truth are about getting to truth. So does the detail that you say contradict take away from the truth? No, okay, then keep asking questions.
Speaker 2:That's where I'm at. You hear a lot of people leaving the faith over this kind of stuff and I've looked into it pretty hard just because I'm the type of person.
Speaker 1:You tried and then you couldn't. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I'm joking. Maybe there's some truth there, but like you know, there's so many places to meet and this could be straight hair, but like I really do, Our first comment on this podcast, when it was dropped just with the image of the podcast, was heresy, that's a pretty good record, yeah. I don't want to speak heresy, but I do want to just go on the record and be like the Bible is absolute truth. There is nothing in the Bible to me. I believe this. That is not true. It is truth. Not in and of itself, jesus, not without God. It's not just a book that you got to have the trinity in your life. Other than that, it is a holy book that contains absolute truth. But that's not the thing. Obviously, yeah, but just the thing of it absolutely contradicts itself, like in small ways that are just like little facts and little things like that, like in the Old Testament, you can Google it, but there's like many contradictions in the Bible that are like this number is different here, like this and what's interesting is like I think the reason that people have left the faith over these type of subjects is because in the past Christians have had a really shallow conception of what truth is or the word inerrancy, they've said.
Speaker 1:Inerrancy means everything represented here is absolutely, factually on point and Valid to the way we understand it. Seven day creation, that was. Seven 24 hour American days, american Like less. I love that. In American it was seven 24 hour American days. It's such arrogance, the perspective we look at truth from. Or if you take, for example, go, take the four gospels, matthew, mark, luke, john, line them up next to one another and make timelines and then take the facts this amount of people, that amount of people, they're not the same, not the same. I like the word they're not the same rather than contradict, because I don't think truth is being contradicted upon itself.
Speaker 2:I am saying the same thing.
Speaker 1:I know you are, I'm just saying factually. I know yeah.
Speaker 2:So the reason I Contradict is a bad word.
Speaker 1:It's okay, it's a common usage of the term I wanted to use it just because that's what people say, it's what everybody else uses, but the way that I learned how to relate to scripture in recent years Bible project was a real blessing. That's a jam dude.
Speaker 2:Tim Mackey, please be on this podcast. We're trying, man.
Speaker 1:Man, Tim Mackey, we just, we just want to be your friend.
Speaker 2:We said you said in January, you said-.
Speaker 1:Anyway.
Speaker 2:You said talk to me next year.
Speaker 1:Talk to me next year. What like a hardcore, stiff arm? We're close, though we're close.
Speaker 2:We're gonna try.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna give up. She said talk to me next year.
Speaker 2:And I said I'll set my account.
Speaker 1:The idea Jesus said I'll go to his words, not Tim Mackey's words.
Speaker 2:Good call.
Speaker 1:That scripture is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing, capable of dividing, sending you from bone, right? If you've ever, if you've ever, butchered a animal, getting that blade like in the right spot to have perfect separation, where there's no degree of like, leaving meat on the bone, like that is a crafty art and it is almost impossible, it's really hard to do so. Like when he uses that example like it's fascinating to me that, also, like Israel as itself, the temple was in many ways like a butcher shop, like they were constantly bringing animals through. This may be weird for everybody, but I think about the temple like just smelling like cooked meat, cause they're just fricking, roasting lamb and cow, and I just think about walking into the temple courtyard and be like yo, I'm so hungry, right now. Like all the time weird picture. But when we talk about reading scripture, the fact that the stories are not exactly the same and they're from different perspectives is not a stiff arm where truth is saying come no closer because things aren't what they seem. It's an invitation. Any good movie, any good story that any of us love, don't give you all the perfect details. It's. It would be like give me. It would be like reading the. What is it like? The shorthand of a movie or whatever, like reading the movie notes where you like go and read, just just tell me the facts of what happened. And it's bro, that's. You're like the art and the beauty and the love. And like you didn't even go on the journey, man, you just went and read it. Like what's like the best movie that's ever moved you.
Speaker 2:Blue Valentine. I've never seen that yeah it's a super indie deep cut.
Speaker 1:All right, shama would be proud of you for using the words deep cut. I'm not young enough. So it would be like if I came to you and I was like give me no emotion, no, just give me the facts. And I feel like that's how we come to the Bible and it's how we come to our gateway. The Bible is the gateway to in my opinion, the gateway to God's heart and the spirit is the one that's living and active and revealing, and Jesus is the word, so he's how are. All that works together. But it's like we come to truth and we're like just give me the facts, I don't wanna enjoy them, I don't wanna savor them, I don't wanna walk through, I just want them for me so that I know how to go be God, I know how to manage my own life, and so something I say often is you can't give a good answer to a bad question. So a lot of times, like we set up words and questions about the Bible or God that are established to allow us to go do what we want to do, we already know that there's not a good answer for the way we're asking a question. Does that make sense? So we take these things and say, look, they contradict. That means my doubt and God is valid. I'm gonna go smoke weed and it's you did that. You didn't wanna know. You just wanted an excuse to go with the crowd and do the things you wanted to do. So I don't know if to our listeners or to anyone else, but I went deep. My deep cut, if you will, was in the idea of defining and going deep into the heart of God. In my early steps of faith was needing to be able to prove every heresy wrong, fascinating thing about sin. Every time you pull out a weed and you're looking in front of you and you've weeded a whole garden bed and you get to the end of it and you're like looking out over the field and, man, you just plucked everything. You're like man, now this field is ripe. You turn around and somebody's been planting weeds behind you and there's just always more Like you figure out every single thing. And then there's another thing have you ever heard the idea of studying counterfeits versus studying the real thing? Yeah, all right, I wanna hand off because I'm tired of rambling. Take that concept with the idea of truth.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll do this last thing because we gotta end here in a second. It's pretty simple Just study the real thing and instead of the counterfeit. So if you're a check fraud guy, if you're a counterfeiter of anything, you study the real thing. You study the dollar, Like how does the dollar work, what are all the things about the dollar. You don't study the other counterfeits. So if you wanna make, you know if you the idea translates more of like for truth. I guess I was about to say if you wanna make a good counterfeit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what we did with the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you wanna make a good counterfeit, make it real close If you wanna make a good counterfeit study the real thing, Wait, no, that's not the point I was like I know the point. Why am I counterfeiting dollars now? But basically study the real thing, study Jesus, study God, and don't look at all the different arguments and stuff. I look at them for fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now for fun, but not for truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not for the Armenian. What is it? I don't look at that Like I do like legitimately think that that stuff is fun. Yeah, which sounds super lame.
Speaker 1:It's how this podcast started. Yeah, just tell me your thing. I think it's fun.
Speaker 2:But if that's your substitute for truth, if you're like predestination is the thing and if it's not, I'm done with this. That's not faith. That's just learning a. Thing.
Speaker 1:Or whether or not. What are the pan millennialism and this millennialism and that millennialism Like pan millennial is not one, but it's the one that I've taken, which is I'm pan millennial, Think it'll all pan out in the end. It's like that's such a dad joke and the dudes that are like super, like tights, fainter on that like hate that joke. So, with what you just said, in a world like study, the real thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In a world that the world, the devil and part of your own self, your flesh, are all screaming, wailing, whispering, not real things. How is elimination of hurry and Sabbath the key? Elimination of hurry, sabbath, silence, the key to studying the real thing? Because the root of what you just said is well, where do you hear the real thing speak?
Speaker 2:So how say that question one more time in a, in a simple, non-Jarad way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how is Sabbath and silence, the way that Jesus did it, the key to studying the real thing? So you could first just define what the real thing is. I got you.
Speaker 2:First of all, it's not the key, it's a key.
Speaker 1:Feels like a pretty big key. It was set in the seventh day.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a key. It's not the key, because the Sabbath wasn't made for man.
Speaker 1:Oh, now he's gonna drop the real hammer. Let's go.
Speaker 2:All right, I bow oh no, no wait, I screwed this up last time. Yeah, go man. Man was not made for the Sabbath, was made for man.
Speaker 1:If you're gonna backhand me with I'll backhand you, but I'll miss Then you need to make sure it's right.
Speaker 2:Hey, you understood it and you know I got you. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:All right on point, but no, that's First for me define what the heck is the real thing. Just simple, but yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, simple Jesus, simple Trinity. Yeah, bible is in there as far as like Jesus is the word, but like simple, look at the Trinity and look at Jesus' life and try your best to follow him, but don't forsake that relationship with him. Like you can't just take the practices out and be like I'm gonna live my life like Jesus and not have him. You've gotta be in a relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say, to fill in, that's almost like the image of the coloring, like if you look at the image and then filling it in for me is like the real thing looks like something, it looks like love, joy these patients kind of self-control Like. Those are the evidences of it being real. So anytime you're looking for whether or not it's good, it's like is it loving, is it gentle, is it kind, is it patient? And it's like the news is probably. Jesus continue.
Speaker 2:And then there's ways that Jesus did plan for our lives to go, Not spiritual disciplines. That's what I wanna go with. There's spiritual disciplines that genuinely do help the Christian life. And in America, at least in my settings and in the places that I've been, we have forsaken a lot of those spiritual disciplines Like we're like okay, pray and read your Bible, but there's fasting, there's meditational prayer, there's staying in silence, there's solitude, there's service.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what you mean. I don't know the spiritual disciplines.
Speaker 2:Somebody probably wrote them somewhere.
Speaker 1:The thing more so what you're saying is there are principles that spiritual disciplines in each culture come from the principle you can't just grind all the time and be good, like you need to take a rest, you need to take a break. Or the idea that, like, if you are that quote instrument, how do you know that you're in tune? Like you gotta go away, be still and block out all other noise If you're gonna listen just to, is that the right tune that's out alone somewhere? It's not, when everything else is blasting. So how is like the idea of that silence sad of like that principle? How is that connected to knowing the real thing?
Speaker 2:That's just a way to get to know him better is what I would say. That's something that clearly in the Bible. Let's just take fasting, for example. Yeah, clearly, it's like when I leave my disciples wheel fast.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. This sound like a command to you. It feels a little like it.
Speaker 2:It's just. Are you a disciple of Jesus? Yes, fast. Who said it? Jesus, you can't even be like. Oh, it's Paul, and he meant it. It's Jesus. Red letters.
Speaker 1:You can almost ask your disciple Jesus. And then the next question would be when do you fast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you ever fasted? And if they're like no, it's, jesus said you should. And if they're like where? And you show it to them and they're like in context and whatever. But he didn't say it. So you can put the context, you can go any way you like with it. But Jesus said my disciples will fast After he leaves, because he was talking about his disciples weren't fasting and they were like they fasted, like that. This is wedding season, baby.
Speaker 1:He's like when the groom and bride are here and the buffet is set, you eat that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just. But after he leaves, my disciples will fast, so it's okay. So just that idea of that's just simple. How many Christians in America actually fast? The answer is to me in my group not a lot Regularly, anyway how often? And then you pointed it yourself and you're like how often have I fasted? And it's some.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, like one of the things that's convicted me is when the disciples can't blow that this is the way I'm describing this when the disciples can't blow that demon out of that little boy's body, they come to Jesus and they're like hey man, how'd you do that? And he answers the only way you can do that is with fasting and prayer. And to me, what's always fascinating about that is he didn't go away and fast and pray, he just showed up ready to roll.
Speaker 2:It was hard to see what he was doing.
Speaker 1:That's a weird thing, so, yeah, not the idea of like how many Christians like try to fast once a year and occasionally do. Versus the early church they had a habit of fasting on a certain day of the week. It's like how many Christians just fast like one full day. And when I say fast, yes, there's not fast, but on water, no food, water, everybody's aw. Fast from my phones. Yeah, like a baby tries not to crap in his diet.
Speaker 2:I mean. I'm so on team. Fasting is not eating. I am. There is very much benefits to not being on your phone and stuff like that. So it's not hey, you should only fast from food. But it's like when Jesus says my disciples will fast, that was fricking food. I don't give a rip.
Speaker 1:And there's other forms and people have medical and all these things, and that's fine. We're not getting into that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:He was talking about food.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people, culturally even believers, that if you're like, hey, did you know if you didn't eat for seven days you wouldn't die, they're like, no, I definitely would die. Outside of extreme medical circumstances you probably wouldn't. Actually, you could go for about 40. And people are like, no, Do you know how? And the responses are do you know how tired and angry I would be? So when you don't eat, some like inner emotional issues come out, yeah. So anyway, this is running long.
Speaker 2:We'll edit like solid 45 minutes out.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1:I think with what you said, like the spiritual disciplines tied to some real principles, like, for me, the principle that God is alive and active in here and with us and helping us, but actually hearing and wants to help us, but actually hearing his voice in a world of noise takes some silence, some solitude, some emotional silence, some mental silence, some spiritual silence, some physical silence. So you could consider a fast like silence of food, silence of intake, silence of attention, like it takes a desolate place, like what's in a desolate place? Nothing, it's just nothing Except you bring. And the only thing I would say to this is, if anybody is moving toward meditative principles or fasting or anything like that, a lot of the Eastern culture and a lot of human tradition says you need to get your mind, heart and soul to a place of nothingness, and so the idea of fasting and silence is just avoid all attention of anything. The one unique thing about the Christian faith is when you fast, when you meditate, when you move to that place, it is not to empty yourself of everything and be nothing. That's nirvana, is the concept of just becoming nothing with all nothingness. The Christian faith is to be still and to fill your mind with the one thing that matters, the one thing deserving of attention, to remove everything else that to some degree can pull you off, because we're all addicts to some degree of food, drugs, movies, addiction to our phones. But the fasting is that, like the ability, the fasting and meditation, the ability to turn your attention to one thing and fill your mind with that one thing. So to me, that one thing is what you talked about. It's truth. It's truth has a name it's Jesus. Take a scripture, take the character and the attributes of God, take the restful yoke of God, like you're just turning your attention toward that one thing and removing everything else that distracts you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.
