20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 32)

all right we are live and um today it is it is a day for you to get your questions answered and to look at my cat that's moxie she has not been joining us on the live streams i have a chair over here she used to always sit in and i set up a camera and she would come and sit there and occasionally we'd pop over for a little cat cam but i just quickly threw a video of her uh from last night just i don't know she was licking herself on the couch cleaning her hands and feet paws whatever there's moxie and that's time for you guys to get your questions and i'm pastor mike winger i'm here to answer your questions try to help you learn to think biblically about everything at least i want to help you on that journey and that means taking questions every question any question and just trying to like work through it thoughtfully patiently one thought at a time to try to get to a biblical answer a biblical conclusion and that's what we do every friday and question number one is from francis chan youtube user listening from japan who says how do you share the gospel to people with unsaved loved ones who already passed accepting it to be true would mean accepting that their loved ones are in hell and let's start out with an easy question today um i actually have a there's a lot of things i want to answer to this a lot of these very emotionally charged questions they um they start to lose some of their emotional charge if you can give a longer answer instead of a shorter answer it and this is kind of like seems to me just be true across the board there's just emotionally charged questions and if you're allowed to give a a thoughtful answer a lot of times you can unpack things more carefully you can build bridges and so one question i would have to start with is how long are they going to allow you to answer this question assuming that they're bringing it up to you and if they're not going to give you any significant time to respond to it it may be smart to not deal with it and to say i'd rather talk about where what you know your relationship with god where you stand before god rather than other people we're changing the subject to other people but i'm here with you i'm talking to you can we talk about your situation and there's wisdom in that because sometimes this sort of question can be sort of like a uh what becomes like you know we're not saying christianity's not true with this question we're just saying it's emotionally unacceptable to me and i think that these are the most powerful objections to christianity in the sense of having power to persuade people to change people's minds and to be opposed to christianity is you find that it's not the evidential stuff it's the emotional stuff that very powerfully tends to lead people so these emotionally charged questions or statements that are that are answerable but they're not answerable quickly because the emotional statement it set up a framework so i i hope i'm making sense to you guys when you ask it like this how do you share the gospel with people with unsaved two people with unsaved loved ones who already passed accepting it to be true would mean accepting that their loved ones are in hell so the only framing we have for this conversation is i love them and they are in hell and that's the whole discussion right but when you start to unpack more details you go wait a minute a i don't know their loved ones so i can't comment on people i don't know b they may or may not really know their loved ones god knows hearts god knows all the opportunities they've heard to hear the gospel how they responded to it how they reacted to him um there's a couple questions there a couple issues there so someone's like yeah my grandpa is is he saved and then you ask him like what did your grandpa believe and they go well i don't know well how am i supposed to answer about your grandfather when you don't even know that can be kind of complicated so that's why i don't like going there personally it also turns into like um a test if god loves my family then maybe i'll consider the gospel but if he doesn't love my family if he doesn't love my loved ones then why would i ever love him but yet the teaching of christianity you could simply say like the response of god to your loved ones was that he sent jesus to die on the cross for their sins and that even though they had sinned against him and they had turned their backs on him in various ways in their lives as i have as you have they will still have to deal with this one day and be accountable for god so i would just be pretty honest with them uh francis i would i would be honest with them but i would also intentionally avoid this topic not because i'm embarrassed about christian teaching on the issue right and by the way the whole idea of hell um hell is a future thing not a present thing that's in future final judgment that's when we talk about hell it's not a present thing currently um but that's another another response there so how do you deal with them um i would say move them away from the category of my loved ones and into the category of my relationship with god my sin my attitude towards god my response to jesus christ this is what's what's really important and we need to focus on so we uh we tend to have attitudes towards our loved ones especially after they pass that are somewhat unrealistic sometimes you know they're they're untouchable it's like you don't go to a funeral service and say something negative about someone who passed like it's just not appropriate to do this in culture and trying to do evangelism when someone's like you know you're saying mean things about my my loved ones like this is not a healthy thing for trying to get the gospel the person so yeah if we have to talk about it i want to unpack it individually what opportunities did your loved ones have to hear the gospel what were their responses to the gospel did your loved ones actually have sins before god did they have to be accountable for okay so they're in the same situation as you right now how are you responding to the gospel that's the thing that's the thing um but there are some people who they would decide what to believe in based upon whatever religion promises the best promises in their opinion and this is obviously not someone you can reason with their the bar for what they will believe is what they like instead of what's true and that's unfortunate so yeah i counsel generally avoiding the discussion but if you want to talk about it you need to talk about real people real sin real issues real responses to the gospel god only judges based on opportunities that people have actually had to hear the gospel to respond to it only judges based upon the knowledge they did have and the actions they did pro you know uh take and then in all this god is holy and loving and he will do the right thing with those people of course he will but if you're asking me to like um have to pass some bar of i have to say your your loved ones are always in a happy place no matter what that's not that's not reality right like that's not that's not the real world we live in and so it becomes an emotionally charged but unrealistic expectation placed upon people sharing the gospel all right danny o has a question in the bible it says to turn the other cheek what does that mean no one's supposed to be punished except by a for by god that's the way it's written here so no one is to be punished except by god i'll say it that way meaning we shouldn't have prisons or protect ourselves and loved ones so turn the other cheek um i think that this actually is a great a great way to put this question and and it can highlight something for us when jesus uses these phrases turn the other cheek bless those who curse you pray for those who spitefully use you all that kind of thing this is misunderstood because people don't realize the difference between governments and individuals so let me go to the passage and let's um let's look at it ourselves here we go matthew 5 39 sorry just a sec matthew 5 39 and this is question number two there we go um jesus says um and i'll back up just a little bit you've heard it that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but i say to you do not resist the one who's evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also and if you want anyone would sue you and take your tunic let him have your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him two miles give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who you would who would borrow from you so then he goes on like love your you know you've heard that it was said you should love your neighbor hate your enemy but i said you love your enemies pray for those persecute you this is honestly one of the most commonly read passages of jesus's teachings but it's also not very thoughtfully explained or thought about by a lot of people so i'm going to offer a couple points of clarity a few issues of clarity here one is this notice that there's a difference between governments and individuals god gives government the ability to bring sort of um penalties and justice and he actually gets on their case if they don't so if they don't defend the fatherless or the widow or those who are oppressed then god's god's gonna judge governments for this and people groups for this they're not defending the oppressed this is like a big deal in scripture and then individuals are different right am i supposed to go out and act like i'm the government so if my neighbor does something illegal i go over there and i find him pay me you did you parked where you shouldn't you know it's it's trash day you're parked in the street pay me 50 bucks no that would be wrong okay this is this seems like you know life 101 stuff that what the government can do you can't just do all you want um so keep that in mind um another differentiation is the difference between what they were being taught versus what the old testament really meant so he says to them you've heard it was said an eye for nine a tooth for a tooth that's governmental rules you know government is equal pay or equal compensation are they stole a hundred dollars well they need to pay a hundred dollars to you or sometimes there's a hundred plus something because there was the inconvenience involved as well so eye for an eye tooth for tooth uh isn't about eyes and teeth it's about you will give exactly what they you know what what the person suffered the person who did it will now suffer the the exact same thing but i say to you do not resist the one who's evil now he's talking individually he's not giving him governmental laws he's saying individually you're using these government rules for your personal vengeance but i'm telling you don't resist the one who's evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn the other turn to him the other also right now later on in romans paul talks about the government and he says that the govern the government they have the sword and it's not in vain and that they're god's ministers not that they're always doing the right things but they're supposed to be god's ministers in you know enacting justice punishing the wicked of rewarding the good this is what the government's supposed to do so paul who's obviously turned the other cheek he's obviously turning but he's also appealing to caesar because government and individuals have different roles and scripture is trying to get us to recognize that if you're a christian in government you should bring out right and good justice but then when you're walking down the street and someone offends you you should turn the other cheek you should bless the one who curses you and this has to do with the different roles of government versus individuals i think it's pretty clear if you see these these these few things he says if anyone would sue you and take your cloak let him have your uh take your tunic let him have your cloak as well this is about voluntarily giving to those who are trying to to hurt you to show like your graciousness to show your kindness to show that you're children of god but this is not about governments jesus is not like hey governments if someone wants to sue someone for a thousand dollars give them the lawsuit for two thousand dollars right like this is not what jesus is doing this is not about government this is about individuals then he says if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him two miles uh this was something a centurion could do he could uh roman soldier could force a jewish man to carry something for up to a mile he's like yeah okay they can do that legally they can force you but go with them an extra mile to show the graciousness and love that there is in your community as christians to show the kindness and the goodness and the friendliness that's there you know when when someone's cutting you off don't speed up and block them give them the lame is that morally just no no it's gracious it's kind it's merciful it's christian that's the idea give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who uh who would borrow from you but this this can't be a rule like for governments aren't going to do this like a beggar goes i was on the street and i asked so and so for money he didn't give me money and the government should force that person to give right that would be weird these are not government laws jesus is saying look yes there's this governmental law but now i'm asking you to be a people who walk in grace a people who are kind and gracious who turn the other cheek right you've heard that it was said love your neighbor hate your enemy although they hate your enemy part that's not uh teaching in scripture that was a teaching that we're hearing love your neighbor that is a teaching in leviticus but i say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who's in heaven for he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust by the way rain in this context is a good thing in scripture uh rain is a is a good thing like you don't grow crops without rain you you have drought you die rain is not trials in this verse it's considered a blessing god gives blessings to all people for if you love those who love you what reward do you have do not even the tax collectors do that do you get the idea this is about like you being um examples so back to the question um in the bible it says to turn the other cheek does that mean no one's supposed to be punished except by god uh no because your conclusion there understandably danny you're saying hey that means we shouldn't have prisons or protect ourselves and loved ones and i think no no no no this is about interpersonal relationships it's okay to appeal to caesar so to speak as paul does in acts right he he appeals to government but he's not going to get vengeance on his own he's going to appeal to the government to do that there are times for that and self-defense or defending people who are being attacked that can be appropriate as well but there's also a time to lay it down and and to to be to suffer and to take it on on the chin so to speak and to still love and be gracious to those who are hurting and wounding you and that is a glorious thing it's something that christ does call us to this isn't to turn uh us into a culture where we protect oppressors and we we we victimize people rather this is all internal it's me i'm the one who's been wounded right i'm the one who's been mistreated and i'm going to be gracious and i'm going to forgive because of the love that god has given me this is not something our our current culture is going for we're we're interested in justice in a sense slightly weird versions of it sometimes but we as christians are to demonstrate mercy and grace and kindness i i hope that this helps macboo biltzman has a question does psalm 51 5 teach that we inherit the guilt of adam's sin not just his sin nature okay let's go to this psalm 51 5. and i'll read it to you guys and i actually have a lot to share on this particular topic i won't go on forever i promise but but i do have a lot of a lot i have shared and have thought about this a lot even even recently um about the theology of original sin psalm 51 5 behold i was brought forth in iniquity in ins and in sin did my mother conceive me so this is one of the few proof texts for the doctrine of original sin and what is more pop most popular in the church is a doctrine of original sin that matches like augustine or augustine right it matches this like augustinian understanding of original sin and that has to do with the idea and if i can try to summarize these are careful concepts and i i don't want to be clumsy but here we are live and i'm i haven't had time to prepare a question and answer the question but i'll give you some thoughts um the augustinian view is that we we've not only have like a sinful nature like we are we are inclined towards sin there that we're all going to sin um but that we're actually born with guilt because we actually have already sinned in some sense catch that phrase in some sense i've already committed a sin and so that that sin traces back to adam in adam all sin and so depending on how you translate that and how you look at that phrase you're thinking okay we we've all like actually committed a sin uh some would say well we were all in adam genetically and therefore adam like when he sinned we didn't just get the um the results of the sin the fallen nature of the sin we actually got guilt this would imply that babies when they're when they're even like one day old they're born or before they're even born they're in the womb they're they're little humans they've already done something they're guilty of now i think this is actually not biblical so you might expect me to defend that doctrine here that that understanding of original sin and i'm actually not going to this is something i don't hold to anymore this is a doctrinal shift i've had in my own life and i haven't made a big big thing about it but i think and that's because i'm not suggesting that that means we're all we're all inherently good and we can like work our way to heaven or something like that no not at all not not i think there is original sin and that we're all fallen and we're all born in sin and the results of the results of sin but not having committed sin that's where i would differ from this doctrine of original sin that has been um really very like it's it's supported by a lot of people like i'm i'm in a minority here on this on this issue but i'll tell you what if you gather the texts of scripture that support the doctrine of original sin you find that unlike most doctrines like the doctrine of the trinity or doctrines of last things or like you know how salvation works that you're saved by grace through faith apart from works that kind of thing these these doctrines have like tons of tons of biblical support but the view of original sin that i'm actually guilty as a one day old infant i'm actually guilty of having already committed sin personally guilty right you might call it original guilt um that that view is actually supported by a scanty little group of scriptures that don't clearly teach it in my opinion this is why i've had to change my view it's taken a while it was originally wanting to defend the view looking in and trying to find all the biblical support and then finding that i felt like it was lacking so i've gone into this in more detail in my video about it's my i did two videos about infant salvation like what happens to babies who die or people who die before they have the ability to you know acknowledge god um and in that video the second video i did a follow-up called something like um like infant salvation causes these theological problems or something like that and so i worked through that in that video there's a video where i worked through more thoughtfully actually shared the scriptures and walked through them all that to to say i had to say that because i'm not giving the normal answer here okay and maybe i'm wrong and i'm open to changing my mind here i still think you need to be saved by god's grace and everyone has everyone who's who's of moral accountable reasoning abilities everybody has sinned and fallen short of the glory of god right but i do i do think in babies and those who die without that ability are actually saved covered by the grace of christ um all right so behold i was brought forth in iniquity and sin my did my mother conceive me what what is what is this what is this saying then um well if we read into it the idea that i was brought forth in iniquity this means i have original sin that comes from adam because in adam i sinned and therefore i was already a sinner when i was born or i mean let me just say does it not feel like i'm reading a lot into the text there like i would i would say that's consistent with the doctrine of original sin but i wouldn't say it teaches the doctrine of original sin it's also consistent with a very poetic passage that's just talking about how messed up i am let's read this psalm in more detail have mercy on me oh god according to your steadfast love according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for i know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you you only have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment behold i was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me what what does this mean i mean there's something sinful about my very person okay i would agree with that that's my understanding of original sin right is that that we're fallen people and that's we're morally fallen we have we we we need to be redeemed and saved from our very nature from who we are i would agree with that but that doesn't necessarily teach that i committed the sin that adam committed in the garden but it does trace it back to his birth right and his conception i was brought forth in iniquity and sin did my mother conceive me i i i get you there i get what you're saying now some have said okay perhaps it was um david's mom did something sinful when he was born except the weird thing here is that david had older brothers from the same dad right this would imply that there wasn't like a fornication type thing going on in his conception that that's not the thing that's going on um yeah i all i would say is what you definitely get from psalm 51.5 i think we should accept my understanding of it right now is that from the moment of his birth from the moment of his conception there was already something wrong with him that that i would agree with and that that's you know the fall of man so i just don't think it gives us the idea that i actually sinned with adam and i think that's that passage is in romans 5. um let me find the passage too since i'm already talking about it this much 5 12 is it okay let's let's look at the verse here therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin so death spread to all men because all sinned um for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given but sin was not is not counted where there is no law yet death reign from adam to moses even those who sinning is not like the transgression of adam who is a type of the one who was to come let me come back to verse 14 in a second that's actually a key verse here um but there's a specific verse i'm looking for this is what happens when you're alive and you're thinking on your feet you just don't find what you're looking for um yeah let's start at verse 10 for while we were enemies reconciled to god where is the verse i'm sure you guys have probably posted it in the live chat somebody no no no one's helping me today i'm on my own i'm all alone i'm all alone there's like a thousand people watching me all right so um but the phrases in in all of us in adam all sin and christ all are made alive is it corinthians that i'm confusing anyway so the phrase that an atom all sin has to do with a greek issue and i get into this in the video i'm referencing to you now and i'll put a link down below since i'm talking about it this much i'll put a link down in the video description below on this issue of infant salvation okay and and how that relates to original sin i will link that down below but here i want to point out verse 14 because it's a greek issue and i think the greek doesn't teach what some people think it teaches but here in verse 14 notice this what it says about a lot of people who apparently didn't do what adam did now if if adam's sin is the sin i committed to verse 14 doesn't make sense death reign from adam to moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of adam wait does an original sin suggest that i the normal understanding original sin typical understanding suggests that i've actually done the thing adam did when he ate of the tree it's like i did too i'm guilty i have guilt personal guilt for what he did because i kind of did it too in adam i sinned but i don't think that's the way i would understand it in verse 14 seems to refute that in my opinion because it's saying there's a group of people between adam and moses a whole bunch of people and they sinned but their sin was not like the transgression of adam it was a different sin because all of us have sinned and fallen short i'm affirming that 100 percent the question is the nature of that sin all right that's a lot of stuff there let's go to question number four uh the namus says there's a lot of contempt within the body of christ across the political aisle how can there be genuine unity with those who differ so greatly in thinking when it comes to things like abortion or blm um uh i think that the key for me personally right okay on the topic of uh on the topic of abortion it's a lot easier black lives matter is a lot harder of an issue to me okay so abortion i'm gonna talk openly here guys maybe you don't agree with me and and maybe it's healthy for you to not have the same opinion as me and to hear someone you disagree with talk about it for a little bit let me just talk about how i see this um abortion seems like a very very clear issue abundantly clear issue this is actually murder that's happening on a large scale and that we're accountable for this before god and that it's probably next to the gospel itself is the biggest moral issue facing our culture today far bigger than racism far bigger than um poverty far bigger than anything else i think abortion okay i think that that's abundantly clear i'm pretty solidly convinced of those extreme statements i just made on the issue of abortion a christian who has a different view i love them but i'm aware of the gravity of them being wrong on this issue now if they're having no influence in others then at least their wrong views are hopefully not actually resulting in anybody dying but if they're influencing others because they vote for their views because they support the people who are pushing these things of abortion um if if they're influencing others then their views are having grave consequences in the real world and so i need to hold all that in my mind and heart and be aware of it but i still care about that person i just don't agree with him i don't think that unity in the body of christ means that we have to pretend there aren't serious important issues we disagree on i think we have to be open about it it's just trying to handle that with a with an element of grace with the understanding of the kindness and love of god in christ if you say anybody who supports abortion therefore is not a christian i could i just think they're gravely wrong i don't think they're not christians now because of this i think they're horribly horribly dangerously viciously wrong those are i think accurate terms but i don't think they're not my brother or sister because of it i think christians can be wrong in some pretty extreme ways because humans are just this kind of we're moral beings and we make moral bad decisions and this is the reality of things so on the issue of black lives matter it's way more complicated because racism is real black lives do matter and this is actually important that we highlight this but then then like the actual organization black lives matter is an ungodly organization like with all kinds of agendas that go way beyond dealing with actual racism then you attach that to the ideas of critical race theory which on one camp you've got the conservatives saying critical race theory is this horrible thing you guys have to watch out and on the other camp you have people going oh it's just all those conservatives and evangelicals that don't like critical race theory they're just a bunch of closeted races and and yeah that's a lot of division that's being created um i've actually had conversations with people and where it's gone both ways they go oh no i hear you i hear you what are your actual objections to say critical race theory this kind of thing and they want to hear it out other people when they live in the realm of i'm just being honest when they live in the realm of like emotion emoting about these issues or if they think that um real racism means you automatically like critical race theory simply is the solution to racism then it's hard to have um a conversation because everything you say is viewed as racist at that point and that makes things difficult i think that as christians then maybe the solution is we start with our submission and commitment to jesus christ as lord that's the most important issue even above and above abortion above critical race theory above black lives matter above masks and vaccines and covid and um you name it above political pundits and all that you you care about jesus and his lordship first and if you really do care about that first it will change the way you handle all the other issues even if you continue to disagree that seems like wisdom to me but but these issues do matter yeah it's tough it's a tough thing it's tough thing i've never divided over with a christian like i won't fellowship with you because of black lives matter critical race theory the issue of abortion i've never divided on those issues but i do want to talk about them with people if i think that their views are having real world negative consequences for themselves and others there's what i think god give us wisdom i think those are biblical realities um one of the one of the problems where the objections people have say to critical race theory and black lives matter that movement not the idea that black lives matter my goodness of course that's a that's a beautiful and proper and good idea i don't have a problem with that i would actually say it if it wasn't attached to this messed up uh organization that's using the power of of opinionated people to push their own agendas that a lot of people aren't even aware of anyway that being said um uh i just lost my train of thought i'll move on i have no idea what i was about to say um yes genuine unity starts with centering our hearts and lives upon jesus christ that's that's the beginning and then realizing that you're going to try to bring the truth into that oh let me add one more thing talking points don't help too much here um trying to understand other people's views that's good and healthy but it's also not enough to just oh let's just let's just have a conversation like all we're doing all day is having conversations where everyone expresses their opinion and nobody ever like says but that's wrong that's not healthy either this creates all kinds of weird dissonance in in your own relationship with god i'm talking too much about this issue so for the sake of time i'm going to move on bt or beta t says aside from tithing and prayer oh and by the way no more questions today guys we've got our full 20 questions list so you can stop putting them if you keep putting them in there that's fine because you don't have to and we won't be able to get any more today we answer 20. um so betty says aside from tithing and prayer what are good ways to support my pastor would it be weird to send an email each week thinking for the sermon i have a social disorder so i'm always unsure thank you pastor mike um the uh good ways to support a pastor i mean i'm a pastor i've been for a long time what are good ways people support me i think uh i think you know when you give to the church whether you call that tithing that amount or not is irrelevant to me but when you support the church financially you're helping support the staff of the church and the functions of the church and the outreaches of the church and that's a great way to support your pastor um another way if you feel that he needs support is just um here's a thought um just be just be friendly with him just be friendly with him um it's nice when a pastor hears things like hey that really ministered to me and you give them honest genuine feedback i would say if you want to give good feedback to people only give it when it's real when it's honest and true so don't feel like every week i have to encourage him like what if it wasn't a very good sermon then don't don't do that don't don't be fake none of that's needed the pastor doesn't need to feel and hopefully he doesn't need to feel like he's like above and beyond but he just wants to you know those who are doing ministry want to want to feel that what they're doing is having an impact um another thing is to just remember that he's just a human being and treat him like a human being and just he's not only there to feed people and serve people he's also just a person and you could just say hey how's it going you know but not like i'm checking up on you like it's not always a spiritual checkup like everybody's walking through the past with a thermometer to check his spiritual temperature that's going to create an awkward environment but i i'm just suggesting that um you want you guys go out to lunch and you just talk to treat him like a normal person right not like he's the spiritual guru while we're eating lunch like i'm just suggesting that that might be a healthy thing i wonder how many pastors would like that um when you're in leadership this is this is a symptom for leaders across the board when you're in leadership you tend to be disconnected from the people you lead it happens consistently people view you differently because you're an authority now and so they don't invite you to go get something to eat they don't you know they don't just want to hang out because they feel like intimidated or feel like you might you might have something to say about what they're doing or what they're saying or whatever and this causes many people who are in leadership across the board bosses right people in leadership tend to feel disconnected from the people that they serve or that they lead and since the church is not a business it's a body this can actually create an unhealthy separation between leaders pastors and the congregants because they don't feel comfortable getting lunch with the person that kind of thing so i that that's where i'm recommending treating him like a normal person i think that that's a good thing yeah if you're intimidated by your pastor just know that that probably creates alienation between the two of you and you could just be like you know forget about it i'm not going to be intimidated by this person he's just a brother in christ it's nothing to be worried about all right number six laurie concer says do you know of any good bible study resource for a group with no teacher only facilitators oh by the way let me just add to the last one back up a little bit the last one i'll add this um i think this is biblically consistent as well so paul did minister to people but he also just like lived with them right and we read about this but not only just in acts but also in his letters when he talks about them notice how many people he greets by name in the gospel or not the gospels in uh romans first corinthians he like greets these people by name he's like tell so and so so i'm sitting so and so he's my heart i'm sending him to you paul had this intimate relationship with the people he was ministering to look at how john in the epistles for second third john how intimately he writes to the people he's writing to how paul talks to philemon in his letter philemon where he's like you could tell they're close they are close he doesn't just lecture to people he lives with them they have a relationship connection and this is the nature of the body of christ is that we're relational with each other i say all that to just say look i'm drawing these i'm drawing observations from reality and just life but i'm also trying to say this is i think a biblical thing where we have relations with people connections with people remember when jesus called them his friends and they ate together they slept in the same place they they traveled together it wasn't a business relationship all right number six laurie concert says do you know of any good bible study resource for a group with no teacher only facilitators um i'm really bad at this stuff lori so the problem with the bible study resources you're looking for something that's like um the kind of thing i never use and i have looked at small group studies years and years ago i tried to like do more small group stuff like men's ministries things and what i found was that i just hardly liked anything that i saw and i never really landed on stuff that i thought was really great so um i didn't continue to pursue that when i did do small group stuff i would just come up with my own plan oftentimes we would just do like something like we'll go through the psalms and we'll talk about it or something and and so yeah that has left a void in my own knowledge of resources like this good bible study resource for a group with no teacher i don't know a great resource for you to look at um you if you want i mean you're welcome to use my videos my teachings i i know they're they're longer and that might not work for a small group because you may not want like an hour-long teaching and then you try to have discussion time you might want something shorter and that's totally fine but you're all welcome to use that i know there's several groups that do meet and they use the videos of my not my q as i don't think but they'll use my um say the mark series or first peter romans one of the more verse by verse things or jesus in the old testament that series and they'll go through with their group each week um or you could chop it up however you want you have my permission to do that in your in your groups if you guys would like but other than that i'm not really sure uh what resource to suggest sorry guys all right next question is efosa uh asagi morgan who says looking for some guidance at what point are we to shake off the dust from our feet as mentioned in matthew 10 14 when trying to witness to friends strangers loved ones etc love your ministry oh that's a great question man i love this kind of question because it gets down to like okay here's something that they they did jesus told the disciples to do when do i do it all right let's look at it in context and it may be a little bit more difficult to apply this than we thought originally jesus tells these uh 70. i'm going to back up and read it to you there's um oh the 12 excuse me this is him sending out the 12. and he sends them out before him this is a really interesting moment in jesus ministry because usually he's with the 12. but in this particular instance he actually sends them out two by two and they go into various towns and they've i think at this point they've heard jesus preaching enough that they can go and like give the same messages jesus gave and they could give the message of who jesus is and as much as they are aware of and they can repeat so they could give his sermon on the mount they're gonna go teach it right um so here we are in matthew 10 5. these 12 jesus sent out instructing them go nowhere among the gentiles and enter no town to the samaritans but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of israel now notice this this is not jesus's whole ministry command for them this is literally one mission mission trip you might call it where he goes right now at this moment i want you to go out just to jewish towns to the lost sheep of the house of israel uh not not to those other towns and proclaim as you go saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand heal the sick now jesus was proclaiming the kingdom john the baptist was then jesus did as well and now they're going to echo those same messages heal the sick raise the dead cleanse lepers cast out demons you've received without paying give without pay they're they're not to be paid as they do this acquire no gold silver or copper for your belts no bag for your journey or two tunics even not even two tunics or sandals or a stat obviously they're wearing sandals but no extra sandals no extra staff right then he says this for the laborer deserves his food this is actually a reference to the old testament paul quotes this later showing that paul who wrote before matthew was probably if you have a late date for matthew before matthew was written but he still seems to quote something that was known at the time yeah it's just pretty cool stuff at any rate um in this mission they're not to receive pay now this is not to say like now you're gonna be like why are you backing up so much mike and reading all this because i want to show you this is not a command to all of us like i'm not to go to the lost sheep of the house of israel this is not my command the command to go out and and not be paid for the ministry work you're doing that's not a command for all people this is literally like a missionary journey that's a lesson for them about how god will provide their needs they're being taught to trust in god so on this particular journey take nothing with you and watch god provide as you go out and you preach verse 11 and whatever town or village you enter find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart as you and now we don't follow this instruction i don't go random towns and be like who's worthy i'll stay at your place and he whether he means people who are responding positively to the gospel and they're like hey come to my home i want to hear more about this like they're responding in a worthy manner as you enter the house greet it and if the house is worthy let your peace come upon it but if it's not worthy let your peace return to you this is to say if the house rejects you then you can move on and if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words shake the dust shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town now he's saying when people reject you not just aren't nice to you but they're actually rejecting you they're rejecting the message of the gospel going out to the jewish people who should be expecting it who should be receiving it it's their messiah that showed up when that message goes out and they reject you you shake the dust off your feet which implies that the town is not sticking to you the town is not the house is not sticking to you or the idea is like i wash my hands of this meaning i am no longer connected to you because i gave you the message and you rejected it so now i the messenger will move on and i will deliver it to another message but then um oh let's see there's an awful lot more there we go i'll get to verse 23. um then we get a justification as to why why is it that i'm shaking the dust off my feet when they persecute you in one town flee to the next for truly i say to you you will not have gone through all the towns of israel before the son of man comes now this passage often taken by skeptics to imply that jesus was supposed to have his second coming in the lifetime of the disciples uh which is not it's cl in the context it's clearly not uh i think this is obvious and it's weird that it's still used i saw a video yesterday where someone tried to use this against jesus and um i think that he's a false prophet or jesus lied that was the guy was saying jesus lied actually in all four gospels the the context is better fitting when you look at it like this i don't give you a lot of data here guys but hopefully you're enjoying it um jesus tells them go to just the towns of israel don't go anywhere else and you know if they persecute you you shake the dust off your feet if they're if they reject the gospel just move on just keep going why because i'm on my way coming behind you and as i come behind you like this you're preparing them for me and as i come behind you you're not even going to be able to do all the towns of israel before i show up so when your mission is in a hurry when you have limited time you respond more quickly to people rejecting your message here's where we can apply it to our lives shaking the dust off your feet isn't actually a command to all of us it was a specific command for a mission trip for them at that moment there's a principle hey i'm not responsible for you rejecting the gospel i'm just responsible for preaching it that's a principle that's true we can apply that and we can also say this when i have a mission where there's more people to reach than i have time to reach them i am going to very quickly stop preaching to people who hate it and who reject it and you don't want to hear it because there's another guy over there that might be open to it this is where i've seen some christians make mistakes they've spent years and all of their evangelism is directed at one person two people that they know and they don't evangelize anybody else it's only all directed at one or two people who are hard-hearted and aren't interested um the sad thing there is for some reason our mentality is but i'm doing evangelism so i'm good but if you would move on from that person and start reaching other people you may actually see you have a ministry of evangelism to lots and lots of people that's the message i think we're getting when people reject the gospel it's on them not you keep preaching that's a good lesson to learn all that being said i'm laughing at myself because i thought i'll be shorter today but no i'm not i'm not even remotely shorter um all that being said your question is at what point are we to shake off the dust from our feet when we're trying to witness to friends strangers loved ones etc at the point at which they are they have made a decision to reject and you don't see like you don't see an avenue to con to to bring them back around move on i think that's fair it doesn't mean you cut off the relationship entirely it means you you don't focus your evangelical efforts on that individual you you keep moving forward and you keep preaching to others as well that that would be my way of applying it number eight usmc rebels says in mark 12 27 jesus says god is the god of the living not the dead yet in romans 14 9 paul says he's the god of the living and the dead how do i reconcile this oh great good question this is all about context in mark 12 27 just know this the phrase god of the living god of the god of the living and the dead these are being used in different senses and context so let's look at those contexts mark 12 27 uh jesus is making a case um that god is well it's a theological thing so let's bat we have to just back up this is how it is the sadducees came to him these are the people who don't believe in the resurrection right this is what mark even says to them and they asked him a question saying teacher moses wrote for us they're jews but they don't believe the resurrection moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife and leaves no child the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother now what they're going to do is they're going to take this rule from moses the levy rape marriage where your brother dies hasn't had a kid yet you marry you marry his wife he's dead so they're not they're divorced technically speaking they're no longer married you marry and the first kid that is born gets the name of your brother so that his inheritance his land in the land of israel can stay with his bloodline and so this is not a rule for christians this was a rule under the mosaic law so um then they offer a dilemma based on this they go yeah cause well you'll see there were seven brothers the first took a wife and when he died left no offspring and the second took her and he died leaving no offspring and the third likewise and the seven all seven left no offspring last of all the woman died also so then their dilemma is look here's a woman she's had seven husbands they each died you know one by one in the resurrection when they rise again whose wife will she be now this is um this is where questions are presented as though they're arguments right this is a skeptical question saying hey i have i have a problem with your idea of a resurrection it doesn't work god can't we don't live after we die because whose wife will she be it creates a dilemma that can't be solved jesus responds and says is this not the reason you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of god like you think god can't solve this problem and you don't know what the word says about it then he gives his case well he gives an explanation and then he's gonna give it case why the resurrection is real why those who've died aren't really dead gosh this is this is clever of jesus verse 25 when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven when they rise there is no marriage that answers that question then he moves back right off of that okay she's not she's nobody's wife and there is no marriage in heaven she's nobody's wife in eternity and as for the dead being raised let's just prove that there is resurrection in scripture that there is this future life have you not read in the book of moses in the passage about the bush this is the burning bush how god spoke to him saying i am current tense present tense i am the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob now abraham isaac and jacob were all dead when god said this to moses hundreds of years had gone by jesus makes an exegetical point he says he is the not the god of the dead but the god of the living you are quite wrong when uh when god says i am abraham's god i'm jacob's god i'm isaac's god he meant i'm currently their god and well if you're dead you don't have a god god isn't your god if you're dead you don't exist that on the on the sadducees view but if there is an eternal life and physical bod physical death is not the end of things well then isaac jacob abraham they can still they can still uh it can still be said of them that god is their god currently okay back to your question now uh which was number eight here um okay mark 12 27 jesus says god is not the god god is the god of the living not the dead right this context is simply he's not the god of the dead meaning dead dead things can't have gods that's what it's saying dead dead isn't you just don't exist anymore that kind of understanding of death that sadducee understanding of death that they then you wouldn't have a god but in romans 14 9 paul says that that jesus is lord of both the dead and of the living ah but now the word dead is something different okay that context's different there's no sadducee and debate going on here they're not viewing the word dead here as those who stopped existing because there's no resurrection you just your body dies that's the end of you that's not the debate that's going on here instead he means that jesus is the judge of the people who are alive now and those who've already died in the physical sense like abraham isaac jacob but they still have some future uh does that make sense so what we've done is we've taken the phrase lord of the dead and god of the dead and we've we've we've made them act like they're we thought they're you know saying the same thing when they're actually saying different concepts jesus is the judge of those who have died and of those who are alive and when he returns he will judge all people those who have already died and those who are still alive when he returns and so with um mark it's different i hope that makes sense next question number nine i'm gonna move fast now i promise uh susie austin does god want us to ask him questions and look for the answers in scripture even if the bible does not specifically deal with the question thanks yes susie i think that's a great thing to do um for instance you know the the sadducees asked a hard question in the example i gave him mark 12 just now hey you whose wife is she and then jesus used scripture to answer the question he's like look of course the resurrection is real look at what he says to abraham isaac and jacob now you wouldn't have thought that what that what god says about abraham isaac and jacob you wouldn't have initially thought this is a this was affirming something about eternal life but if you look carefully at the text you realize it's only consistent if it does affirm this about eternal life so in other words you can look at the nuances of scripture you can look at these things and and i do this all the time i come up with a question i haven't had before and then i go through the scripture and i'm looking for indications where there might be hints and suggestions the only thing i recommend is measuring your confidence based on how much support you have in the text of scripture for your conclusion sometimes we get ideas and we just like them like i've seen this many times before you have to where someone has a wrong interpretation but they can't let it go because they like it it's like something they like and so we have to be aware of this like i might have a tendency to go i like that interpretation to push it even though it's not true so humility a dose of humility and the ability to change our minds as we approach the scripture with these questions is healthy but i think it's a good thing i think that um as i do this the scripture is very very rewarding to me when i looked at infant salvation i'll give an example the something i mentioned earlier um i feel like scripture actually has a lot to say about this that's really good some of the verses people use i actually ended up saying don't use that verse that's not good um when i look at um uh jesus in the old testament there's kind of stuff there's stuff there that i find that's just mind-blowing so yeah please do that ask questions look for the answers in scripture and don't force them is the only thing ed molla has a question says is there any historical evidence for any of the prophets of the old testament or for any judgments god pronounced on people um there is some and this isn't an area i've i've got like a sweeping knowledge of so i i couldn't tell you like all of the above um there's a book that you might be interested in it's kind of thick and heavy let me see if i can find it um oh man i'm not i i know it's back there anyway there's a number of books people have written i apologize i don't see it off the top of my head here um that that just goes through like tons of archaeological stuff and suggests when they connect and so some of the prophets many of the prophets individuals um some of the environments around the prophet profits like a city that this profit visited the circuit this profit went around and we could confirm this or that about it um some some of it i feel like there's stronger evidence for that we have present you have to understand too the archaeological record is like swiss cheese we we only have of all the stuff that happened back then we only have evidence in the ground of so much of it of the evidence that's in the ground we've only actually dug up a very small percentage of that evidence and so this is the this is the dilemma with archaeology in addition to that archaeology is this massive discipline where they'll spend a decade at one location just digging one spot so trying to get to the point where you can summarize archaeological discoveries across the pages of scripture is is a lifetime of research which is why i have pieces of information about individual things um they've they've found some evidence that suggests things to confirm a lot of stuff that we found in scripture there's other times where questions come up like excavations at jericho are a really good example of this where you have like one archaeologist who's like look this really confirms the biblical record then you have like another one who comes in and says no this is totally against the record then somebody else comes in and goes what's all this stuff in the corner that they uh catalog but she didn't write about in her in her papers and then they dig it up and they go wait a minute that actually challenges her own theories and so it starts to get very complex it's the nature of archaeology yeah i want to do more on archaeology i just i just recognize it's a discipline it's kind of over my head unless i just tackle little pieces of it so number 11 bradley davis how do you separate the parable of the talents from a works based salvation um [Music] let's look at the parable of the talents it's very often that the parables are used to try to demonstrate um workspace salvation i see this like say catholic debaters they'll go they'll go to the parables and one of the questions i want to ask is this do these parables intend to teach us how we get saved right and if they do why is it that what paul says later would seem to be so different paul's actually trying to explain how salvation works how you are saved galatians gets into this in detail romans gets into this in detail right he he he talks about this like you're saved by grace through faith apart from works that's kind of important right um well let's look at the um parable of the talents just two seconds let me get there matthew 25 pardon me and we're gonna start in verse 14 for it will be like a man and speaking of what the kingdom of heaven is like like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property to one he gave five talents the talent here is a large amount of money it's not a talent like a skill it's just it's just unfortunate that in the english the word talent happens to me in that maybe there's an application that's there but that's not the meaning of the word to another two uh two talents which is each of these is a massive amount of money to another one to each according to his ability then he went away so he gave them each amount of money based upon how much they had the ability to be faithful with um he who had received the five talents win it once and traded with them and he made five talents more so also he who had the two talents made two talents more but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money now verse 19 after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them there's this long delay this is the the location this is interesting because in matthew 24 some think jesus is is like saying uh he's about to come back right away the second company's gonna happen right away this connects to what we talked about earlier uh but but after he tells this stuff about eschatology in matthew 24 he gets to matthew 25 where he gives parables about a long delay a long delay before the coming and he had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more saying master you delivered to me five talents here i've made five talents more his master said to him well done good and faithful servant you have been faithful over a little i will sit i will set you over much enter into the joy of your master and he also who had the two talents came forward saying master you delivered to me two talents here i've made two talents more his master said to him well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful over a little i will set you over much enter into the joy of your master he also who had received the one talent came forward saying master i knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed so i was afraid and i went and hid your talent in the ground this was fine is is um perhaps there's layers of deception that are going on here because it's actually safer to do something with the money than to hide it in the ground then he says here you have what is yours but his master answered him you wicked and slothful or lazy servant you knew that i reap where i've not sown and gathered where i've scattered no seed then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and am i coming i should have received what was my own with interest at least there'd be some security there right and then some interest so take the talent from him and give it to him who has had the 10 talents now at this point you could say hey this is about rewards this is just about rewards if you're faithful with what god gives you you'll get greater rewards in heaven but look at what happens ultimately to the servant who's not faithful with what god gave him with in the analogy what the master gave him for to everyone who has more will be given will more be given and he will have an abundance but from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into outer darkness in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now these are words jesus uses weeping and asking your teeth out our judgment to refer to like those who are outside the kingdom okay they're just not in the kingdom at all at all now the assumption you have to make i think to take this parable and make it about works for salvation is to assume that the servant was saved right he's saved he's he's in christ and then he's not faithful with his giftings and with the things god gives him and then he's outside of christ at the end of the parable but in the parable you have a master you have servants you have responsibilities you don't have any statements about who is saved and who is not saved those are assumptions we're making as we talk as we look at the way paul talks about salvation and we like layer it on top of the parable as if it was paul's parable about salvation instead of jesus's teaching about those who are faithful with what god has given him if we look at just like paul does here's where we can merge paul and jesus i think well if we look at the way that jesus talks about salvation the way paul talks about the fruit of the spirit then we can see that those who are in christ will naturally bear fruit from the spirit and that it's possible to interpret the parable that the man who had one talent and buried it hid it didn't want anything to do with it didn't do anything for the master that this isn't this this would be like a person or similar to a person who was not saved who didn't have the holy spirit and who ended up not being faithful with what god gave them so that i think makes sense and when jesus talks about there being tares in the wheat there's being the genuine the wheat is the genuine disciples the tares are the false disciples right and one of the ways that you see the difference between tears and wheat is you look at the fruit at the end now the fruit the tears are producing something that is um you don't want to make bread with tears and it's like a sleep agent it's like kind of poisonous and wheat produces life-giving bread well yes the fruit is different but that's because the plant is different matthew 25 to summarize matthew 25 in the parable of the talents doesn't tell you who th what the plant is it tells you what the fruit was and the fruit might tell you what the plant was he's a worthless servant right this man may never have had salvation matthew 25 is just focused on the fruit i hope that helps um question number 12 joel parks says mike what's your take on the jewish interpretive methods for scripture such as gematria um and you you reference matthew 1 17 and revelation 13 18 or the hebrew alphabet and pictographic symbolism okay let me just answer these briefly matthew 1 17 this is probably about the the genealogy um yeah okay um all the generations from okay matthew gives a genealogy and he doesn't include every name he skips some names and then he summarizes at the end this is genealogy of jesus right from adam he says all the generations from abraham to david were 14 generations and from david to the deportation to babylon 14 generations and from the deportation to babylon to christ 14 generations so the one of the reasons why he eliminates certain names one of the reasons i think there's multiple uh he just skips them in the genealogy which shows you that in genealogies it was okay to skip names but um one of the reasons he does is because he wants to get 14 14 14. he wants these three 14s to be there this might be a memory technique right you even see how he uses david twice abraham to david and then david to the deportation right he's using david twice so interestingly enough david's name does equal 14. you take david you take the hebrew there and it and hebrews the hebrew language does have numerical value associated with each of the letters of the alphabet that's the normal way they do numbers they don't they wouldn't do it the way that you know in english we do where we have letters and we have numbers they would use letters as numbers so david means 14. maybe he's drawing an interesting thing there that that's one possibility um but it would only be uh probably um a memory trick like is helping us remember abraham to david 14 david of deportation 14 the deportation to christ 14. it's a memory aid okay this isn't like a deep theological teaching where like doctrines are hanging on the numbers that connect to perhaps the name of david assuming that we're making a right observation and that he means that i keep in mind matthew's writing this in greek not hebrew so he may or may not be trying to draw attention to david's name so that sense you know some people call it uh would call it a gematria i think that um um sorry i lost your question there joe joel um okay so i don't think what i just want to be careful here just because we see numbers here being used in matthew 1 17 doesn't mean that numbers are this key to interpreting the bible and you can go and add up hebrew letters all over the place those these examples are really hard to find not that they don't exist but they would be more like every once in a while there's some numerical interesting thing going on here don't look at this as like a new layer of interpretation digging into numbers where it starts to become a source of weird teachings because someone has something strange they want to teach and then they want to find it unless the text is pointing you to the numbers as it may be in the david example or in revelation 13 18 where it talks about the mark right that's the other verse you mentioned um the mark of the beast then it's the number of a man and his number is 666 there's obviously some intentional calculating going on so here i should look at the numbers and think about them but not everywhere so if you want to take it and call it like a jewish interpretive method such as gematria no no no i don't want to like approach any random text of scripture rather look for like real clear reasons why you want to look at the numbers and consider the numbers here there's got to be a reason to look at the numbers you don't just want to start adding up numbers this turns into weird things so i've seen people get weird on this stuff so i'm just going to caution require some contextual reason for the number to matter and not just where people get a little weird now on the other issue um pictographic symbolism now i i don't know what your point here is with the verse you offer psalm 1973 you've made me and fashion me give me understanding that i may learn your commandments um you know perhaps someone says yod has a some pictographic thing uh i'm going to lean on others here okay this is not something that i'm i mean hebrew especially i'm i don't have this deep knowledge of hebrew by any stretch of the imagination but i could lean on others who do so dr michael brown has a video he actually did on this topic and i'd recommend it i don't agree with him on everything he doesn't agree with me on everything but on this video i thought it was very fruitful he actually went through these pictographic stuff and he talks about it and i'll give you the conclusions um yes hebrew ancient ancient hebrew right like paleo hebrew script or whatever it has like these pictographs these symbols that represent things but those symbols came to just end up being letters and the letters do not carry the meaning of the symbols anymore and there are some who've kind of pushed the idea that in the hebrew like um in the word like maybe the word god like or or the word for create or something like it has all these meanings and each letter has a meaning um this stuff we should not be looking into this like this is this is i have looked into it in the past it's really sketchy um it's it's just pulling pulling the the the hebrew over your eyes we're not supposed to like as we see in the text themselves we're not supposed to take these letters and think that when we see like a left we're actually seeing like a cow's head and therefore it refers to like a bowl or a cow or something like that this is not how we're supposed to interpret these these letters that's just not how the language works this is very much like a new thing and one of the ways you can see this is wrong is in the same people actually got the book and checked it out where because somebody i know was promoting this content and i was like i gotta check into it and one of the things they would do is they would say okay well al-f means this and they would give it some special meaning and then later they would give all f a different special meaning because hebrew doesn't have that many letters like it's like 20 something letters i think 21 or something 22. and you know you have to start giving different special meanings to the same letters in these different words because it doesn't hold true a lot of it turns into nonsense uh michael brown's got a great video on it uh gamatri has some truth to it the pictographic symbolism that we should be looking for i think it probably doesn't have any truth to it the idea that yod means hand is what you pointed out i wouldn't look into that at all um under yod okay i see why the connections are in psalm 71 119 verse 73 it's yod the psalm is arranged uh with the alphabet each each section of verses starts with the letter of the alphabet so yod um your hands have fashioned me okay well yo me yod means hands and he says your hands have fashioned me this could easily be a coincidence but to go from there to like all the craziness that i've seen with this pictographic stuff like christians you might get excited to think that like i'm trying to remember one of the examples they gave like bara create means like something about the cross like no it doesn't like that's this is exciting but it's not true so i don't want to get excited about it 13 jennifer mcclure how long did the ten plagues of egypt last was this a con consecutive event i mean on jennifer i haven't like deeply thought on this question but my for my reading of the passage it seems like it was pretty consistently going on that it didn't last that long that's my reading of exodus there is that there's a plague i don't know of any one of them that seemed like it lasted an extremely long period of time i'm trying to think if there's a scripture that maybe answers that question more specifically but it's not coming to mind so number 14 tom van heist dear mike i'm studying first corinthians 11. i'm really struggling with verse 7. it says that woman is the glory of the man what's your opinion of what this glory means so first corinthians 11 verse 7. um i don't have any i get questions on this verse all the time i just have to admit to you guys i don't have a clear teaching for you on this passage but let's see if i can at least try to answer the glory concept um okay so for a man the head covering thing again i don't have the clear answer for you on that but i may not not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of god but a woman is but woman is the glory of man and then he goes on to kind of explain this concept a bit for man was not made from woman but woman from man neither was man created for woman but woman for man now the connection to creation that he gives here suggests this that man god made adam in his image and then he made uh the male right adam in his image and then he made um eve from adam and so there's there's some sort of okay male and female are clearly in the image of god men and women are both in the image of god so it's not suggesting that woman is not in the image of god here genesis very clearly says he made male and female in his image so they both are but he was talking about the relationship of male and female to one another and this is something that the implication of the glory of man is that there's something that god wonderful god did out of man and it was woman and then he created a man from the dust to create a woman from the man i think that's the parallel he's drawing there and i think that what what paul's doing is he's suggesting that there's teaching like authoritatively teaching us that there is a an interrelationship between the man and the woman that does relate to of the authority in the relationship and you can see my teaching on like uh wives submitting to their husbands i do have a teaching on that i'm not shy away from that topic at all and that that's part of the creation thing this is like what god designed he wants this to be in place it's part of the glory of how god has made us to interact with each other um sometimes in our culture i think most christians aren't like this but sometimes in our culture we hate the idea of submission right we hate it and so saying that one has to submit to another is a way of insulting them but this is not a christian belief at all biblically submission is like no sweat who do you want me to submit to god i'll do it this is not considered a bad thing um so yeah glory is not an insult rather it's talking about the relational nature of huma of male and female i think all right 15. hi mike so grateful for you question why didn't god simply use the new covenant right away meaning why didn't he just send jesus much earlier in the world's history well betsy let's do a little thought let's do a little thought experiment where we ask the question what if what if jesus had come uh when they were in egypt and i mean well we've got several things we don't need israel we don't need the law um he's just gonna show up maybe he shows up when abraham's maybe jesus shows up like right after the fall right before the flood even for noah's flood jesus just shows up here's the thought experiment on how this would affect the world uh one the evidence for jesus would be much less than it is now what do i mean by that um well you know in the first century when jesus shows up the the uh the codex is just starting to be used the this is a codex by the way this is a codex it's a book right so the codex or the book was starting to be used before with scrolls books allowed people to cheaply reproduce relatively cheaply reproduce large amounts of written documents and so jesus shows up at a time when records of him can multiply dramatically as compared to the amount of records that would exist if he had come a long long time before so today when you're asking who jesus is you'll be looking at much much more ancient claims that have less evidence to support them jesus also shows up when the world population is just about to skyrocket and when the roman road has been built the romans built these roads so they could travel with their armies from place to place quickly to put down rebellions and stuff and the gospel is able to go out very quickly so the gospel was able to travel from place to place to place super fast because of the the culture and time and technology that was going on at the time so jesus comes at a pretty targeted time the message would go out a lot slower had he come back at an earlier time had he would come at an earlier time another issue that we might have is you have no old testament preceding christ so if there's no old testament then who tells us who jesus is like how do i know who jesus is do i just have writings from his disciples or claims from the just about the disciples writings even though all the you know the paper trails difficult to follow by that far back which it would be um that would be kind of difficult but but i wouldn't be able to interpret him through the old testament now the fact that i have an old testament not just a new testament it means that i have like this interpretive lens for understanding who who jesus is i mean it is the bible that keeps that keeps christianity christian it is those who want to reject the scriptures individual books of the bible the whole the whole of the old testament uh progressive christianity often wants to just have a very very swiss cheese approach to scripture right like we'll just let that part fall out um it's the bible that keeps christianity christian and that wouldn't be there i wouldn't have like for instance an understanding of jesus's offering on the cross as a sin offering to pay for the sin of the world unless i had the law of moses that had established what that meant i also wouldn't have jesus fulfilling prophecies so you have like isaiah and jesus fulfills these amazing prophecies in isaiah you have you have zechariah and you've got i mean you've got countless prophecies of christ and pictures of jesus like when abraham goes to offer his son and this is a picture of christ the son of god being offered for our sins when when all this stuff happens what we're looking at is an elaborate and very thoughtful way in which to my knowledge god has given christ at just the right time so he could his knowledge could spread to the world and the understanding of who he is would be tied to the work of god through israel so that we would know he is the messiah when i say he's christ i'm like making a theological claim about how he connects to the old testament he's the guy fulfilling all this stuff so i think that it would actually be bad those are some of the reasons and i really hope that you find them helpful that's why god didn't give the new covenant right away is because the new covenant doesn't make sense without the old covenant and countless people would have hijacked christianity for their own purposes if not for the scripture constantly proving them wrong but that scripture wouldn't exist if we just started with the new covenant those are some of the reasons why also doesn't just show you how sovereign god is in history and human history that he works lives together i mean 66 books of the book just the fact that the bible's written by so many authors over such a period of time is it self-evidence that i find very encouraging uh liam conlon says why are the genealogies of jesus different in the gospels of matthew and luke i'm favorable towards this my view i've heard people mock the view i have or laugh at it that's okay there's always somebody laughing at you guys welcome to life um but i i think that luke is giving a genealogy from mary's family line and that matthew's giving it from joseph's i think that's why um luke does show independent knowledge uh from mary it seems to be from mary luke talks about how him interviewing different witnesses he seems like he has mary as an inside person matthew seems to give the father now why would you need both genealogies right wouldn't you just want joseph well well i mean if he's going to be called the son of david then you want his fatherly line but he has no earthly father so we go through his adopted father okay so joseph joseph traces back and if you go to luke why would we want to know mary's genealogy well because genetically he's actually from mary not joseph and so we have both i think that this is a good theory i haven't heard it really refuted i've heard people um say oh that just doesn't work but i haven't heard a good reason why and when i've looked at the genealogies personally and maybe i'll change my view on this this is my current opinion when i've looked at the genealogies personally it it does seem to lend itself towards this you look at the specific words being used right for son of or begot right these are different terms and um they seem to work well with that theory that one is like really a genetic line all the way down to jesus and the other one is um a uh patriarchal line that's not you know from an actual physical father um 17 if a non-christian this is from greg nettles greg thanks for your question if a non-christian asks you what is the purpose of life as a christian what would you say and what scriptures would you use as a reference um the purpose of life as a christian i mean it connects in a vague sense it connects not a vague sense but in a broad sense that's a better term it connects to god the purpose of life connects to god and of course if god's the maker and designer of the world i could appeal to genesis right in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth um and you could appeal to like ephesians how it talks about god's foreknowledge and his purpose and plan in all these things so that my purpose comes from god's intentionality in why he made this like my purpose comes from the why that god has as far as why he made this and there's several reasons for it i could look at it from the perspective of god's agenda and we see there's several things that scripture says that come out of this uh one is he just shows his glory um psalm 19 i think it says that the heavens declare the glory of god the earth shows the work of his hands so one way in which i look at the purpose of things is the purpose of life is to show god just showing his glory he's he's revealing himself to us like to us because we get to see the glory and the goodness of god but there's other things too like i think that life involves things like just normal simple pleasures like these are things uh scripture says that god gave uh wine to glad in the hearts of man and bread to strengthen us and that that these are things that he he actually wants us to enjoy every good and perfect gift comes from the father of light so that god is just he just wants to bless us he like wants us to have pleasure and joy in life but there's other purposes as well and they all come together if you if you finally look at your relationship with god that god wants relationship with his creation see god makes man in his image this is my view right genesis chapter one god makes man in his image but then we're fallen and we're sinful and then in jesus he takes on in a sense our image right god takes on humanity and then he dies for us so that we can be renewed and transformed and then we can be what filled with the spirit so that now i can have a relationship with god and that relationship's eternal when you look at revelation and you see the vision of heaven after the new creation of all things the final result you want to look at like what was the purpose of it all sometimes you look at the end of the story and the purpose of it all is this zoomed in look at this new jerusalem this new city where god is is so present with us he's so in us and with us that he he is light it says there's no need of sun anymore it doesn't say there is no sun because there is no need of sun because he itself is the light and he's just permeating all things he's with us the scripture says there and he is our god um god has made us for eternal relationship with him and each other in christ the purpose is a redeemed people in a love relationship with the god of all creation experiencing joy and pleasure and goodness for eternity there's there's my answer for that question the purpose of life is that and i think that if we look at our lives and we realize what our lives are like without relationship we realize how powerful this is that it's meant to be relationship with god but real relationship isn't much of a relationship without choice and you know if we're robots and i push a button and you have to like me that's it's not real relationship it's not it doesn't have the quality and the goodness of like the kind of love of free will choosing i choose to know you and love you so there's the option to know god or reject god and that's part of the plan as well those are some of my answers there and number 18 robert eldridge says how can i help my christian friend trust god he reads the old testament and thinks god keeps making mistakes and tries to fix them the snake in the garden noah's flood he doesn't trust heaven we'll be better um i'll be very honest with you robert i'm not i hope your friend isn't listening to be honest i don't want them to hear me saying these things and think i'm trying to be critical because it's embarrassing to have someone talk about you but but the audience doesn't know who they are only you know who this person is so um there are there's some kind of significant serious problem with your friend's perspective here he thinks god's making mistakes he's reading part of the bible and he's just making up the rest i don't know how else to put this um obviously the scripture is not teaching that god's making mistakes right there's an intentionality in a plan going from the beginning to the end so there's there's yes there's a snake in the garden but then there's christ in the garden yes there's there's the fall of man but then there is the redemption that comes through christ and so we see there's a whole plan taking place here but your friend somehow is getting fixated on half the story fills in the rest of the details with his own mind saying god's made a mistake um i don't really know how to fix this person i once had a guy i was talking to like this and he was talking about the garden and he was like why did god even put the tree there like i'm just upset and he literally meant my life is bad i've done bad things but if it wasn't for that tree in the garden i wouldn't be doing these things so i'm upset with god that i am doing these things this is what he meant this was in a counseling thing and i said look there's an answer to your question but then there's another answer to your question one one answer tries to explain how god is not responsible for your decisions how you're making choices you're in a fallen world yes but guess what you're making choices and god's providing solutions to those things but you're making choices i so we talked we could talk about that i said but there's another issue in this is and this is what i would share with your friend you know you're not walking in wisdom if you are shaking your fist at god there can be no wisdom against god there is no way on earth i mean like what folly am i in if i literally think i know better than god god the irony of this this moment like if i went up and i was talking to um a software engineer and he's telling me um yeah the app can't work that way and i'll go i think you're making a mistake i think it can work that way like what do i know i'm not a software engineer i don't understand how this stuff works i would be a fool to think that i off the top of my head can can fix all the problems of that the professionals and those in those jobs aren't able to fix but how much more god like it the irony and the the strangeness of this is that you have a human who knows this much about this much who's shaking their fist at the god of all creation going i think you made a mistake there and this has to do with a general posture or attitude this is what concerns me about your friend or anybody who's in this in this spot the minute you're shaking your fist at your at god you know you're wrong you have to be wrong you just don't have the humility to admit it yet but the only person that's in a dangerous position is not the god you're shaking your fist at but it's you who's shaking your fist at him i if i saw a passage of scripture that says god did this and i thought i don't think that was good i know i'm wrong why because have a modicum of respect for the god of all creation who is who has all knowledge and all power and who knows all things the beginning to the end to just realize that if you disagree with him you're probably wrong like this this seems like 101 kind of stuff but but if you mess up here you'll mess up everywhere else so yeah um that's what i would talk to your friend about madison lopez has a question why do i feel nervous to pray i want to but it feels unnatural to me madison i think that my counsel to you would be give yourself permission to feel nervous and to pray anyways and give yourself permission to pray even when your feelings are weird that's huge that is absolutely huge where you're doing it because it's right because it's good and so i remember talking to a husband one time who was like you know i'm trying to do nice things for my wife but i'm struggling with like am i really doing it for her or am i doing it because i'm trying to be a nice husband like sometimes i'm bothered by her and i'm still trying to be nice to her but i'm bothered so i feel like maybe it's not genuine and i want to say like all of this like psychological battle that you got going on this is actually distracting you from simply doing the task that you're being called to do right now let me check something real quick oh i almost forgot about oh i did forget about them okay i'll tell you in a second um i'm gonna run off i'm gonna run off and grab something at the end i have an announcement about um some bible thinker mugs i'll tell you guys at the end of the stream um so all this to say look you and me we're humans with all our weird psychological things we go through like never let that stuff stop you from just doing the right thing so be nervous and pray and i don't like that you're nervous and you don't like that you're nervous it's not fun but you're gonna pray anyways because it's the right thing to do and you're gonna serve the lord in it and as you just choose to do it regardless like when i worship sometimes i don't feel like worshiping i just worship anyways now that was like a big a big like block for me for a while like i would go to worship and i don't feel like worship like a lot of times i do but right now i don't feel like it and at some point i thought lord you're worthy whether i feel like it or not i'm just going to worship you regardless of my feelings and that liberated my worship so much it's not it's not lack less than genuine now it was just not dependent on my emotional state that's a beautiful thing so i say i'm sorry you feel nervous when you're praying madison just pray anyways just pray anyway say god you know i feel nervous i'm just gonna trust you with that here i go i'm gonna pray just do the right thing just just love your spouse love your friends read the word you're going through those feelings just give yourself permission to be weird in your heart and to press forward doing the right thing and serving the lord all right question 20 michael scanlan last question says thanks so much for your ministry mike well i'm very very happy that i get to do it michael i'm pinching myself every day that we get to reach so many people and we get testimonies and it's it's very exciting stuff you see i was wondering if the bible mentions that the holy spirit was in the beginning with god the father and the son and where is the holy spirit said to be god um oh this is a great question and um there are scriptures that do mention specifically i'm blanking on the passages probably because i'm tired we've had 20 questions but we see the the holy spirit active in creation we also see the spirit active in salvation we see the holy spirit active in various ways but there's also plays where places where scripture the scripture just calls the holy spirit god like the holy spirit's just called god he is just called to god um so this happens in a number of places in the bible now i want you to think for a second what that means right what that means that the holy spirit is called god i'm gonna do a whole video on this one at some point in time i think we need a video on the deity of the holy spirit i think it would be good um but the the implication is this like if the holy spirit's being credit credited in creation credited in salvation and more importantly just being called god in places then there's there's only one option here the holy spirit is god now if you want to say the next question is right but does the holy spirit different person than the father different person than the son well the answer there seems to be yes right the father like look at the baptism of jesus you have the father speaking from heaven speaking from above and he says like behold my son and whom i well please you have the holy spirit descending upon christ as a dove doesn't mean that he looked like a dove it may just be an analogous thing but descending upon christ visibly and then you have jesus right there so you have father-son spirit they're all active in different ways at that exact moment um the uh in the book of acts where paul peter confronts ananias and sapphira because they lied and he tells of them that they didn't lie to him they lied to the holy spirit and then in the next breath he says they lied to god wait if you if lying to the holy spirit is lying to god what does that make the holy spirit so those are some of the some of the passages that i would i would refer to in genesis we do see um in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth the earth was without form of void darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of god hovered over the waters so here's the whole here's the spirit present in this creation moment during these times when you know during this time in genesis when we're creation's happening and we have the holy spirit um and another way to look at it is this way is do you ever think god didn't have his spirit like well no obviously not um there's another another analogy you can offer another point you can give so uh in the beginning with god the father and the son i i guess you what you might be thinking of is john 1 um yeah because john because genesis does mention the the holy spirit specifically in genesis 1 and creation god creates the heavens and the earth the spirit in fact you hear let me actually take you okay john 1 doesn't uh in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god he was in the beginning with god but if the use of the word god here god's spirit is also called god so it's implied in john 1 that the spirit is there because he is god but in genesis 1 we have something very interesting uh god created the heavens and the earth right the earth without form and void darkness was over the face of the deep the spirit of god was hovering over the face of the waters and god said let there be light and god speaks creation into existence so we have father spirit and then god speaking god using his words to create is very similar to what we have in john 1 where the lagos the word all things are made through him so i think there's a connection between genesis 1 and john 1 that's very interesting that we can talk about there as well so okay i'm not kidding i'm actually going to run away i'm going to come back in like 20 seconds you're gonna have like 20 seconds of of looking at my cat here we go cat video and then i will be back with the new bible thinker mugs if you guys want to buy these uh let me tell you about it because we're going to use this as a fundraiser for a mission couple that um they can't get normal support because they have to be under the radar but i know these people and i want to support them and so five dollars per mug is going to go to these to this couple so i'll tell you about in just a second i'll be right back give me like 20 seconds here's my cat there it is all right this is this is the new bible thinker mug um so because we have a new logo this is put on there you know if if this is something that you would enjoy if you would like to drink your your cup of joe out of this thing or whatever um they are microwave safe and all that i'm not making any money off of these nothing i don't really want to it just was a little that felt a little weird to me and it's also not the most efficient way to actually raise funds um because it's like five dollars per mug and the mugs are like 30 bucks but brent zocal though he's a potter who loves this ministry really has always been very supportive and encouraging to me and he just wants to be able to make this stuff if you want to buy them i'll put a link in the video description below i'm sure we can get a link in the chat from one of the mods hopefully right now and look at the details international shipping is weird so make sure you understand the details maybe interact with brent or his guy on this topic but for each of these five bucks is going to go to a missionary couple who doesn't get support from any sort of major organization mission organization they're going to remain anonymous because i want to protect their identities but they're not they're not allowed to do what they're doing and they need support uh we can help them out and me and my wife support them and we thought we could use this at least this month this month any of the purchases are gonna go towards that and i may pick other ministries to help support in the future with the bible thinker mugs link down below and all that thank you guys so much for joining me uh every friday we do this monday i'm not having my normal live stream i'm doing a um uh a live stream but it's not normal it's with vocab malone we're going to talk about black hebrew israelites that's this monday at 1 pm pacific time if you'd like to check it out and i am working on the next video for the passion project it's going to be tons and tons of editing still i wanted to have it for you wednesday but i'm not sure if it's going to be that or maybe even a week later we'll have to wait and see how it goes that is all there is a link there below or in the uh live chat right now that sarah put for zocco pottery um again yeah new bible thinker mugs nobody has to buy this stuff i'm not i'm not even selling it right the money doesn't come to me that's important to me personally i don't really want to be doing that kind of thing all right y'all have a great day god bless you

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 51,331

Rating: 4.9587865 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, episode 31, Q and A, ep 31, why did God

Id: zd1-0pmRBV0

Length: 92min 36sec (5556 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021