WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 You. 2 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:44.000 This is the Queen James Bible. The Queen James Bible, not king. You can see it right there on your screen with the rainbow cross. This is a pro lgbt new, relatively new interpretation of the Bible. Came out about ten years ago, um, 2012. Actually, a little bit more than ten years ago. At any rate, that's what the first question is about today. What is up with the Queen James Bible? Here is the question I got. Uh, Mike, what are your thoughts about the Queen James Bible, also known as the gay Bible? Is this a blasphemous translation to be avoided? Or did the QJV publishers have any linguistically valid reason to remove negative references to homosexuality from the Bible? And that's what it does. 3 00:00:44.000 --> 00:01:29.000 It primarily goes through these eight passages in the scripture that are eight verses that are used dominantly. Uh, they're frequently cited in discussions about what the Bible teaches on homosexuality in particular, and it offers different interpretations of those. Well, it's way worse than I thought it was, and it's way weirder than I thought it was. I spent a lot of time looking into the Queen James Bible, and I'm going to answer about it right now. Uh, my name is Mike Winger. I spent 14 years as a local pastor. Uh, in many more years than that, doing ministry locally. Started doing this online stuff, and now I'm trying to help you learn to think biblically about everything, making free content 100% free. And the first question today is, what is up with the Queen James Bible? So let me walk you through the details here, and you'll see why this got really interesting. 4 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:53.000 Uh, as I started finding about the hidden history of the Queen James Bible and its editors, you'll understand why I put that in quote marks. All right, so on their website, the queenjamesbible.com, it says that this is a, quote, gay bible. They say the Queen James Bible is based on the King James Bible, edited to resolve interpretive ambiguity in key passages regarding homosexuality. 5 00:01:53.000 --> 00:02:39.000 M it also says on their site, we edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible. We edited those verses. They say, we? Who is we? Well, they're anonymous. The people who made the King James Version, uh, are anonymous. They don't disclose their information anywhere. I can't find anybody who will tell me who they are. I think I may have found them. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. Um, but I won't be doxxing anybody, but I'm going to give you some information that I thought was pretty interesting. Um, next up, they say on their website, this is a fabulous bible. And I know that pun was intended there. The QJB queen James Bible is a big, fabulous bible weighing over six pounds. And it is pretty big and heavy. 6 00:02:39.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Um, it is printed and bound in the United States in actually Las Vegas, Nevada, actually. It says right here in the text, um, on thick, high quality paper in a beautiful, readable typeface. It is the perfect bible for ceremony, study, sermon, gift giving, or simply to put on display in the home or church. Should this be on display in my house? Science has proven you can't choose your sexuality. Um, that's not true. Actually, scientifically that's not true. It's a lot more complicated than that. But, uh, you can choose Jesus now. You can choose a bible to match. Uh, you can choose a bible to match your sexuality. That is actually the best summary of what the queen James version is all about. It's about choosing a bible that matches your preferred sexual desires. Um, that's what this is ultimately about. But we're going to dig deep, deep and quick. So here comes quick and deep. Here's some interesting tidbits. Before I get into the actual translations of how they handle those verses, I'll look at just one example. Really, because you don't need more than that. Um, on page 13 we can see the following. The queen James bible has what uh, I would call lazy formatting. You can see this, I'm just going to put it right on your screen. You can see that the way they've handled the text, there's lazy formatting in a number of ways. Um, there's no chapter descriptions, there's no chapter headings except for just Genesis one. Chapter one, it says that, um, they repeated the book title in each chapter. I've never seen a Bible do this. I've never seen any Bible do this. Repeating the book title in each chapter. And I think the reason for this is because they didn't create headers on the top of their translation that would actually put the book title on the header. Right. There's no paragraphs, as you can see when I held it up there, there's no centered book title. The book title itself just comes up here on the side again, because they don't use a header, they just have it as part of the text on the main page. The book title, which nobody does that. Uh, basically this is the laziest possible way to copy and paste the King James bible and make your own version. I think that's important, that it's lazy. I'll get into more details there in a minute. 7 00:04:41.000 --> 00:05:14.000 Otherwise, it's just the King James version. Except for these eight verses. These eight verses where there's changes, in some cases, there's errors, like where I wrote an asterisk on the page. It goes from Genesis, uh, 24 to 25 here. And they forgot to put the chapter heading in, meaning they probably did it manually. That probably took a long time. They wrote Genesis chapter 25, Genesis chapter 26 manually. An editor would have caught that, but they didn't. Um, let's see. This is over ten years old, by the way. I just bought this one this week. It's over ten years old. They still haven't fixed a basic and obvious issue. 8 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:25.000 Let me show you another one. Uh, page 269. Look at the way that the formatting is for the book of Job. Whenever a new book of the Bible starts, they don't even start a new page. 9 00:05:25.000 --> 00:06:08.000 They just show you the title of the new book, and they start the text right away. So that job starts at the bottom of the page after the book of Esther. That's kind of funny. Um, then you've got weird little things. This is actually important. I want to show the laziness of the, uh, editors because it factors into their translation decisions as well. Um, here we have an obvious editing problem where, for some reason, one verse of one psalm. Psalm, uh, 92. One is just in all caps, the whole verses. None of the other psalms are like that, as far as I could tell. I scanned through the whole book of psalms here. Uh, nothing else in the text is like that, to my knowledge. So it's just kind of weird. 10 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:26.000 Then we have the book of Revelation. At the end, we have revelation, which they rightly call. And I got to show you guys it. The revelation of St. John the divine. 11 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:45.000 If you google, um, what, um, uh, the word divine. D-E-V-I-N-E. If you google that, like, what does that mean? What does divine mean? Then you're going to get, like, uh, a dictionary entry that says divine. A common misspelling of divine. 12 00:06:45.000 --> 00:07:00.000 But notice there's another issue here. So you don't just have the revelation of St. John the divine. Look at revelations. Chapter one. Revelations, plural s. Chapter one. All the chapter headings for revelation are pluralized in this. Isn't that weird? 13 00:07:00.000 --> 00:08:13.000 Here's the thing. I know some of you guys out there. You have a habit of saying revelations. That's not an uncommon habit for normal people to have. But if you're editing or, uh, translating the Bible, you use proper names. You don't say revelations because it's not the revelations of Jesus. It's the revelation of Jesus. It's singular. That's why every bible you find says revelation singular. It's revealing that they wrote Revelation in the title, because they got that title from somebody else who translated a Bible, but they wrote Revelations chapter one, revelations chapter two, because that was what they hand typed in. And that's where they made their mistake. These guys don't know what they're doing. Whoever's editing the queen James Version has no idea what they're doing. They're just being weird. There's totally an agenda on page three. They say, we edited the Bible to prevent homophobic interpretations. That's the agenda to create a Bible that prevents what they consider to be homophobic interpretations, which are not homophobic at all. Um, but they believe that these things are. And obviously, there are some people who are homophobic, but that's a much smaller reality, uh, than the number of people who just interpret the Bible correctly and, uh, understand that God has standards, and male and female are the standard. 14 00:08:13.000 --> 00:09:56.000 So why editors, though? Here's a question I had. Why do they call themselves editors? I've never heard a Bible translator say, I edited this verse for this purpose. I've never heard him, um, use that kind of language. But they call themselves the editors over and over again in their work. In the intro, with the only part, they actually really wrote the first several pages of their new version. So why editors instead of translators? Well, if you actually go to and know, well, there are Bible editors, like the NIv committee. They have Bible editors, and they have Bible translators, but those two people have different jobs. What are editors? Let me show you on your screen. According to tyndale.com, they say, thankfully, um, we don't actually edit the Bible text, but in editing features, and they give examples, supplemental materials such as book introductions, people profiles, study notes, devotionals, et cetera. We do want to make sure that they communicate well, are theologically sound, and are thematically appropriate. Here's an actual organization that hires editors and translators, and they make it clear editors don't touch the text of the scripture. They're dealing with, um, study notes or maybe application, little articles that get inserted between the pages of your text, that kind of thing, maybe even chapter titles. They might have a hand in that, but they're not translating. The fact that these guys call themselves editors is just another piece of evidence they don't know what they're doing. Okay. Anonymous editors that do, however, claim to be scholars. On page six of the Queen James version, they use the phrase most scholars, and then in parentheses, including us. And then they say, conclude, dot, dot, dot. And then they say something most scholars don't conclude, by the way, which is not true. 15 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Um, I would say this. Scholars know it's not revelations. Scholars know that you don't edit the text. You edit other things that surround the text, interestingly, things that they don't even include in their version. They don't use chapter, uh, descriptions, they don't use study notes. They don't use helps. They don't use maps, anything like that. All that would probably cost money and require actual editors. Now, do they believe the Bible, the queen James people? Um, these editors, maybe it's just two guys. Maybe it's two specific guys that I will share with you in a second. Um. 16 00:10:31.000 --> 00:11:06.000 Um. Do they actually believe scripture, uh, that it is the word of God, in the sense that the church has always believed, and I think that the answer here is going to be no. A big no. They will say the Bible is God's word. That's in their intro. They also say, yours in Christ. After they sort of do their little spiel. So they say that they're in Christ, but in page nine, they say the Bible's still filled with inequality and even contradiction that we have not addressed. That doesn't really sound like someone who really trusts the Bible. Not in their true sense, not in a genuine sense. On page eight, they say, quote, romans is written in some of the most obtuse language in the entire Bible. 17 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:40.000 On page three, they say things like Leviticus are horribly outdated. That sounds very scholarly, doesn't it? Things like Leviticus are horribly outdated. So I don't think that they're real believers. I think, um, this is part of an agenda that people have where they're like, look, maybe we're not going to be christians, but we can try to make christians more like us. So we're going to produce content and we'll claim we're christians and all that, but we're going to produce content that actually contradicts what we find in Christianity, genuinely as well as in scripture. Now, let me look at the sample passage. We're going to look at romans one. 18 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:52.000 Romans one. This is the. Actually, I should show you. Here it is. Let me show you the, um. Oh, man. I'm having a, uh, trouble with my logos. Give me just a second. I'm going to fix this. 19 00:11:52.000 --> 00:12:13.000 I'll fix it while we're. While we're live right here. It will take a minute. 20 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000 This is going to take a minute. You guys can look at all my notes. 21 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:29.000 I don't think there's anything compromising. I have the names of the guy. I'm getting worried. I had the names of the guys on my screen, but they're not on my screen. They're on my notes, but they're not on my screen, so that's good. Oh, that would be bad. 22 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:30.000 Okay. 23 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:36.000 All right. I'm having trouble with logos. I'm not going to be able to fix this as quick as I want. I'm making it worse. 24 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:49.000 Okay, listen, the king James version says this, um. Oh, wait, wait. There might be one other way to do. 25 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:53.000 Guys, sorry. Sorry. 26 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:59.000 This was working fine earlier. I don't know. Maybe I did something. 27 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:24.000 I don't see it anywhere now. Okay. The King James version says the following. I'll just read it to you in, uh, romans 126 and 27. Really? We'll look at verse 27 then. Um, I'll always start verse 26. Okay. So it says, for this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. You guys are familiar with this passage. Many of you. 28 00:13:24.000 --> 00:14:02.000 This is where things shifted and changed. Um, because they rejected the knowledge of God, they then were given over to desires which are immoral. And then it describes those desires as being women sexually desiring women, men sexually desiring men. So this is really, really cut and dry. And there is wide agreement among scholars. This is talking about homosexual desires, period. Not just pagan practices and that kind of thing. At any rate, this first phrase that's in the verse, and I'll put up the king James version, you have something on screen you can look at? 29 00:14:02.000 --> 00:15:11.000 It's actually the last part in their version. Notice the very bottom. It says, um, for this cause God gave the idolaters up unto vile affections. That phrase belongs at the top of the verse. But they realized that this where it's positioned, Romans one, it's saying that because they did these bad things, then they get these bad affections, these bad desires, but they're like, we don't want it to say that. So they just grab it and move it to the bottom. They move it to the bottom so that it will avoid saying those things. They've moved the top of verse 26 to the bottom of verse 27 in order to avoid the meaning that is indicated there. Everything that's highlighted on your screen, they also add. So they change from lust to ritual lust, from things being unseemly to things being pagan and unseemly, or things being vile affections to being idolaters. With vile affections. So they could try to say it's all about pagan idolatry. It's not about inappropriate sexual desires. Uh, and that that's not what homosexuality is. Um, they further say in their notes, most scholars, including us, agree that the sin in Romans one isn't being gay or lesbian or having gay sex. 30 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:36.000 Now, probably most scholars might agree with that, sort of, because the statement there is a little weird. Most scholars would agree that it's having homosexual desires, which they didn't specifically say being gay or lesbian. Okay. There's a lot of modern definitions of that. If by that you mean, um, giving into and yielding to and feeding into homosexual desires, then, yes, that is what the passage is about. 31 00:15:36.000 --> 00:16:06.000 Um, so most scholars don't say what people think they mean by that, probably. But at any rate, um, they've also deleted a little bit of the original text. In Romans one, it says, for this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections. For even as in, here's an example of vile affections, women desiring women and men desiring men. They didn't translate that for even part either. They just deleted it entirely. Sorry, I can't put on your screen. 32 00:16:06.000 --> 00:17:42.000 The text is secure. Like, this is not a big debate. Romans one, yes, there's people who will make noise about it, but it's not really debatable in that sense. It's pretty clear and obvious. The thing that Paul did with Romans one is he made it so clear by calling out the desire itself as unnatural and as something that was wrong, was immoral, that yielding to this desire is wrong, that you don't need him to use the word homosexual, and you don't need to bring in categories of identities, because he's just talking about humans with these desires. That's not a good thing. So pretty straightforward, very offensive in our modern times, and abused there. Oddly enough, they say that Romans one. This is so weird. In their text, they say Romans one is about a group of christians. Let me read the quote, too. Romans one describes how a group of christians left the church to practice idolatry and were abandoned by God. Romans one isn't about that. Like, anybody reads Romans one, it's like, these are not about christians. This is about the sort of the world that has existed, both pre post Christ like. It's not about christians. Right? Because it dates back to the idolatry that was happening in Abraham's time. At, uh, any rate, interesting stuff. They make other claims. Um, they say that in the first century, homosexual, uh, acts and heterosexual acts were, quote, not distinguished from each other at the time. Like the people didn't know the difference, something they were unaware of. I'm sorry to laugh. This is silly. This is really weird claims. And I want you to know, because this is just bunk. This whole thing is bunk. 33 00:17:42.000 --> 00:18:41.000 You don't need to worry about it. But I wanted to know what their credentials were because when I studied into this, I was like, this isn't even a serious attempt to be scholarly. This is almost like they found one source, they used some of those words, they added some of their own, and then they just published it. Maybe it was Matthew Vines or somebody back in the day who doesn't even argue the same things anymore that it used to, that kind of thing. Because some of these arguments were more popular like 15 years ago than they are now because they're bunk. Um, so we emailed them, we asked them for their credentials and there was no response. Um, the queenjamesbible.com page, no response, unfortunately. But I noticed on page nine of the book that they also said, our website has resources for further study. So I went back to the Queen James website and I started looking for resources, and there's nothing. There's just a home page. There's no resources, there's no menu. There's none of that stuff. And I thought, well, maybe it's over ten years old. Maybe if I use the wayback machine, I'll find some more information. 34 00:18:41.000 --> 00:19:54.000 Well, the wayback machine showed that for years they haven't had any resources. They've never have, as far as I can tell. But it also showed me that it used to be the landing page of a different version of the bible, also called the Queen James. So check this out. Back in 2005, the Queen James version was this parody bible. It wasn't this thing at all. It was a parody bible where they re, by the way, any YouTube person who's been assigned to check my video right now to see if I'm doing hate speech. This image is not my image. Uh, I'm reporting on this image. I'm not supporting this image. I don't believe the things that this image says. Okay? This is not my image. Uh, this is an image that the authors of the Queen James Version, old version, not the one I have on my desk, they put out in 2005. And you can tell that, um, this was a, at the time, was a pro gay propaganda piece that was meant to make christians look as bad as they could. So they're holding up the signs that you see from the Westboro Baptist church who were, like, not even really a christian group as far as I'm concerned. And every christian I know, every christian I know thinks that they're horrific and don't represent Christianity or the Bible, but, um, they're holding up the signs from that crazy group. 35 00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:02.000 And then if you look at them and ask, what is their agenda? What is their mission back then? Here's what it says. 36 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:05.000 This is the old King James version. 37 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:48.000 Um, one day, Danny's annoyance at religion boiled over. So he instructed Matt that their goal in life would be to rewrite the Bible in a vastly more entertaining and bizarre style, with bits that actually made sense. And then it goes on. So basically, they create a parody version of the Bible that takes every verse of the Bible and rewrites it in a mocking and often perverse and gross, and sometimes sexualized and inappropriate humor, and lots of foul language. All kinds of stuff. I won't share it with you, um, because it's so bad. It's so bad. I was looking at it going, yeah, I don't think I can share this with anybody. I can't read this stuff online. It's so inappropriate and vulgar and crass and everything else. 38 00:20:48.000 --> 00:21:19.000 Now, when you go to their actual page, um, and you look at the home page, as you look at maybe a slightly later version of the site, if you zoom in, it says, brought to you by a chemistry student and a man who sells doors, the previous owners of Queen James Bible. Because now I'm on a journey to figure out who are the editors of the Queen James version. The previous editors or previous creators of the Queen James version were a guy who is a chemistry student and a guy who sells doors. And they were named Danny and Matt. That much is public. 39 00:21:19.000 --> 00:22:32.000 Now, when I went on their website and looked a little more, I found a spot where, and I'm m blocking out their names, but where they actually put their full names, copyright 2004 and 2005. And they put their names Matt something and Danny something. I'm not going to write their names out here because they're not going to be super uncommon names. And I'm not really sure if the guys who did this are still like this. People change over time. This was years ago. But there's a chance that these are the same two dudes that made this one right here, and they just changed their website. We know that they're two guys. We know there's editors, plural. We know that they're not really editors. So, like, a chemistry student and a guy who sells doors would fit this version pretty well. And we know that they have a specific pro lgbt bias. And we also know one other thing. If you go forward a couple of years to 2007, here's another screenshot. That same place where they had their names. They've removed their names from their website. We also know that these two guys decided that they wanted anonymity, and they got it. And then a few years later, a pro gay thing on the same website. So I found these guys online, and I'm pretty sure it's them. Um, one of them is a british chemist. And these guys are british. You could tell by the way they do their dates. 40 00:22:32.000 --> 00:23:01.000 Um, at any rate, um, at least european. I think they're british. So I found these guys, and they're both available online, and I sent them both messages, and I'm like, hey, were you part of the Queen James version? Your name is listed back in 2005. But, um, also, I'm wondering if you were part of editing, because I'm looking for credentials. They say we're scholars, but they won't tell us who they really are. And all this stuff. Long story short, they didn't reply to me. 41 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:43.000 Let me check. Um, no, still no replies. So I have not yet heard from them. I don't expect that I will. I think that they are basically, um, they're lying for the sake of their cause, right? They have a cause. They think they want to sort of get rid of what they see as, um, evil and create space for christians who will be more on their side on this topic. And so they make a fake version of the bible for that purpose. So, final question on this was, hey, Mike, uh, can the Holy Spirit still speak through the heresy of such an abomination and corruption of the Bible? And the answer is, of course, yes. In fact, the majority of this is just the King James version. 42 00:23:43.000 --> 00:24:10.000 Can the Holy Spirit speak through it? Yeah, he could, but also so can satan. And that's the problem with having a distorted piece of information, is that you don't really know what's going to happen. And I'm not going to recommend you go listen to Benny Hinn because you might get saved. Listening to Benny Hinn as he talks about Jesus and as he preaches parts of at least the gospel, as he. Not the whole thing, but parts of the gospel as he stands up and talks about the Bible is true. 43 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:19.000 People have gotten saved listening to Benny hymn, but that doesn't make it okay to promote or suggest or support or encourage. Friends don't let their friends listen to Benny Hinn. 44 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:36.000 The fact that God can use something that's distorted. Doesn't make the distorted thing good. That's all I'm saying there. God can use these things, but they're too dangerous, uh, and too much of a mixed bag and they should be avoided. I'm grateful that God uses Benny Hinn, but I think Satan uses him a lot more. 45 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:46.000 I'm grateful that God could use the king James bible, but I think Satan will use it a lot more. And so I'm not going to promote it or suggest it. Um, it's just a hack job. 46 00:24:46.000 --> 00:25:02.000 A good thing for christians to remember is don't let these bare claims where someone just comes out and says something crazy. Well, have you heard of the queen James? Says it's really fixed, all these things. Did you know King James was into all this kind of sexual stuff and that's why they named him queen James into all this secret history? 47 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:56.000 What I'm going to say is this, don't let your head get turned too quickly from things by mere claims, just bare conspiratorial claims. I mean, this is like half a TikTok right there. But let's take all ten questions today, and that was just the first one. I hope that you found that interesting and, uh, somewhat beneficial. If you're interested in more, uh, before I go to the next question, if you're interested in more details about the, um, topic of homosexuality, serious challenges to, uh, our biblical understanding, I have a playlist in the description below where I handle serious challenges, not this serious challenges. Bunch of videos full of videos, uh, Old Testament stuff, New Testament stuff, uh, science stuff, and, um, psychology type stuff, including, like, slogans that we hear about all this stuff. It's a series I did many years ago, but I think it still holds up. And I linked it down below. 48 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:54.000 Why am I going up to. I'm still on one, really? Um, if you're gay or you've been pro gay in your ideology and stuff like that, I'd encourage you to just hear me out, okay? Just hear me out. And maybe you think I'm wrong, but I'd like for you to say maybe I think I'm wrong, but at least I understand him. At least I understand where he's coming from. Um, and I'm not going to caricature that person or his views. And then check out the playlist because I think you will find that you learned something you didn't know before and it might even change your mind. I believe there's a good chance for that. So let me know. All right, question number two. We have all ten questions for today. You guys have put all your questions in the chat, and I've got them already. Here's number two. Intense faith says, does the Bible say christians should relocate their family, especially with young kids, or stop having kids altogether if evil injustice continues to grow in their community? For example, California in the USA? 49 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:59.000 Okay, I understand the question and I understand the concern. 50 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:33.000 Um, and I think that the way you've worded your question, uh, intense faith is really smart because it's one thing to ask, look how bad things are. Should I even have kids? And then feel like you're sort of floating in an abyss where you don't really have clear direction and you're not really sure what to do. Maybe fear is guiding you. Maybe you're not going to have kids because of potential fears, when in reality you're giving up something so amazing and so beautiful, so wonderful, so life changing, so life bringing, um, out of a fear that it might be spoiled. 51 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:44.000 But how do we answer those questions when we ask, is it biblical? Well, in scripture, do we have times where it's just like, hey, don't have kids? 52 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.000 I mean, were they not in really hard times? 53 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:58.000 Yeah, there were sometimes where there were really, really hard times. And there's even times where it was like, woe to those who are pregnant or nursing in those days because judgment is coming and it's going to make their lives that much more difficult. 54 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:19.000 So woe to those who are in the middle of those things. You could be like, well, boy, you should have held off having kids right there. And maybe there's a case there. I say maybe because I'm working through this with you, live on the spot. Maybe there's a case there for, hey, um, perhaps we shouldn't, um, give. 55 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:33.000 You know, we. Perhaps we should hold off having kids during brief seasons when things are really hard. Let's say that you're going through a really difficult time in life, maybe. Let me give an example, okay? When I say difficult time in life, you're like, thinking, I lost my job, my girlfriend broke up with me. 56 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:43.000 Difficult time in life. So, um, the mongol hordes are invading my town, and I'm not even sure if I'm going to survive till next week. 57 00:28:43.000 --> 00:29:23.000 Thinking, probably not a good day to become pregnant today for a woman. Um, that's what I mean by really hard times. Those would be the kinds of hard times we read about in scripture, where it's like, woe to those who are nursing. That kind of language comes. So if that language means there could be justification for holding off having kids right now, it's pretty extreme circumstances. Like, really extreme. But we don't actually have examples of people that I know of holding off having kids. And it being approved in a real tangible way. More like woe to those who will have hard times. Um, but not a clear statement of, therefore don't have kids during this season. 58 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:37.000 I don't see that in scripture. In one corinthians seven, Paul talks about the benefits of singleness and the time is short and all that, but he doesn't specifically say, like, oh, yeah, get married, but don't have kids. That doesn't seem to come up in the text. Like, it's not a thought in his mind. 59 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:44.000 Um, however, we have these other statements in scripture. Biblically, marriage and kids go together. 60 00:29:44.000 --> 00:30:01.000 They come together with marriage. According to one corinthians seven comes an obligation to be physically with your spouse. There's, uh, an obligation that's there. And obviously there's times where you have medical reason why you can't. Meaning you're not violating something because you literally have no option. Right. 61 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:07.000 You can't run if you don't have legs. If you can't physically be together for some reason, then you can't. 62 00:30:07.000 --> 00:31:00.000 But there is an obligation to do so. So if you can, you should. Now, children are the natural byproduct of that. And that's implied in the very concept of, yeah, go ahead and be together. That's implied. I'm not saying family planning is wrong in the sense of timing and things like that. Um, but it is implied. And so generally, the scripture is taking that positive outlook of marriage is good. Marriage and children and marriage and procreation go together naturally. And there's an obligation that's there to be with your spouse. Um, and obviously, God's ultimately sovereign over whether you get pregnant or not. And then we have statements in proverbs about how children are like, quiver, may your quiver be full. That kind of stuff. Children are a blessing. And obviously just the natural human understanding that your kids are amazing. It's amazing to have kids. All that put together to say we should have a generally positive attitude towards marriage, family, kids. 63 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:29.000 We also have attitudes in scripture where the Jews are in Babylon, in super hard times, in a foreign land, and they're still there to procreate their seed, not to stop. They don't leave Babylon. They stay in that bad location for a season. Then there's other times in scripture where they do leave Babylon, and after the 70 years, they go back to Jerusalem. I guess what I'm suggesting is when you put all this stuff together, you're like, Mike, you're just making me confused. Well, maybe that's the point. 64 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:49.000 Sometimes there's wisdom in staying and sometimes there's wisdom in leaving. And anybody out there who throws a blanket statement out every Christian in California, you have to either not have kids or get out of there or get out of California. I'm like, you need a lot of biblical clarity to make that kind of claim. A lot. And you don't have it. You really don't. 65 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:51.000 You just don't. 66 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:55.000 Where in scripture am I told this sort of thing? 67 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:40.000 I can understand the logic of saying, be careful with your kids. Don't let them be brainwashed and indoctrinated by society and culture. 100% on board with you there. 100% on board that if you live in a place like California where there's a lot of oppressive, um, spiritually oppressive indoctrination going on, then you need to be combating that because you're going to raise your kids up in the ways of the Lord. While there's specific ways that that will be challenged by the culture and the environment they're in, you have to combat that equally. So there is a responsibility I can throw out as a blanket parents disciple your kids, combat the brainwashing, the, um, worldly effect of things pressing in on them wherever you live. And that'll be different depending on your culture. 68 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:45.000 I just don't see some blanket command like this. Yeah. 69 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:48.000 Evil and injustice continues to grow in your community. 70 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:53.000 Therefore, don't have kids? 71 00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:43.000 I don't see that. I think marriage and kids go together. If you're going to get married, you should probably try to have kids. Do, uh, you have to get married? No, you do not have to get married. But to get married and deliberately not have kids because you feel like the risks are too big or something like that. I think that that seems to be throwing, pun intended, to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Um, quite literally. I don't see any biblical teaching that says that. What I do see is sometimes people projecting their fears about, in fact, it's at an all time high right now. Right. Why? Because we're about to have an election. Like, presidential elections are on their way, and every time this comes, it's like the end of the world. Every election is the end of the world. I've lived long enough to know this every four years in America. It's the end of the world if it doesn't go my way. 72 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.000 Have perspective to know that if you're having a kid, you're not having them for four years. You're having them for an entire life. 73 00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:17.000 And people in the bubonic plague, I'm glad they had kids, or maybe I wouldn't be here today. And people during mongol invasions were still having kids. I'm glad. Or I wouldn't be here today. Uh, I'm glad that people continued to procreate during those hard times. And Israel, they were wandering the wilderness for 40 years. Guess what? They were having kids at that time when they entered the land and they were doing the Joshua, Jericho and AI and all that, they were still having kids. 74 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:39.000 I think we should probably still be having some kids. In fact, it's probably healthy for the world if christians have more kids than everybody else, because that'll help. That's actually going to be a type of evangelism to the world. It's just we have more kids. Um, anyway, my personal opinion, that last bit there. But I'll move forward to the next question. 75 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:55.000 Chesversarius says, is it a sin to help myself instead of others? I only know scripture that tells me to give to others. Philippians. I'm often frustrated when I'm forced to help others when I need time myself. 76 00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:31.000 Um, this is a little bit too wooden, right? Because what if I say, yes, it's a sin. Let's take the yes and no answer and show you why this is too wooden of a question. The framing of it. I think you have to think of it more complicated than that. If I say yes, it's a sin to help yourself instead of others, then that means, like, do, uh, you eat, do you sleep, right? Or do you just literally only help yourself? You get in your car and you just drive around going, I'm not going to go where I need to go. I have to go to work. I'm not going to go to work. I'm going to go drive other. I'm going to go to bus stops and pick people up and drive them places. Because it's a sin to help myself and not others. 77 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:33.000 That's too wooden. 78 00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:53.000 But if I say no, it's not a sin to take care of yourself and forget others, that kind of thing, then what does that lead to? Is narcissism. It's too extreme. It's too extreme. So Jesus gave us a solution that I think helps answer your question. Chesferius. And it is chesarius. There he is. It is, um. Love your neighbor as yourself. 79 00:35:53.000 --> 00:36:04.000 That's different, right? That's different than loving them instead of myself or loving myself instead of them. That's the framing of your question. Instead, jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. 80 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.000 So I take care of me and I take care of them. 81 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:35.000 The model in the New Testament is, yes, it involves self sacrifice and, uh, I want to go the extra mile and turn the other cheek and all that, but I'm still going to be taking care of myself properly as a way of honoring God, right? Because he gave me this body, I want to take care of the health of my body. I want to make sure that I am taken care of. Maybe I need time because I'm worn out, I'm wiped out. I need a day off. I need time away from people a little bit. 82 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:59.000 Be careful that doesn't become selfish, narcissistic, or it doesn't feed into the idea that, um, or feed from perhaps the idea that you just don't like people and you don't care about people and they just annoy you and so you just want to get away from all the time. So you could take that overboard. But there's a take care of yourself and take care of other people, I think is the biblical model here. Be willing. That includes making sacrifices and that sort of thing. But you love your neighbor as yourself. 83 00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:30.000 Hey, if I was in that situation, would I help me? Yeah, of course I'd help me. So I'm going to help him too. So I'm going to give myself a ride to work. I'm going to give that other guy a ride, too. I'm going to do both. Um, I hope that helps. This seems like an overly simplistic answer to you to give. Give you. But I think that if you focus on the words of Jesus, love your neighbor as yourself, that that'll give you a lot of wisdom. Um, and I hope that you don't feel so frustrated, um, when you're forced to help others, when you need time yourself. 84 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:32.000 I'm going to go out on a limb here. 85 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000 The phrase need time myself. 86 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:45.000 Ask yourself honestly, I'm not judging on this. I'm asking you to judge honestly. Ask yourself, how much do I really need that time for myself? 87 00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:10.000 Is there part of me that is just saying, I don't feel like it, so I won't do it, and then I'm going, I need time for myself? Or is it like, no, I really got to charge my batteries so that I can serve? So am I recuperating in order to go out and bless others, or am I just withdrawing because I just don't like people? I just don't want to be around them. Try to figure that out, find that balance. 88 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:23.000 Don Miguelio says, what about creation makes a singular creator obvious, as Paul suggests? What keeps us from concluding that multiple deities create the different aspects of the universe? 89 00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:45.000 Um, really cool question. So I'm only somewhat qualified, I'm not qualified in the sense of being a philosopher to sit and discuss this, but I will share my thoughts on this. Um, I've listened to some philosophers, so some of the arguments for God's existence, you could take those arguments and you can ask, does that imply one or multiple creators? 90 00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:55.000 And maybe, uh, an analogy would be this. Let's say I'll use an analogy of a murder mystery. Okay? Let's say that you find someone and they have a stab wound in their chest. 91 00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:15.000 And then you think, okay, obviously there seems to have been a murder here. It doesn't appear to be self inflicted. There seems to have been a murder. There's maybe evidence of a break in, there's a stab wound in the chest, maybe the weapon's missing, that kind of thing. And then someone asks you, well, why don't you just conclude there were twelve murderers? 92 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:34.000 And then you say, uh, ah, see, this is about discretion. You don't multiply explanations beyond necessity. I have reason to think there was at least one murderer. There's this stab wound, there's a break in. I could be open to multiples, but there's nothing in the evidence that is telling me there's multiple. It's like this with evidence for God. 93 00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:57.000 So the uncaused cause argument, right, that there is some sort of, as I'm streaming right now, there's something that's causing that. There's something that caused you to click it and you could back up causes, and eventually you've got like domino effects going back and back and back forever until you say something had to be the initial cause that started all the causes. It's an uncaused cause. 94 00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:26.000 Is there a reason to think there were multiple uncaused causes? Ooh, that feels messy and overly complicated. It feels arbitrary to add extra uncaused causes when we're trying to explain origins of things. Okay, so I don't feel a reason to add that there. If you look at, um, uh, the nature of time or the applicability of math to the universe, that's another philosophical argument for God, is the applicability of math to the universe. That you could actually use math to explain everything. 95 00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:36.000 Not to explain that everything's existence, but to explain how it functions and interacts. When you look at that and you say, yeah, um, this seems like it was intelligently designed. 96 00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:42.000 Is there a reason why I would assume there was more than one intelligent designer? 97 00:40:42.000 --> 00:41:05.000 I don't know of one. Do you? Wouldn't it seem arbitrary to just say there's more than one isn't? It's neater, it's more simple of an explanation. And when philosophers are trying to explain something, simplicity is something that's actually pretty valuable to them. The issue always. But it's valuable. It's more simple to say that there's one cause. 98 00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:20.000 So, uh, let me read your question again, make sure I'm not missing out on anything here. Um, what about creation makes a singular creator obvious? Yeah. Um, let's take the argument from the origin of the universe. 99 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:46.000 If you take like, say, the sort of big bang model, right, and there's going to be some pushback against me on this, that's fine. Um, you're welcome to push back on this, but take that accepted big bang model. You've got the whole universe kind of going back in time. It's bigger now than it was. It gets smaller and smaller and more dense and more dense until it's all singled down into just basically one tiny dot that just sort of exploded into existence. That was one event. 100 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:54.000 One singular event. The singularity. The ultimate singularity. That event. 101 00:41:54.000 --> 00:43:14.000 Why would I postulate 18 beings caused that instead of one? Like, if I'm going to postulate one being with the power to cause that, that's more simple and more, it seems connected to the event itself than, say, 18 beings who all, like, do they have different powers? They all contributed differently. One of them was insufficient to do it. Um, I'm making a very complicated and arbitrary statement when I do that, when I look at moral values and duties, and I want to ground, and here's another argument for God I want to explain. How is it that moral values and duties are, like, real? It's really true that I should not torture innocent people for fun. That's a real truth that's grounded in something, and it seems like it would be grounded in a moral being. Why would I ground it in, like, 18 moral beings? It's much more simple and logical to say there's just one moral being that grounds it. And then if you want to argue, well, there could be other ones, you could say, sure there could be. But don't say that morality is giving you evidence of other ones, or that the singularity is giving you evidence of other ones, or that the uncaused cause theory is giving you evidence of other ones that's being made up on the spot. So evidence indicates, uh, a creator doesn't indicate multiples and simplicity. And not just having ad hoc statements seems to suggest you stop there. 102 00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:34.000 I hope that helps. All right, let's go to number five, Liam Baker. I've watched your women in ministry series. Cool. Liam, that's 43 hours of your life, and, uh, come to basically the same conclusions as you. However, I'm part of a church with a female lead pastor. How do I handle this? Um, Liam, this is a super challenging question. 103 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:55.000 I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I think that, um, when it comes to churches and looking for churches and being at a church, it's kind of complicated. There's factors you weigh, like, how long have I been here? How much of my family and friends are involved here? Um, other than the fact that you have a female pastor, what is her teaching actually like? 104 00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:08.000 How biblical is her teaching? How sound is her theology? Let's say that there's only two churches in your town, anywhere near you, anywhere where you can reach. There's only two churches. One of them is the lds church. 105 00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:49.000 It's a mormon church, and it has a male who's leading it. Then you have a female, and she has very solid biblical theology. I would go to the church, probably with the lady pastor, and then I'd be like, yeah, I disagree. I don't think this is biblical, but it seems like it's the best option I've got right now. Um, that would be how I would handle that. But unless, if I was an editor, church right now, who had a female pastor, well, they would make me leave anyways, right? Because I've openly taught that this is an unbiblical thing. And even though I've done it, I think graciously and everything, um, it still would be like a real challenge to the ministry. Um, but let's say that it wasn't open, that I was all private, that I just held these beliefs, but I hadn't shared them much with people. 106 00:44:49.000 --> 00:45:05.000 I would look for another option. If I were you, I would definitely be looking for another option, and unless I had some compelling reason to stay, some overruling reason. No. In spite of this, I need to stick around. Then I would just go. Um, I would take off. 107 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:18.000 I would do so in this case. Um, I would meet with and talk to the leadership, and I would explain my reasoning, and I would try to probably change their mind if I could, which may be a dead end. And you have to figure that out. 108 00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:55.000 And then the question would just be, how loudly do I leave? Um, you don't want to tear down, you don't want to destroy. But it seems to be an issue that is important enough that I would probably share it with a few people on my way out and be like, hey, um, I talked to the elders, I talked to the pastor, I talked to different people. I hope their ministries goes great, but I think there's a clear and purposeful violation of what the Bible is telling us to do with our churches. And so I can't really support that, and I'm going to go somewhere else. I think you should consider it, too. 109 00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:15.000 I think that's how I would handle it. I'd love to have your guys pushback or thoughts on that. I don't know how to handle it differently in a good conscience, because while what I'm doing is making waves, I understand that not doing it is also making waves. They're just different kinds of waves. By doing nothing, I'm making waves. They're just different kinds of waves. 110 00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:25.000 In the long run, if I stayed at a church like that, because it was the only one available in the community, I don't know if I could stay there for 20 years or 30 years. 111 00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:39.000 I have a feeling that over the long haul, I would start my own church. Um, that doesn't mean that I would be the pastor of the church. Maybe I would just gather like minded believers and say, hey, we need a church that does things more the way that the Bible tells us to. 112 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:52.000 Can we do this together? Let's just start meeting small group. I'm not going to try to make myself the leader of it all, but I want to have like minded people and then sort of see how it organically develops, maybe create, like, an actual plurality of elders and stuff like that. 113 00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:25.000 That might be more of a long term solution. Um, anyway, I'm just wrestling with you through. I understand how challenging and difficult could be, and I know what it's like to, uh, leave a church that you love and that you've been at for a long time, and you've built relationships at, and you care about the people. Um, but for different reasons. It's the right thing to do, to, um, feel, don't be alone, don't be alone. Don't just leave and then do nothing. That's not healthy for you. You will be under attack, you will be challenged, you will have problems, have a plan of what to do instead of just leaving. 114 00:47:25.000 --> 00:48:05.000 Question number six. Rob Allen says these hands and that's in, quote, these hands provided for Paul in acts 20, verse 34. But of mine. These hands of mine is in some translations, such as Niv, N-E-T. Is Paul referring to Jesus's hands or his own hands? Okay. All right. In acts 2034, is Paul talking about Jesus's hands, or is Paul talking about Paul's hands? Ooh, I wonder if I do it like this, and then I do this, and then. Now, uh. That looks terrible. 115 00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:10.000 That doesn't even look. Doesn't even look halfway right. I don't know what's going on. 116 00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:22.000 Okay. Um. Acts 2024 says, I'll look at the ESV first. 117 00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:29.000 Um, hold on. I don't think that that's the right verse. 118 00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:35.000 34, 2034. 119 00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:43.000 You yourselves know that these hands minister to my necessities and to those who are with me. 120 00:48:43.000 --> 00:49:00.000 Whose hands is Paul talking about? Um, like you said, in other versions, it says, these hands of mine. So whose hands were they? Paul's hands or somebody else's hands? Um. Let's see. Niv, you know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs. But the ESV. 121 00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:14.000 Let me take a translation that doesn't do that, but which does give us more context. I'm going to back up, and I'm going to read to you guys starting at verse 17. I'll do 18. Um. 122 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:26.000 Okay, so, acts 2017. Now, from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus. Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, so Paul's addressing the ephesian elders. This is, like a really interesting. 123 00:49:26.000 --> 00:51:16.000 There's a lot we learn in this section where Paul addresses them. They're all men, by the way. Um, he says, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with humility, with all humility, with tears, and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and from teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks, of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I'm going to Jerusalem, constrained by the spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value, um, nor as precious to myself. That's, uh, an amazing statement to make. He's literally going to face death. And he says, I don't count my life of any value or precious to myself. Nothing he's going to hold on to. If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. God, give me this attitude about my own ministry, about my own calling in Christ. God give you this attitude, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus Christ to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you, among whom I've gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I'm innocent of the blood of all. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole council of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. For I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. 124 00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:53.000 Now there's that concern about these false leaders who are trying to create followers for themselves instead of for Christ. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease, night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Now he says, all that I shared because I just want to give context and also because it's beautiful, amazing biblical stuff to just be encouraged by. I know many of you, as I read that section, were just like, yeah, I just feel stirred up, man. I want to be more like that. But then he says this. 125 00:51:53.000 --> 00:52:29.000 You yourselves know that these hands. Excuse me. Sorry. Verse 333. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. Paul did not covet anyone's stuff. He wasn't there trying to enrich himself. Then he says, you yourselves know that these hands minister to my necessities and to those who are with me. Now, um, is Paul talking about his own hands working at labor, like building tents, so to speak, or is he talking about God's hands? Well, at what point has he implied God is doing it? He hasn't, really, but the context is, I didn't look for your guys money. 126 00:52:29.000 --> 00:53:04.000 Um, I worked for myself. And then verse 35 supports this in all things. I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Paul's hands providing were part of Paul giving not only to himself, but to others and providing for their financial needs. Paul made money on the side while doing ministry. As much as he could. He made money and he paid for his own way, and he also sponsored other people and took care of them. 127 00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:35.000 Did he always, always do that? No. Um, the Philippians at one point give him donations and stuff like that. But he did make this his normal evangelical attitude. He'll even clarify and he'll say things like, I worked with my hands, I made tents. Effectively, he's saying, I made tents and paid for my own way. He tells the Corinthians, I didn't have to do this. I could have required for you guys to pay me because a worker is worthy of his wages and I was laboring in the gospel for you, but I did it for evangelism's sake. This is my super paraphrased version. 128 00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:57.000 So when it comes to evangelism in particular, I think that we don't want to be having our hand out to the world when it comes to ministering to the church, to the body. I think that especially the body wants to support those who are ministering to them. But evangelists need to not be putting their hand out to the world, um, for the sake of breaking the stereotype that we're just a bunch of money grubbing people. 129 00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:41.000 And then my ministry is kind of like mixed. I do evangelism, but I also do a lot of ministry to the body of Christ. And so my front facing ministry is similar in that you don't hear me asking for money. I don't do super chats. I run minimal ads because YouTube will actually show my content to less people if I don't put ads in the videos. Um, um, uh. You never hear me asking for money. If you go to my website, biblethinker.org, there's a disclaimer there that actually sort of tries to talk you out of giving a little bit before you give. And I'm hoping that a skeptic who thinks I'm just a money grubbing preacher will go to the site and read that and go, oh, uh, maybe he's for real. And that resistance to being a money grabber will open the door of evangelism. That's my hope. I think that's what Paul's getting at here. 130 00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:54.000 And the NIV or the net are just helping clarify it. I think it's a fair interpretation, fair application, or I should say fair translation to say these hands of mine. When he says these hands, he's referring to his own. 131 00:54:54.000 --> 00:55:12.000 That's the short answer. Number seven, chase chance has a question. How can we know that angels are spiritual beings and not potentially physical? Some people say they're spiritual and do not have reproductive organs, since Jesus said they're not given in marriage. 132 00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:18.000 I'm m going to drink some water. 133 00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:24.000 Um. Um, here's a. 134 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:46.000 You could, you know, I'm interested in the way this question is worded. Nothing's wrong with the way you worded it, but I'm interested in it. Imagine if I worded the question. How do we know that angels are physical? Um, the way it's worded, then it would put a challenge, as in, if you don't prove they're not physical, then they are. 135 00:55:46.000 --> 00:56:16.000 If you word it differently, how do we know that angels are not spiritual? I think I'm messing up my words here, but basically you get my point, that the way you word the question, it puts the responsibility of proof on someone else. Like prove this wrong or else it's true. And that can be a bit of a sketchy way to do theology. So I just want to acknowledge that the way it's worded, how can we know that angels are spiritual beings and not potentially physical? It implies that unless we can prove they're only spiritual, then guess what? They're physical. 136 00:56:16.000 --> 00:57:04.000 Whatever angels are, whatever angels are, um, they're not humans and they're not, um, something that normally is reproductive in nature. The angels in heaven. Now, it depends on what you do with Genesis six is a big challenge and a big question. And I have a video where I talk about some of this stuff and the nephilim and all that back when I was doing my first Peter series. Um, you guys can check that out. I'll link it in the video description down below for those who are interested in seeing where some of the challenges are. Even if you take the angel, the son of God view of Genesis six, it still doesn't exactly give you angels that have the ability to naturally mate with humans or something like that. Um, we do have scripture that says his angels, his ministers are spirits. 137 00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:54.000 Specifically, Hebrews talks about that. So we do have a statement about them having this sort of spirit being quality to them. We do have angels sort of showing up with humanoid form, though, at times in scripture. And when they do, it's not like a normal human. They do something and then, poof, they're gone. Or they're invisible. And then they're visible. Like balaam, right? The angel standing in front of the donkey there. It's visible. It's invisible. There's this non human qualities. There's these inhuman qualities that are going on. So I think that we could conservatively say they're not like humans with bodies like ours. That's an easy statement to make. Then you could further go on to say, well, they're like these spiritual beings. They are spirit in some sense. And so that would not be seen as corporeal. 138 00:57:54.000 --> 00:58:13.000 Okay. But yet they sometimes manifest or demonstrate activities with something that has physicality. What do I do with that? I'm not really sure how to answer that question. I just think it's not human. M more study needs to be done on that. I don't have all the answers. Just walking through some of the questions with you. 139 00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:34.000 Number eight, anonymous question. How does one biblically deal with an oppressive but not abusive parent? Lately, they have been really stressed, anxious, and far from God. I'm not sure if they're truly a Christian. Oh, well, you've got a number of a whole bunch of life issues going on all at once. First thing, uh, my heart goes out to you. That's challenging stuff. I know. 140 00:58:34.000 --> 00:59:02.000 Um, you've got the question of, how do I minister to them as they're going through hard times, and then you've got the question of, how do I survive them as they're going through hard times with me. Um, and you got to try to do both of those. Survive them and minister to them. And that's where you try to draw those healthy boundaries. Can I give you. Without even knowing you or your life, this is where you sit down with a godly Christian and you tell them your whole story. 141 00:59:02.000 --> 01:00:00.000 At church the other day, somebody wanted to ask me something, and it, um, was after church, we're just talking, and I quickly realized, like, this is going to take a lot more than just, like, five minutes conversation after church. So we're going to get together, and I can't do that with most people. I'm not making an offer. Like, everybody show up to my church and then I'll make an appointment with you. I can't physically do that. It's not possible. Um, but you need to do this with somebody. Sit down with somebody who you look up to as like. And this is who you want to look for. I don't care if they're a pastor, someone you look at and you go, there is a wise and faithful Christian. They have to be both wise and faithful. You may have someone who seems very faithful but they don't seem like the wisest cookie, don't pick them. You might have someone who seems pretty wise, like they got a lot of wisdom in their life, but man, they are compromised when it comes to biblical requirements and stuff. They just kind of do what they feel works. Um, that's not really the right kind of wisdom you're looking for there. 142 01:00:00.000 --> 01:01:03.000 You've got to be able to find somebody in your world, in your life who is both wise and godly say, hey, can I sit down with you and talk and just tell them, here's what I'm going through with my parent. Here's the things that are going on. I don't really know how to handle it. What about when they do this and they need to ask you questions, they need to feel it out. This is a counseling thing. I will say you are juggling these two issues of I want to minister to and love on and care for and bring light to my parent, but also I want to be able to process in healthy ways and understand boundaries for the things that they're saying to me or the things that they're doing. That is a genuine challenge. Sometimes you have to say, no, here's a boundary I'm not going to do with the thing you're asking. I'm not going to sit here and endure this thing that you're wanting me to endure. I'm going to step aside, but I'm not going to do it with anger and bitterness. I'm going to do it because it's right. Finding those balances is not easy. Um, I admit m number nine, cheesecake 73 says, ah, now I want some cheesecake. Am I dishonouring God if I initiate separation? 143 01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:16.000 I think that depends. Um, I've been married for over twelve years. Always rocky. I've begged for counseling but he said he'd pick divorce first. He says he no longer loves me and he's a professing believer. Oh man. 144 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:26.000 Again, my heart breaks for you. These types of questions. If I was to give you an answer, it would be wrong for me. 145 01:01:26.000 --> 01:02:14.000 Imagine for a second that I go, oh yeah, separate. I know zero about your situation. Let me be completely honest with you guys. As a counselor, this isn't about you. Cheesecake 73. My heart breaks for your situation, but I've counseled many people over the years. Here's what I've learned. What I learned in two sentences is never the whole story. It couldn't possibly be. You have twelve years of story. You have twelve years of interactions, and I've talked to one member of the marriage and they tell me their story and I'm like, wow, man, you're totally the victim here. Like, my heart's breaking for you. You're like, totally the victim here. I can't believe your spouse is. Then I talk to the other one and then they tell me the story and I go, whoa, they did what? Well, they certainly hid that for me when they told me the story. And then you get them together and then you realize neither of them are telling the whole story. 146 01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:23.000 I'm not saying you're lying, not by a long shot. I'm saying those two sentences does not represent your story. 147 01:02:23.000 --> 01:03:27.000 Your story is a lot bigger than that, and there's a lot more to it than that. Um, I'm sorry that your spouse will not go for counseling, that your husband won't go in for counseling, but you could still do it. You could still do it on your own when you do it. The natural tendency, every time I've counseled any individual husband or wife, I think every single time they come. And their main question is, how do I change my spouse? And then I usually try to bring them around to dealing with reality, where it's going to be, just be, how do I change me? You can only change yourself. You cannot change your spouse. Not like that. Not with some sort of foolproof thing. Um, and this has to do with just giving a right attitude, a godly perspective and doing the right thing, having realistic expectations, knowing where your boundaries are, knowing what's not your responsibility and what is and all that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, I'd encourage you to watch. I have a series on divorce and remarriage. And I talk about exceptions. I talk about abusive and extreme behaviors. And if you're experiencing extreme abusive behaviors, I think you have a right to separate. Yes. 148 01:03:27.000 --> 01:04:05.000 Um, what defines extreme? That's a really tricky definition. Um, like, if a woman came to you and said, um, he won't let me sleep, I would be like, well, you can't divorce your husband because you can't sleep. Well, he won't let you sleep. That doesn't really make sense. That's not divorceable offense, but true story. There was a guy who used to heard about this when I was in domestic violence counseling, used to sleep at his job. He did a weird job. He could actually sleep on the job. So he'd slept at his job and he would come home and all night he would poke his wife, every time she started to fall asleep, poke, poke, poke. 149 01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:16.000 That's not just mean. That is literally torture. Like, that's actual torture. This is sleep deprivation, actual torture. You may create psychosis and stuff. 150 01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:29.000 She can flee that man, right? So how do you define abuse in a way that makes sure that she knows that she can take off? But then a woman who goes, well, my husband won't stop snoring, but she doesn't have a right to do that. 151 01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:57.000 There's differences. So, tough stuff. Um, but I want to pray for you. Um, let's pray for this woman. Lord, we lift up our sister. She's going through unimaginably difficult stuff. Her husband, who said he doesn't love her. Oh, my goodness. I can't even imagine. We just pray that you would show her your love and your compassion, your care for her, that somehow the knowledge of your steadfast love will inspire her not only to feel loved, but to feel love. 152 01:04:57.000 --> 01:05:39.000 Love for him to know the right attitude to take. Even though she can't fix him and his behavior doesn't depend on her. May she be honoring to Christ and all that she does. If it's a time to make a drastic decision, make that clear to her. Please help her understand, help her know, help her not make a mistake right now. In Jesus name, amen. All right, I'll go to question number ten. Rebecca. Uh, h says hi. Pastor Mike. In two chronicles 35, should Josiah have realized that it was God speaking? Some suggest he was prideful. I greatly appreciate your ministry. Looking forward to your book. That's right. Working on writing a book. Just started. It's going to take quite a while. 153 01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:48.000 Um, you guys won't see it for a long time, but I'm excited about it. Second chronicles 35 20 through 27. 154 01:05:48.000 --> 01:05:50.000 You can't read nothing. 155 01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.000 Let's look at this. 156 01:05:54.000 --> 01:07:19.000 Uh, all right. Um. After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neko, king of Egypt, went up, ah, to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates. And Josiah went out to meet him, but he sent envoys to him saying, uh, what have we to do with each other? King of Judah, I am not coming against you this day, but against the house with which I am at war. And God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God who is with me, lest he destroy you. Nevertheless, here's where Josiah did this thing. He did not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not listen to the words, to the words of Nico, from the mouth of God, but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo. And the archers shot King Josiah. And the king said to his servants, take me away, for I'm badly wounded. And of course, he's trying to think I can get away with getting hit because I'll disguise myself. They won't target the king because they won't know I'm the king. But he gets shot anyway. So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died, was buried in the tombs of his fathers. So should Josiah have known? Was there a guilt there that he didn't? I mean, he was basically a really good king. Josiah was a great guy. But should he have known? And I think the answer is yes, but I understand it's not clear in the passage. It's sort of implied, because here's where it's implied. And I only say implied, not for certain, but implied. 157 01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:33.000 Josiah, what he does is his statement from the king is seen as a warning. That seems pretty clear in the passage. It's a clear warning to Josiah. Josiah then does it anyways and then dies as a result. Which implies what? 158 01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:38.000 Uh, punishment for knowledgeable perpetrations? 159 01:07:38.000 --> 01:08:12.000 Is that a word for something he did that he knew he shouldn't have done? The implication is that maybe he should have known, right? Like, there must have been some way he should have known that that was really God. It would have been a red flag, you might say, when the King who worships a pagan God warns, Josiah, your God sent me to do this. That should be a red flag. But the rest of the old testament can fill the gaps in a little bit. So the kings were not on their own, just waiting for random prophets to come and tell them that God told him something. Now, that did happen sometimes. 160 01:08:12.000 --> 01:09:06.000 But the kings also had oftentimes prophets that were normal, like, kind of, I know this guy. He's a prophet. I'll go to him and ask him. King David does this with Nathan. When David's like, I want to build God a tabernacle. And he goes to Nathan, hey, what do you think? And Nathan's like, yeah, do it. And of course, Nathan goes back and says, no, tell him not to. And he says, don't. Your son will do it. Um, so there was these guys they could go and appeal to, but there was another thing that we know for sure was available to Josiah, which is the priesthood. Josiah could go to the priest at the time and say, hey, I'm going to do this thing. Can you inquire of the Lord for me. And he would consult the urum and thumbim and there's a whole thing on that. It's really interesting stuff. And the priest could actually go and intercede, go effectively to God and say, should Josiah go out to war? But he doesn't do these things. Instead he just goes out, he's warned, he doesn't consult the Lord, he doesn't pray about it. He just keeps charging forward. 161 01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:40.000 At that point he really should have done something and at that point he really didn't do anything. So I think that, um, um, the bottom line is, yeah, Josiah was knowledgeably guilty. It was an unfortunate end to an otherwise really great king. Josiah did some great things, which is a great warning for me and for you. Even if your life has been really good serving God up until now, there may be compromises that you've been giving into, little things that you've been yielding on that can turn into just even one moment that just destroys everything. 162 01:09:40.000 --> 01:10:10.000 Clean your life up. Make sure to consult with the Lord on the things that you've got going on. You know what I mean? Making sure that what you're doing is biblical, what you're doing is godly. What you're doing is not going to snowball into something terrible because just because you see yourself as a great servant of God, um, a very obedient servant of God, doesn't mean that you're going to stay that way. The Bible is so full of examples of people falling that it's harder to find people who are faithful till death than it is to find people who blew it really big time. 163 01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:14.000 Kind of like that in the real world, too. 164 01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:44.000 All right, well, you guys, that's ten questions. And we did the Queen James version, I guess. Um, do I really want to keep this in my library? I don't think so, man. Piece of junk. Well, the stuff they added to it is junk. Um, yeah. And if I get feedback from the guys who sent me, who I sent emails to, I'll let you guys know. If they ever get back to me and it's anything that's interesting or worthwhile, I'll let you know. I doubt they will. They don't want to be associated with that because they know that they've made stuff up. 165 01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:51.000 All right. And maybe I even have the wrong guys. That's always possible. They sold the website and it wasn't just the same guys changing the name. 166 01:10:51.000 --> 01:11:01.000 It's possible. Doesn't seem likely, but I don't really know. All right, well, uh, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and the warnings that we have in it. We need those warnings. We need them right now. 167 01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:40.000 We can be self assured. We can think that we're doing everything right. We could think that we're on your side, and we could be making decisions that are going to ruin our lives. We pray that you would guide us, that you would direct us, that you would show us, in truth, where our lives should be. The things that we need to give up, the things that we need to embrace, the things that we need to restart, that we quit a long time ago. In Jesus'name, amen.