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Why did God reveal himself to ignorant people 2000 years ago? Why doesn't God do it for everyone today? That's the question we're going to tackle today. Let me, uh, read it to you in a slightly different way, just to kind of unpack it a bit more.

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It's really convenient, some say really convenient that God revealed himself before science and technology were around. There's no video footage of Jesus miracles and his death and resurrection. They happened before modern methods could test it to prove that it wasn't fake. This leads to these two questions. Number one, I'll answer both of these now. Why did God reveal himself to ignorant people 2000 years ago? Uh, is it convenient? Is it because it never really happened? Or two, why doesn't God do it for everyone today? Why doesn't God just re reveal himself to each individual throughout their lives? Visions or miracles or, uh, as one atheist I was talking to one time said, why doesn't Jesus show up again right here in the 21st century, die, get verifiably, you know, scientifically proven that he's dead. We test, we check vitals and all this. And then he lays there with cameras, footage and everything, and, you know, electrodes. And then he rises from the dead right there in front of us. And then he submits himself to further tests to demonstrate and prove that he really died and rose again. Um, and I'll get into that all today for question one of the q and a. My name is Mike Winger. Here to try to help you learn to think biblically about everything. Um, I not only try to do that, but try to give a defense, a thoughtful and real, uh, and accurate defense of the truth of the christian faith. I believe it's intellectually true because if it's not intellectually true, it's not true. That's the nature of truth. It's not just convenient, it's not just likable. Christianity is true. It is indeed an eternal consequence. The issue of what happens when we die, that we can have our sins forgiven in Christ. All those things. I believe it's true. But here are some answers to tough questions. Okay. Why did God do it 2000 years ago? I've spent some time thinking about this because I've seen the question come up several times from atheists. Oddly enough, I didn't really have this question myself. Um, I didn't, I should put it this way. I didn't feel any objection to God choosing the timing of 2000 years ago for Christ to show up. This didn't really bother me. This really wasn't an issue for me and for most people, I don't think it is. But it's an interesting thing to discuss. And as I learned a little bit about history and about 2000 years ago, I started to realize it was pretty smart in a number of ways. So here's a partial defense, a quick defense of 2000 years ago being a good idea, not that it's up to us. God can do what he wants, doesn't need me to defend him in that. But maybe you need someone to help you work through it. So there have been population, ah, explosions since 2000 years ago. The population of humanity has just blown up. It is more efficient and effective to get the gospel into the world while there's a smaller population compared to today. That's one of the reasons. Okay, is that the only one? No, you really need to stack these up on top of each other. The greek language is an element that is actually pretty interesting. So Alexander the Great, right? We're talking like 300 bc ish. Alexander the Great shows up, he takes over this massive, you know, his big empire. But one of the things that he did was infrastructure and language. So the impact of his big empire was people learning Greek as a common, shared language. And that lasted for a long time. And the roads, the roman roads, uh, one of the reasons why Alexander the Great was able to hold on to his empire as briefly as he did before he died, uh, was the fact that they had built an extensive road network system. They were able to get their troops to any rebellious community very, very quickly so that it shut down rebellions. People aren't going to rebel if they don't think it's going to work. Usually most people, some people do it anyways. I know people like that. Um, but the roman road and the shared greek language, Koine Greek, that's what the Bible is written in. The New Testament at least, is written in Koine Greek. And Koine just means common. It's just common Greek. It's the Greek. Everybody was speaking this shared language and this ability for missionaries to travel throughout the empire allowed Christianity to hit when it could get grounded very quickly. And this is important for a number of reasons, like you could just go on and on about it. But for instance, getting the gospel message spread out into various communities and in various places, and with different written texts that are then copied and copied, so that we have, um, a reliable account of what was originally written, getting it spread out geographically, that is what validates that the christian message we see in our scripture and we have today is the same as the original message. You might think, well, how does that work? Imagine if Christianity came into Bethlehem and there it started in this tiny little town, but it didn't spread throughout the world. And there we have a document from Bethlehem. But it's difficult to know if this. If there's really multiple witnesses of this event, of the things that have happened. It's difficult to, like, have this confidence that the Christianity that we, uh, ascribe to was not altered and changed over time. But the early and quick spread of Christianity, the multiple gospel accounts and. And it's spreading throughout, you know, the, uh, empire, is one of the reasons we can actually trust that it is, in fact, authentic when we look at specifically scripture. Cause we know Christianity and religion in general is subject to what they call accretions. Uh, things change over time. People don't stay the same and groups change. And what happens is they change. And then they tend to say, what we're doing now, that's what we've always done. This is the habit of groups, and you could see groups in fighting about it. Our thing. That's how it's always been done, our thing. What we needed was texts that were written geographically diverse, different authors to demonstrate this is what Christianity was. That's a useful thing. Um, the roads allowed evangelism and the spread of the gospel, the population explosion carried it throughout the world. It's pretty amazing. Um, there's other stuff, too. Uh, in 2000 years ago, when Jesus is walking the earth, the temple of Israel is still standing in Jerusalem. This one, amazing. It was one of the wonders of the world, right? This amazing temple is still standing in Jerusalem. But in 70 AD, about 30 years after Jesus, uh, 40 years after it gets destroyed, it gets just completely wrecked and destroyed. That was pretty significant.

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You see, the Judaism Jesus shows up in, it's in a particular context, and it's sort of ripe for the messiah, for Jesus to show up and show how he fulfills all this Old Testament stuff. After 70 AD, they started reworking Judaism. So we have modern Judaism, rabbinic Judaism. It's a different kind of Judaism. I won't get into all the details here. Just know this. If Jesus showed up in 500 AD or 1000 AD or 2000 AD, it would be much more difficult to see, uh, the jewishness of Jesus, because they've reinterpreted Judaism to exist without the temple and without the sacrifices that are these things that all point to Jesus. So that's a, uh, short version of that. But there's other things as well.

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So the distance from the Old Testament is actually pretty significant. When Jesus shows up. There's been about 400 years since the last prophetic book of, uh, the Old Testament was written. This is key for a couple reasons. One, we want prophecy, because when Jesus shows up, it shows that God has been planning this all along. And we do have lots of prophecy about Christ, but we also want space, because if you prophesy and then Jesus shows up ten minutes later, you think, oh, you rigged that. But when you read in Daniel that the messiah has got to come before the destruction of the temple, and he does. When you read in psalm 22 about the detailed description of crucifixion given hundreds of years before crucifixion was invented as a capital punishment.

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That's amazing. Um, yes, there's Micah.

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Hi. When you read about these things, you see, oh, there's a wisdom in having written texts that were secured long before Christ shows up that prophetically speak of him. So Isaiah 53 is so clearly about Jesus that a lot of times people hear it and they go, oh, well, that was written after the fact. And no, in fact, it wasn't. We know for sure it was not. Um, all the Old Testament works were written before Christ showed up. We know that. So that's another good reason.

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Right? Micah.

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She's cramping my style over here, distracting me. This is Micah. She's the not as cute cat. But don't tell her. Don't worry, she doesn't know English. She only speaks Spanish.

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Okay. There are a number of reasons why a first century arrival of Jesus. Sorry about the cat. Is a good idea. Um, there's a number that I've just given here in ways that, pragmatically, it just worked out. It just turned out really good. Why don't you go sit in your spot? There you go.

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Um, another question that follows on the heels of this is, why doesn't God just do this for everyone today? Why doesn't he just show up in your life and do a miracle? Give you a vision, give you a revelation? Write, you know, use the stars to write out Jesus really is true. And then, boom, we all see it right there. You, uh, could think of other ways in which God could do this.

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We invent brain scans, and you scan the human brain, and it's like a copyright yahweh, something there that just indicates that God is true.

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Um, there's a lot of things I want to push back on this with. There's assumptions baked into questions. And the assumption here is, of course, that God isn't actually revealing himself today. That the pinnacle of God's revelation. Jesus was in fact, the only revelation God gave. Right? That's not true. I don't think that that's reasonable to say that. So God does give us evidence today. We, we exist within that evidence all the time, and we take it for granted much of the time. Creation itself screams that there is a God. Uh, there's plenty who will say, no, it doesn't, Mike. Okay, but let's just, let's just acknowledge something between us. You're now denying, you know, that this is evidence. While I'm affirming it's evidence, it's not a discussion of why won't God do it. You're actually saying all the things that you guys say are evidence don't count.

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That's a different discussion, isn't it? Right. If you have to assume you're right about that before you can then say, why won't God do something today for people that there's millions, billions of people that believe in God, because they look around creation and go, it's just obvious God exists. It's not like this is something I'm making up on the spot. You know, just off the top of my head. There's philosophical works, great philosophical works, and arguments for God that are, like classic and known for generations. There's even stuff, uh, that predates Jesus, where they're arguing philosophically for God's existence that are apart from the jewish tradition. So it's interesting stuff. Creation says there's a God, but prophecy. Remember I said the whole 400 years? And you have, like, you've got stuff in Jeremiah and stuff in Isaiah and psalms, and you have tons and tons of scripture, including pictures like Abraham offering his son, right? And then this is such a picture of Jesus from the cross, or even the sacrifices themselves. The Passover being a picture of the events of the Passover, when Jesus was crucified for our sins. All of this stuff, the day of atonement, it's amazing, and it's still evidence today. It wasn't just evidence then. When Paul and Apollos and the apostles, they went out into the synagogues and they already with Jews to show them through the Old Testament that Jesus was legit. That evidence still exists today because there's a space between the old and New Testaments. And that stuff is amazing. So prophecy is evidence. We also have the resurrection of Jesus, which is historical evidence for the truth of Christianity. Jesus rose from the dead.

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If he did, there'd be like a little fingerprint of such, such an event in history. And there seems to be one. There's a lot of stuff on this. I'll link a video down below or a playlist down below on the resurrection of Jesus. If you guys want more info on this, I have some stuff on it. Other people have great content on it, um, online and books. Tons of great stuff on there. There's great evidence for the resurrection of Christ, but it boils down to really basically, uh, this one idea that there's these group of people in the first century, these apostles, these disciples, who they sincerely believed they saw Jesus risen from the dead, and they were in a position to know if that was in fact, real. So they weren't hallucinating. Right. There's a hallucination theory that's really bad, and we talk about that in the video playlist. I'll link below. There's other theories. Jesus had a twin brother. There's all these other theories, and they're all so difficult to defend that you have well known skeptics, resurrection deniers like Bart Ehrman, who has told his crowd, his audience, and his readers, and the people who listen to him, don't even offer an alternate explanation for the resurrection of Jesus because it's not going to work very well for you. That says a lot. That says a lot. We'll deny it happen. We won't even offer an alternate explanation. We'll just say not resurrection. But you have the disciples who really believed Jesus rose. They were willing to suffer greatly for that belief, and they were in a position to know they lived and walked with Jesus for years. They knew Jesus. They knew he was dead. They had abandoned that faith. And then they saw him, or at least they believed they saw him risen from the dead. That alone is pretty strong evidence. We have other stuff, too, like the empty tomb itself, the prophetic evidence to couple alongside that. The conversion of people like Paul, the apostle, who was an enemy of Christ, and him actually seeing Christ resurrected is a reasonable explanation for his conversion. James, the brother of Jesus, who didn't believe in him and then did anyway, I'll link stuff down below. The resurrection of Jesus is evident still today. That's actually important. There's other archaeological evidences that confirm scripture, confirm Christianity. Uh, the empty tomb itself, there's a ton of evidence to support that there really was an actual empty tomb.

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Um, that's just a piece of the puzzle, but it's pretty cool that there's actual evidence for it. Uh, Diggs in Jerusalem, compared to the account in the scripture in detail, the fact that the Sanhedrin was responsible for burying people who would be crucified. It was their job to bury them. And we have Joseph of Arimathea. Remember the Sanhedrin, who takes Jesus? They had rules that you couldnt, uh, take a crucified person and put them in the tomb of another person who wasnt. And Joseph takes him to a tomb where no one has yet laid so that that would pass that rule. Oh, theyre just crafting a narrative. Well, thats fine, but you are now developing a conspiracy theory. Youre going to have to back it up. And when you bring all the evidence, it's rough. At any rate, we're not talking about evidence, aren't we? We're not saying God doesn't do anything. We're saying there's actual evidence. Plus there's personal experience. There's times in your life where you thought, man, I really thought I experienced God. I really thought God did something in my life. And that matters. It's not really good evidence for others because it's based upon something they don't have access to, an event that you can just tell them about. Uh, if they really trust you, maybe it's good evidence for them.

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Um, but, you know, this does happen. Even atheists will talk about events, I've seen it where they had something going on in their life, where they really were like, I don't know how to explain that. That really seemed like it was God, but they have a reason why they're going to still reject it and go, I'm just going to say maybe hallucination. There's this famous debate where, um, one atheist was, uh, who was it? Oh, man. Old gray haired white guy, I don't remember his name. Um, he was talking about how even if he saw, like, died and went to heaven and saw Christ there, and God was like, you will now stand in judgment for your atheism. He says even then he would be thinking, I must be hallucinating. Right? There is. Sometimes people are denying the evidence they've got. I'm, um, not saying it's all obvious to you. Obvious to you is different than obvious. There's things that are true. You know, when I open the fridge and there's a ketchup bottle in there, it's not obvious to me where it is, but it is obvious everybody else sees it.

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Something's wrong with me. Let's face it, man. Um, now there's more, though. There's more, though, I'll get into on this. Why doesn't God, um, reveal himself today with science and technology and all that stuff? This may be a naive view of history that we base this on. This assumes that if Christianity didn't exist in the first century, that we would still get to the place we're at today with technology. And that doesn't seem true.

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Humans have been around for a long time, but the explosion of science and technology and the information age and the industrial revolution, this stuff seems to have been tied directly to the christian worldview and the impact of Christianity and culture. Um, there's a book on this kind of related thing called Dominion by Tom Holland. The book is not christian, don't get me wrong. It's actually just a history. You know, I would even disagree with stuff that's in there about Paul the apostle and stuff. But the book does try to establish pretty strongly through history that Christianity is what paved the way for the scientific revolution, for concepts, um, like freedom, personal freedom and personal rights and things like this. The things that we take for granted.

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The science that you would use to test Jesus today wouldn't have existed if Jesus hadn't come 2000 years ago. That's the point. So we may have a naive view of history when we think, why doesn't God just, why did he do it then and not now?

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Modern, um, methods also wouldn't, um, be good enough for many skeptics. So I pushed on this once in a discussion with an atheist I was having. I think it's recorded somewhere. Somewhere, but maybe not, I don't remember. At any rate, I pushed on this topic a bit. And so they were saying, hey, what if Jesus died right now? Came again, dies again, we test it, verify it scientifically. He rises again, we verify it. I can be there and like, test all the science things. And this was interesting because the person saying this is not a scientist. So even if he was confronted with a deceased Jesus, he wouldn't know how to test it.

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Catch that. He wouldn't even know how to test it. He's just sort of assuming somehow our collective scientific knowledge would figure it out and then it would be reported to him. And that's what it ends up coming down to. If Jesus shows up and dies again in the middle of Florida and then rises again, which is not going to happen biblically. There's theological reasons why that won't happen, but hypothetically, most of the people on planet Earth would merely get a report of it. They might get video footage, but will they trust video footage? It could be faked, or they might get reports of scientists going, I was there, I witnessed it. I'm converted now, and they'll go yeah, that guy was delusional. Or it wasn't controlled well enough. Uh, and then there would start to be all the conspiracy theory channels that talk about how it was faked and all these. And then scientific, peer reviewed, uh, journal articles about why you shouldn't really believe what these guys said about Jesus. It wouldn't solve the problem. We're being naive when we act like if God just did this, if it was written in the stars, Jesus is the truth, people would. Would come up with alternate explanations for that. You don't think so? I'm confident. Well, you know, the english language highly influenced by. By christians, right? They formed the letters j e s u, uh, s. They formed our language based on the stars. It was the language that came after the stars. And so then it says, jesus is the truth, but that's merely, you know, religious bias being read into language, language development. Why wouldn't they say that? Or let's say every christian, every person on earth had a personal revelation of Jesus. When they hit like 15, boom. Jesus shows up to them in a dream. We all know about it. It's the Jesus dream. Every human has it. And he says, I want you to know I'm the truth, and I'm going to give you a statement. Something's going to happen this day in your life. And then it comes. So you get, like a revelation with a prophecy, and then it comes to pass. Every human gets it. I guarantee you there would be evolutionary scientists who would be, like, the explanation of why we evolutionarily delusionally believe we have a Jesus dream in prophecy. Right? Yes. Well, you know, um, there is the evolutionary benefits of feeling that religious commitment and connection with individuals, and there would be all sorts of reasons why people would then reject it, and then they would go, why doesn't God just do this?

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What I'm getting at here is that even modern methods wouldn't be enough for a lot of skeptics, because even modern methods would boil down to things that they would disagree with, or that would just be based on testimony. Because you weren't there to do the scientific study, you weren't there to do the research. You just read the book about it, and you're like, do I really trust this testimony? Well, I mean, when you're reading scripture, you're reading a testimony. So we're being sometimes a bit naive.

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There's other reasons, too. And see what you think about this. If you agree or disagree on this. Um, why doesn't God give private miracles to everybody? There's an additional reason why perhaps he doesn't do this for everybody. And one of them is this is, um. A lot of these questions are approached from the perspective of assuming God merely wants people to acknowledge his existence, to know he's true. Not that God wants people to trust him with their heart, with their lives. To call him Lord and mean it, to yield, submit and praise him. That's a much bigger commitment.

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If God convinced you he was real, would you praise him, trust him, love him, serve him? And if your answer there is no, then the miracle is not your problem.

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Because a private miracle wouldn't change anything. Uh, one Christian tells a story of this with Michael, um, Heiser. Um, he's going to be with the Lord now. But he tells the story of, he was an atheist. He was driving down the street and he saw a tree. And he was like, God, if you're real, strike that tree with lightning. And he then came, nothing happened right away. He came back later on that same road. There was a storm. Within a short period of time. I don't remember if it was that day or within a week or something. He's driving back down that road and he looks in that same field and he sees a tree has been struck by lightning. Now he tells the story years later. As a Christian, what's shocking or interesting is he did not come to believe in God at that moment.

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And he just says, I didn't want to.

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We're complicated people, right? We got our biases, we have our desires, we have the things we want. And we're not always honest with ourselves about what those are, nor can we be. Because I don't know my own heart sometimes. That's why the Bible says my heart is deceitful. It tricks me, right? My heart will come up with a, uh, motivation for me to like to do, you know, a motivation I will intellectually approve of. To hide the intellectual, the non intellectual motivation that might be more genuine. In my heart, God doesn't just want people who know he exists. He wants followers. He wants people who trust in him. There's others who say that if God revealed himself. I don't know what I think about this. It's called, it's a free will defense. God not revealing himself more clearly because he has revealed himself. But why not more? Why not more dramatically? Why not? Every day you wake up, God enters into the room and goes, I exist, serve and follow me. And just in an undeniable way. Um, and the defense of this free will defense is to say God wants a, ah, love relationship with his creatures. And forcing himself upon them in such a way that it's undeniable and it's irresistible that he has to be followed by everybody and all this, that it sort of removes that, that free will of love. Now, others, some are going to disagree with this for various reasons, and that's absolutely fair. I present it to you to think about. Um, I present it for you to consider.

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There is potentially an eternal request for more evidence.

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And the last thing I'll say about this is it's not enough to just ask God for more evidence. It's not enough to do that. We have to deal with the evidence we've got.

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There is a certain amount of evidence in creation I remember talking to when I was 19, maybe I was at a coffee shop in Cyprus and I was talking to this guy and he was a skeptic, he was an unbeliever. We were having very cordial, very friendly conversation about God. And he was like, why would I believe in God? And I started giving him things. I had read cs Lewis, mere Christianity, and I thought that was very, uh, very useful for me and helpful for me at that age. And I start telling him reasons why he could believe in God. And I talk about conscience and I talk about creation, and I talk about, um, prophecy and scripture, you know, the same things I mentioned to you guys. And he kept, like, trying to track with me on those things, but he'd never really talked to a Christian who could explain that stuff. And so he just sort of changed the subject. He kept changing the subject. Finally he just said, and it was very friendly, but he says, mike, I want something else. Give me some evidence that doesn't have anything to do with, like, all that stuff, prophecy, creation, you know, all that stuff. And I, and I said, so you want me to give you, um, this is the real conversation. I said, you want me to give you evidence for God? But it can't be anything, any evidence that comes from the universe or anything in it. And he said, yes.

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And I just said, do you see the problem with that?

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Um, anyway, our conversation just kind of ended after that. And he said, you know, I like talking about God while playing a game of chess or drinking coffee is just something he likes. It was fun for him. He was entertaining himself. He didn't want, he wasn't interested in evidence that would actually change his mind, change his view.

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We have to deal with the evidence we've got. If we don't, if we ignore all the evidence we've got and we ask for more, that is just intellectual rebellion. So that is question number one. We'll go to your guys questions from the live chat, and we've got all nine of the other ones. So we've got all ten questions for today. Justin Robinson says, is scripture multivalent? Multivalent. Uh, I haven't heard that word a long time.

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Hold on, guys. For you? Not for me.

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Not for me, for you. I'll look it up and read a description. Definition of multivalent, having or susceptible to. Of many applications, interpretations, meaning, or values. Okay, so is an individual text of scripture, you know, can you have multiple interpretations of one passage of scripture? Okay, good question.

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I did not know what multivalent meant. I don't remember. Nobody uses that word, Justin. Just you.

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All right. Um, I know psalm 22, he says is. But Catholics believe this is. So with Peter as the rock or Mary, revelation twelve. Is there a good method to test scripture for this? Yeah. Okay, so you're saying, hey, psalm 22 is multivalent. Um, David is speaking of himself. This is the. The passage where he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he gives this long description that we see as is ultimately about the Christ.

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And so there's, like, this double meaning in the text in some sense. And I know a lot of people won't like the phrase double meaning. Um, two layers. There is an immediate application to David, and then there is the prophetic quality that's there in the text.

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Um, I do think that scripture does do this sometimes. I was taught in hermeneutics class back in the day. Every verse of scripture has only one meaning. Um, every passage, there's just one meaning. But there are times where that is not always the case in scripture, and it seems to clearly be. So there's, you know, Jesus tells, um, does things. He does events. Well, let me give you another example from something I mentioned during the first question. Abraham offering Isaac.

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This is a picture of Jesus and the father, the father offering his son. It is also an experience that Abraham went through that was about testing him and showing his love and trusting God. But there isn't. There's a side of this where it's very much about Jesus.

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This, to me, means the hard and fast rule of there can only be one meaning.

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It pushes against there being perhaps, like, allegorical meanings or prophetic, secondary kind of like applications. And scripture definitely does that. It does have. It's not. I'm, um, not saying the Bible is allegory, but the Bible has allegory. There is, uh, passages where there's an allegorical meaning that is baked into the text. But throughout church history, we've seen people go way overboard with this. Way, way overboard. Every Sunday, you see pastors go overboard with this stuff, and they turn everything into David and Goliath.

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What's the other meaning? What's the meaning for me? What's the now meaning? The rhema meaning for me today and David killing Goliath is. Is how I'm going to conquer this small business plan and overcome by getting my foothold. I want to open a coffee shop, and Starbucks is the goliath, and I'm going to open up, and my little stone is going to be just this one little tiny location. And it's too easy to allegorize the Bible to say anything I wanted to say.

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So what can we do to protect ourselves? Well, we recognize that now. In scripture we have a completed revelation. Genesis, not Genesis through Malachi. We have Genesis through revelation. And in that completed revelation, we have God himself interpreting his own words throughout the text of scripture. Um, you know, psalm 22, the New Testament quotes it, referencing Jesus, Isaiah 53. The New Testament repeatedly does this. Pictures of how Aaron, the high priest, represents Jesus, our high priest. That's throughout the text of scripture. The Bible gives us this. Like, it forces this meaning upon us.

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Oh, well, that's one thing. Does it force me to think David and Goliath is about me opening a small business? No, it really doesn't. That's not forced. I'm clearly reading into the text something that's not present.

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Jesus as, you know, prophetic or allegorical, meaning that we find in the Old Testament referring to Jesus. It's more obvious, it's more thorough, and it's also affirmed in the New Testament. So I have a rule when it comes to this kind of thing. If you want to look at, um, um, uh, Peter as the rock, let's take your first example, Peter as the rock in Matthew 68 16, 18.

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Uh, one of the rules there, that's not even an allegorical thing. That's just Jesus is like, hey, you're. You're Peter. I tell you, you're Peter. You're Cephas. On this rock, I will build my church. And. And I won't. I won't even get into the debate. Let's just pretend. Let's just suppose for those who don't agree that this is Jesus affirming that Peter is, in fact, one on whom the church will be built, when it comes to Roman Catholicism, they're saying a whole lot more than that. A lot, lot more than that. And the first rule is you don't go beyond the text. You don't need to go past the text. When I say psalm 22 is about Jesus, your example, I see direct correspondence to the crucifixion of Jesus. I don't have to add anything to the text. If I say Peter's the rock, and I go, and let's add some more elements. Whoever, uh, uh. Wherever Peter dies in Rome, that becomes the new city where his, like, authority will remain forever. Even though he was in Jerusalem mostly, even though he just kind of went later to Rome, he didn't spend his time. No, no. Let's add to this Peter. You're the rock. Wherever Peter dies, that will be the new place. That will be the new place. And then you could add, yeah, but Paul died there, too. It's the only place where two of. Two of the apostles died. Okay, but guess what? You're adding this out of nowhere. This is not in scripture. You might be like, well, in the church history that, yeah, later on people said it. You're not going to find it in scripture. And so that's your question. Is scripture multivalent in that sense? So, yeah. That you're adding that. Okay, wherever Peter dies, that's where the seat goes. And Peter will lay his hands on somebody, and that person will become the next person who's just like Peter. The rock.

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Where's that in scripture?

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It's not there. Apostolic succession is not there, is there? Laying on of hands? Absolutely, there's laying on of hands. Is it apostolic succession? No. To me, as I've studied this and looked at it and read commentaries on it and historical accounts about, um, what they thought was meant by Peter being the rock. We're adding so much baggage to that phrase. But that's what the Roman Catholicism does. I think it's Vatican one that suggests that by that phrase, you're Peter. It was bringing all this theological baggage. You're going way beyond the text. Way, way beyond the text.

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It just seems so obvious to me and to a lot of people who spend a lot of time doing verse by verse studies, you know that you can't do that. You can't just read a verse and add so much baggage. Peter's not only the rock, he is over all the other apostles. Whoa, where'd you get that? Uh. Can they not also be rocks? Are they not living stones being built together? Is there a. Is there something else that you're missing here? Okay, so it's all of them. But he gave the keys to Peter. But he also gave the keys to all of them. So, so then the hierarchy that is firmly established in Roman Catholicism, in particular, that all the bishops collectively agreeing without the pope, they don't count. The pope is the linchpin, okay? He rules all that. You're not getting from Peter being the rock, not clearly in any way.

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You're just adding all this stuff that isn't multivalent, that isn't scripture having more than one meaning or something like that. That is just assigning theology into a passage that, uh, doesn't say any of those things. Did it disagree with that stuff? Does it prove that all that stuff's wrong? No, it just doesn't say any of those things. That stuff comes later as historical development. And then to assure people that it's really true, they want to say the scripture taught it, but they can't find it there. So they find verses and they stretch them way beyond their obvious meaning. What, um, about Mary, revelation twelve? Um, yeah, I don't see Mary in revelation twelve. If you did see Mary in revelation twelve, it's probably. Well, I guess that's a whole. I don't want to go too long on this question, so maybe we'll tackle that in the future on that Mary in revelation twelve. Maybe I'll tackle that in the future. I think that when you read it, it's Israel, um, and not Mary. But if you see Mary in it, then you can try to see her as queen of heaven, and you can try to see her as, um, the bodily assumption of Mary in revelation there. But those are things that even historically, um, came a lot later.

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Anyway, Mary is a really hot topic right now online. I acknowledge that. And I know how, let me just be frank, how angry a lot of people are with me, because I've posted on Twitter about this, a little bit of, um. I don't do it in that spirit, I honor Mary. Mary is blessed among women.

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There is an event in revelation I will point to, where John goes and he starts to worship an angel.

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And the angel is like, whoa, whoa, stop, stop. Don't do that. Don't do that. Worship God. I think that Mary would say the same thing about people praying to her. Mary would say the same thing about people calling her the queen of heaven. Um, and, uh, she's the mother of God in the sense that Jesus is goddesse, even while he's in the womb, that's a theological fact. But to say she's a mother of God in a positional sense, of, like, having this sort of eternal state, uh, that it gets exalted, you know, queen of heaven stuff. I think that that is not biblical, and I think it's stuff that Mary, blessed among women, would be bothered by. Would be bothered by. So then the Roman Catholics can at least understand this. You can understand how a Protestant would say, yeah, I'm not. I'm not bashing Mary. I think that you're making her uncomfortable, and I think that that's is more respectful of her to not do that. If you brought me out on stage one day, I was sharing at your church or something, and you introduced me as Mike Winger. He's the best teacher that's ever existed. Oh, he's the godliest man on the planet. I would be embarrassed and even a little offended that you did that to me, and it wasn't true. And I think that that's more honoring to her, is to treat her properly.

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Um, at any rate, let's take question number three. This is anonymous question. Hello, Mike. What does the word interest mean spiritually speaking, in Luke 1923?

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How, ah, can one not multiply God gifts but still produce fruits? Okay, so let's look at the passage. This is, um, a parable that Jesus tells about, I believe, the talents. Let's look at Luke 19.

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And we'll have to read more than just a couple verses. We're going to read the whole parable.

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As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. Luke does this, I think, more than the other, the other gospels. It'll tell you, like, why Jesus was telling a parable. This is kind of cool. Why? Because people were thinking the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. You know how many people there are who are like, um, Jesus was supposed to. Within a generation, everything was supposed to happen. And here he tells a parable to try to break people of thinking it's going to happen right away.

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His death will happen right away, but not his second coming.

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All, uh, right. Verse twelve. He said, therefore, now, Jesus, speaking a nobleman, went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. This is one of Jesus parables, where a nobleman or someone who, in the parable, represents God or Jesus, and they go on a long journey, and they're gone for a long time. Do you catch how that's supposed to tell people there's going to be a delay between the first coming and the second coming? It's in the parables of Jesus, verse 13. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, which is like ten very significant amounts of money. Um, and said, engage in business until I come. But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying, we do not want this man to reign over us. When he returned, having received the king, by the way, this is not the parable, the talents, it's the minas. I was just mixing up the two. When he returned, having received the kingdom.

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This is clearly about Jesus, right? He returns after receiving the kingdom. Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of the father, waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. Scripture says, and then the second coming will happen. This is Jesus talking about his second coming.

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He ordered those, these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. Is this not a warning for institutionalized churches?

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Right? And people who are in leadership in the church of Christ, that they'll be accountable when Christ returns, he will be dealing with. Like, in revelation, he sends these letters, like, he's like, I will. I will make you accountable at any rate. Verse 16.

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The first came before him saying, lord, your mina has made ten minas more. That's a huge return. Huge return. Look at what was done with what you gave me. It's your money. I just was a steward of it, invested it, spent it well, did things, and now here it is. And he said to him, well done, good servant, because you've been faithful in very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.

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And the second came saying, lord, your mina has made five minas. And is that bad? He says, and you are to be over five cities. Okay. No, it's good. There's a reward in it. Um, you know, he delivers to each one these ten minas. Um, and one of them made an increase. Ten more. And another one gets five more. Excuse me, ten one. Anyway, sorry if I'm confusing you guys. I'm confusing myself. Verse 20. Then another came saying, lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief. I think they got one each was the story, um, for I was afraid of you because you were a severe man. You take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow. I mean, this is a little bit weird, uh, to say this.

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It's almost like the way he's saying it, it's, in a sense, true that the man is like, I'm a harsh man or a strict man, and I'm giving you this and I expect a return. But he also gave him time. He gave him money and time to multiply that and invest in things like that so? It's not like he was just being unreasonable. At any rate, verse 22, he said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant. You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank? Talk about a safe thing to do. Just stick it in the bank and have interest at least. And in my coming, I might have collected it with interest. And he said to those who stood by, take the Mina from him and give it to the one who has ten minas. Ten minas.

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Um, the servants, in this case. Let me. Let me reread your question. Now that we've gotten the parable, um, what does the word interest mean, spiritually speaking? Okay, so you're given a mina. Christ obviously doesn't give us money exclusively. I mean, we obviously have a certain amount of money in our lives. We have a certain amount of gifts, spiritual gifts. We also have capacities and abilities and opportunities that present themselves to us. We also have just the ingenuity that God's given you to, like, create opportunities and create situations where you can share the gospel or you can serve in ministry. Um, you can disciple your own family. You can do all these things. You have all these opportunities.

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Basically, I think that the mina is a very broad representation of whatever Jesus has given you in your life. He expects a return on that because you belong to him.

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You're his, like my. I'm not my own. I was bought with a price. Therefore, I should glorify God with my body and my spirit, which belong to God. One corinthians. This is all his. The money in my bank is his.

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The cat right here.

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This cat is his.

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I can't see it, but you probably can. I can't see it for some reason. Okay, the.

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There we go.

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Everything I. Everything I have is his. So what is interest? It's merely a return on the investment God has invested in you. He's given you life and breath and lungs and arms and legs and salvation and discernment and wisdom and opportunities. And when you use that for his kingdom, when you see yourself as a Christian, you're an agent of the kingdom. Every Christian is a minister. Every Christian, according to scripture, is a priest. We're all. The priesthood of all believers, men and women, all. We're all priests in Christ, that is. I am here to mediate and bring people to God through Jesus Christ. Point them to Christ. I'm here to evangelize, to witness, to grow in Christ. But imagine this. My Bible grows dusty on the shelf.

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My mouth stays closed to sharing m with people who need it.

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My social media is purely for entertainment, never for witnessing or evangelism or helping people in a way that might make me feel uncomfortable.

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My money is really for me. It's never for missions. It's never to support the local ministry of the church. Everything's effectively for myself. That is the person who just simply buries their gifts, buries their abilities, and they do nothing for the Lord. I think, uh, the Christian. The message then, is this, as a Christian, do at least something for God.

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Are you doing something for God? Is there something in your regular life that's ministry, the way you minister to others? Is there something that's evangelism? Is there something that's helpful? Do something. Get off the bench. You're accountable for this. You're basically hiding it. Now. What is the interest? The Mina gets put in the bank. That's like, the minimal thing you could do. It's the safest investment. Um, this is like someone going, I guess I could, when I go to the grocery store, I'll put some gospel tracks on people, on people's car doors.

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It's like, this is, like, so low risk and difficulty. Could you at least do something? I kind of think that that's at least my understanding of it. The interest is, um, low effort, serving the lord. You did nothing for God. Nothing. And that's where the rebuke lies. At least do something.

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Um, okay, so let's go to the next question. And this comes from Daniel gere, who says, g'day, mike. G'day, mate. Do you think it's wise to listen to preachers who have fallen from grace? Like Mark Driscoll? I find much of his preaching very life giving, but I get judgment from other christians. Um, okay, so I have to speak in hypotheticals here, because I'm. I haven't dug deep on Mark Driscoll, and I don't have a judgment on him as an individual. I just don't have the knowledge and info. I haven't dug into it. Um, I usually don't look into this stuff unless I feel like I have a good reason. And I know that mark Driscoll's stuff was extremely publicized. There was a podcast called something Mars hill something.

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Anyways, I don't remember. I never watched it or listened to it. Rather than, um. I don't have the backstory. I don't know how accurate it was. If it twisted or distorted things. I don't know how atrocious it was. So let me just speak hypothetically. Let's suppose, set aside Mark Driscoll for a second, that there is a pastor who is, um, very, um, much disqualified from ministry in a very strong way. So let's suppose that this pastor, who has no name, is, um, um, carnal in their leadership, abusive and manipulative and selfish and uses selfish ambition, uses church funds to promote himself and things like this. And. And then all the horror stories come out and they're true. Let's suppose all that's true.

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Um, usually guys like that who are very, very. Become famous and they become very well known and they're speakers and, um, they don't usually give it up. It's very, very rare for them to go into obscurity more. More often. They'll regroup and then just keep going.

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I think that if a man has been publicly disqualified like that, I would not want to partake of his ministry unless he had been publicly restored. What does public restoration look like?

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Um, open repentance about the issues that have happened in the past. Which means you're honest about them, you're not hiding them and minimizing them. You're not suing your church on your way out the door. Right? There's some guys, there was a guy recently did that pastor who was disqualified, um, and then started trying to sue people. You're not blaming others and, um, doing a pr campaign for yourself. Instead, you're just honestly broken and humble and repentant, not to make yourself look good, but to be cleared out before the people of God and before God himself. So that honesty and openness about this stuff in the past, and then you're submitting yourself to a group of elders who are not your boys. They're not your yes men. They're not your biggest fans. They're men who will hold you accountable and tell you, no, you can't do this. You can't serve. You can't do this or that.

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The kind of people who, when you walk up and you say to them, gentlemen, I'd like to submit myself to your leadership. I'm hoping I can serve the lord in ministry. And they say, well, we'll see about that. Because they're not those kind of yes men who, because you know what I'm talking about. There's times where a pastor will very publicly fall, and like 8 seconds later, there's other leaders in the body of Christ who get up and go, well, we're just praying for restoration. We want to see him restored. And I'm like, you can't restore people that fast. There needs to be some time. There needs to be some real change, some repentance and some alterations, and then there needs to be real people in their lives that they're actually accountable to. Right. Not just megachurch pastors who make phone calls to other megachurch pastors and they pat each other on the back.

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Not that, like real accountability in a local organism of a local church. Um. Does Mark Driscoll have that? I don't know.

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Is his fall as I described? I don't know. Um. I haven't looked into it. It may be the case, you know, God knows, maybe some of you know. It's not. It's not. It's above my knowledge.

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I would probably not listen to them even if I benefited from their ministry, if I didn't see a proper restoration take place, because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And what I'm doing by listening to and being ministered to by somebody who appears to continue being in the same sinful issues that they've always had, I am helping to prop up their ministry and helping to propagate the harms that they're probably doing behind the scenes. Am I saying that or Mark Driscoll? I have no idea.

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No idea. Okay. But in principle, if people are wrongly restored, I don't want to partake of their ministry because I am. By doing so, I am signing up for someone who shouldn't be doing this in the first place. And your support of them, by getting them views, by giving them attention, by giving them maybe support and donations, is also going to be adding to the problem of their ongoing abuses or compromises that are happening behind the scenes. If they haven't really been restored, that's a real problem. Scripture says that the elders who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may also fear. And this is another element that goes on. If you have a leader who's in great sin and they come down and they just, boop. Back up. Restoration, no, actual, real restoration. Let's just put you back up. It's been a while. A week, a year, a month, five years. Just start doing your thing again without, um, really change accountability. When we do that, the rest don't fear. So scripture is being broken here in the sense that rebuke them in the presence of all that the rest also may fear. That's the instruction for elders who are in major sin that the rest may also fear. It's no longer about them. It's about everybody. If a leader is abusive and manipulative and carnal and selfish, ambition and all that, even though you think he's a great teacher, by propping him up, you send a signal to the body of Christ everywhere else, to the manipulative and selfish ambition leaders. All those guys don't fear. You can get away with it. You're doing fine. There's no accountability for you in the church. So that's like a really serious problem and it's something that scripture pushes against.

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Um, can they be restored? Yes, they can be restored, but it's got to be real. It can't just be like, well, it's been a year.

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Automatic restoration.

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Restoration is not about just how long it lasts, about the genuineness of life change.

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Um, yeah, let me make sure I got your question. Sometimes, um, I like to reread them because I go off on my own rabbit trail and I miss you some. Miss out on something.

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Um, you find much of his preaching very life giving, but you get judgment from other christians. Don't worry about other christians judging you worry about whether the Lord approves of you listening to this person and do not. I pray as christians. Don't just listen to whoever you find life giving.

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Um, that itself can be a problem because sometimes I have issues of my own and I'm drawn to teachers who dodge my issues and they pet my ego.

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I'm not saying that that's the case for you here, but it can happen just because I find someone, like, there's people who find Joel Osteen's message is life giving, but that's not really good for them. Like, his messages aren't good. They're not actually giving them biblical truth. They're giving them false confidence many of the times. And so that's not healthy that they're listening to whoever they find life giving. They should be listening to whoever they find biblically accurate, representing Christ well, who have character and teaching, uh, attributes that are healthy and good for the body of Christ. That's who we should probably listen to, even if sometimes you don't find them as life giving as a result. So, uh, Daniel. Anyway, I take all that with a grain of salt. I don't know your exact situation.

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I hope it helps. I'm just trying to help because so often my answers, they'll treat the person asking like, hey, you might have a problem over here or over there. That's not because I'm trying to criticize you or come against you or something. It's because you and me are the same, right? We've all got problems. When people can help us work through even our issues, then they've really helped us, as opposed to giving us an answer to our question that makes us feel good and click like on a video. And I want to actually minister to people. So let's go to question number five, ramen noodles. Is that five? Yeah. Says in Romans 826 and 27, does the spirit intercede in order to clarify what's in our hearts to goddess? Or is it more to help us understand God's will and how he can help us mend our troubled hearts? So the question is this. In Romans eight, it says, the Holy Spirit intercedes, like, for prayer intercedes for us. What does that mean? How is the Holy Spirit interceding? Let's look at the verse verses.

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So, um, it's talking here about earlier on in Romans eight, talking about how we, we go through hard times in life. We're groaning inwardly, we groan. We're going through suffering and difficulty, but we have hope about the future that is bright. You know, our eternal life is coming, all those wonderful things. And then in that context, it says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. That's the weakness of present struggles in light of future glory. That's the struggle that we're in now. And the spirit helps us. How does the spirit help? For we do not know what to pray for as we oughta.

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That's true. I don't really know what to pray for a lot of the time. I'm thinking, here's an issue that needs prayer, but I don't really know what to pray for. But the spirit himself intercedes for us.

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So this intercession is in the context of us not knowing what to pray for. So this intercession is, uh, like the Holy Spirit prays for the right things when you don't know what the right things to pray for are.

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And it says how? It says with groanings, too deep for words.

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And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind. What is the mind of the spirit? Because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So the Holy Spirit is not just interceding or praying the things that are, um, uh, like just getting your emotions out, but rather the Holy Spirit is praying according to the will of God, praying for God's perfect will over your very life and situation and circumstance. This is great. You know, the will of God is definitely one of the limits of prayer. You only want to pray for the will of God in the will of God. And appealing to the will of God. You're not trying to bend or change the will of God. You're trying to appeal to God to do things that, that are within that will, that ultimate, you know, plan of God. Um, so your question is, does the spirit intercede in order to clarify what's in our hearts to God, or is it more to help us understand God's will? I don't think the Holy Spirit helps us understand God's will because I don't think the Holy Spirit's communicating to me now. I'm not saying he can't. The Holy Spirit can communicate to you. I'm asking if romans eight is talking about that, right? That's not the topic. The topic's not the spirit intercedes from God to me, communicating God's will. He can do that. But that's not what this verse is saying. It's saying that spirit intercedes knowing what's in my heart and knowing what the will of God is. And I'm like, Lord your will be done. I know that the spirit is praying for that very thing, whatever that is.

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Um, the intercession and like, why am I involved in this? I think there's something that's difficult to explain, but there's something relational in prayer where the Holy Spirit takes the concerns that are in my heart, combines it with what the will of God is and is praying.

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Or I'm sort of praying through the spirit. I'm praying in the spirit perfectly for God's will in the thing that is breaking my heart and I'm going through. And that is a beautiful relational thing that is ministering to me for sure. When it happens, I am grateful for it. It's groanings that words cannot express meaning. You're not even finding all the right words. I don't think that this is tongues here. I know that I used to think that when I was much younger, groaning. These groanings are too deep for words. Um, it's not words, it's not tongues.

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Um, it may involve you actually groaning, but it doesn't have to because the communication between the father and the spirit is internal.

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Um, searching hearts and knowing minds. So anyway, I hope that answers those questions. Lots of different things that I'm kind of bouncing around with here. But, um, does the spirit intercede in order to clarify what's in our hearts to goddess? God, um, already obviously knows what's in your heart. It's more about taking what's in your heart and channeling this through a perfect prayer about it that is in harmony with the will of God. And that's a beautiful thing to have when you're in your difficult moments.

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So there you go. That's what I believe it is. Let's go to question number six. Jodi says looking at these passages and you give several passages here. Is there time in heaven? Okay, really interesting. Is there time in heaven? You give four verses. We'll look at all four verses. So, um, when we say heaven, I'm assuming what you mean is when I die right now, I don't think I'll die right now. If I were to die right now. Um, and then I am in the presence of the Lord. That's heaven.

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But there's a future in revelation that talks about heaven meeting earth and the new Jerusalem. And that's our eternal state. So I have our transitional, our temporary state. I'm in the presence of God. I'm disembodied, but I'm with him in my spirit. Then upon the final, all the revelation stuff happens. Now I'm resurrected and I'm part of, uh, heaven and earth joined together. So is there time in either of those? And you could even ask a third question. Is there time in God's presence apart from creation? Which I think the answer there is no, I don't think time existed before God created it. So he was existing timelessly, not frozen. Timelessly frozen is also a timed thing, isn't it? If I hit pause, that's a time related thing. Ah. Uh, so he was transcendent beyond time. What does that mean? I don't. I've never done it.

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Okay. So your question, first passage is two, Peter, three, eight.

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But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

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I. This is one of the verses I've heard, I think used too multivalently in my time, too flexibly. Um, so when it says a day is a thousand years, a thousand years is a day. What is Peter making? What is his point when he says this?

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He's saying that God is not. That though he delays in bringing judgment and bringing salvation, he is not doing so because he's slow. Rather, God is working.

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It's like an int. Okay? God is simultaneously like an int and the flash. Okay. Let me, let me give you an analogy.

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The ent, this is from Lord of the Rings, by the way. These are the talking trees. They, um. Um, there's a scene in the films, which it is in the book as well, where the Ents gather together to discuss whether they will, whether or not they will go to war. And they spend all day talking, and they speak in old Entish. It's this very old, ancient language they speak. And it takes forever to say anything in Entish. It's kind of like me. And they finally get to the end of the day, and I. And the EnT. Treebeard, he tells these two guys, Mary and Pippin. If you guys don't know Lord of the Rings, then that's your fault. You should. Why don't you. Why haven't you watched it? What's wrong with you? Um, at any rate, he tells them, oh, we've made our decision. And you know, Mary and Pippin, these two hobbits, these two, like, sort of. Sort of humanoid type creatures, are like, whoa. Oh, good. What did you decide? Are you guys. Are we going to war? And he goes, no, no, we've decided you, uh, were. No, no, we've just said, good morning. I'm misremembering all the details of this story. Anyway, he's like, it took all day to say good morning. These ants, their lifespans are so long that 100 years, 1000 years, isn't that big of a deal to them, right? So if they were like, hey, we'll get right to it. And then they take 500 years to get to it.

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They never intended to get to it quicker because they're on such a big timeline that 500 years is no big deal. I get this in my life today. Me waiting a year for something at my age is not that big of a deal. When I was nine, waiting, like, two days was a big deal. I'm on a different timeline now. I've lived nine years many times over. You know, the way in which God is like a. Like the flash, is that the flash, this sort of superhero character. He's a speedster, right? He can perceive everything that's happening as though it was happening in slow motion. He can take many, many, um, actions and control the things around him very intricately in a split second. So we can go over here, change this, change this, change that. God is operating on both of those levels. I think that's what it means when it says a day is a thousand years. A thousand years is a day like the int.

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The 2000 years from Christ till now is all. It's no big deal to God. It's not like this big giant delay. It's just part of his plan.

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In another sense, God can do everything he wants in a split second because he can meticulously control whatever he wants.

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And so we should not project, um, frustration with God that he's not working on our timeline. That's the main point in the first Peter passage. Don't get frustrated with God. Don't think something's wrong because God isn't working on your timeline. He has his own timeline, and he's capable of controlling everything in a split second or a thousand years. And neither one of those is a problem for him, even though one of them would probably bother you. So that's. Is that saying there's time in heaven or not? It's not about it, is it? It's not like we're saying when God is in heaven, a day goes by in heaven and a thousand years happened on earth. That's not what it's saying. Nor is it saying, and it can't, because the reverse is also true. Uh, a thousand years is a day. So then, if he's in heaven for not just a day, but a thousand years, how much time passes on earth a day? That's not what it's talking about.

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It's not what it's talking about. Um. Okay, let's look at the next one. Ephesians 110.

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I'm going to back up a bit, because this is one of those long sentences in Ephesians here. We'll start here part way through verse four. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved in him. I guess that's a new sentence there. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. And here's verse ten as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. What is the fullness of time? Is that related to heaven? Time in heaven? Um, the phrase fullness of time has to do. It's fulfillment language. It's talking about God has, like, a timeline in his mind, right? He knows when he's going to do what prophetically. And his agenda to, like, bring everybody, uh, to the awareness of Christ, bring. Bring Jesus to fruition, where he shows up on the earth. All those types of things, these are. It's about God's prophetic timeline for creation. This passage, again, it refers to time. It doesn't tell you something about like, does heaven have a quality of time that is different than the one we have on earth? It doesn't say that, m. It just doesn't talk about that. So, yes, it talks about time, but it's merely using fullness of time to talk about prophetic fulfillment that comes on God's timeline. Um, let's go to the next one, which is revelation 21. Now, uh, that's a whole chapter, but this is the new heaven and new earth I mentioned. There's the future. Heaven and earth are joined together. Here's where we get more of an answer. Um, God's dwelling is with Mandev, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And this is where God is with us. There's nothing here about no time. There is scripture here about not needing sun and not needing moon. We don't need their light because of the fact that God is the light itself. But there's language in when it talks about the new Jerusalem, about all these things, about going in and going out, about the, uh, glory of God radiating. And people are there. We're there in our resurrected bodies. Now, I know I require time. Even in a resurrected body, I require time. Jesus is our model of this. He's talking and moving, and he's interacting in time. God in eternity will have time. We will not stop having time. That'll be a permanent part. I'm just kind of scrolling through revelation here. Sorry. I know it's hard for you guys to see it, but it's more for me. Um, you can read revelation 21 and check it out. But we will live for eternity. This doesn't mean we will live frozen. It doesn't mean we will live timelessly. It seems to me we will live unendingly. So there's no point where in heaven I'll say I have now lived for eternity because it'll always be a number of years I've been alive. Even when it's a trillion, it'll be not. I haven't accomplished eternity yet. I'm living on into eternity. I'm never going to stop living. Um, okay, let's look at the last one. Daniel 913.

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And here it says, as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamities come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Let me double check and make sure. Was that the verse? Daniel 913? Yeah. I don't see how that relationship. How that has a relationship to the question of time.

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Um, let me add a few of my own verses though. So in revelation we read, um, the book of revelation, we read about John and time goes by for sure. In revelation there's like a, literally a span of time where there was silence in heaven for I think it's half an hour and that's time. That's like literally 30 minutes of time going by as he's having this vision of heaven. I and revelation, we also have prayer and answers to prayer and this seems to be connected to heaven. You've got Daniel praying, Lord, uh, help me. And there's a delay in the answer from the Lord. Ultimately the angels come and bring aid to Daniel and he's like, I was delayed. I was fighting the prince of Persia. Angels are experiencing time even in their interaction with each other. This implies time is something that's going on in heaven as well. I think we have good reason to think time is the same in heaven as it is on earth. It's the same in both places. Now God transcends heaven.

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Heaven is something he created. He existed without heaven existing and then he made it. He's interacting in time with humans, of course. But I hope that answers your question. Yeah, I don't think we will not be without time for even 1 second.

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Okay. Number seven, Andrew NZ Moore says, hi, Mike. Hi Andrew. Andrew here from New Zealand is our ability to rule and reign with God in his new world forever. Revelation 22 five. Is it dependent on how we serve God in our lifetime for his mission? Referencing Luke 1917. You know, it's really interesting guys, because we do not get these questions ahead of time.

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Um, your question that you ask Andrew is asks about something that I was just talking about in the last question and it references Luke, the parable of the minas that we were just reading for another question earlier on. So that's kind of neat.

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So, um, Jesus here is like, yeah, okay, it's not Jesus speaking for Jesus. Jesus is speaking on behalf of this fictional character in this parable who represents Jesus. Okay. There's like layers of lore here. Um, and he said to him, well done, good servant. Because you've been faithful in very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.

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The picture that Jesus gives that is meant to illustrate him is a man who is m.

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A kingdom belongs to him, but he's not yet entering into it. Instead he gives money to his servants and then goes away for a long journey. Then he'll come back later and he'll take over the kingdom. Picture of Jesus first and second coming and him depositing the gifts, the truths and all this stuff with christians and us being faithful. In the meantime, when he comes back, they get cities.

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If they're faithful, they get cities, which means they're ruling over cities. And so some christians, uh, have said, yeah, I think this is a pre tribulational rapture view that I've heard from people. Um, or maybe it's a premillennial view that during the millennium, you know, we're gonna potentially have cities. And so, uh, Greg Lorre famously joked he wants Hawaii, and, um, so did everybody else. And, um, it's. The whole thing seems a little arrogant to me, but, um, I mean, a joke can be a joke, of course, but I mean, when you're serious about it, and a lot of people are, it seems a little bit strange to me. There's obviously too many christians to give everybody a city.

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Right?

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Right. Like, there's too many Christians for everybody to house a city that they're over during. At any point in the millennium or something like that. I don't know if this is trying to tell us we'll have a city or if it. Or if. Or maybe that some people will have a city or something like that. Or in this case, this guy, ten cities. One guy, ten cities. I think that the parable is about a particular guy, and then he comes back. There's something, though, to be said about, um, there may be different ranks in Christ's kingdom, not ranks of how christian you are, how saved you are, how loved you are. I think that christians can be mature enough to say, I may have a different role in the eternal kingdom than somebody else, but I will also not be jealous. I will not be discouraged. I will be grateful for what I've got there and grateful someone else has what they have. I don't know what those roles exactly are going to look like.

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Could it be that some people will have governance, um, over a group of individuals or a larger community? Absolutely. Could be. That makes sense. It's a kingdom, um, throughout earth, there's never been a time where there aren't people in charge of other people. Um, and it would make sense if Christ has his kingdom set up in a similar way, but it will be with harmony and perfection and godliness and all those other things.

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So your question? Yeah, um, does this, revelation 22 five, that's what you were getting at? Does this connect to revelation 22 five?

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Um, this is what I was mentioning about. There being no sun, um, at night.

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Night, uh, will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun. For the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. This, uh, little side note related to the last question about time. Some people think this is a statement about how eternity, it'll be timeless. The new heaven and new earth will be timeless. It doesn't say time will be no more. It says night will be no more and explains the reason why. Because it'll be constantly light in the city, particularly in the city, not necessarily on the planet, in the city, always light. God's presence will light the place up. But then it shows you there will be time because it says they will reign how long? Forever and ever. If there's no time, then you're not going to reign forever and ever.

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So. Yeah, but how does this relate to cities? Um, the new Jerusalem is one city.

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Um, the new earth may in fact have lots of other things going on, maybe even other cities. I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Um. It makes sense to me that it could, its conjecture within certain people be responsible for regions that seems reasonable, but we're kind of going beyond the clear meaning of the text and we're just sort of guessing, so we should always acknowledge that and hold it more loosely.

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All right, let's go to the next one. This is question number eight. Anonymous question comes in, says, I am a dj on a secular radio station. Knowing what's in many of the songs, I wonder if I'm not being pleasing to the Lord by being in this job. Is this a matter of conscience?

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Well, it's just challenging. Um, in one respect, I'll have to be confessed to you guys, um, and I hope this doesn't ever weaken my advice for counsel. This might be a problem with me, I don't know, but maybe it's a good thing. It probably both. It's probably a problem and a good thing, depending on the context. But, um, I hesitate to give people hard and fast rules on issues that are challenging and difficult where I, for many years have seen, and I still see it all the time online, um, and teachers and things where they give people these hard and fast rules based upon their cursory examination of what they barely know about their situation, and then those people make changes to their lives based upon those things. And those teachers never really have accountability for the fact that they've given them such advice. I'm very careful with how much rules I give you. In other words, as a rule, you should honor the Lord with all you do. And I think that it's, in a sense, it's a matter of conscience. Um, in a sense, it's like you're going to decide for yourself. I'm just going to call you DJ because I don't know your name. So, DJ, you're going to decide for yourself what you're going to do. And I don't think someone else should tell you what you have to do in this circumstance, because it's complicated, okay? You're like, well, m. Let's just say it's complicated. I could try to draw out why I think it's complicated, but I do think it is.

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Maybe you should drop the whole thing, find a new job, and then the ramifications that'll have on your career, on your future, uh, on the industry, and how you're treated, on paying for your kids, to have food, your wife, and you have a place to live, and that sort of thing. This can be big ramifications. But the rule I would have is, you honor the Lord in all you do. And if you can say, I can do this job and honor God with a clear conscience, great. And if you can't, then you need to start. You have to either quit or you have to start working your way out. Like start a escape plan where you're going to segue over to something different, and you can see how you can make that work. My counsel to you is this. Mike Winger on the Internet does not know nearly enough about your exact situation. What songs tell me about the things that you're playing on secular radio that. That give you pause. Um, be specific here. Let's talk about the work environment. Let's talk about the impact you're having. This would be a counseling session where you'd sit down for a while and work through this stuff. I don't want to give you more rules than I am equipped to give you because I'm too distant from your problem. It would be rude of me and irresponsible. So I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. Honor the Lord in all you do. Scripture is very clear on that. You belong to God. Scripture is clear on that. Um, you should not violate your conscience. Scripture is clear on that, too.

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You're obviously struggling. Maybe you need a little help in shaping and forming your conscience on this.

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I could see a case for quitting yet. I understand life's complicated and would be open to the alternative. And I think you should go and seek out some godly people that you can meet with personally who know you. Hopefully in your church. Hopefully you're part of a church and you can meet with them. Don't assume that they're all fools. Meet with them, talk with them, get their wisdom, get it from, hopefully multiple sources. Meet with two or three people, tell them. Tell them the situation, and ask God that they would give you counsel that would help you. All right, let's talk about the next one. This is number, uh, nine. Peter M. Asks, did Jonah die?

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That's a good question. So Jonah, right, eaten by the great whale or fish or whatever the sea creature was that ate Jonah. Did he die when he was inside that thing, or did he live and survive? We'll read Jonah, chapter two, and we'll see what we think about it. It's challenging, but your full question is, did Jonah die? I was introduced to this theory by social media and was surprised to see a lot of people think he died and was raised, uh, risen, based off of Jonah, two, verses one through six. Jewish tradition and the sign of Jonah. Okay, um. I don't know what the jewish tradition on that is. I don't remember if you know, I just don't know it. The sign of Jonah. Jesus gives in the New Testament. He says, as, uh, you know, this adulterous generation will only receive the sign of Jonah as Jonah was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. I think he's just the heart of the earth. The whale. The term he uses, I forget there. Um, and so the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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What term does Jesus use there? Fish.

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In English, we have fish, whale. We have these terms. They didn't. In Greek and Hebrew, they don't have those same exact words, so it's a little bit tricky. Okay, Jonah, chapter two, though. Does that mean Jesus was saying Jonah died? Um, well, technically, for Jesus's statement to work, it only has to be that Jonah is a picture of death.

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Jonah's experience is like death. It doesn't have to be death. Catch that. It's like death. Doesn't have to be death. It could be. So it's open either way. In my opinion, Jesus just isn't specific there. He doesn't say as, ah, Jonah died. He says as Jonah was three days and three nights. So. But it's pictures death. Okay, but Jonah, chapter two, did he die then? Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, from the belly of the fish, saying, and again, the word fish here just means sea creature. The, um. The fact that he prayed from the belly of the fish means that he seems to be at least mentally cognizant inside the belly of this beast.

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Could he have died. Um, well, if he died, he rose again, right? That's the idea, is that he died and was resurrected. Is. It's possible then based on just verse one, Jonah goes in to the thing. He dies, suffocates, or whatever, and then he is brought back. God brings him back after maybe a journey, ah, over closer to Nineveh. And then being brought back, he immediately humbles himself and praysenhe.

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So that's a possibility. I'm saying verse one could go either way. Let's keep reading verse two. I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me out of the belly of Sheol. I cried, and you heard my voice. Now, Sheol is grave. It is the word for grave.

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This is probably the first indication that maybe Jonah died of. Um, the word sheol is used to describe physically going down into the earth, like in a hole in the ground. You're going to Sheol. It's also used to refer to death. It's the same word, is used both ways. That's probably why they just put sheol instead of put grave or earth or something there, because the Hebrew is used in both ways.

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Um, Jonah wasn't physically in the dirt, but he was below the level of the ocean, so he was down in the depths, so to speak. He could be using it either way. Um, but definitely Jonah is meant to be a picture of death in this situation, affirming even what Jesus says death is in, is in mind here. Whether he died or not is not clear, but death is in mind, and it certainly is potential. And you heard my voice, for you cast me into the deep. Now, you could say that literally he had died, and there he was after death, crying out to God, I've died. I can't believe I've done this. Please help me. Um, and that you could be saying, he's praying after dying. At any rate, we go on. Uh, for you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas. And the flood surrounded me, and your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I am said, I'm driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The water, the waters closed in over me to take my life, and the deep surrounded me. The weeds were wrapped about my head and the roots of them at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed up upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit to me. I'm very open to this being him dying. The language is verse five. The waters closed in over me. To take my life. Was his life actually taken? Well, uh, that was certainly the threat. The experience he was going through. Being eaten and drug underwater was not something you were expected to survive.

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You catch that? This is like a death sentence, this event. It's not like something where you just expect someone to live through it. If he lived, it was supernatural. But then he goes on. The deep surrounded me. Weeds are wrapped about my head at the root of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.

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That sounds like death. This is like, if you read the poetry of the old testament, this is language discussing when someone dies and he's saying, it happened to him.

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It looks like death.

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But yet you brought up my life from the pit. Okay? That also feels like death. You brought up my life from the pit, so he's either near death or dying. Verse seven. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Okay, well, now it sounds like he was about to die.

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Okay? Then we read on verse eight. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed. I will pay. I love this because this is like Jonah saying, God, I told you I would obey you, and I've rebelled. But now I will do the thing that I said I would do. I'll obey you. Salvation belongs to you. I'll go preach to the Ninevites.

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Um, even though he still did it with a bad attitude. So the lord spoke to the fish. It vomited Jonah, uh, out upon dry land. Did Jonah die? It's not 100% clear, is it?

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I could really see it go either way. Jonah was definitely pictured. He's pictured as if dying. He's definitely spoken of as if dying. But then he also talks as though he was, like, about to die. It may be that Jonah himself didn't know he's in this thing. He feels himself dying. And a lot of people, when they're going through death, they feel it coming. He feels himself going through. This time, he's dying, and he's crying out to God, and God brings him back.

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Did he officially fully die, or did he almost die? Did he start to die?

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Um, I don't know. But what I will say is this. In the story of Jonah, death is in view, and it is a theme in his prayer in chapter two. Now, a lot of people, they want to say Jonah died because they don't feel that they can defend rationally. That Jonah survived in the belly of a whale or a large sea creature, a fish of some kind or whatever. Um, and so many christians, you've done this, you've looked online, you're googling like, could Jonah, can you survive being swallowed by a whale? And you're like, you read a news story. This guy survived. No. Oh, I wrote, okay, that wasn't true. Turns out that was a hoax. And you're trying to find this stuff.

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The nature of Jonah's preservation, though, is something that I don't want you to miss. Whether you think Jonah died or lived, it was miraculous. God himself preserved Jonah from certain death. That's the prayer in Jonah two. Certain death is upon him. God is the one who helps him. Jonah's experience is miraculous from start to finish. It says that God prepared some sort of sea creature for him. It was something God prepared. It was not, uh, just some random thing that happened to swim by. And that may have been that it was not anatomically normal. Maybe it was born with a mutation in a way that was just not typical, that would have allowed Jonah to survive. Or maybe God just supernaturally sustained Jonah's life and he was there in the midst of this with a fear of death constantly where he's like, I should be dying right now, but God is sustaining me. I am learning my lesson. At any rate, death is in view. Death is being pictured there, and Jesus uses it for that reason. Alright, let's go to question number ten, this last one for today. Hi, Mike. If long hair for men is a disgrace by nature, which is what we read in one corinthians 1114, why is it part of the nazarite vow in numbers six, five?

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Let me show you guys the verse. I take a controversial view of this verse and I'm surprised I haven't had more people push back. I guess I have the people pushing back on me on so many other things, they just kind of missed this one. Um, Corinthians 1114. Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering.

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I get into this in great, great detail in my long video, six hour video on head coverings in the bible.

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I will link that below since I'm mentioning it. Yeah, it's 6 hours and it's time stamped, so you can actually click on the timestamp. It's like, is it okay for men to have long hair? There's a timestamp for that. Um, so I'll link that down below. As soon as the stream is over, I'll put a link.

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Now, I am inclined to think because of the way that Paul uses the word nature.

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Yep. He's very, very consistent in how he uses nature every time, that he really means that it is something that is natural for people to understand that men should not have long hair. Um, what is long hair? Okay, we can, uh, split hairs on what long hair is. That's absolutely. We can spend a lot of time on that. But generally speaking, men having longer hair than women. Well, what if you're a woman who can't grow long hair? Genetically you can't. Well, obviously this doesn't apply to you.

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Easy. You can't do what you can't do. Um, you're supposed to preach, uh, the gospel, but what if you're mute and your vocal cords don't work? Well, you can't do that. You can share some other way, you can do some other thing, but you can't do that. That's fine. It's no big deal.

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But in general, yes, uh, in general, it seems preservation of society helps men look like men, women look like women. We've never seen how important this is until recently. Now we realize, like, wow, it's actually really good to have gender norms and to reaffirm them. And it creates stability and understanding and identity in a healthy way in society. It really does. It's not oppressive. It is secure. It's security. It's health and strength.

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So what about the nazarite vow? So, in numbers, we read about this vow that you can take in the Old Testament, where it's like a temporary vow, and you promise a few things. You're like, I won't touch any grapes or anything that comes from grapes. I. So no alcohol included. I won't, um, do anything unclean, and I won't touch a dead body while I'm doing the nazarite vow. I can't touch a dead body, even, like, you know, a loved one. And I'm supposed to help prep them. Someone else has to because I have a special set of part time for God, and I won't cut my hair. That's one of the things. Samson had a nazarite vow. His vow was supposed to last his whole life. Remember? He has long hair, and then it gets cut off.

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That doesn't really make sense. If men are supposed to have, um, um, short hair and if a long hair is a disgrace, I think it does make sense. I think it helps us round out the rule. So is it a hard. There's different rules in the Bible. There's, like, hard and fast rules, always the truth. And there's generally true. Obviously, there's exceptions to that rule. And this, like, uh, generally you turn the other cheek. That's a general rule. But there are times when it's appropriate to stop somebody, like, say, someone strikes me on the cheek. But I realized that what they're doing next is they're going for a knife and they're going to stab, like, somebody next to me. And I tackle the guy and Mike, why don't you turn the other cheek? And I'm like, dude, that was the exception to the rule. Like, if you, if you don't understand that, then you're not going to, you're going to have a lot of hard times in life. So, um, the general rule is men are supposed to look like men. Women are supposed to look like women. When can you break that rule? Well, temporarily. A man's not cutting any of his hair, not his facial hair. So we're not looking at a man who looks like a woman with a shaved face and long hair. We're talking about a man just growing all of his hair out. He looks like John the Baptist, the way people always make John the Baptist with long hair. I'm not. I. Did he have long hair? Probably not. Probably. Probably just parts of his hair were a little bit longer than others.

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Um, he probably looked pretty jewish, at any rate.

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Uh, that picture, though, just somewhat. Just long, scraggly hair all over. We read about Absalom in the Old Testament. Absalom had this long hair. It was actually a point of vanity. Ended up getting him killed, part of what contributed to his death. It got caught in a tree and he was hanging there, and it didn't go so well for him.

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These seem to be exceptions where you go, okay, well, maybe the rule that Paul is giving us, when we add these other ideas, the Nazarite vow, we go, okay, it's a general truth. Men are generally supposed to have short hair. If you have a reason why you have long hair and that reason is, say, nazarite vow or something other than you trying to emulate women, then perhaps it's going to be okay.

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I admit that that is not satisfactory to plenty of people. That's my current understanding of it. I get into it, and I'll link down below the video where I talk about that stuff in detail, and you can find the timestamp for that exact moment. And I get into more detail and I give more explanation there and answer more questions, but there are those who just go, no, no, no. This is. This is. It's not what you think. Like, this is just not something that applies to people today.

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Um, I just. I am not comfortable with the method of interpreting scripture that's used to arrive at that conclusion. So I think that here's an uncomfortable verse for modern people is that, guys, you should have guy hair.

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I think that's what scripture's saying. I could be wrong. I also think there are exceptions to it. Like the Nazarite vow, philosophers were known to have long hair, and, uh, at the time of Paul, nobody thought that they were being girly. I guess the question is not just, do you have long hair? Do you have girly hair?

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I know this sounds weird, and to some people, it probably sounds so chauvinistic.

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If it sounds chauvinistic to you, my encouragement to you would be that you have so lost your appreciation for maleness and femaleness that you're offended by it. And I'm glad that we got to have this discussion and bring it up. Men are supposed to be men. Not machismo, not jerks, not bullies, not control freaks, but men masculine. That's a good thing. It's a good thing for us to be, um.

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You just need to beware of the manosphere who combines their masculinity with pride, selfishness, narcissism, arrogance, lack of concern and care for others. Jesus is the exemplary man. He is incredibly compassionate, incredibly loving, incredibly outward in his concern for others, and also taking care of everybody as much as he can. So, uh, anyway, anyways, that'll be where we end. Let's, uh, close in prayer, and I'll see you guys, uh, for sure next Friday. I don't have another video planned on deck yet, so next Friday for the Q and A, and thank you guys for joining me. Um, again, just a reminder, feel free to push back in the comments down below. I'm not trying to get comments here. I want to cultivate an atmosphere, though, where people realize, like, I can go, hmm hm. I heard you, Mike. I disagree, and here's why. And I'm actually excited by that, because you're. You're thinking with scripture. You're thinking and working these things through, and maybe. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're wrong. But the process of trying to thoughtfully approach these topics and actually have to have scripture in mind and deal with it correctly, that is invaluable. So I'm grateful for that. All right, let's uh, let's pray. Lord God, we ask for wisdom as we tackle subjects in our lives. Um, I'm just struck right now with, even though we haven't talked about it today, with how polarizing our society is, we, ah, don't want to be people who ride the fence in a polarized society, Lord. We want to polarize to Jesus and to Christianity and be incredibly focused on representing you well and standing for the things that we know to be true. We pray that Christians would. Would begin to have more of a true identity as Christians, um, not just social media complainers, um, but as those who live out and stand for the moral.

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The moral commitments of Christians who preach and share the gospel with a sense of urgency, as though it's what people actually need. Uh, we pray that you'd help Christians to not polarize into other people's camps, but to be so firmly planted in our own biblical camp and our own. I follow Jesus camp that we are able to navigate in a polarized society without getting magnetically pulled into things that are carnal. In Jesus name, amen.