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Did the chosen make their own bible? That's the, uh, question that I was asked that I saw online. And I thought, what.

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What's going on in the world right now that someone's asking me this question? Did the chosen make their own bible? And I'm going to talk to you guys about this today. I actually got a copy of it right here. Let me explain to you why I got a copy, why that was important to me. Um, but you guys know the tv show the chosen. Let me give you a clue in case you don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the chosen. There I am. I'm obscured. Hi, guys.

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But this tv show, um, hugely popular and no stranger to controversy, the chosen has had a tremendous amount of controversy.

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Many people who are just casual fans of the show, you wouldn't maybe be aware of it, but online, yeah, there's a tremendous amount of controversy. I'm aware because people are always like, mike, address this controversy. And I never talk about it because I still haven't watched the show. Maybe I may. I'm ramping up. I may watch. I've only seen, like, two episodes. This isn't about the show so much. It's about this book that they produced. And I know it will be popular. It will be read by a lot because the show is so popular. And this got my attention because it's so just in my wheelhouse of things I care about.

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Is this their own version of the Bible? Um, um, uh. Now, often the. The stuff around the chosen tv show, um, um, often is how half truths, uh, the rumors and stuff I hear about it sometimes, entire lies. Um, there are things to think about and be concerned about, but be aware that there are the reactionary types who don't double check and they just post stuff online. So, for instance, I was told that this was their own version of the bible. Uh, this is not the case. This is, if I recall correctly, the CSB version. That's the, uh, christian standard bible. So it's not their own version. That's simply not true. I was told it was a rewrite that was a rearranging the text of scripture so it would follow the chronology of the show, the chosen. So you'd have, like, a read along Bible that goes with the chronology of the show. I don't think that would work because as I understand it, the vast majority of the content in the show is not directly in scripture anyways. But that's not what this is. That's not what this is. As far as I can tell, there's no rearranging of chronologies to fit the show. Uh, if it's there, it's something I didn't even notice in it. The other thing I heard was, um, that this was a harmony of the gospels. Uh, now, traditionally, a harmony of the gospels would be like a book with four columns, and it has all four gospels, Matthew and a column, Mark and a column, Luke and John. And then there's commentary and discussion of how they work together, how they tell the same story, reconciling challenging questions. Uh, that's not what this is. What's it's actually billed at? I'll put it up on. On right in front of you here so you can see it. It's billed as a blended harmony of the gospels. Right. Oh, this is question number one, by the way. I'm taking ten questions today, nine of them from you guys in the live chat, and one that I've chosen ahead of time. Chosen ahead of time. So it's a blended harmony of the gospels. What is that exactly? And is it a good thing? Um, so I got a copy, and I checked it out, because as far as I could tell, all the three or four people I saw making noise about it online hadn't even read it, didn't even own a copy, and they were talking about it because it was a hot button issue. So, for views, probably, primarily. But, um, I got a copy, checked it out, and thought it would be worth discussing because it's a teachable moment about harmonies in general and about some pros and cons. So there's good and bad. I'm not a hater. I'm not a fan girl of the tv show, for instance. So I'm not approaching from either of those perspectives, but someone who wants you to know the bible, you to have, like, your head wrapped around the meaning of scripture, the importance of the word of God, and to make it accessible. Yes, we want a lot of people reading it, but also to make it, um. Um, keep it in its. In its high state of. Of all the value and intentionality that there is in the way that God had it inspired.

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So, pros and cons. Let me start with the pros. There's a few there. It's not. There's not. There's not that many. There's a couple pros, but they are relevant. All right. Um. Um. And the pro is. Pros are this. Uh, uh, it's not a written account of the chosen series, thankfully. That's a big deal. That would be really weird. It's that would be adding to the scripture, effectively. Um, it's not a bible for the tv show the chosen. Right. It's rather just marketed as something associated with the show. So if you're a fan of the show, you're more likely to buy the book. It's a marketing thing. Um, it is not a Mormon work.

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This is not Mormonism or LDs influence in any way that I can see that's important. Um, it's not like roman catholic swinging you towards Roman Catholicism or something like that. That's not the case either. This is also not a summary of the four gospels. So if you read this, you're not getting a summary or in your, or in their own words, version of the four gospels. What they call a blended harmony here is literally words directly from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but pulled out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and combined into one narrative. I almost said one flowing narrative, but I don't think it flows, so I'll come back to that. It's not, I don't think a flowing narrative. They say it's meant to be a seamless narrative. As you read through the text, the promotional material that came with it, that maybe is the noise I heard falling on the ground. Um. Oh, no, it's over here. I'll read it to you here. This is what came wrapped around the book itself. And it says here, um, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The different details, timelines, and emphasis emphases of each gospel can make it difficult to picture a whole narrative. And the chosen tv series acknowledges its own timeline for the unique purposes of the show. That's why we've created the chosen presents a blended harmony of the gospels. We want you to see the factual accounts in one chronological story. You'll experience the story of Jesus in one seamless narrative.

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It'll be separated into 40 days, so you don't have chapters and verses. Like, when you open it up, you won't know whether this is from Matthew, chapter four, or Luke, chapter eleven. You'll just know that these words are in those gospels. They just say, let me show you a page that actually has it on there.

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They just say, hey, here's day 18, and there's 40 days of readings where you read through, you know, one day at a time. Go through 40 days. I. You know, it's convenient that there's. There's. There's practical usability of that, which can be good.

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Um. Um, so it was present. It's made by, ultimately, the Jenkins family. So the people who also do, uh, the show, the chosen.

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Okay, here's the good. Um, the good is this. People will be reading the Bible more as a result of this.

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That's a big good. This is not a minor good. This is like a very large. I won't talk about it long. So it may seem like I'm not emphasizing, but there's probably people who will watch the show who have not yet opened their bibles, but when they find out that the chosen's making this, they're going to get into it, and they're going to be reading the text of scripture here. And that's a very, very good thing. And I believe God will use that to benefit, to benefit and bless their lives. So that's great. Another benefit of it is it is actually just scripture. There's. There's. There's no words here that aren't just in the CSB version of either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. All of it is direct quotes. Um, sometimes one word pulled out of a verse and put in another context, but all directly words from the text. Okay. That's a good thing. Um, it's also not going to lead you astray. Okay. There's not, like, weird or bad theology that's in here. It's not going to lead you astray. That's a good thing. These are all positives. Okay. In that sense, it's a safe book. Okay. This is safe.

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I don't recommend it, and I'll tell you why. But not because it's unsafe. Catch that. It's because it is suboptimal. Let me explain what I mean and see if you think it's worth, uh, considering. I don't recommend it, in the same way I would not recommend anybody's harmony of the gospels. If it's this kind of harmony I like, if you have all four gospels and you're doing commentary on how they harmonize, that's great. But if you do this, it's a little different. So you need to see examples. Okay.

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Um, you're probably thinking as when I was younger, um, and if you guys are noticing, yes, I'm wearing a rare baseball hat, but if you ever see me in public, there's a good chance, unless I'm at church. M I'm actually just wearing one of these because I don't have time to do my hair today, and I don't like doing my hair, and I just wish I could buzz it, but my wife doesn't like that. But now I've told you too much, I have to drink more coffee.

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Okay. So, um, the thing that I would have thought, as a younger christian, if you said, hey, Mike, I have this harmony, all four gospels in one easily readable 40 day plan. It's all text, right? From matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I would have loved the idea. I would have been very excited as a younger Christian. And I'll tell you, I'm, um, just giving you my reasons. They're not yours. These. This is. I know me. This is what I would have thought. A thank you. I don't really want to read all four gospels. Okay. I'm kind of lazy, and I don't. I don't perceive that there's value in having four different gospels. There is value, but I didn't perceive it at the time. So the idea of combining it into one was, like, very time saving, very convenient. And there was a bit of, like, a fomo fear of missing out. The idea that if I read Matthew, but what's in Luke that I didn't get or what's in John that I didn't get.

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So laziness combined with fomo, I would have loved this idea. I could read all of the content crammed into one spot, save time, get the whole thing. Plus, I might fear that I'm actually not getting the bigger picture unless I do it something like this, because, oh, if I read Luke, I'm not getting the Matthew content. So, there's something missing in the narrative I'm getting about Jesus's life and his ministry.

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All that combined would have made me very excited to read this, and I would have probably wanted to have a copy, not that I could afford it, because I was po. But I would have, like, you know, longingly thought about it.

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Um, so, here's why I think all that thinking is actually wrong. Um, first you need to understand what it is. It's an amalgamation, meaning that it is not a. It's not a seamless narrative. There's a lot of seams I want you guys to be aware of here. So, here's an example on the section of Jesus being baptized. This is what it will look like. I'll put it on your screen. So, this is just the text that's in the chosen, and it seems to flow, right? Uh, I can read it to you, but it's on your screen. I'll let you read it. You could pause it and read it. It seems to pretty much flow. What you don't realize is that what you're reading is actually taken from three different gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So, what I'll do next is I'll put on screen an image where I've highlighted, um, where each of the words in this section from the book where each of the words comes from. Here's what I mean by that. If it's highlighted in yellow, it's words that came out of Matthew. If it's highlighted in green, it's words from Mark. And if it's highlighted in teal, it's words from Luke. And you see, oh, when we say seamless, we mean, um, you took scissors to the verses and you sort of cut out a piece. The phrase from Nazareth in Galilee, and you stuck that in there in the middle of what was content from Matthew. And then you've got, um, Luke. And if you'll notice, the flow has changed. Verse 13, which is. There's verse numbers are there because I added them there, but they're verses from the original. Anyway. There's no verse numbers in the actual chosen material. But if you'll see the beginning in the yellow, it says, then Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. That's how Matthew introduces the baptism of Jesus. But then Luke introduces the baptism of Jesus differently. And that's until lower on when all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized, was also baptized.

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That's Luke introducing the Baptist. So you have a double introduction of the same event. And so it could just be a little bit, a little bit awkward, a little bit clumsy. I want you to understand that this is, this is actually, it happens a lot. Um, here is, um, those same texts, Matthew, Mark and Luke, but just the places that were pulled out to be used in the chosen. Right. So if I go back to the gospels and I just highlight in the CSB the version they're using. This is, these are the verses or the words from the verses they're actually using. And then, and the blue numbers on your screen show you what order they're being used in.

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So I just, I want you to understand it's not seamless. There's a lot of seams. Okay. In the baptism, short paragraph on the baptism of Jesus, there's nine seams. There's nine different pieces of the text that are gathered and brought together. An example of this could also be. And I'll put on your screen now, when, um, or in a second, when Jesus was anointed, right where the alabaster thing is broken, he's given anointing oils placed upon him. This is a really significant time. He says, I was anointed for my burial. We have this in multiple accounts of the gospel. And here is how it's. They grab the different accounts and they combine them into the narrative that you have in this book, uh, you know, the chosen presents. So here it is. I just want you to understand, there are 17 seams sections, right? There's. It starts with a long quote from John, then there's a short quote from Mark, then there's another decent section from John. Then there's four words from Matthew, another, I don't know, eight words or something from John. And then we have, like, a, I guess, one sentence from Mark, and it goes back to John, and then mark, and then two words from Mark, and then one word from Matthew, and then a sentence from, um, mark, and then a sentence from a different area in Mark is transposed to there. There are 17 seams in this story.

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You wouldn't know that reading it. I'm not saying they're conspiratorial hiding from you. Obviously, it would be really awkward if they were, like, putting verse numbers, you know, chapter and book and verse numbers here. It would feel broken up, but it is broken up. That's the nature of doing this. You just can't. You can't do this successfully. It's like an impossible task to do this without seams, because inherently, it becomes a Frankenstein work. I've taken the four gospels, and, like, Frankenstein, like Frankenstein's monster, excuse me, I've, you know, put them together in a way that it functions, but it wasn't. It's not seamless. Right. There's some seams, is my point. Let me give you some other concerns. I'd have for some. Some, I would say, downsides. Um, on day one of your reading, you start with the beginning of the gospel, and here we have multiple gospels put together to give you day one. Let me show you day one.

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Oh, hold on. I guess I didn't put that in my thing. Just a second. I'm going to grab it from my, uh, folder here.

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Um. Here's day one. I'll put it on your screen.

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Okay.

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Day one. Here we have in the beginning, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Many have undertaken to compile a narrative.

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Um, these words are coming from multiple gospels. So let me go ahead and highlight for you on your screen in different colors. These are some of the different gospels this comes from. This is day one. It has a reading from Mark in, uh, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. That's the first sentence. Mark follows that up with, um, a messenger goes before you to prepare the way of the Lord. A quote from Isaiah, which immediately starts mark off with, um, a deity of Jesus verse. That's kind of important in the gospel of Mark. It's a theme in the Gospel of Mark. And the way that Mark reveals Christ's deity is very subtle, and it's very unique to Mark, and it's really special. But instead of doing that, we jump to the beginning of Luke. Okay, so we have the first sentence from Mark, but then we jump to Luke and Luke, and John is what follows next. And Luke and John are. They're very different writers. I'll put that on your screen in a second. But listen, Luke and John are very different writers. Luke is writing a historical narrative approach to Jesus that is very much based on eyewitness accounts. John is giving not only eyewitness accounts, he does that, but he also offers simple, straight revelation.

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So when you combine John and Luke, you have Luke, who claims, I'm going to give you eyewitness stuff. And then the next thing that happens on day one is, John says, in the beginning, before creation even happened, this is what was going on, which, of course, is not an eyewitness account. It creates conflict, perhaps where there shouldn't be, because Luke and John are different authors doing different things. Let me give you. I'll put it back on the screen. You can, you can, uh, we'll read through day one here, at least part of day one. So in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, um, excuse me, the beginning. This is. This is from Mark. Then we get to the Luke section in blue. There, many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us eyewitnesses notice. So it seemed good to me, since I've carefully investigated everything from the very first to write to you in orderly sequence, most honorable theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you've been instructed. So Luke then goes on to talk about historical data that he gets, probably from direct eyewitnesses. But that's not what happens in the text before you. Now we go to John, right? And Luke also says he writes in orderly sequence. But again, with this four gospels kind of combined account, you won't get Luke's orderly sequence. You'll get a different order, a different sequence. But Luke seems to think his sequence matters, at least for the way he's telling the story. But then the next thing you get after, he says, hey, here's an orderly sequence of eyewitness accounts of the stuff that happened here in our place in Israel during the life of Jesus. The next thing that happens is John teleports us back before time, or at least before creation. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was Goddesse. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him and apart from him. And it goes on.

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This is a frankensteinian way to approach the text of scripture and it truncates your ability to see the brilliant flow of thought that we have in scripture. This is why I don't recommend it. It's not that it's wrong, like it's teaching false things. Rather. We're losing some of the true things. It's just teaching less true things. Maybe I'll put it that way. Um, there's less that's there. So I don't recommend it. I don't recommend it for that reason. Um, um. The next thing I'll mention is this. Um.

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So there's the themes and vocabulary that are different across the different gospel writers. So John, for instance, he doesn't use the word apostle. He refers to the apostles as disciples.

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Either one, it fits, it works, but it could create confusion. If you read John saying disciples, disciples, disciples, then you go to another gospel. You don't know you're going to another gospel, but it's sandwiched there with John where it refers to apostles and disciples as two different groups. A little bit more so than John does and it could just cause a little bit of confusion. But there's other things, too. Um. Uh, in Mark, there's a focus on Jesus publicly lying very low and slowly revealing his identity through a number of, like, brilliant things that happen. It's just super cool. Go, go look at my verse by verse study. Through the gospel of Mark, I spent over 60 bible studies, like over 60 hours of content that's there. Going through the gospel of Mark and highlighting Mark's specific way of showing us who Jesus is. It's really cool stuff, but you'll lose that, a lot of that. You'll lose a significant amount of that. Enough of it to be a problem in this Frankenstein style.

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Um. In John, the more private moments of Jesus are front in center, um, whereas in Mark, then the mark and theme is lost. If you're reading that alongside John, you really have to keep them separate to understand their themes and the things they're trying to say. Let me give you another example for, um, like the gospel of John. You may not think it matters, but it could matter. John says he has this passage in John six where Jesus is like, this is my body. You have to eat my body, drink my blood, which is very controversial stuff. Many take it to be Roman Catholics and stuff, and others will take this to be um, the Eucharist, the doctrine of the Eucharist, the belief that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Very complicated stuff having to do with aristotelian categories of accidents and substance and stuff. Anyway, the point is this, John does that. But in the Gospel of John, there is no account of Jesus actually handing them the bread and the wine and saying, this is my body broken for you. The fact that that's missing from John helps us to understand. And then the other things in John about I'm the bread, right? And I will give you the water, John four, the living water. I'll provide you living water. And then he says, I am the bread. When you add all this up, John is giving us a symbolic understanding of the body and blood of Christ and of partaking of it by believing. Right. When you put this alongside the specific accounts of the multiplying of the bread that are in John, it makes it a theme when you realize that theres no last supper moment the same way there is, but not the same way as there is in the other gospels. Its helping create context so we dont misinterpret the passage and come up with, I think, the roman Catholic Eucharist view.

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Um, but if you combine these together, youre going to lose some of that. You see, it might make you prone to misinterpret certain things. Let me give you another example.

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In Mark, chapter 14, um, mark, I love Mark, but because I've spent so much time on it, if you study any book of the Bible enough, you're going to fall in love with it. But the Gospel of Mark, in mark, chapter 14, I'll put it on your screen here. Um, it has this, what's called a mark and sandwich. Okay? That's what I think is the best term for it. But it has these things where Mark in his gospel, um, will put three events together.

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Well, let me put it this way. He'll take one story and he'll open it up and insert another story in the middle of it. And that extra story is meant to give you context to interpret the whole three pieces of the puzzle. The one story that's been opened up like two slices of bread, and then the middle story to give it context. Here's an example of that that'll make it real easy to understand.

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Mark, chapter 14, verse, uh, one.

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It starts off with the first piece of the sandwich, the first piece of bread, right after two days. It was the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him, Jesus, by trickery and put him to death. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people. That's the first piece of the puzzle. Now it's going to come back to this way later on. Then Judas, he goes out to the chief priest to betray Jesus. And then they make a deal.

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But in the middle, Mark sticks this story. And the story is the anointing of the alabaster flask. This is where, um, the flask is broken and Jesus is anointed. I mentioned it earlier. I showed you on screen how they kind of cut 17 pieces of the New Testament into that story.

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This, um, alabaster flask story is where Judas gets upset, right? Because he says, um. And we find out that he's ultimately the one who's irritated that this expensive item is used on Jesus because it could have been sold to give money to the poor. This is the trigger that sets Judas to go and make a deal with the chief priests. This is the final straw. We find out in other, uh, in various places in the New Testament that the reason for this is because Judas was stealing from the money box. So he wanted the money for himself. And he was manipulating this public embarrassment for Judas and this frustrating of his efforts to get more money trigger him going to the chief priest to betray Jesus for money. Mark means for this to be commentary on why Judas betrayed Jesus. That's why the betrayal, the desire for the betrayal. Chief priest looking for someone to betray Jesus and then Judas betraying him. In the middle, sandwiched in between is the alabaster flask story.

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Not so in the chosen's blended harmony. Instead, in this text, what we've got is a movement of that section where Judas is doing this to another place entirely. In fact, uh, the verse is there. Mark 14 is alongside mark ten and other gospel stuff in the chosen's. And this will happen with any blended harmony. Anything, anybody who tries to do this, it's going to happen. It's not that they did a bad job. Do you hear me? It is not that they did a bad job. It's that it is an impossible job to start with.

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You cannot retain the contextual meaning of verses when those verses are not kept in their context. It's not possible.

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That's why we have four gospels. God gave it to us this way. It's better that way. There's more in it that way. There's more meaning, there's more depth, there's more to learn, and you simply cannot do this successfully, in my opinion. Again, it's not that it's dangerous. It's that it loses some of the meaning that we want to have. We want to know these things. So, um, what else we got? Um, yeah, I think that's pretty good. Imagine if you had four. The four gospels were four actual movies. Um, and then what I did was I took these four movies and I just cut scenes together and crammed them together.

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You get the sense that it would feel. You'd feel the cuts. And I feel this as you read it. If you actually read any of this, you'll go, oh, that. That felt abrupt, or that felt odd. That felt strange. Like the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew, um, has a genealogy, Luke does. They both do very different genealogies. One seems to be tracking Mary, the other one seems to be tracking Joseph's family. Well, this blended harmony, it does Matthew's genealogy, and then the next verse, it does Luke's genealogy. So you have the two genealogies back to back, and it just feels weird. It just feels odd. Um, Matthew's emphasizing the messianic nature of Christ. Luke is emphasizing his humanity. And so the genealogies look different because of that. Luke's like, hey, he's a son of Adam. And Matthew's like, hey, he's the son of David. Right? That both true, but different. Different emphases, because they're both trying to give us slightly different lessons as they do it.

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Um.

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Okay, so there we go. Yeah. It removes context, ultimately can lose meaning, and it can potentially create new context that wasn't there. When you see two verses next to each other that weren't originally, that could create an understanding in a person's mind that was not originally meant to be there. So there's a potential that's there. I didn't find a verse that did that, but I haven't studied the whole thing.

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And I want to ask us a question before I go to your guys. Questions. Um, what do we think inspiration means when it comes to the Bible? Do we mean that the words themselves are inspired, or do we mean the words in this order are inspired?

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I think we mean in this order they're inspired. And if that's the case, then while this is in, this is scripture. Every word in this text is scripture, because they've been relocated. Not in a malicious way, not even in a way where they're really trying to play it safe and they're trying to do good. That seems to come across as I read it. Okay. That real attempt to do well. But when you relocate it, I think inherently, it loses some qualities that it was supposed to have that are related to inspiration. So, again, I think that it becomes not a great idea.

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That's my two cent, uh, harmonies of the gospel like this are not new. Tatian did it, a guy in the second century. It never really took off. We have. We have a record of it, but it just never. It never really got ground in the church. It's something that people used or that would replace. Now they say in the text, they do not want you to replace your bible reading with this. They'll say it right here in the front. They're like, please don't replace your Bible reading with this. Props to them. That's good advice, because they, too, probably know that it has some shortcomings. And, um, so, yeah, it could.

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It could lead people to read the Bible more, but there is a cost. And that was what I wanted to highlight, and I thought it would be a great topic to take as a first question. For this reason, if anything else, I just want to raise your respect and appreciation for the gospels, each as a unique account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and how it's intentional. And you read it with your brain fully on and see the incredible stuff that we see there. There's a reason why, um, one highlights the story a little differently than another. It's not contradiction. It's emphasis. It's lessons. And those lessons are very important. All right, we're gonna go to your guys questions from the live chat. Let me clean up my desktop a little bit. I got too many things I don't need to have all on my screen anymore.

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And question number two. Okay, Claire. Claire Smuts says, is it sinful for a Christian to be pleased when God enabled them to do a good work?

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And you have two verses. I'll read both those verses. Thank, uh, you for teaching us to think biblically about everything. Thank you, Claire. It's my, um. That's my hope. Hope that we're all growing in that. Moving in that direction. So. Isaiah 64 six.

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And for those who are new, you don't know me. My name is Mike Winger, and I never ask you for money in the comments section. Those are scammers.

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All day, every day. But the, uh, the goal of this ministry is to help you learn to think biblically, produce free content to help people growing Christ. Um, that's it. Defend and understand the christian worldview and scriptures. All right. Isaiah 64 six. That's the first verse you brought up. Is it sinful for a Christian to be pleased when God enables them to do good? The first verse is, but we are like all, like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Yeah, I am. I am.

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I'm, uh, a sinner. And so that even the good things I do don't measure up to God, even. Even the moral things I do are my righteousness that I can present to God. It's just compared to his perfect, totally pure holiness, it's like a filthy rag. You ever see something that you think is clean and then you hold it up next to something that's really clean and you go, oh, or you get that white glove treatment where someone, they go along the windowsill and they go, ha. Uh, that's my righteousness compared to God's.

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So can I be pleased?

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Is it sinful for me to be pleased when I do something for God? Let me go to the next verse. Galatians six four.

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It says, let each one examine his own work, and when, uh. And then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.

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So you can rejoice. I mean, this. This is pretty clear. I can rejoice in my. In myself. It doesn't mean I'm rejoicing about myself, right? I am having joy right within my own self. I'm not projecting it to others. I'm not involving others in it. I'm just rejoicing. So internally I'm rejoicing. That's what I think that means. But I'm doing it because I've examined the work I've done for the Lord, and I believe that it is acceptable to God. So there's a couple things I'd say about this. The first is, um, while apart from Christ, I couldn't even present good works to God that would be fully accepted, because even my righteousness is filthy. Yet in Christ, I can present myself, my body, as a living sacrifice. I can live for the Lord, and I can serve the Lord. And even the works that I do are then, are then made more acceptable.

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Not, um, meritorious that they earn my salvation, but that they're made more pleasing to God. And it's totally okay for you to be excited about that, for you to be happy that God is doing something in your life and rejoice in it. Paul talks about his ministry, and he says, let me. Here, I'll see if I can find the verse for you. Um, it'll help you to see this.

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I, um, think this is healthy for us to take this in.

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Okay. Here in, uh, first. Thessalonians 219. What is our hope? He's talking about him and his fellow workers. Or joy or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at his coming? For you are our glory and joyous. The kind of joy here is not boasting in my goodness. It is I'm rejoicing that the service. This is Paul here. That the service that I've brought to the Thessalonians, to you people, when I preach the gospel and I share the word of God and, you know, you people got baptized and saved. When you stand before Jesus in his presence with joy for all eternity. That's what I'm so excited about. Of course, you should be pleased about this, but you're not pleased in yourself, as though you did it on your own, as though you did it apart from God's grace. You're just pleased because of God using you.

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Anybody, for instance, in my ministry, you're ministered to. And you're blessed because maybe I've taught the word and I just echoed scripture, or I just had a love. Like, today, I'm in my first question, I'm just glorying. And how good the gospels are. They're amazing.

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But that's just the facts of the matter, right? Like, I'm just reflecting the truth. The gospels are so intricately brilliant and amazing, and they reveal the truth of Christ in so many ways that people should turn their brains on and just go deeper and, um, not lose any of the nuances, you know, before they've even opened to read the text. So that's. That's all God doing. That. That's what God did with his word. We're just responding. If you're ministered to by that, I rejoice in that. But I don't really take credit. Catch it. I don't really take credit because, like Paul says, we have this. This excellency that. That the power is of God and not of us. We're just vessels. We're just earthen vessels. And the power is God, not us. So, yes, I rejoice. But I don't boast with an arrogant. With an arrogant attitude. About it. I think that's a good way to look at it.

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Um, let's go to question number three. And this one comes in from Rob Allen, who says, how do we know Yahweh isn't just based with his word, biased with his word as one would be in any form of competition. When God says, there's no other besides me, there is no God. Or that's Isaiah 45 five, or I know, not any Isaiah 44 eight.

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Um, how do we know that God isn't biased with his word so that he, um. Rob, I'm trying to understand, charitably understand the question here, because sometimes, um, I'll misunderstand a question that I don't answer it very well because I just didn't realize what you were asking.

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But it sounds like you're saying, hey, you know, in Isaiah, uh, Isaiah forty's in the forties of Isaiah. There's these chapters against false gods, against idolatry, against all other gods. And there's just this lofty language where God says, there are no other gods besides me. There isn't any God. I don't even know of one. And we've taken this, most christians have taken this through time to declare that's just a fact of reality. God is the only God. There are no others. Radhe doesn't exist. Thor doesn't exist. Name of God, they don't exist. Are there spiritual powers? Yes. Does Satan exist? Yes. Behind the worship of ra, is it. Is there a demon that's being worshipped? Yes. But that demon is not a God. Right. It's a created being trying to exalt himself. Like Satan says, you know, I will be exalted. I'll be like the most high. He wants worship.

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Um, that's how we've taken it. We've taken this great monotheistic section of Isaiah as a declaration that there is no other God. Right? Not polytheism, not hinnotheism, just one God in existence, one being that could truly and properly be called God, one of a kind, omnipotent, all those things.

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Um, but some say, no, I think there are gods and there's like a God of a kind. And they say, well, this gets complicated because they'll say, well, the word elohim in Hebrew is sometimes used of powerful beings. That. And it's the word we translate, God, but it's also used as powerful beings that aren't necessarily gods. Or maybe they are kind of gods. And it gets complicated. And like Samuels called like an elohim when hes not in his body. So maybe its just used of a disembodied spirit even. And it just gets complicated. And Hebrew doesnt have this giant vocabulary, so theyll take one word and theyll use it multiple ways. And so context will help dictate what it means. This gets complicated.

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I think that the simple answer on the Isaiah passage is that, um, I think God means this pretty much the way he's saying it. I don't think it's like some extreme hyperbole. I don't think it's the way that Mormons take so that Mormons will, they believe there's lots of gods out there, but they'll be like, but we only believe in one God. And so you start to feel like, is that what Isaiah is doing? It's like it's using language that sounds like there's only one God, but it doesn't really mean it. Or they'll say, we only God is, you know, the God of the Bible is the only goddess with whom we have to do, like, we're only going to bother ourselves with that one God. So we're sort of monotheistic. And you're like, yeah, but you believe that, like there's an infinite number of gods actually, right? And they go, yeah, and you think you might be able to become a God. And real Mormonism absolutely teaches that. Lots of Mormons nowadays are like, we don't believe that. We've never believed that. And then all their like older Mormon friends are like, I just won't say anything. It's this awkward, like, tug of war that seems to be going on in Mormonism right now. Um, but the passage in Isaiah, just, uh, read it carefully, really read it, and ask yourself, is he really just trying to tell us there is no other God? Let me read some of it to you. Um, thus says the Lord, the king of Israel. This is Isaiah 44 six, and his redeemer, the lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last. Besides me, there is no goddess. This, uh, isn't him saying, who do you worship besides me? This is a declaration of existence. I am the first. I am the last. He exists before and after all. And besides him, there is no God. This doesn't mean there's gods that exist that aren't beside him, as uh, if beside him means I don't have partners, but those other gods exist. But they're not my partners. They're not besides me. I think he's literally saying in existence, other than me, there isn't one. And who can proclaim as I do. Then he talks about how he can speak the future, how he can prophesy, and then let those things come to pass. Um. Uh. Then he says here at the end of verse eight, you are my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Indeed, there is no other rock. I know not one.

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When he says, I know not one, he's not just saying, I don't have a God I worship, like, I know, in some sort of euphemistic sense. He said, just, is there a God besides me, other than me? No, I don't know of one. And then he goes on to talk about the foolishness of idols. Those who make an image, all of them are useless. And their precious things shall not profit. They are their own witnesses. They neither see nor know that they may be ashamed. So the idols are. They don't see things. They don't know things.

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Uh, that idol doesn't represent a God that even exists. Who would form a God or mold an image that profits him nothing? Surely all his companions would be ashamed. And the workmen, they're mere Mendez. Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. This is the irony of thinking, like, I'm going to literally sculpt this image and then ascribe to its spiritual significance, um, that I can worship it as an idol. Like, I made it. I remember once, um, there's this buddhist temple. And, ah, it's actually part of a cemetery not too far from us. And I was there for a funeral, but I saw this buddhist temple and I walked up to it to check it out.

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And at the temple, they have these, like, giant statues of Buddha. And so it's like the big belly Buddha. And the statue is about as big as a human. And so I walked up to. It is along the wall, and I, uh, just knocked on the belly. And it was clearly just made of, like, um. Um, a type of plastic, like a fibrous plastic. And it was like, dong dong dong hollow. And, um. I don't. I didn't do it in the sight of anybody. I mean, I don't know that I'd be embarrassed if I did, but it was. It is what Isaiah says. This is. This is just folly. It's just foolishness. Um, but he goes on, Isaiah 44. Isaiah 45, like, read the text. Like, there's. There is no other God. But your question, is it possible that God is being biased?

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So when he says there's no God, he's doing it, like, in a competitive way?

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That would be to suggest that God has bias. Um, the way we usually use the word bias. We mean I have preferences or desires that are skewing my view of reality. They're causing me to actually not see truth in some fashion. That's how we usually use bias, to not see truth or not point towards truth or not act according to what's fair and true. The Bible makes it very clear that God is not biased in that sense. He's omniscient. He's not biased where he's morally skewed to do something wrong because he's holy and righteous and just. So if you say maybe Yahweh is biased, you're, like, actually describing some other version of Yahweh or of God than what the Bible gives. Like you have invented a new version of God who is actually low, who is possibly sinful, who is not knowledgeable of his own motives or of his own desires. That's why I wanted to answer your question charitably, because as it's asked, I just want to say, um, yeah, God's not biased because God is right all the time. He's right about all things all the time. And that might sound like a cheesy answer to people, but I think philosophically, you can't escape it. If God is omnipresent, omniscient, transcendent beyond time, if he's really the alpha and the omega, he's the beginning and the end, if he's truly the creator of all things and the grounding of all moral truth, he can't possibly be biased. That would be some completely different version of God. That would be ontologically or in his very nature, not God. Like, if you have a God who is skewed and distorted in his thinking or motives, that is not the God of what scripture has revealed, the God of true creation.

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So in that sense, yeah, um, I don't want to keep going. I feel like I'm touching on another issue that a lot of people probably interested in about the whole. There's some people who believe in like this, that there are these other Elohim and gods and stuff like that. And it gets very complicated very quick. None of them can properly be called, in my opinion, gods. Like what you're thinking of when you say God. None of them could be properly called that in my view of the theology of it. All right, number four. Question four. This comes in from anonymous. Okay? And this. We got all ten questions for today. So you guys, please, you can't. I mean, if you do, you do, but you don't need to keep putting questions in the, in the chat, because we've got all the tendency.

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Question four is, does first corinthians 1545.

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Just a second. Skip to the page. Bottom of the page again.

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Um, okay. Does one corinthians 1545 mean that Christ became the holy spirit? I was taught this growing up, but it seems like modalism to me now. I can't break of this reading of the verse since I left the group. Okay, super neat question. All right. To catch people up. Modalism, the doctrine of who God is. We call this the Trinity. So we have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there's only one God.

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They're not different gods, they're the one God. But then there's also a plurality in God, and that is in the idea that while there's just one God and the Father, is that God, the Son is the Holy Spirit, yet the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the spirit is not the Father. So that there is this unity, um, and trinity, or a tri quality and a unity, a one quality. So we get the word trinity, the three and one combined.

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There's another view called modalism. And this modalism view would be basically there's one God who sometimes acts as father and sometimes acts as son and sometimes acts as spirit. And so he's in different modes. Modalism is a very common belief among christians. Unintentionally, when they get asked hard questions about the Trinity, they're like, I guess I'm a modalist then, just because I'm trying to solve this riddle and I don't really know what to say.

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So the questioner is saying, I was. Hey, I was kind of raised with modalism. Uh, I was in a group that taught that. And in one corinthians 1545, we have a verse that they would use to teach that. How do I work through that now?

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And so it is written here, first Corinthians 1545, the first man, Adam, became a living being, and the last Adam became a life giving spirit.

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Um, the idea here is that Jesus became the Holy Spirit. That's the modalist reading of this verse. There's on your screen. Jesus became a spirit.

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I, um, don't think here that the idea of becoming is actually really being pushed in the text. Let me read to you some different translations. Here's the ESV.

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Um.

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The first man Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit, the nivda, uh, the first man Adam became a living being, the last man, a life giving spirit. And you notice the niv, the last Adam, a life giving spirit. It doesn't use the word became there because it's only implied. It's not directly there in the Greek.

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This is the rsv.

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The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit.

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So one of the reasons why I don't see the language of becoming there in the way that you might be thinking one, uh, thing, actually, it was not something and it became something else.

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First off, that doesn't really work well for Adam. Adam himself didn't become a living being in the sense of, um. Well, no, I guess I should collect my thoughts more on this. Adam in a sense becomes, you know, he was not alive. He's there in Genesis. He's created from the dirt. And then God breathes life into him, so he becomes a living being. I guess that's pretty fair. The parallel to Jesus is a little different because if you're going to say that jesus became a life giving spirit, the implication is he was not a life giving spirit and then he became a life giving spirit. The implication is that Jesus, like, what was he then on earth? If you're going to take this as modalism, as I was one thing and then I became something else. So he's walking the earth. He is not here. A life giving spirit. And then his death and resurrection, then the Holy Spirit comes, and now jesus becomes a life giving spirit.

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Is that, that's how we're going to take the text for modalism to be the case? Now this is what you call a very wooden reading, right? You're going to take the words themselves and you're going to extrapolate a bunch of logical conclusions from them. But you're not reading the text well in this, when you do this, if you view it that way, you logically are then required to say several things. That, um, the Holy Spirit, that Jesus doesn't have a spirit.

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He's like spiritless when he walks the earth.

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Is that true? Is he a spiritless because he became a life giving spirit? So he's spiritless.

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Uh, no, that's not true. That's not even modalists don't even believe that.

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Um, when Jesus operates m in the mode of the Holy Spirit, does he actually change being? Does he become something different? Is that even true on modalism, that he becomes something different? It's more of a guise than it is an actual becoming. Right. More of an interaction thing. I'm going to interact with you this way. Like a puppeteer who's got a puppet on this arm, and it's Jesus, and he has another puppet on this arm. It's the holy Spirit. And he's not really becoming. He's just sort of imitating, uh, impressing upon you a different. He's wearing a different mask, right. It's not really a becoming. So that wooden reading that would. You would use to try to support modalism, it would prove too much, is my point. I think it would prove too much. And you go beyond modalism and you start proving things about God actually ontologically changing. And he just becomes a human who's spiritless and then becomes a spirit. That would be the really wooden reading, I think this verse, though, when you ask, like, what is it actually talking about?

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The first man, Adam, was a living being, right? He became a living being. The last Adam, that's Jesus. Jesus became a life giving spirit. That is not. So. When that Adam, that last Adam, Jesus becomes a life giving spirit, does he cease being Jesus? No. It's a quality Jesus has that he is life giving and he gives spiritual life. Adam has physical life, but then he ends up dying. He doesn't retain that physical life because he gets kicked out of the garden because of the judgment of sin. Jesus, like he says in John four with the woman at the well, he's like, I will give you living, uh, water springing up to eternal life. That the life Jesus gives goes beyond just sustaining you physically for all time, like maybe the tree would for Adam, but it goes on to giving you a spiritual life that goes way beyond that. You are united to God for all eternity. It's deeper, it's bigger. One is natural, and the other one is.

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It's, um, uncorrupt and supernatural. I'm not just making that up. That's the theme in one corinthians 15. So if I was to back up, um, I'll just go to verse 35. Look at the theme here. Someone will ask, how are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?

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You foolish person. Here, I'm m reading the ESV right now. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that it is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps, of wheat or some other grain. So he's trying to start drawing out to us to understand that this body will die. But this is like. It's like a grain compared to a plant. Right. It's going to be changed. Right. It will be changed. Something will be very different. For not all flesh is of the same kind. There is one kind of human for humans, another for animals, another for birds, another for fl, for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of the one kind as of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

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So now he's comparing, like, earthly and heavenly bodies. This is going to be sort of an analogy he gives to offer Adam versus Jesus. Adam, human being, alive, dead Jesus, right? He comes, he dies, he rises, and he has this glorified body. And that's the body. It's spiritual body. It's not just a physical, and it's also spiritual. It's both. It's not Jesus turning into the Holy Spirit. It's talking about the glorified body of Christ that is still the Son, always the sun. Um, so verse 41, there's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For star differs from other star and glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. Here's the Analogy. Coming home. What is sown is perishable, like Adam, like this body I'm in now. What is raised is imperishable. Like the resurrected Jesus, it is sown in dishonor, even as Jesus was when he died. He was sown. It was, he died in dishonor, is raised in glory as Jesus went. This resurrection, his glorified body, it is sown in weakness, just as Adam or Jesus was. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. The spirit thing that he talks about in the next verse is about a spiritual body or a body that is fit for heaven and fit for eternity. It doesn't mean you don't have a physicality. To you, it's talking about the resurrected Jesus glorified body. And when I am resurrected, one day I'll have a glorified body, too.

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So follow the text, right? It is so a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body like Adam, there is also a spiritual body like the resurrected Jesus. I'm adding commentary here to help us understand. Thus it is written, the first Adam man Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit.

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But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, then the spiritual. The first man was from the dust, from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven, as was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so shall we also bear the image of the man of heaven. We're going to be raised to be like Jesus. It's what one John talks about. Um, is it chapter three?

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It says, beloved, uh, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, who, Jesus. We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. We're going to be changed into his image. It's talking about glorified body versus current body. It's not talking about Jesus versus the Holy Spirit. So he became, uh, a life giving spirit. Meaning he gives you a spiritual body or a body that is fit for eternity. I know that that's not how we normally use the word spirit, but Paul is just not using the word spirit the way that we normally do in one corinthians 15. And that's why context matters. And we don't just grab verses out of context and use them as proof texts.

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But modalism fails for a bunch of other reasons. Um, Jesus is, you know, he talks about the Holy Spirit as someone else. Um, he goes, I'm going to leave and he's going to come. But on modalism, it's not. It's I'm leaving and I'm going to come back as the holy spirit. Like, you wouldn't even use that language if modalism was what God was trying to teach us. All right, number five, big Brady says, what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? Do I put their needs equal to mine or above mine?

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Um, yeah. The loving, um, your neighbor as yourself would imply an equality. I put their needs as equal to mine. Um.

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Um, the nature of that is interesting. So I think, look, there's no flat answer here. There's times where you think in life it just, you have to have wisdom. I think there's times where in life you have to. The analogy of the oxygen mask on a plane, they say, hey, parents, you're on a plane first to get your oxygen mask on. If they fall from the sky, then get your kids oxygen mask on. The instinct of the parent is to put the kids on first. The reason why they say don't do this is because parent, while you're trying to get theirs on, you may pass out and then you and your kid are in trouble. But if you get yours on, and your kid is starting to pass out. They'll still be okay because you can put that oxygen mask on for them. So you're actually both better off if you take care of yourself first in that scenario. But then there are times where it's the opposite and you literally die for someone else. You give, you go hungry that they may eat.

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God, give us wisdom to know when is the right time and the right season. But the sense of loving others as you love yourself, I don't want to obsess over it, like, where we get. I'm not saying you do, but there's plenty of us listening. Some of the people listening do this. I don't want us to obsess over it where, um, we're so in our heads that we're not actually acting in love. All we're doing is living our lives, evaluating every single second. I'm going to walk into the building and like, okay, um, I'll open the door and I'll let someone come in, but then if I hold the door here, other people will also come in, and they'll all get in line before me to get the coffee. But that would be loving them like myself, right? So, okay, and I'll step in, and I'm gonna order a cookie, and it's the last cookie. And I'm like, well, I'm so glad I got the last cookie. I wouldn't want to be the guy that didn't get the last cookie that came after me, but maybe I shouldn't get the cookie and let the next guy who comes after me get the cookie. And I think you can become weird where you're not really walking in love. You're actually hyper focused on self, right? Where you're like, I must do right at all times. But I'm not actually thinking about practical ways of loving others in ways that matter. I'm more just getting weird. And so guard yourself from that. Love others like you love yourself. The kinds of things you care about yourself for, the kind of things you want for yourself, you will want for them. The kind of things you do for yourself, you would think of doing those for others. But you still need to eat. You need to, um, have a job. If I go and apply for a job and I get the job and someone else doesn't have, you could think I'm being unloving by getting the job, but you're overthinking this too much.

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Let me make you overthink it even more. Let's take the job scenario. It'll make you overthink it to the point where you just stop.

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That's what I do sometimes. Um, so you go to get a job, and you're applying for the job, and you're thinking, if I get this job, someone else doesn't, and they might really need it. And then you're like, okay, so the loving thing is for me to not get a job. But then if I don't get a job, I'm not going to take care of my family, and I'll become a mooch, and then I'm mooching off the government and welfare, and that actually isn't free, right? That costs something. I'm charging everybody in my community to take care of me. Okay, that's not very loving. So then I will go get the job, but then I'm worried about that other person. They're not going to get the job. Maybe they're going to become a mooch, and that's not really going to take care of people. But then I will. I will go get the job. Because you know what? If I don't get the job, maybe I'm getting hired because I'm better qualified, and. And then the business will do better, and my employer will be better taken care of, and the customers will be better loved and cared for because I got the job and I was better at it. So if I let them get the job, maybe I'm actually hurting. Uh, like, this is where you have to stop.

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You have responsibilities to take care of yourself, and you have a calling to take care of others as well as you can.

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It's. That's. That's okay to do that and realize that, um, um, you taking care of yourself to a point where you at least have food and shelter and family, where they're at least healthy and taken care of, is not somehow a compromise where you could have given that money to someone else. That's just becoming weird. Don't be weird. All right, question number six. Zach Stelli, who says, hi, mike. What are the implications of believers being called to be a holy priesthood?

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Does this mean we need to view ourselves as priests? Okay, this is in one Peter, and you've given us the verse one Peter, two five.

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Some of you guys, you have grown up thinking that there are priests and then there are the rest of us christians. Um, that's not what the Bible says. It says you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up to a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.

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Every Christian is a priest based on scripture. This is what we call, um, the priesthood of the believer, it's a doctrine, it's a very important one. And we are all priests. And this is one of the things that is very, um, bothersome, that even in the early church, not in the book of acts, it never happened in acts, didn't happen when the apostles were around. But at some point after that, they started calling people priests and they had, you're a priest and the rest of us were nothing. So that you have, in orthodox communities as well as catholic communities, you have a very longstanding non biblical tradition. It's old, it's very old, but it's not first century, it's not apostolic. And that is having priests. Here's a priest, there's a priest, I call them priests. Um, some church groups will use this, like, I think, Anglicans, they'll call them, is it Anglicans? They'll call them priests, but they function more as pastors. Or am I thinking of somebody else? I think I'm confusing the groups. So forgive me for that. But there are some churches where a guy's called a priest, but he functions as just a pastor, but there are priests who actually become like mediators. So in Roman Catholicism, the priest is a mediator. Um, there's rules in Roman Catholicism. Like, for instance, this came up recently on x. Uh, the priest, when they read the, our father prayer, the priest is supposed to raise his hands in something, I believe it's called the Oryns posture. He raises hands like this as they read the Lord's prayer. And there's a rule that the rest of the people, the laity, the non priests, cannot raise their hands during that prayer. There's a bit of controversy in Catholicism because in a lot of congregations, people just start instinctively raising their hands at that moment, but technically they're not allowed to. And usually the priests, or so I've been told, don't correct them. And so it ends up being like, you know, this like tension about people doing something they're not supposed to do, only the priest is supposed to do that. And my thought is, um, we are all priests. Your priest isn't a priest, okay? There is no priesthood. The roman catholic priesthood is fabricated. The priesthood of all believers is real. But what happens is you get these guys that become your mediators, they become your go betweens, between you and God. And so I have to go to you for confession. Now, it's good and healthy to go to christians to confess.

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Not, however, in that fashion where I have sinned and I've, maybe I've lost my salvation or I am under some sort of temporal consequence. But I'm going to go to a priest, and he has the special powers, right? Let's just be real. He has the powers to open the keys and use the keys to open the treasury of merit and use, like, Mary's works and other people's works to try to cover what I've done and give me an indulgence. And then I'm going to be like, okay, I'm good now. Because that mediator helped me access grace.

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No, no, no. We come Hebrews. I come boldly to the throne of grace. I come right into the holy of holies, because I too am a priest and I'm covered by my high priest, Jesus. So the point was, we're getting at what were the, um, implications of being a priest. And the main implication is that you, and it's in the words here, let me put it in my words, you don't have a mediator. You go directly to God through Jesus. So anybody else trying to come into that role of mediating for you, they don't belong. They're not to be your mediator. This right here verse highlights this, because it says that you, as a holy priesthood, you offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. This is like, um, worship prayer service, like evangelism. I do these things and they're acceptable to God. My presence coming before God in worship and prayer, as well as acceptable to him. But I do it how? Through Jesus Christ. Not through some mediator, not through a go between, not through somebody else who is going to use the keys to open the chamber and use the works of Mary and other people to try to cover my sins. So indulgences in Roman Catholicism. None of that. None of that. Um, yeah, I don't have any mediators. Now, it is healthy as a Christian to have people pray for you, to even confess sins to one another as part of your spiritual health and well being. But the doctrines that go behind it in Roman Catholicism, um, there's an example of where there's an un biblical priesthood, they've sort of stolen the priesthood of every believer, and they'll say, well, everyone's a priest, but then these are the other priests, and it's like there are no other priests. The minute you have other priests, whatever they do, we stop being priests in that sense. And that, that is something that, here we go. Peter, supposedly the first pope. Peter himself says right there, I think. Yep. Okay. Looking forward to the catholic reputation videos that will come in response to that. I wonder if they will accurately represent me. I hope and otherwise, welcome to bring your. Your thoughts. All right, let's go to the next question.

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Number seven. Michael Rivera says, is it Eisegesis to interpret the Old Testament as depicting Jesus?

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Um, Eiseges is a word we use for people like, they're reading their own ideas into the Bible. So there's two words here. We use exegesis. When you're getting it out of the Bible, it's out of the Bible as exegesis. And when you're reading it into the Bible, it's ISO Jesus. And that's spelled Ged sis. Not Jesus, but Jesus Jesus or whatever. Anyway, ISO Jesus and exegesis. Okay, so is it reading my ideas into the Bible to interpret the Old Testament as depicting Jesus? I commonly hear this objection from Jews who say Christians are inserting their theology into our book. Thanks for your ministry.

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Um, I love that you're interacting with Jews, Michael. That's wonderful. It's a great mission field. Um, there's plenty of Jews who are Christians, but the majority of jewish people are not. They're nothing messianic, following Jesus, knowing that Yeshua is the messiah. And so it's a wonderful mission field.

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The common claims. I found that when I did studies on, uh, Old Testament prophecy, how it points to Jesus or pictures and all that, that the strongest objectors were Jews, were, um, guys like Rabbi Tovius Singer, who's a very misleading and deceptive guy. Please look up some rebuttals if you're falling for his stuff. Anyone out there, please look up some rebuttals. Michael Brown has got some great content on him. Um, they debated once, and Rabbi Tovia Singer said he didn't want anyone to see the debate, and then he refused to ever debate Michael Brown again. And nobody has to debate anybody. But if you are a debater and that's what you do all the time, and then you refuse to debate a well equipped opponent, then that's a sign that something's wrong. Most of us aren't debaters, and we just don't debate. And that's fine, but if that's what you do, which is what Rabbi Toby a. Singer does, he. He challenged me to a debate, and I'm like, go debate Michael Brown. He's. He's the one who spent all his time, his life, like, researching the same stuff as you.

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Yeah. So I encourage him to actually take up Michael Brown. So look up his stuff if you want. Um, so back to the question.

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Um, is it reading into the Bible to find Jesus in the Old Testament?

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I, um, don't think it is at all, although it can be. It isn't inherently. It's not like, well, if you see Jesus there, that wasn't the thing. And that, that's the rule for the anti missionaries. That's what they call themselves, anti missionaries. Like Tovia Singer. If you see Jesus there, you misread it, right. Uh, what they're doing is they're ultimately reading their own anti Jesus, you know, beliefs into their own Old Testament. There's plenty of things that even some of their great sages have seen as messianic. Psalm 22 was seen as messianic by ancient sages. This is not a new thing. So it's the messiah in psalm 22. And it's written about, uh, it's David doing it because it's really about the son of David, this messianic title. So you've got some major, big time like, guys who have way more respect and credibility than any of the modern jewish anti missionaries saying that this is about the Messiah. It was also not unheard of to think of Isaiah 53 as being about the Messiah.

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It is now. Now it's standard fair for modern jews to say, no, Isaiah 53 is only about Israel bearing the burdens of the sins of the world. It's not about. But when you read the text, it's very clear it's one person who is jewish bearing the sins of all of Israel. It is not Israel bearing the sins of the world.

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It's so clear.

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That's why this is a newer interpretation, the old, older interpretations included within their range a messianic view.

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What am I saying? I'm saying it's new that Jews are thinking, you can't read the Bible that way.

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It's in response to christian missionaries that they've reacted against it. And they would even disagree with some of their own older sources who they say they respect.

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Um, that's not to say that they, all those older sources said, oh, we believe in Jesus. Right, but no, but they saw the messianic nature of these things. Um, so, yeah, the series I did on evidence for the Bible, um, if you just type Mike Winger evidence for the Bible, you'll probably get a playlist that will pop up. When I cover prophecy about Jesus, I'm always dealing with jewish anti missionaries there, so I deal with their arguments in detail. Then when I did my series on Jesus in the old testament, where I talk about how Christ is not just prophecy but pictured. So you've got, um, here's a cool picture. You've got David, King David. He wants to build the temple, but he can't. God won't let him. And he says, because you're a man of bloodshed, so the person who builds the temple can't be a man of bloodshed. So you'll. So here's what happens. David plans the temple. He, like, makes the blueprints. Then Solomon, his son, the son of David, builds the temple, but he does it in a time of peace. And so you have this amazing thing where the father brings the plans, whereas the son fulfills the plans and builds the temple, but he must be a man of peace. And so we've got a picture between the father and the son. And Jesus shows up, and there's no judgment coming from him at the time. He will come and judge one day, but he rebuilds, ultimately the body of Christ, the new temple. You've got all sorts of pictures and illustrations. You've got Moses, and Moses is.

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He, uh, comes to the Jews initially, and he's rejected by them. He goes out amongst the non Jews and he builds a life there, and then eventually comes back to deliver the Jews. And this motif in the Old Testament of a deliverer who comes, is rejected, goes amongst the Gentiles, or the non Jews, gets a following, then comes back and delivers the Jews as well. That's a motif. You see David do it. You see Jephthah do it. You see Moses do it. It happens in a number of ways, a number of times. So I think that seeing these things, when you see them consistently throughout the text of scripture, you start to build a really robust case, really robust case for Jesus being the messiah.

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Don't let someone just bold facebook. That's Isajesus. You've just read into the Bible, your Jesus stuff. Take them to task. Look at the text in detail. Look at it in detail.

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Um, you'll get into the debate deep, but you will master a single passage and you'll be like, I can go to town with you on this passage, and I can show you that it really is about the Lord, or at least that that is a very reasonable interpretation.

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So one. One step at a time. Okay, let's go to the next question.

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This comes in from, um, Cameron Donaldson, who asks, would it be fair to consider the way some churches use tongues in opposition to one corinthians 14 of vain, uh, as a form of vain repetition. Matthew six five eight. You know, I've never. The second part of your question, I've never even thought of before. So we'll start with that first, um, in Matthew six. And I may not have an answer for you guys, but at least we can. We can think about it. In Matthew six five eight, Jesus gives his statement about prayer. He says, uh, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, the fakers, the actors, the people who do spiritual performance instead of actual spirituality. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the street corners. Why? Their motive is, according to Jesus, that they may be seen by others. This is still the case today. Plenty of people who do performative religion.

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Jesus is not interested at all.

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He's sick of it. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. And what an ironic way to put it. You know, that you wanted attention, you got it. That's all you get. It's all you get is the attention of other people. God is not paying attention to you. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father, who's in secret, and your father, who sees in secret will reward you. And a test for this is this. Those of us in ministry especially, do you find that you're only praying when you're praying with other people, or do you still have a private prayer life? If your private prayer life is lacking and you only pray with others, that's a. It doesn't. Look, I'm not condemning you. I'm giving you a giant warning sign, big blinking red light saying, whoa, warning. Come back to the sincerity of prayer. It's. It's incredibly important because you're falling into that pharisaical error. In verse seven, it says, but when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do. So first he targeted, like, religious leaders. Now he's just talking about pagans. Don't do what the gentiles do. They think they'll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them.

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He doesn't want vain or empty repetition.

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Um, is Jesus opposed to repetition? Uh, I don't think so, actually. I don't think he's supposed to repetition in principle. I think that he is teaching us to avoid empty or vain repetition or the error of thinking. If I talk a lot, God will hear me more, as opposed to thinking, um, there should be substance in every prayer I utter. Now, your question was, hey, is this tongues? Like, can tongues be this? If you're just repeating in tongues, you're speaking in tongues over and over again and you're not getting interpretation. Could it be vain repetition? Not if it's, uh, my answer, I guess, would just be this. It's not if it's real tongues. Okay. If it's fake tongues, if you're making noises and it's not an actual spiritual moment of real tongues, then it's absolutely vain repetition. Yabba yabba yabba yabba da da da da da da. If it's just fake noise making, it is absolutely empty, and you're not going to be heard because you just made noises a lot.

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But is it possible for someone to speak in tongues? I think in one corinthians 14, which, ironically, me and my wife read this this morning. Isn't that funny? Um, there's indication that Paul talks in tongues a lot. Like, a lot. So let's. Let's look at it here. I think it's towards the end of the chapter where he says, I speak in tongues, uh, more than all of you. Maybe I can find it this way.

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Verse 18. Yeah.

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Okay. He says here in verse 18, um, I thank my God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

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Now, in the church, he'll say he'd rather say five words with understanding than 10,000 in tongues without interpretation. Because what's the point? You're not helping people. He's not saying it's wrong to speak a lot of words in tongues. He's saying it's wrong in the church, in the gathering, to do stuff that's just to benefit yourself and doesn't help others. It's time to serve others. But Corinth is known as a place where there's a lot of tongues going on. Yet Paul, this gets me. Paul says he speaks in tongues more than any of them.

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Think about that for a second. Corinth is known for a lot of tongues. Paul says I do it more than you guys.

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If talking in tongues too much is inherently vain repetition, one corinthians 14 won't make sense.

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He seems to talk a lot in tongues. Paul does. And maybe you don't. Maybe I don't. Paul seemed to, and I'm not going to take that away from him because I have personal discomfort with tongues. Not that I do, but I'm saying that that happens a lot. We skew our interpretation of this chapter because we have our own issues, which can be understandable, but they can't guide your theology.

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Um, but also, Paul says this about when he prays in tongues, verse 14. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. So if it's genuine tongues, if this is genuinely God using me speaking in a foreign language, or even possibly a heavenly language, but some language. It's a real language, and I am not understanding it in my intellect, but my spirit is, and God does. So it's never vain repetition if it's genuine tongues, because every word uttered has meaning. And my spirit and God's spirit are benefit, my spirit's benefiting. God's spirit's understanding is, is involved in this process. So my understanding is unfruitful, but my spirit is praying. Um, therefore, it's not vain repetition if it's real tongues.

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I've, I've, I'm convinced I've seen people fake tongues before.

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Right? Do you guys have all seen the video of what's her name? Paula white rock a daca baka, like a lock a paka paka. And you're like, dude, you're just, you're making, you're just making noises. Nobody believes. Well, lots of us don't think that you're, you're being real here. This is, uh, it's, in a sense, it's almost worse than vain repetition because it's performative.

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It's performative noise making to hype people up. And anyway, it's, it's, it's terrible stuff. But that doesn't mean that everybody who speaks in tongues is doing that. And Paul spoke in tongues a whole lot. And he even says at the end of first Corinthians 14, and primarily one Corinthians 14, is him telling people not, um, to overdo tongues. Right. Like, a lot of it is him saying, hey, slow down. Don't use tongues too much. Don't, don't go overboard with it in the local body of Christ. Yeah, on your own, you can keep it to yourself in God. But if there's no interpretation, it's not for the public gathering. And even if you're in the public gathering, you know, one at a time, and you don't need to go on forever. But there at the end of the chapter, he says, do not forbid to speak in tongues.

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I think that possibly this is, I mean, I'm convinced that the Holy Spirit inspired this for the very reason that we tend to do one of two extremes when it comes to the gifts. It seems like our tendency is to highlight them in a way that is not loving and not gracious towards others and not edifying and upbuilding, but is m more about the flashiness of the gifts and the ego of saying, look what just happened in our, in our group, we're excited, or, and so we go off the rails. And there's plenty of church groups that go off the rails, then the other side is cessationism. We're just gonna say all that stuff has ended. We forbid speaking in tongues. We forbid those things. We don't desire to prophesy. And so at the end of first Corinthians 14, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy. Do not forbid to speak with tongues. I do think that that is still applicable in the church today. And we didn't just undo a direct instruction that we have. Um, but, man, when you just look at the two extremes, they sort of, you understand how one extreme almost creates the other, right? The extreme of. Of hyper charismatics sort of creates, in a sense, at least creates a lot of. A lot more cessationists. But I think that first Corinthians 14 pushes us into the middle ground, and I think that's a healthy thing for the body, and we should be praying for more.

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Those who don't. Do you walk in these things at all? Should pray for more of it. And those who do too much of it need to reread one corinthians 14 and not make excuses about how it applies into their churches. Actually take it and apply it as it stands. No matter what you think that might quench things. That's God. That's the holy spirit restricting things, not humans. Um, question number nine. Justin Legrand says, what are some biblical ways to help you decide if you should marry someone? Thank you for your awesome ministry. God bless you, dude. Thank you very much, Justin. Um, biblical ways to help you decide if you should marry someone. Number one, they have to be of the opposite sex. Okay? That's required. It's not an option.

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Number two, the person that you're going to marry has to be a Christian. That's a biblical command. Right? Um, in fact, when Paul talks about widows, um, he specifically mentions this. Where is it?

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Uh, um, I don't know if I'll be able to find the verse off the top of my head here. Oh, here it is. First Corinthians seven, corinthians 739. So check this out.

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A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she's at liberty to be married to whomever she wishes, only in the Lord.

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So upon the death of a spouse, Paul's just making it clear she can get married to whoever she wants. It's up to her. She, in this example, woman, pick whoever she wants to marry. Only one restriction has to be a Christian. Only in the Lord. Only in the Lord. Christians should only marry christians. Now, if you are a Christian and you're married to a non believer, or, uh, someone who, you know, said, I'm a Christian, when you got married and they later apostatized or something else, they backslid, whatever, you stay married. That's a holy and righteous and wonderful marriage. You absolutely stay married. One corinthians seven says that too. But if you're choosing who to marry, yeah. Only in the Lord. Beyond that, it comes down to a lot of wisdom. A whole lot of wisdom. Um, what is your guys age difference and how does that affect you? What about your common interests and desires and goals? And, um, I'd recommend reading the book of proverbs as a example of the kinds of, like, character issues to watch. A lot of people, they get married and they don't realize the person they're interested in because they're super cute has major character issues, and those character issues are going to affect their parenting and affect their marriage in the long run. And your parents are probably better at figuring that out. Now, maybe your parents aren't a great source for some other reason, but generally speaking, they're probably pretty good at spotting those things because they've lived long enough to, like, learn those lessons the hard way. Proverbs helps you identify character issues in others and in yourself. So who you marry? Marry somebody who you think will make a good spouse. Not a good boyfriend, not a good girlfriend, a good wife, a good husband. Um, for women you want to marry, this seems like a no brainer, right? But Ephesians tells us husbands love your wives. As Christ loved the church, so self sacrificial love, does this man present self. That's important, self sacrificial love for you. He's not just courting you, right? M doing super fancy things for you, to court you, but he gives, shows self sacrifice, love towards you. And then does the girl for guys, the woman told respect your husband, does she respect you? Not? Does she like you? Not? Does she want you? Does she respect you? If the woman doesn't respect you, don't marry her. If you are already married to a woman who doesn't respect you, you make that work and you lovingly lay yourself down and you are gracious and you still do your call, even if you feel like she doesn't do that side of hers. But if you're choosing who to marry, um, it's important that you can look at her and say, she actually respects me and my leadership in our relationship. That's very important. And, um, you have no idea how many headaches you will be saved if that one thing is in place for both the girl and the guy.

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Anyway, there's plenty of other stuff we talk about. You guys could guess it. Godly character, all those sorts of things. Um, yeah, your list might say looks, um, this good proverbs, actually comments on that says, uh, charm is deceitful. Beauty is fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord is greatly to be praised. This is a specific command about men. It applies to women too, but specifically men. We tend to look at a pretty girl, and in our naivety, we think she's also good.

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And that is often not the case. And so guard yourself to realize that the attraction physically that I have towards this girl is a temporary thing in regards to beauty fades. Okay. Most women without a lot of unnatural actions from, like, I don't know what kind of things people inject in their faces nowadays, um, are going to age naturally and we're all basically an old age. We all look the same. We all just look like clones of each other. A bunch of really old people that are like, I used to have an actual look.

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Eventually we don't. But that character that they will carry through the marriage, oh, that's so valuable, so important.

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Charm is deceitful beauty. Now you're supposed to rejoice in the wife for your youth and enjoy their beauty. Absolutely. You don't let it. You don't let her beauty become the judge of her character. That's the lesson in proverbs there.

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All right, let's go to the next question. And this comes from ten. Last question, Martin. Martin, who says, why should we evangelize other than because God tells us to? If it would be God's will for someone to hear about him, wouldn't God's will happen anyway based on Matthew 10, 14, 15? They'd be worse off.

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All right, Martin, you're playing a dangerous game, my friend. Let me talk about it. Matthew ten.

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I'll come to Matthew ten in a minute, but Matthew 1014. Okay, I'll just get it queued up here. Um, you're operating from a principle that seems to be, um, saying my evangelism isn't actually going to change anything. So I'm sort of play acting. I'm sort of going through the motions of evangelism, but nothing's going to happen. So let me give you an example. Um, let's say I'm at a soccer game and I'm watching the ball get kicked back and forth. And I'm in the stands and I stand there and I start sweeping my arm across. Every time the ball goes by, I sweep my arm and I'm sort of gonna, I'm gonna act like me doing this is moving the ball. Everybody knows it's not, but it's kind of fun. And so, um, I'm moving the ball and I'm moving the ball and I'm gonna take credit for what's going on. Is that how you view evangelism? Like I go out and I share the gospel, that person just gets saved and I'm sort of going, and there's the gospel and then they got saved. And yet in my head I'm like, really, literally nothing would have happened different that day. Like that person would have just spontaneously gotten saved. Even if I hadn't shared, somebody else would have come, a uh, tract would have flown and hit him in the face and they would, or God would have just spoke, something would have happened and they would have just been saved.

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If that's how you view sharing the gospel, it naturally leads to the question, why am I even doing this? Is it just out of obedience? I mean, I'll do it. I'm going to be faithful to God. If he just tells me to evangelize, I will. But I don't think that I'm actually seeing anybody get saved as a result of my ministry directly. It's just they would have gotten saved either way.

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I don't hold that view.

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Um, and you might say, mike, how do you not hold that view? If God knows those who are his, if he's chosen them before time, he knows, then, then you can't affect that. And I don't agree with that. How you can put that together, we can debate on that all day long how to put this sort of sovereignty free will stuff together. You can debate on that all day long. But the text of scripture seems to indicate people getting saved because they're getting witness to people getting saved very much because somebody preached to them, someone shared the gospel with them and they're responding to it. And, and that if they hadn't been there that day, like in acts two, if the holy spirit didn't descend and all these people didn't speak in tongues, do we really think 5000 souls would just be added to the church some other way?

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I don't think that's the case and I don't think scripture wants us to think that's the case. I think that you're supposed to act like your actions matter and when your evangelism actually, and whether you feel like you can reconcile that with sovereignty, like I don't even care. You should. You should act like your actions matter and not convince yourself that I shared the gospel. That guy got saved, had nothing to do with me sharing the gospel.

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That is going to in some way negatively impact your witnessing, I believe. Um, and it just doesn't seem consistent with the examples in scripture. So the verse that you had here, Matthew 10 14, 15, let's, uh, go to it.

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It says, and whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet, assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in that city of judge, uh, in the day of judgment for that than for that city.

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So this is where I feel like you might have unintentionally absorbed a double standard.

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Because the standard was at first, they're going to get saved either way. So is my motive for evangelizing just obedience because they're going to get saved either way. But I'm concerned about preaching because what if I increase their condemnation because I preached and they rejected it, so they get more condemnation? Hence, Matthew.

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This is like a really, really discouraging thing for witnessing to think, I'll go preach.

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Some people will get saved. They would have either way. And some people will have worse judgment. And they wouldn't have had worse judgment unless I had preached to them. And if that's in your head, you are really hurting your own evangelism. Like, what motive have I got to evangelize now? Just obedience.

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But in the back of my head I'm thinking, but I'm just making things worse for people and I'm not even helping anybody. They're just going to get saved either way. And then this is, uh. I would. I'm just going to be really honest with you, Martin. I would view this as a fiery dart from the enemy to try to discourage your evangelism.

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You should preach the gospel that people may hear and be saved.

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And if you're in a situation where you're actually giving your evangelism zero credit for people being saved and you're giving it actual credit for people being condemned, that is not of the Lord, I would back off that as fast as I possibly could and just say, maybe. I don't know how to answer these questions. People get saved when evangelism takes place. I'm called to evangelize, preach the gospel. Paul planted churches. If he had not gone to those cities, those churches would not have been planted.

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That's real and you should live that out and then have your theological debates all you want.

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I want to have them too, but pragmatically guard my heart from harmful thinking that might be the result of me just not wrapping my head around something God's doing.

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Preach the gospel. It really makes a difference.

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Alright guys, that's it for today. Um, um, I will next Friday. We'll be doing the Q and A at the normal time. I will see you then. I'll try to think of a good question for the first one and got a bunch of options and opportunities and stuff. Anyway, figure that out. But let me close this in prayer. Lord, we are grateful for your love and your grace towards us. We're grateful for someone who preached the gospel to us, someone who entered into our life and when we look back we see that was pivotal. It made a difference. Help us to know and have the confidence that we can make an actual difference in people's lives. That when we open our mouth to speak the truth and to share the truth of Christ with hope, with joy, with conviction, with confidence, with strengthen people's lives change.

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Help us fight discouragement at sharing the gospel.

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Help us to remember that the body of Christ has grown, has been founded upon people evangelizing other people. In Jesus name. Amen. Um.