"The Gospels" with Paul Allen & Ben Goessling

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Faith and Goal, Don lovell An. Here's the host of Faith and Goal,
the voice of the Minnesota Vikings,Paul Allen. Yeah, what's going

(00:30):
on? It is the Faith andGoal podcasting covenant, And indeed I am
Paul Allen very happy to be joinedby Ben Gasling. He covers the Minnesota
Vikings and writes about football for theStar Tribune and Star Tribune dot Com.
For it was at Metrodome, formerlya stadium in the Twin Cities where the
Vikings, Twins and Gophers played,where the Great, the late great Billy

(00:53):
Graham, Billy Graham was on acrusade in the mid nineties. Ben Gasoline
was there Billy with an invitation forthose to come up and to open their
hearts and learn more about Jesus Christand the Gospel of Jesus Christ and accepting
the Lord. And Ben was therethat day. So if there was an
effectual calling moment for that young man, that quite possibly could have been it.

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And it's always great when we haveBen Gesling joined us for Faith and
Goal, because what we're going todo here is Ben Gasling, the producer
of this Eric Nordquist, your truly, Paul Allen, we choose to believe
in the Holy Bible. And there'sa super respected pastor named Vodi Bacham who
sums it up beautifully why he believesin the Bible, and we are in

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lockstep with his notion because when asked, when asked about that, preacher Backam
said, quote, I choose tobelieve the Bible because it is a reliable
collection of historical documents written by eyewitnessesduring the lifetime of other eyewitnesses reporting supernaturally
that took place in fulfillment of specificprophecies and claimed their writings are divine and

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not of human origin. Laid outso beautifully, Ben, thank you for
john him. Yeah, thanks forhaving me. Always fun to be on,
Always fun to talk about the thingthat animates our lives. Really,
I mean, the thing that's moreimportant than anything we do related to the
vikings. So yeah, that passageor the sermon, I guess you could

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call it. It's a talk tovote Bacham, I think gives quite a
bit. You can find it onYouTube. There's I think like a thirty
minute version. There's a sixty minuteversion. Both are worth your while if
you have and I've certainly been somebodyover the lifetime or over my lifetime as
a Christian that I just I wantto know why. I want to know
how. I you know, maybeit's the journalist thing of Okay, tell

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me how it's all got put together. I don't just want to be like,
Okay, somebody said this, I'mgoing to accept it as truth without
kind of investigating things a little bitmore on my own. Agree. He
speaks to that notion a lot inthose videos and has a lot to chew
on in there, so certainly worthyour time if you get a chance to
check those out. And Ben attendsHope Church in Minneapolis adjacent to US Bank

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Stadium. I attend Faith Family,which Saturdays is in Apple Valley and Sundays
in Rosemount of the Community Center.Faithfamilyimin dot Org. Would love to see
people stop by either Hope or FaithFamily anytime if you're looking for a church,
if you want to go where Benand I go and and learns.
That's the emphasis on what Ben justsaid and what our approach is today.

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For instance, the very first teacherGod put in my life when it comes
to the Bible is one of mydear friend's pastor Wes Feldner, the lead
pastor at Faith Family Church, andand we just started last week unpacking the
Book of Exodus. I mean Exodusis you know, when we talk about

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the Old End or New Testament today, will bring up a couple of references
from the second book in the Bible. But teachers are so important. Yeah,
yeah, I mean we can youknow, we we can rattle off,
well the Bible teachers there are eighteengifts and we can you know,
we can argue about speaking in tonguesor prophecy or healing and you know,
but or or end times that scatologyall. Bet, there's a lot.

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But the right teacher is so imperative, specifically in the formative stages. And
I thank God pretty much every singleday for the teachers He's put in my
life and friends like you. Yeah, yeah, it is important. I
think reading the Bible, especially ifyou're new it because I can remember this
that that day at the Metrodome,I think one of the things they said

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is okay, read the Gospel ofJohn. And they do a lot of
work. We were already going toa church, you know, I would
say I was. I went froma kid that went to church to a
Christian on the floor of the Metrodome. There's a difference. I went from
being a kid that goes to churchbecause it's the thing that you're supposed to
do to seeing that Jesus is realand he's compelling and I want to do

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the Lord of my life. That'swhat changed for me at the Metrodome.
So you start to read the Bible, you start to go to church in
a different way, and then havingteachers that can help you understand how all
of this works, because it doesn'tread like a you know, a biography
of Bill Belichick or something. Itis very different than that. And trying
to understand how all of it relatestogether is really important. And we're going

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to get into that a little bithere, But it's having good teaching that
can help you just learn how tonavigate through things. I mean, even
I've been a Christian for well nineteenninety six to twenty eight years, I
guess yeah, still crave that alot, in terms of just having solid

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teachers that can help you understand things. Rather think about this. I mean,
it's so important to get your mindat and heart as much as you
can to think about what life waslike two and three thousand years ago.
Because it's when they were initially readingthe Bible. Well, that would be
like you and I discussing a Vikingsoffensive play two or three thousand years ago,

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saying, hey, when Jordan Addisonwent on that shallow cross, don't
you think so? And so sellinga wheel route getting the safety to come
down near the line of scrimmage inquarters coverage, and then all of a
sudden, you don't do that tocousins, because he'll make you pay.
I mean, if you say thatin an Aramaic covenant or some type of
covenant two thousand years ago, they'regonna be like, what, It's kind

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of like Book of Revelation. Whatthere was a woman with wings flying through
a wilderness which actually is a desert, chased by a dragon which really is
Israel. And then the woman iscarrying a child which actually might not be
a child. It might be acountry, or it may be a child.
It's worth unpacking. And so tohave to have a grasp on the

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fact that they read this and theyunderstood most, if not all, of
it, then and it's like theLord's prayer. You know, it's our
father art and evan Allah would bethy name. Now I just like ritualistic,
ritualistically read it like, oh,ninety nine percent of people do,
and I did when I was teachingof my kids, like people do with
football games every week. Yeah,locker room. But I don't now that
I know the importance of the Lord'sprayer. It's the only place prayer is

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taught in the Bible. No,it's not a ritualistic All right, let's
get together our Father or Art andHeaven, Alla would be thy name.
When Jesus said give us this dayor daily bread, they didn't have any
food. It was a plea.They were begging. And by the way,
if the salt got mixed up inthe sand Matthew five thirteen, fourteen

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and fifteen, well then the foodperished. And what's next. People died.
Yeah, there's no fridge, there'sno uber eat. Right, So
geting, wrapping your mind around thenon ritualistic nature, so to speak,
and going back two three thousand years, trying to have God get you there
to recognize what life was like then. That was all part of a time
where we're going to talk about what'sknown as the Gospels of Jesus Christ,

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and from a Bible standpoint off,what we said from the preacher Vode Bacham.
Like him, we choose to believethe Bible because it's a reliable collection
of historical documents written by eyewitnesses duringthe lifetime of other eyewitnesses reporting supernatural events
that took place in fulfillment of specificprophecies, and claim their writings are divine

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and not of human origin. TheOld Testament was written roughly three thousand years
ago, the New Testament two thousandyears ago. Some quick twitch Moses.
Moses wrote the first five books ofthe Bible. The Old Testament known as
the Torah in Judaism, that includesthe Book of Genesis, how the world
was formed, how sid Sin enteredwith Adam and Eve, and the Apple

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and the evil Serpent. The Bookof Genesis also includes the story of Noah's
Ark, what went into forty daysand forty nights of rain wiping it all
out. After that, the Bookof Exodus and Jews escaping slavery led by
Moses and his brother Aaron. TheBook of Exodus also includes the revealing of
the Ten Commandments and the partying ofthe Red Sea. And there's just so

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much more via God, the Angelof the Lord, and prophets. God
used to share and record his word. Anything else to add with the Old
Testament before we get into the Gospelsand the New Testament. Yeah, So
something that's been really helpful for meis seeing how it all connects and how

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scripture, like Jesus used the OldTestament to interpret what he was doing or
relate what he was doing to thepeople he was talking to. Paul uses
the Old Testament to interpret things,and in fact reinterprets some of the Old
Testament, saying, no, thisis not the way that you understood.
This is not actually what this means. When we're talking about who the people
of Israel are and the people ofJacob and God's covenant with his people.

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Paul says, now this actually refersto people of faith more so than it
does what the Old Testament would havemeant kind of at first blush to people
at the time. So from alost standpoint, Yeah, yeah exactly,
Yeah, yeah, law versus versusfaith and faith and what Jesus did.
So, the cool thing that I'verealized, and the cool thing that I

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think I've learned more about in thelast just a few years, probably on
a more detailed level, is howmuch all of it connects and how much
there is a single story kind ofweaved through the whole thing. I mean,
you can go to Genesis three whereAdam and Eve sin, God says,
I got to kick you out ofthe garden. And the reason they
realized that God realized that they hadsinned is that they knew they were naked.

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There's a lot of talk about thisin Genesis three, and it sounds
confusing to us, probably because wewere clothes all the time. But God
makes them close out of animal skin. Well, how would you get animal
skin? You would have to killan animal, and you would use the
animal skin to cover them, tocover their shame, to cover their nakedness.
All of that. Even in Genesisthree, I had a pastor at

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our church kind of helped me walkthrough this. Pastor Davis Johnson, who
as one of the younger pastors atour church and is a really gifted teacher
of a lot of biblical theology kindof stuff. But he pointed this out
and it blew my mind that likethat is pointing towards the lamb of God
being slain to cover our sin andshame. I mean, even in Genesis

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three, you have like Gospel themespopping up, and this is, you
know, several thousand years before Jesusis even on the scene. So this
kind of connected story through the wholething. It's an important thing to learn
and it's one of those things thatyou kind of learn throughout your lifetime.
But it's pretty cool to see howGod weaves all of that together through different

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languages, through different contexts, throughdifferent authors that a lot of whom never
met each other because they didn't liveat the same time. So doubt that
connected. Being that connected story,I think is an important thing to grasp
and pretty cool to watch unfold.Yeah, and it's it's I've never been
as intrigued by history as others.Yeah, but in reading the Bible beginning

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five years ago and taking classes andstudying it and most importantly getting God putting
the right teachers in my life,and more so than than pastor West,
just just many others sifting through,you know, just to learn. Like
Moses wrote the first five books ofthe Bible, he wrote the most words
of anybody in the Bible, andhe led the exodus for forty years through

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the wilderness, which actually was adesert, and then he didn't get to
go into the hole land and learningwhat went into what I mean that what
so I mean like learning things likethat and putting your minds and your hearts
with just trying to imagine how impossiblelife must have been two and three thousand
years ago. It's just fascinating.And you know, people at churches will

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hear the Gospels of Jesus Christ,the Gospel the Gospels of Jesus Christ written
by disciples named Matthew, Mark,Luke, and John. Now these are
in the New Testament about two thousandsome odd years ago, Ben Gesling.
Why are these books and writings soimportant, Well, they're first hand accounts

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of what Jesus said and did andwhat he did in his life on earth,
which obviously Christians believe the life,death, and resurrection of Jesus is
the hinge point of human history.So these are basically the closest thing we
have to kind of newspaper reports orearly history reports of what happened to Jesus

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and what Jesus did and what hesaid. And they're important because they show
us They help us know God betterthrough his plan through his son, help
us know Jesus better through the thingshe said. The things that the miracles
he performed, which usually have sortof an underlying spiritual theme beyond just the

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physical. So you see a lotof that, and then ultimately what happens
to him in the last week ofhis life, brought before the government and
the church leadership in Jerusalem, executed, and then Sunday morning he rises from
the dead. I mean, thatis in the gospels, and that is

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again, as Christians would say,the hinge point of human history. So
lots in there, lots about Jesuslife in there, but that alone.
There's nothing else in there that Theinformation at the end of each of those
gospels about Jesus death and resurrection isI mean, that's the worth the price

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of admission. I guess you wouldsay. The gospels in the New Testament
once again were written by Matthew,Mark, Luke, and Joe. Respected
theologians believe the man named Mark wrotethe very first Gospel. Yet Matthew's work
with Jesus via his writing and hisgospel, well that's the first in the

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New Testament. Yeah, but Imean respected theologians are like, well,
here's proof ABC, D and Ethis cat Mark actually wrote the first one.
So like, why did God chooseMatthews goes first. Well, yeah,
I mean this has been I thinkat different points in church history seen
differently. Actually this was the thingwhen you asked this, and I had

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to do some research on this toget a better sense of it. But
I think Catholics would call him SaintJerome, but early church father, early
theologian in the three hundreds, basicallytranslated the Bible into Latin for the first
time, and his interpretation of things. His research suggested that Matthew actually went

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first. So our Bible owes alot I think to that tradition of the
work he did, and I thinkin the late three hundreds am so we
get that. And then a lotof the talk about people call it marken
priority that Mark goes first. It'sjust a fancy word for Marcus first.
And I'm not saying goes first.I'm saying that the ones that I follow,

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Yeah, and the people who areteaching me with whom I speak,
I mean, they're not going tobe like I'm a bet everything I have
in my life. Yeah, Imean, but that Mark wrote the first
one. Yeah, yeah, thathas been I mean, that line of
thought, that line of scholarship probablydates back to the eighteen hundreds or so,
that this type of thinking, thisresearch, this interpretation of it is

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probably fourteen or fifteen hundred years afterwe get our Bibles, and the tradition
that we have that puts Matthew,Mark, Luke John predates that. So
a lot of this is more recentinterpretation. Mark is thought to be a
traveling companion of Peter, Yeah,who was one of jesus disciples. Of
course, so Mark tends to beif you want like the quick hit version,
Mark is the quickest. Mark tendsto write in shorter sentences. He's

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more Hemingway, less Fitzgerald, whichis my editors would probably tell me something
I should work on, because Itend to be more Fitzgerald than Hemingway.
I tend to be a little moreverbose. Mark is the quickest. And
then Matthew was obviously a disciple ofJesus. Matthew writes more to a Jewish
audience. He spends a lot oftime emphasizing Jesus as the fulfillment of the

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Old Testament covenants that God put betweenhimself and his people. And then Luke
was thought to be a traveling companionof Paul Luke also wrote the Book of
Acts, and Luke was a doctorand a historian, so he basically addresses
his gospel to a guy named Theopholisthat basically says, Hey, all this
stuff that happened, I talked toa lot of people and did a lot

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of research, and here is mycompilation of what I found. So that's
kind of the approach that Luke takes, is a little bit more of a
historical a little bit more of adetailed history of things. And then John,
of course was one of Jesus's closestfriends as a disciple, and John's
is a little more thematic, probablyin the way it's organized. You see

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that right from the beginning. Sothere's a little bit of a different feel
to John's gospel than there are tothe other three. Well, yeah,
and I want to get into thatin a little bit because it is telling
and worth study. Why John theApostle, John the Disciple. John wrote
his gospel basically two and f threedecades after the other three, yep.

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And I think the answer or justthe the the deduction to get there through
scholars and just you know, prayingand put having God put in your heart
what your discernments going to be isjust beautiful. But but something you just
said Mark, Mark was a travelingcompanion of the disciple. Peter denied Christ

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three times that Peter luke again,you didn't travel with Jesus. He was
a traveling companion or friend and workerand somebody who shared the gospel with Paul.
Okay, well, they didn't travelwith Jesus and they got gospels.
How does that work well or isit not? Mean, like Peter,
a good question, people would think, well, Peter, I mean,

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this is the right hand man ofall right hand men. John was there,
brother James was there, and youknow we have Nathaniel and Philip and
the big I mean, we haveso many things like why did these two
I wonder, who didn't associate withChrist? Why did they get Well,
yeah, that's a great question.I mean, there's certainly a lot of
church history as the New Testament isbeing assembled and what are we going to

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put in it that probably plays intosome of those things. But I think
the other thing that I wouldn't dismisshere is that God knew what he was
doing in terms of the people.He empowered the people that he put his
spirit into to write, of course, and even if people are putting together

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kind of the final or of thingsin the in the two hundreds three hundreds,
God knew where all of that wasgoing to go. Yeah, So
I don't want to just shrug andsay I'm a holy spirit, but that
is certainly part of it. Yeah, I mean, I mean we can
be in a lobby in Seattle rightnow with you waiting for Brian Flores to
come down an elevator and we're talkingabout this. Yeah, we did that,

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what's up, b Flow, Andthen you're gone for ninety minutes and
I'm talking to Bonk and then allof a sudden we reconvene and yeah,
so this is this is our lives. This is how we talk and how
and how we live outside of work. Yeah. Yeah, and it's I
think the thing to emphasize with thatis that being a Christian does not mean

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that your entire life is Okay,I'm gonna go be a monk. I'm
gonna you know, sit in ain a monastery and be quiet and just
read the Bible all day long.Christians do a lot of different things,
and certainly it is a unique thingin the sense that you can be a

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Christian and really do anything. Imean, Martin Luther talked about this that
if you're a shoemaker, and thisis not probably something that makes a ton
of sense to us because we don'tlive in fifteen hundreds to Germany, but
this is the example he used.If you're a shoemaker who's a Christian that
wants to honor God, make greatshoes. Yeah, like do your best
because you glorify God, and youdo that. Paul talks about that.

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So Christianity is not a vocation foreither of us. There's certainly obviously pastors
it is a vocation. That's theirjob. But for most of us,
we are Christians who work in otherfields. And then the way that we
live our lives is shaped by ourrelationship with Jesus and what He has done

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in our own lives and what theHoly Spirit continues to do to make us
more like Him every day. AndMatthew, as you say, like how
the Old and New Testaments can tietogether, I'm certainly not going to put
the Disciple or the I'm not goingto put Matthew or one of the four
Gospels with King David. Okay,I mean I'm not We're not going to
do a pecking order power rankings.The thing, here's what I'm saying,

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but I mean the subtlety of themessages of God sharing with you as we
remember and then and I've shared thiswith you before, and this is so
important. God, the Bible iswritten for us. It's not written to
us. Now, when you getinto the Bible and you start reading and
listening and studying and getting into atransformation Bible and reading other opinions and stuff

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like that, Okay, Well,the relationship between you and God is right
there, and whatever comes out ofit will come out of it, and
you'll somehow know it through prayer,I don't know, or somehow you'll know
it as your life goes. Butthe Bible was not written to us.
It was written for us. Butso therefore sin. It's God has known

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since Adam and Eve that we weregoing to sin. And I know that
even before that too, right,And I just think it's so beautiful,
and the Gospel share a lot ofthis that you know, King David,
he's the only person in the Bible, and it's in for Samuel where God
is basically like this guy's a chipoff my own choulder. My own shoulder,
man after my own heart, manafter my own heart. And then

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people again two or three thousand yearsago would be like reading it like what
the adulterer David, the man whoarranged for the murder of a man named
Uriah, And this is written infor Samuel. So yeah, God knew
he was going to sin, knewhe sinned, and still had that come
out. Matthew the tax collector,ripping off his own Jews, Yeah,

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to fund Romans the adversary, rippingthem off to need a protection, just
to get to work. And thenof course Jesus is walking along and he's
like, come on, let's go, and he leaves everything as we would
and goes with him. Yeah,you know. So therefore, if you
just look at the contrast from fromthe secular at that time and what they
were and the money was important inthem, life's truly good. Well you

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don't really know what a good lifeis, is what he was indicating until
we follow along here and he andhe and he wrote one of the gospels,
as did John. His gospel waslike twenty five to thirty years after
Mark, Matthew and Luke. Sohow is John's version of the Christ and
the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection,of course different from the other three.

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How does John differ? Yeah,I think the writing is much more around
themes. I guess it's probably notchronological in the same sense, like,
for example, Jesus going to thetemple to clean out. Basically, Hey,
people are selling stuff in the templeand I don't want that happening.
Don't turn my father's house into aplace to just gut a big marketplace.

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Yeah, don't do that. Sothat shows up earlier in John than it
does in the others, And it'slike, Okay, well, why is
this. I don't know that Johnwrote in a way that was meant to
be strictly chronological. It's more organizedaround different themes. Jesus makes these statements
about who he is. I'm thebread of life, I'm the Way,

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the truth, and the life.I'm the light of the world. I
mean, he says all of thesethings in John and John. The first
chapter of John is written thematically.Again, he talks about in the beginning
was the word, you know,kind of riffing on Genesis one. In
the beginning, God created the heavensin the earth. John basically starts his
gospel by saying, in the beginningwas the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word wasGod. So he's saying, when God

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spoke, Jesus was actually there asGod's word in the beginning. So there's
this theme that he builds with thatand this theme that he builds with light
in John One, that he kindof builds on throughout his gospel. So
it's organized and written I think differently. And you see this in the letters
John writes later in the Bible aswell. There's a lot of the same

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kind of thematic construction. More sothan just well this happened, happened,
than this happened. It's more tohighlight certain aspects of Jesus and what he
did and who he was. Andlook at how at the end of the
equation. I mean, people havebeen shooting at this thing for a long
time now, for two and threethousand years, and here we are on
faith and goal to zero two fourtalking about it and John twenty five thirty

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years after the most recent gospel hadbeen written. Now, I mean,
he comes over the top. He'slike, all right, everybody, in
the beginning was the Word, andthe Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was withGod in the beginning. Through him,
all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
In him was life, and thatlife was the light of all mankind.

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The light shines in the darkness,and the darkness has not overcome.
I mean, John comes in hardbasically, like you've read and seen and
heard all this kind of stuff.I'm just kidding, what an unbelievable lead.
It's like, Yeah, Jesus wasthe Word is Jesus, And I
just love that God put him onarguably the most famous passage in the history

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of the of the Bible, John, chapter three, verse sixteen. God
also, you know, it's withthe way the apostles were dying. You
know, whether you want to really, really really really unpack things, I
guess there are some things that canbe debated, but most, if not
all of them died gruesome lives asmartyrs. You know, knowing that that

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after the Pentecost, Yeah, we'regonna we have the Holy Spirit, We're
gonna have the ability to heal.We're going to get out there and throughout
the ancient Near East, over toSpain and the whole thing. We're going
to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We ain't making anything for it.
We wholeheartedly believe it's the only wayto have it. The same dudes that
were hiding scared after Jesus crucified arenow saying, yeah, let's go,

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and we know we're going to diebecause of it, and it probably ain't
gonna be cool. Yeah. Well, but God guided John in a way
where you're going to end up ona little island called Patmas, just off
the shores of Turkey. And youknow what, as you're aging and you're
going to die as disciples would go, a peaceful death, but before an
angel's going to show up, andhe's going to give you something called the

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Book or Revelation. And we're goingto start by admonishing, critiquing, discussing,
praising seven churches. Seven Why seven? Well, actually seven means every
church that used to be, everychurch that is, and every church that
will be, but we'll deal withthat later. Seven usually means completeness,
boom, It's right in the Bible. That's the theme. So John,
the one who wrote the final ofthe four Gospels, it's first. John

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is one of the most impactful booksfor me that in my five years of
reading the Bible that I've come across, because it's God's way of finger pointing
and wagging, saying without him,you don't have me, and without me,
you don't have him. Beloved littlechildren. Yeah, so he's the

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way he talks about it and hasJohn Wright so hardly and potantly, but
then he finishes it with beloved andlittle soft Yeah. I just love it
and John and John did that too. So John definitely had God's favor.
He wrote one of the four Gospels, and it was twenty five to thirty
years again after the Third Gospel.What would your ben response to skeptics who

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are troubled that these gospel writers havemuch of the same accounts of Christ dying
on the cross for the all timesin of Maam and his resurrection three days
later, but there are differing viewson exactly how it all transpired. Yeah,
yeah, I mean there are Ithink differing details in the accounts,

(29:45):
and I think some of that I'vetypically interpreted it. As you know,
and we probably talked about this before, but three people covering the same vikings
game may have different angles. Theymay have different things. They highlight things
that they want to emphasize and they'reobviously not using their iPhones to record things

(30:07):
either, So I think some ofit plays into that that I tend to
look at it as there's four differentauthors that are emphasizing a little bit different
angles to the same things that theywere either therefore or talk to eyewitnesses about.
The approach with John obviously is differentthan the other three, which are
called the synoptics, which kind ofmeans seeing together, and that we can

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talk about whether one was a sourcefor the other and how the three leaned
on each other. But there's afair amount of agreement between the four in
the major details. A lot ofthe things that they differ on tend to
be a little more immaterial. Probablygreat. I don't don't want to diminish

(30:55):
that, because I think it issomething where people are like, well,
hey, why is this. Imean, I would have to say question,
but I think you answered it rightout of the gate. Yeah.
I mean, in fact, I'dtake it too, because when the eyewitnesses
on top of eyewitnesses on top ofeyewitnesses who witnessed all of this, and
lo and behold, in twenty twentyfour, here we are still talking about
it as disciples and willing and openDisciples of Jesus Christ. It I'd go

(31:19):
more than three. I'd be like, you put one hundred in the room
watching the same game. Yeah,you know you're going to have Like you
said, some people think that picksix lost the game. Some people think
that fumble, some people think thequarterback going lights out and those details.
You know, it's it's And Ialso think people at times do try too
hard to poke holes in something becausethey don't believe it. That's fine,

(31:42):
Yeah, you know what I mean, That's totally fine. That's what makes
good conversation. Yeah. And evento that point, like Jesus kind of
says this, he's under no illusionsthat everybody that hears my words are going
to be like, yeah, I'mon board. He knows. He tells
the disciples, look, you're gonnaeat resistance. You're going to lose your
lives for it. So why wouldwe expect the things that happened to them

(32:07):
because of something that people were likeyou know what, No, I'm not
with this. Why would we expectit to be different? Now? Like
there is going to be tension,there is going to be disagreement, there's
going to be friction about a lotof these things. The fact that it
happened when it did to the disciples, and the manner that it did,
we should not expect that, youknow, two thousand years later. Oh,

(32:30):
everybody's just going to be funky dorywith the whole thing. And and
you mentioned details compared to like theover archer. The the over arching situation
with these four gospels is Jesus diedon the cross for this reason, yep.
And he was God is man onearth. He rose three days later
brought the Holy Spirit into the world. But you know the resurrection was for

(32:52):
this reason. Yeah, And andand off that that's the main thing,
so to speak. Yeah, SoI mean that's the that's the over arch
ouraching belief. Fact take however youwant to look at it, that you
have to get more so than well, then how come marks different here?
And then the resurrection cuts off here? But in this translation, because God
has the translations for us now thatwe're supposed to have in twenty twenty more,

(33:15):
you know what I'm saying. So, I mean it's a submission.
It plays into submission of vulnerability andbelief in God that answers a lot of
those questions and keeping focus on whatmatters most in life, more than every
single thing these gospels and what theyteach about getting to heaven. The mind
of a Christian can become distracted,as we've just mentioned, with those details

(33:39):
that go into say, I meana lot of people talk about in debates,
speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy, end times, etc. Keeping
hearts and minds on the main thingthat's so crucial, right, Yeah,
it is, And the main thingis Jesus as God's son sent to earth

(34:01):
to live a perfect life, diein our place, and rise again as
victorious over death. I mean,like the four Gospels do not disagree on
any of that. They are speakingthe same thing. And Paul comes along,
a guy that's prosecuting the church,or not prosecuting, persecuting, he's

(34:22):
having Christians kill. That is amore direct way to say it. God
says, no, this is actuallygoing to be my guy that takes the
Gospel throughout Europe and parts of Asia. And Paul actually ends up writing before
a lot of these gospels are written. So a lot of Paul's letters actually
come probably fifteen to twenty years afterJesus' death and resurrection, and Paul did

(34:47):
not walk with Christ. Correct,he meets him once in the Book of
Hacks that shows up, but hedid not live or walk with them.
But a lot of theology about whatthe resurrection means, I mean, Paul
writes pretty famously in One Corinthians fifteenabout the resurrection and talks about this is

(35:08):
already being delivered to me, thistradition, this belief, this piece of
doctrine, so to speak, isalready being delivered to me. And this
is fifteen to twenty years after Jesusdeath. And Paul basically says this happened,
and he appeared to all of thesepeople, many of whom are still
alive. At his point in sayingthat is you can go check it out.

(35:28):
I mean, you can go talkto these people too. There are
other witnesses who are still alive foryou to consult about these things with.
So that is already happening pretty quicklyafter Jesus death, which is it's hard
for a legend in something that's goingto acquire all sorts of fanciful, extravagant

(35:50):
details to happen in that little amountof time. Last one, Bud,
you know, even though, andI'm really glad you brought up, saw
the persecutor into Paul the Apostle,the road to Damascus, blind healed,
and uh, and there we are, even though they aren't called gospels.
The Apostle, Paul preaching Christ andwhat matters most to like the savage,

(36:14):
cruel, power, hungry Romans andmany a church. He started via the
epistles. Well, they're very it'svery gospel like, you know, it's
it's it's in essence, it's I'mnot even gonna qualify it as a one
a because I don't that's that's aqualifier for God, but it's there.
They are direct and gospel like.Is that a fair thing to say?

(36:35):
Yeah? The gospels, No,I think they have different purposes in some
ways. The gospels tell us whoJesus was and what he did. Paul
sort of tells us what it meansand how we live. In response,
so he had the sidebar a littlebit. Yeah, more like the day
after analysis thing of like, hey, no, I we've seen the all
twenty two. Yeah, we knowthe whole story, so let's go break

(36:55):
it down and see what happened andhow what it means going forward that whole
Then they called him sidebar guy andHe's like, okay, wait till I
get to Romans. Yeah, alot of side bars. That's going to
be the Ballyhood college. Yeah,I'm going to do the the long takeout
that's going to give the definitive answersto these things. So Paul is really
important in the sense that we geta lot of our theology in terms of

(37:17):
how churches should work, what itall means, how it all fits together
with the Old Testament. Paul doesa lot of that in the Book of
Romans. The Book of Galatians certainlyincludes a lot of that information. So
yes, a super important I don'tYeah, companion's not the right word,
but another aspect of what God wasdoing through the New Testament that Paul adds

(37:40):
to it that is certainly not moreimportant, but not less important than the
Gospels. Yeah, we have aproblem and most times when we chat,
we have this problem where we don'twant to stop. Yeah, we just
start talking and talking and talking becauseI want to talk about Hbakic and you
know, from the Old Testament,but in the prophet Hubbakic, because it
was like, why you want meto go into Ninevah to those evil fools

(38:01):
and do what And then second chapter, God's like, prompt, sit down,
get the tablet and write this.You have no idea what's going to
happen? Uh to Uh it wasBabylon, right, Yeah, to Babylon.
You're going to be long gone,Hubachic. But here's what's gonna happen.
I'm gonna give you a snapshot togo do your job man. And

(38:22):
third chapter he's singing to him,Hubakic, singing to him, but I'm
sorry, Yeah, you know,just or Jonah and and and Ninevah was
there with Jonah, you know,and he ran from God and then finally
it came together. And there arejust so many There are so many practical
things in the Bible. If you'rerecognized it's not written to you, it's
written for you. And and yougive your yourself with teachers a chance to

(38:45):
learn to tie it into now becauselike people stop believing, question things,
run from things, pray, comeback together and and in essence or like
you know, I'm sorry, eventhough you do not have to say you're
sorry. I'm sorry, I loveyou, I'm back on draga. There's

(39:06):
so many stories like that in theBible. Yeah, I mean, and
I think one of the things thatI mean, we see from a lot
of the you know, so quoteunquote heroes of the faith, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, they all screwup pretty badly. David screws up very
badly, as we talked about,Peter screws up pretty badly. Well,
Paul, I mean when he wasYeah, he either murdered people or had

(39:29):
them killed. Yes, So there'salways in heaven by the way, right,
Yeah, So God uses jacked up, broken, sinful people to accomplish
his purposes. And I think oneof the reasons for that is to show
that it's not because these apostles orthese church fathers or even modern Christians are
super perfect and and it's because ofthem. Like God's point is to say,

(39:53):
I'm going to use these ordinary peoplethat make a lot of mistakes.
I'm going to show their mistakes inso ways to say, in spite of
all of that, my plan andmy purpose for them will not fail,
and my love for them will conquer. So the reason we see all these
people I think make mistakes, andthe reason that's highlighted is to show that

(40:16):
we are not God, and inspite of that, we are loved more
than we could possibly imagine, andthe purposes of God will prevail even either
with us or in spite of us. They will still have and God will
do what He's gonna do. Idon't know if you're like this in prayer,
but I mean I am a lotwhere you know, I will say
I love you Father, or butthen I'll quickly think to myself, I

(40:37):
love you, thank you for lovingme. Yeah that thank you for loving
me through ABCD and you know whatI'm saying, Yeah, where it hits
you like, Yeah, my lovefor God, Sure it's important, Okay,
his love for me and us,Yeah, it's everything. Yeah.
In closing, Ben, we havemore reason to be grateful to God than

(40:58):
he does to us. There's noreason to be and he never stops,
and he loves us more than welove it, and he never stops and
he never will stop. Now Bengoes to Hope Church in a Minneapolis.
I go to Faith Family Apple Valleyon Saturdays and rose Mount on Sundays.
And so if you ever want toagain come to our churches, just go
to their websites. And we're botheasy to get in touch with through the

(41:20):
Star Tribune and or k Fan.But say a listener wants to pray to
God and become one with God,Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. How
does one accept the greatest gift tobe given, that is the assurance of
salvation after we die. Well,I can just tell you how I did
it for me. Was like Isaid on the old astro turf. This

(41:45):
is not field turf. This isthe old carpet at the Metrodome in the
mid nineties. Basically just prayed God, I'm a sinner. I am grateful
that you sent your son Jesus todie for the sins that I deserve to
die for. Thank you for sendingyour son Jesus to die on the cross
for me. I want to takehim as the Lord of my life.

(42:07):
I want to receive. I mean, that's it. It's basically that simple
as saying I acknowledge that jesus deathwas to cover my sins, and I
wanted to be the lord of mylife and come in and fill me with
your Holy Spirit. And that's that. I mean. There's no wrong way
to bribe. No, no,I mean, if this is you and
God in prayer doing exactly what youjust said, exactly because the words are

(42:30):
they can look different. It doesn'thave to look exactly like what I just
said. I mean, and you'llhear a lot of people kind of say
something similar to what I said,But it's not like a prescription or a
formula. It's basically just understanding I'ma sinner and in spite of that,
God has a plan to bring meback into his family through the work of

(42:52):
Christ and saying God, thank youfor your free gift. I want to
take it and I want you tobe in charge you and thank you Man,
thank you very much for taking partin faith in goal. And let's
do it again soon. Okay,sure, Yeah, we'll keep these conversations
going that we're having off the microphoneabout topics and things we can talk about
and figure out how to do itand grow it. And most importantly,

(43:15):
hopefully somebody listening, you know,will will want to get into the Bible
a little bit. We'll want toprayer, pray a little bit, and
if you don't, that's fine too, because that's how God's world works.
And I'm really glad God puts youin that world and put our relationship where
it is. Ben and I haveknown each other for decade and change,
but we really haven't known each otheruntil about the last three years, and

(43:36):
I'm really glad the Holy Spirit pulledus together like that. Thank you,
and we thank Ben Geslin and DonordoEric Nordquist, and we leave you on
faith and goal with something I readthe other night. It involves death the
non believer and believers in these Gospelsof Jesus Christ. Well, an atheist

(43:58):
approaches death and dies with no hope. The Christian approaches the end and dies
with nothing but hope. I'm PaulAllen. Thank you for listening to faith and Paul