The Royal Rumble

There was a snake WHERE?!  Welcome back to Behind the Pulpit and boy do we have an action packed episode in store for YOU!  We take you through a royal rumble of 1v1 matchups that are taking place in the news:  Pacers vs Thunder, Oilers vs Panthers, Alcaraz vs Sinner, Reese vs Clark, Biles vs Gaines, Wright vs Orthodoxy, ICE vs LA, and of course Trump vs Elon.  The book war continues and we talk about Pastor Bobs sermon on 1 Timothy Chapter 5.  Its Widows, Wrestling, White House, Wright, and the Wild Wild West.  Don't miss a Second!

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YOU DECIDE the winner of this weeks Great Book War
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:33 SNAKE!
6:00 In The News: The Royal Rumble
38:01 Audience Question
43:00 The Great Book War
50:05 Sermon Recap
1:04:16 Theology Sprint
1:09:20 Church Body Life 




Music Credit:
ZDQKW7GSXHGKGFAU

Episode Transcript

Dave (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to Behind the Pulpit.
We have a fantastic show foryou.
2025 has been a year.
We got some stories today.
We got some cage matches today.
We got some showdowns to talkabout.
It's a week of toe-to-toechallenges.
We're going to talk about RileyGaines versus Simone Biles.
We're going to talk aboutDonald Trump and the feud with

(00:20):
Elon Musk.
We're going to talk about 1Timothy chapter 5 and how do we
arrange for widows to be takencare of.
We got the Indiana Pacers andthe Thunder that are in a rumble
but we got a rumble of a showfor you today and we're talking
widows we're talking wrestlingwe're talking the white house
we're talking nt right and we'retalking the wild wild west wow

(00:41):
it is a whirlwind of a show anymore any more words that start
with w i'm kind of running outof things what's up pastor bob
are you ready for behind thepulpit so

Bob (00:59):
Well, first of all, as you mentioned last week, nice shirt.
Was that salmon?
It is salmon.
Salmon.
Okay.
It seems like you got yourcoffee before we came in here.
You're just kind of hyped upon...
Or you're excited about thislist you came up with.
I'm ready to roll.
I'm ready to talk about.
I'm ready to roll.
So, yeah, we got a lot tocover, Pastor Dave.
It was a surprisingly eventfulweekend.
I couldn't keep up.

(01:20):
I couldn't keep up betweenTwitter or X or whatever you
call it and the news andeverything.
So, yeah.
Let's talk about it.

Dave (01:27):
That's what we're here for.
Well, let's just...
We want to give some Christianperspective, some Christian
worldview perspective on thesethings.
But the first thing I want totalk about is something that
happened on campus.
We had a visitor.
We had a friend.
On Thursday, Pastor Bob waswith me in the sanctuary along
with a couple other staffpeople.
And then our phones go ping.

(01:48):
And then I open up my phone andthere's a text from Noah Graves
saying, in the office with avideo.
And let me just show you guysthe video.
This is what I get when I'm inthe middle of

Bob (02:01):
a meeting.
Can you even see what that isfrom that picture right there?
It looks like a thread on theground.
This is what

Dave (02:07):
we were scared of, this thing right here?
That

Bob (02:09):
is a slithering monster right there.
There was a snake.
Can you zoom in and enhancesection three right there?
Ha ha ha! There we

Tim (02:19):
go.
I don't know why the video isnot playing.
Oh, it's a video?
It was a video.
Okay.
I put it in as a video, butapparently it just wants to

Bob (02:26):
be.
Well, why don't you tell folkswhat that is?
That looks like a mustache fromwhere I'm looking

Noah (02:32):
at it right there.
It was no mustache.
I walked out of the mainoffice, and I saw what I thought
was a toy snake, and I waslike, oh, who left this here?
And then I saw it starting toslither.
And then it moved towards you.
And then I

Dave (02:42):
realized it was not.
What was your theory on whatkind of snake it was?
I'm

Tim (02:45):
pretty sure it's a northern milk snake.
All right.

Dave (02:48):
Probably a milk snake.
They're common in New Jersey.
Maybe a king snake.
I don't know.
Non-venomous.
Non-venomous.
But man, it was slitheringaround.
They

Bob (02:54):
eat mice.
They eat mice.

Dave (02:56):
Then it kind of disappeared.
Noah, where did it go to?
It kind of like...
It crawled up into this littleslot in the wood.
And it's just hidden there fora little bit.
So we didn't know where it was.
And now I'm like, oh man, Idon't know where this snake is.
And I had to stay late for ameeting.
And I was like, is it going tobe under my desk?
Am I going to be looking forthis thing?
And so I was kind of like alittle bit anxious about it.

(03:19):
I don't really want to behaving snakes slithering up my
pant leg or something.
Well, then I came back out intothe hallway and it had come out
of the wood molding or whateverthat Noah just talked about.
And it was there.
I'm like, okay.
So then I start looking for aweapon and i know tim is highly
offended at this because tim youknow would have probably been a
lot more gentle is that righttim i i

Tim (03:40):
i think i would have

Dave (03:41):
yeah

Tim (03:42):
yeah you would have grabbed it by the tail i would have
been more gentle than this

Dave (03:44):
yeah so i found a stool and i just smashed its head and
then i picked it up with a coathanger to go show

Bob (03:51):
when you showed me it looked like you had taken it and
like ripped its body can we canwe

Dave (03:55):
discuss

Tim (03:55):
you did not just smash his head you you mutilated the
entire organism

Dave (04:00):
well you know what man i have a thing with snakes i don't
care for them.
I have a memory trace and Ithink humanity is supposed to
have enmity with these Slytherincreatures.
It's biblical.
So I killed it and I yelled atit and I said you will crawl on
your belly all the days of yourlife and then I took it out into
the weeds there behind thechurch and I threw it out there
in order to warn all of itsfriends to make sure they know

(04:22):
not to come back into thebuilding anymore.
So there is no more snake

Bob (04:26):
problem.
So a couple questions here.
First of all, I went upstairsand all of a sudden the next
thing I heard was like about 30times.
But secondly...
I wanted to make sure.
Was there a problem with yourfoot that you couldn't just step
on it, that you had to take thehanger?
Well, I wasn't going to

Dave (04:46):
get the smuts all over my shoes, man.
I didn't want the snake gutsall over my nice shoes.
I needed an object.

Bob (04:56):
Just to remind you, you were much bigger than the snake.
I was looking for your

Dave (04:59):
Jedi sword.

Bob (05:00):
I don't know if that would have been helpful to you.
I do have a Roman gladius swordthat you could have used to
chop off his head.
Anyway, the ladies

Dave (05:08):
were upset.
A

Bob (05:09):
rather gruesome way to open our Behind the Pulpit today,
but Pastor Dave was very excitedabout it.
Were they upset that there wasa snake there, or were they
upset that you mutilated

Dave (05:15):
it?
No, no, they were very afraidbefore, and they were rejoicing
with glad shouts and jubilationabout the fact that it was no
longer present, and an enemy hadbeen destroyed from the land.
Yes.
And so there was much, muchshouting and clapping

Bob (05:30):
Amy told us, and you can confirm this with her on Sunday
morning, that one of herprevious churches, a snake had
gotten in and they couldn't findit.
And then several years later,they did find it and it had
grown in size because it had, Iguess, had been eating the mice.
And it was about three timesthe size of when they first saw
it.
So this one could have showedup right here and been like a
like a python and about.

(05:51):
you know, a

Dave (05:51):
year or so.
I wasn't up for that.
So we had to stop that thing,nip it in the bud.
Anyway, that's what happened atMillington.
And hopefully that was thefirst and last time.

Bob (06:00):
Did anything happen anywhere else other than
Millington?

Dave (06:02):
Let's just go beyond our border.
So let's talk about whathappens in the news.
All right, man, this has beennonstop.
Let me start

Bob (06:13):
with start with the fun stuff.
Okay, okay.
But your idea was to kind of dosomebody versus somebody.
This is not just any sort of inthe news.
This is like an in the news.
like rumble in the jungle typeof thing.
I feel

Dave (06:25):
like there's a lot of head-to-head combat competitions
going on right now.
So Tim, which one do you wantme to do first?
Well, let's tee it up again.
Let's explain the concept.

Tim (06:34):
I feel like if people are listening to this right now,
they're like, what's going on?

Bob (06:37):
Dave was plotting this over text yesterday, and I said
maybe you should make a chart ofthese head-to-head combats that
happened over the weekend.

Dave (06:46):
I feel like there was a lot of showdown type of
activities in the news, a lot oftoe-to-toe kind of matches And
I feel like we should have likea Royal Rumble with all of these
different enemies and nemesisesthat were going after each
other.
So, Tim, where do you want meto start, man?
Which rivalry should we beginwith?

Tim (07:06):
Let's start easy with you and Noah's expertise.
Let's go here.

Dave (07:11):
All right, man.
This

Tim (07:12):
traffic is courtesy of NBA.com, by the way.

Dave (07:15):
It's game...
Well, it's about to be gamethree.
So game one was incredible.
Oh, my goodness.
One of the best finishes I'veever seen in my entire life.
Holy moly.
As much as I was kind ofaggravated with Hal Burton from
the previous series and theKnicks and the choke and
everything, that clutch shot atthe end of game one, I got

(07:35):
respect for him, man.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Noah, what do you think, man?
Thunder, Pacers, it's one

Noah (07:42):
and one.
It is.
I really want to see the Pacerspull this off.
We haven't seen the Pacersdominate in many years.
I don't think the

Dave (07:48):
Pacers have ever won anything.

Noah (07:50):
Really?
Even with Reggie Miller?

Dave (07:51):
No.

Noah (07:52):
They've never won a championship.
Let's see them get there first.

Dave (07:54):
Yeah, it could be.
But the Thunder last nightlooked dominant.
They had a great game.
They came back in full force.
They're a scary team.
So game three, Wednesday night.
I notice they're taking twodays off in between games now.
I feel like it used to be oneday off.
but now they're kind ofstretching this thing out into
the end of June.
All right, Wednesday night'sgame three.

(08:15):
Let us know what you think.
Are you Pacers?
Are you Thunder?
What's going on?
All right, so that's the firstrivalry.
We're not sure.
That's up in the air.
The other one, I'm going tolean on you, Tim.
What's going on in the world ofthe NHL?

Tim (08:27):
Yeah, so this graphic is courtesy of ESPN.
But yeah, the NHL playoffs arealso 1-1.
It's been kind of late.
The first game, the Oilers tookit.
So the Oilers...
have what people say.
So this guy with the C on hisjersey, his name is Connor
McDavid, and he's regarded bymost to be the best hockey

(08:48):
player in the league andArguably one of the best.
I think he, pound for pound, isthe best or most talented
hockey player of all time thatwe get to see right now.
And he has not won a StanleyCup yet.
And the Panthers have been thethree straight Stanley Cups.
They're going for their secondin a row.
Fun fact, the Stanley Cup forthe last six years has had a
team from Florida play in it.

(09:09):
That's pretty cool.
Anyway, game one, the Oilerstook it.
It was a really entertaininggame.
Game two was pretty much...
dominated by Florida for awhile until the last like 18
seconds of the game where CoreyPerry scored for the Oilers to
send it to overtime and itlooked like the momentum had
shifted and the Oilers weregoing to take game two and then

(09:29):
Brad Marchand on the Panthershad a breakaway out of nowhere
in overtime and put it away andthen after I believe that game
three is tonight it's they alsodid a two game break but also
this is the same exact matchupfrom last year so there's a I
think...

(09:49):
I think it's going to be Oilersin seven this time.
All right.
But I said that about theKnicks, and I was wrong.
So we'll see.

Dave (09:56):
Well, maybe this second time's a charm.
You'll get it.
So NHL fans, let us know whatyou think in the comments.
Who's going to win the StanleyCup?
All right.
Rivalry number three.
Where are we now, Tim?

Tim (10:07):
No, we should have talked about the other one from the
weekend.
Are we getting into the more

Bob (10:11):
serious rivalries right here?
Yeah,

Tim (10:13):
let's get into the more serious ones here.
This is a Pastor Dave one here.
Boom.

Dave (10:19):
If you guys are following the WNBA, most of us who've
been tuning in the last coupleof years, you know that Caitlin
Clark has taken the league bystorm.
And a couple of weeks ago,there was a flagrant foul.
I don't know if they called itflagrant or not, but Caitlin
committed a foul.
It was a purposeful foul.
And, well, you know, that wasnot really taken too kindly by

(10:44):
Reese, and there were some wordsexchanged, and there's been,
you know, a little bit of adust-up online between these two
ladies.
And I don't know if they reallycare for each other.
I've been kind of surprised athow vitriolic their relationship
is.
I don't know what's going onthere.
Maybe there's some bitterjealousy, bitter envy between

(11:04):
these two, but whose side areyou guys on?
Should we side with the personwho committed the foul, or
should we just give some gracefor the person who received the
foul?
I don't know, man.
Tim, are you a Caitlin Clarkperson?
Are you following this?
I

Tim (11:19):
love Caitlin Clark.
I think she's super talented.
She's a lot of fun to watch.
I do have a special place in myheart for Angel Reese, though,
because she led LSU to a Women'sBasketball Championship, and
I'm an LSU fan, so I doappreciate her I don't think
she's she doesn't have nearly asmuch success right now in the
WNBA as Caitlin Clark does Ithink she's struggling a little

(11:39):
bit more than Caitlin Clark yeahand you know it's it's an
interesting back and forth thatthey have going on there

Dave (11:47):
so Reese was suspended after an explosive clash and
fined a massive amount of moneyand so you know we'll see what
happens here but it'sinteresting people are paying
attention to the WNBA

Bob (12:01):
for the for the first time in a while people are paying
attention to the WNBA is thereany other sports that people
watch at a high level that wecan talk about well

Tim (12:14):
there was a I

Bob (12:15):
got some comments from people that were big hockey fans
from my observations last

Tim (12:20):
week I

Bob (12:22):
watch hockey I did say one time I did go to a Colorado
Avalanche game and it is quiteriveting to watch the NHL in
person not as much on TV, in myopinion, but in person it's
quite riveting.

Tim (12:36):
There was another insane...
sporting event yesterday.
Speaking of head-to-heads.
Which was?
The French Open final went fiveand a half hours.
And Yannick Sinner blew a twosets to none lead with three
match points.

Bob (12:50):
So the one match went five and a half hours?

Tim (12:52):
The one match went five and a half hours.
You can sit there and watch onematch for that long.
On the clay courts in Paris.
And Carlos Alcaraz came outwith his second Roland Garros
title in a row.
Wow.
Noah's a big Alcaraz guy.
So is my wife.
My wife loves...
Alcaraz is her favorite player.
Go,

Bob (13:07):
Carlos.
I'm so out of it.
I'm still back in Andre Agassi,man.
This is like...
He was

Tim (13:12):
on the broadcast

Bob (13:13):
recently.
He was?
Yeah, at

Tim (13:15):
the women's or

Bob (13:16):
men's semifinals.
He was up in the booth.
Who was Agassi and who was theguy he competed against that was
older than him?
Is it Sampras?
Pete Sampras.
Yeah, Pete Sampras.

Tim (13:26):
My first tennis racket was an Andre Agassi-issued head
racket.
It was my first ever.
He had the 80s malt.

Bob (13:32):
that he was sporting all the time.
That was before pickleball wasinvading our courts.
Did they make any commentsabout pickleball at the
tennis...
No, they don't really talkabout it.
They just pretend like itdoesn't exist.

Tim (13:46):
You do see some older tennis players that retire do
charity pickleball events.
The sport that shall not benamed.
They look like a lot betterthan the other pro tennis
players.
Anyway, so moving on.
We are going to begin shiftingout of the world of sports as we
get a little bit of a mix ofsports and current issues.

Bob (14:04):
Let's talk about these current issues.
So this is a good shift fromsports to issues.
Who made that

Dave (14:12):
thing?
Oh

Bob (14:12):
my

Dave (14:13):
gosh.
Simone Biles and Riley Gainesin baby form or something like
that.
I just put in chat GPT.
Are you body shaming right now,Pastor Dave?
Please give me a graphic thathas some sort of cartoon street
fighter motif with Biles andGaines.
And this is what spit it out.
So I don't know.
Wow.
So there's been a dust up.
Simone Biles, obviously awonderful gymnast.

(14:34):
People know who Simone Bilesis.
Does everybody know who RileyGaines is?
Maybe not.
Riley

Bob (14:40):
Gaines was a swimmer I think for UPenn and she swam on
the same Kentucky was itKentucky yeah okay but she
competed against Leah Thomas thetrans woman from UPenn and
she's become a very vocaladvocate for not having men in
women's sports, even what hasbeen called trans women who are

(15:04):
basically who are men.
So she made a comment about ahigh school team that I think
had a trans athlete over theweekend on social media.
And Simone Biles decided tophone in a comment.
And that's what started thiswhole thing.
And Yeah.
Why don't we go from there?
So

Dave (15:22):
Simone says on whatever social media platform, quote,
you're truly sick.
All of this campaigning becauseyou lost a race.
Straight up sore loser.
Wow.

Bob (15:36):
Yeah.
Which I think the ironic thingis she mentioned later she
didn't actually lose the race.
They tied.
Yeah.
I think she came in fifth.
Right.
No, she tied for fifth with...

Dave (15:47):
Leah Thomas, I think, was the comment.
And then she goes on to say,you should be uplifting the
trans community and perhapsfinding a way to make sports
inclusive or creating a newavenue where trans feel safe in
sports, maybe a transgendercategory in all sports, but
instead you bully them Onething's for sure is no one in
sports is safe with you around.
So Biles throws down thegauntlet, drops the mic there,

(16:10):
and is coming after Gaines.
And, you know, I think that'sreally sad.
I feel like Simone Biles hashad a great deal of success, and
she's in a particular, youknow, sphere of gymnastics where
she hasn't had to battle that.
And so I've heard people say,well, why don't you try
competing against men on the

Bob (16:29):
pommel horse?
Well, no, she's been criticizedbecause, yeah, right, is Is
that what

Dave (16:33):
you're getting to?
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Like, you don't have to dothis.
You got to where you arewithout having to compete
against men or trans men.

Bob (16:39):
Yeah.
The ironic thing was SimoneBiles followed that up with a
comment that Riley Gaines shouldpick on someone her own size
who ironically would be a man.
So she's sort of implicitlyadmitting that men and women are
different.

Tim (16:52):
The response to that I thought was really funny.
She took a mirror picture withher husband and her husband was
holding a tape measure and shewas significantly shorter than
her husband.

Dave (16:59):
Her husband's like 6'4".
Yeah.
So Gaines says something like,I didn't have this on my bingo
card that Simone Biles was goingto be making a problem for
women in sports in this fashion.
So Biles threw down thegauntlet.
Gaines is arguing back.
From a Christian worldviewperspective, how should we
understand this feud betweenthese two incredible athletes?

Bob (17:22):
Well, I mean, I think the issue that we would say is that
men and women are different.
And if you really want to be aprotector of women, we should
not have men and women inwomen's sports areas.
Period.
Full stop.
Right.
I don't know what themotivation is with Simone Biles.
Maybe she's got some friendswho are wrestling with this, but

(17:44):
irregardless of that, I mean, Ihave daughters.
If I had men competing againstmy daughters, I'd have an issue.
Aside from the fact that wejust think this is a creation
order issue of men and womenbeing different and holding onto
that truth.

Dave (17:59):
Yeah.
I'd agree with that.
So Sorry, have to disagree.
Although Simone Biles is anamazing gymnast.
I have to disagree with her onthis one.
But she is retired now, and soit just kind of feels like a
smear, a poke in the eye forathletes that are still dealing
with this issue.
And, you know, she gets to kindof lay back in her retirement

(18:20):
and not have to worry about it.
All right, so that's thatrivalry.
Let us know what you think inthe comments.
We'd love to hear from you.
What's the next rivalry, Tim?
All right, let's

Tim (18:28):
jump right in.
Do we want...
Let's go.
We got three left here.
Let's do this one.
Oh, man.

Dave (18:40):
Look at that.
Orthodoxy.
Okay.
So.
I have a great respect for N.T.
Wright.
What is up with orthodoxy rightthere?
He's like a priest in theEastern tradition.
And, you know, N.T.
Wright made some comments on aparticular podcast, radio show,
interview.
And it's been all the rage thisweek.

(19:00):
The first one I saw, I thinkyou sent me.
It was like Monday or Tuesday.
It was.
And it was him.
Defending Marcus Borg, whodenies the bodily resurrection
of Jesus, and because N.T.
Wright did some project withhim, collaborated with him, he
wanted to give Borg the benefitof the doubt and say, hey, this

(19:22):
guy had...
a kind of faith in Jesus,though he denied the
resurrection.
So he didn't feel comfortablesaying that he was outside the
boundaries of the Christian

Bob (19:33):
faith.
He was appealing to the factthat he prays like he loves
Jesus, even though he denies thebodily resurrection, I think
was

Dave (19:39):
the, yeah.
And so, you know, I'm all forbeing gentle and, you know, I
think that's important to, youknow, not snuff out a smoldering
wick or anything like that.
But you can also say, as atheologian, the bodily
resurrection of Jesus Christ isan essential component of our
faith.
In fact, in 1 Corinthianschapter 15, it says that if you

(20:01):
deny the bodily resurrection,then we're still in our sins.
We have no hope for ourselves.
It is such a linchpin in termsof what we believe.
I can't imagine any apostle orany early church father coming
anywhere near a statement thatwould deny the bodily
resurrection of Jesus.
That just never happened.

(20:21):
And so N.T.
Wright, I think is out on aweird limb here.
And I think it's anirresponsible thing to say.
If you're a theologian, youshould be able to draw
boundaries where they need to bedrawn.

Bob (20:30):
Aside from the fact that this is the guy that wrote the
book, The Resurrection of theSon of God,

Dave (20:34):
which was awesome.
And he vehemently defends theAnastasis, the resurrection of
Christ in that book.
And yet here he seems to besoft.
He seems to be squishy.
He seems to be waffling.
because of Marcus Borg.
And that guy came from thewhole Jesus seminar era.

(20:56):
So that's the first thing hedid.
The second thing he did was hestarted waffling on another
ethical issue.
N.T.
Wright, I think it was in thesame interview with the same guy
because it seemed like the samebackground.
And he was He was making thecase for in certain situations,
abortion would be allowed.
Is that a fair way to explain

Bob (21:18):
his comments?
He was saying that it would...
So this is very irritating.
So basically, he was making theargument that if the mental
health of the mother was inconcern, let's say she was going
to have a disabled child orwhatever, then abortion was
justified.
He really like that was what hebasically said in the podcast

(21:41):
and made some other exceptionsand stuff as well.
But the mental health issue wasthe one that really garnered
the most attention.
I mean,

Dave (21:50):
that's really crossing the ethical line.
I think as Christians, we needto be able to say we take a
stand for the sanctity of humanlife.
And I don't.
I don't know that you should bewaffling on these core issues.
I think there's an importantplace for theologians to stand
and say, this is right, this iswrong.
And N.T.
Wright has a huge audience anda huge following, and yet...

(22:12):
he seems to be kind ofcrumbling in these later years.

Bob (22:16):
Right.
Well, aside from the fact that,I mean, I'd be interested to
hear his discussion of 1Corinthians 15, where Paul is
talking about the resurrectionof Jesus.
And then 1 Corinthians 15, 16,Paul says, for if the dead are
not raised, not even Christ hasbeen raised.
And if Christ has not beenraised, your faith is futile and
you're still in your sins.
So how can you say, if youdon't believe in the

(22:38):
resurrection of Jesus...
that you're a Christian.
I'd be interested to hear N.T.
Wright's answer to that.

Dave (22:47):
Yeah.
So that's that feud.
I got to say I'm with theOrthodox priest with the hood
that looks like Obi-Wan Kenobion this one.
That's who I'm signing off on,whoever that guy is.
All right.
So should we move

Tim (23:00):
to

Dave (23:00):
our next battle royal?
All right, yeah, let's go forit.
Our

Tim (23:03):
final undercard.
Okay.

Dave (23:06):
All right.
Well, I don't even know if thiscould be considered any kind of
undercard.
This is a big story.
I don't know if you guys arewatching the footage from LA
this weekend, but there's beenan uprising.
And I think the protestshave...
Well, we wanted to define somethings today.
Occasionally, we need to makesure we're defining terms

(23:27):
correctly.
So...
Are we still talking about aprotest or have we crossed the
line into rioting?
And what is that line and howdo we tell the difference and
how do we understand that?
So this is a reaction.
And in the city of Los Angeles,there's been cars on fire.
There's been things gettingthrown at police officers.

(23:47):
There's been a great reactionby those who are opposed to ICE
and the recent deportations.
And they are...
They are coming out in fullforce.
They're walking out intohighways and they're causing
quite the disruption in L.A.
So the National Guard has beendeployed.
They are only protecting atthis point, at least last night,

(24:08):
they were only protecting thefederal building.
They haven't gone beyond that.
But it's also possible that themilitary could get involved in
a more robust way.
But.
Governor Newsom is saying, wedon't need that.
We've got everything undercontrol.
And I was kind of flipping backand forth between the news
channels last night.
So on CNN, they had this oneparticular person that was
saying, everything's fine.
It's not a big deal, butliterally like.

(24:28):
on the screen right beside herare all of these fires that are
occurring simultaneously withher saying everything's under
control.
It's just a peaceful protest.
I don't know.
So, Bob, can you help usunderstand what is the
definition of a protest, and howdo we think about that?

Bob (24:45):
Well, I'd love to do that.
Before I do that, I did want tosay I was scrolling through, I
think, on some social mediathing, and there was a map that
somebody put up of these issuesin LA, and they were saying,
stay in your home or get out oftown.
I was like, what is going on?
And then I found this.
that apparently this was an ICEstaging area that somebody
found out and they started tosurround it.
And then what you describedensued.

(25:06):
All right, so is it a protestor is it a riot?
How do you define those twothings?
And so I asked perplexity righthere.
This is the chart thatperplexity came up for me in
terms of definitions of protestsversus a riot.
So a protest is...
is a peaceful, organized publicdemonstration expressing

(25:27):
objection or disapproval of anidea, policy, or action.
So, you know, in our country,you have the right to peacefully
protest, and that's thedefinition.
Now, a riot is a violent andtumultuous disturbances of the
peace by a group often involvingcrime, property destruction, or
harm to people.
So those are two very differentthings, and I guess depending

(25:49):
on the news channel that youwatch, they'll define it one way
or the other, although I'vebeen hearing that federal agents
are getting attacked, peopleare throwing cinder blocks at
them.
That, to me, seems violent.
Can you put that back up, Tim?
So the other thing weremethods.
Protest involves nonviolentactions.

(26:11):
A riot involves violentactions.
The intent is to express aviewpoint and protest.
The riot is to create chaos.
The thing that made meinteresting towards the bottom
was the...
Legal status and leadership.
So a protest is protected bylaw, but a riot is something
considered unlawful and criminaldue to violence and

(26:33):
destruction.
And then leadership, usually aprotest has somebody who's
organizing it and leading it,but a riot is something that
lacks structure or leadershipand it's often focused on
anarchy.
So based on your review ofwhat's going on in Los Angeles,
Pastor Dave, how would youdefine it as a protest or as a

Dave (26:53):
riot?
I think there's a portion ofthe population that is coming
out to peacefully protest whatthey perceive as an injustice.
And as Christians, we want tolisten to the voice of those who
need to be heard.
But then there's an otherportion of people in L.A.
that are, I think, crossing theline over to riotous behavior.
I would even question if thisis funded.
I wonder sometimes if peopleare getting paid to make mayhem

(27:17):
there and if there are certaingroups there that are causing
division and disruption there.
In 2020, there was someevidence with the George Floyd
riots that some of these peoplewere actually getting...
you know, a good amount ofmoney in order to make the kind
of chaos that they were making.
You saw like pallets of bricksbeing brought in to throw at

(27:38):
cars and things like that.
So you kind of wonder who'sbehind all of this.
What was striking to me withthe riots last night is if
you're looking for sympathy fromthe immigration standpoint,
what I saw were a lot of flagsthat were not American flags
being waved and flown.
And it seemed to me Peopledidn't really want to show any

(28:03):
patriotism towards the countrythat they'd like to stay in.
So what would be endearing, Ithink, in this situation would
be if people were singing GodBless America and busting out
the Pledge of Allegiance andshowing their love for this
country.
But rather what I saw is adisdain for and a hatred for
this country.

(28:23):
I saw people spitting on theflag and lighting the flag on
fire, the American flag on fire,and that kind of thing.
And so I think that takes a lotof nerve to wave the flag of
the country that you're refusingto return to.
I just don't think that's in avery effective way to let your
voice be heard.
And so that's a problem.
I also think as Christians, wewant to promote law and order.

(28:47):
Romans 13 says the governmentis there to protect us, and I
think we should be

Bob (28:53):
respectful.
And the governor is thediakonos, the civil servant.
He's God's servant, God'sdiakonos, for your good.
Yeah.

Dave (29:02):
Now, there could be an underlying cause of certain
riots.
Sometimes there's profoundsocial grievances and
injustices, and we want to besensitive to that.
In this case, here's what Iwould say.
Yes, the Bible says Christiansshould be loving the immigrant.
It does say that.
Leviticus, other places in thelaw, and I think that's true,

(29:25):
period.
Yes, but I don't think weshould let debates about
immigration policy necessarily,well, let me just say it this
way.
Don't harden your heart towardsthe immigrant.
I think that's true, butreferencing any deportation of

(29:47):
an illegal immigrant and thenusing the Bible to combat that,
I think is a category confusion.
I don't think that that'sreally properly using the Bible.
The conversation isn't about dowe love the immigrants?
That's actually not the rightconversation.
It's about do we uphold thelaw?
Do we punish criminals?
Which is actually verybiblical, right?

(30:10):
And so the actions being takenby ICE don't have anything to do
with people being immigrants.
It has to do with the fact thatthey are illegal immigrants and
oftentimes involved in criminalbehavior, and that's why
they're being lawfully deported.
So I think as Christians, weshould keep our categories
straight there and be carefulabout using the Bible in ways

(30:31):
that could be confusing.
So...
Can I ask a couple follow-up?
The actions being taken by ICEare actions against people who
broke the law.
A

Bob (30:38):
couple follow-up questions.
So...
First of all, the idea of whenthe Bible talks about loving the
immigrant, agreed.
The immigrant categories thatare mentioned in the Old
Testament are often related tothe nation of Israel, more of a
theocracy.
How does that, have you thoughtabout how does that apply to
the responsibility of the churchversus the state in our current

(31:02):
setup, which is different thanwhat was happening under the Old
Testament?

Dave (31:08):
Yeah, I mean, if you see discontinuity between the nation
of Israel and the church, Ithink you're going to need to
say what was true of a nationand a theocracy and a country
may not necessarily come overone for one into the church as
it stands.
I don't know that we can justtake a Bible verse and say,
here's what the Bible says.
The Bible has to beinterpreted, and I think there's

(31:30):
a proper way to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's be careful abouthow we speak about this and
let's pray for those who areinvolved in this probably still
chaotic situation.
I imagine that's

Bob (31:46):
going to be

Dave (31:46):
ongoing.

Bob (31:47):
And then if people feel there are unjust laws, what's
the appropriate action for that?
I would tend to think that'swhere the protest category comes
in, and also trying to getpeople in office to change
unjust laws.
Right,

Dave (31:59):
which is the beauty of our country, that we do live in
a country where the laws can bechanged, and we live in a
democracy, so we want to haveour voices be heard.
But we use our voices, and weseek change diplomatically
rather than being destructive,and that's what rioting is.
Yeah.
That's that rivalry.
Let us know what you think inthe comments.

(32:20):
We'd love to hear your opinion.
And then the main card.
Here we go.
For the cage match of theevening, let's talk about the
breakup.
So this is the breakup wedidn't

Bob (32:34):
see coming.
What just happened here, PastorDave?
So this is the

Dave (32:37):
Street Fighter version of Trump versus Elon.
I was watching this podcastlast night.
I think your 80s are showingright here.
Do you know that guy who'sconnected with Krista and Center
for Biblical Unity?
His name's Kevin.
Kevin.
Yeah, he's actually on staffwith them now.
We just went over.
Anyway, I got that graphic fromhim.

(32:59):
So I thought it was prettyfunny.
So that's their stuff.
And, you know, it's like adivorce, man.
Divorce is hard on the kids,right?
They're fighting.

Bob (33:10):
Something happened.
There was a tweet war.
We're not getting the fullstory.
I was hearing about physicalaltercation with him and with
Elon and the Treasury Secretaryover whatever they were
discussing.

Dave (33:21):
Oh, I know there was a black eye.
Is that what you're talkingabout?

Bob (33:24):
Well, that's people were speculating.
Where did the black eye really

Dave (33:27):
come from?
So let's just go through thetweet war, if we will.
So the first thing thathappened was Elon was thanked.
profusely, and he was givenhonor for his work in Doge over
the last four or five months,basically working for free for
the federal government to try towrestle down the spending and

(33:48):
try to find waste and fraud andabuse in the budget.
And then after he left, Elondropped a bomb and said
something like, I can't take itanymore.
Let's just be honest about thisbig, beautiful bill.
It's not good.
And Trump was disappointed tohear that he was critiquing the
big, beautiful bill.
And Trump said the reason whyhe's critiquing it is because we

(34:09):
had to remove certaincomponents of the bill that had
to do with electric vehicles.
And that's why he's upset aboutthat.
Elon then started swatting backto Trump and eventually
basically said, Hey, the realreason why you haven't seen the

(34:34):
Epstein files is because Trumpis in them.
And so he kind of dropped abomb on social media that way.
And Trump basically said, thisguy's been going crazy.
And he's kind of...
been wearing thin I think isthe term that he used and then
he just went off the rails andTrump's been kind of ignoring
him and then then Elon said heylisten if you want to make

(34:57):
progress with the space programand NASA I'm not going to be
helping you with SpaceX anymoreso he's trying to bring him to
the table that way and man it'sbeen a messy tweet war it's a
big breakup they're going titfor tat we're all watching this
like we're in middle school manthis is a huge thing I don't
know if you like friends butthis is bigger than Ross and
Rachel breaking This is likethis is a problem or

Bob (35:21):
What it's what it's quite the comparison right there
pastor to go back to our do youguys know me Ross and Rachel?
Are we got BWF these people?
Yes Okay, holy sense and

Dave (35:30):
Hulk Hogan and

Bob (35:30):
Randy Macho

Dave (35:31):
Man Savage when they broke up.

Bob (35:32):
I was a problem So how should Christians think about
Trump and Elon here?
Here's the thing a lot ofpeople don't like Trump, right?
So they think this this chaoticstuff is what we don't like
about Trump.
Yeah and all of that so Thesetwo are like these alpha
business guys who are used tonegotiating, used to getting
what they want, and thisprobably was inevitable of
happening.
In fact, people saying theywere predicting how long it was

(35:54):
going to take.
But what are we supposed to dowith these guys?

Dave (35:59):
It was fun while it lasted, but it's over.
I feel like it's a big deal.
I mean, I feel like we ripped ahole in the space-time
continuum or something thisweekend.
That was a...
Big breakup.
That's going to be hard.
It didn't...
Well, here's what I would sayabout it.
Okay.
When I was a kid, it didn't...

(36:19):
It wasn't...
It's sad.
This feels like Jerry Springer.
Do you guys know who JerrySpringer is?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Heard of him.
You are not the father.
This feels like an episode ofreality TV or something.
It just...
It...
It's sad to me that this ishappening in our country like
this.
It didn't used to be like this.

(36:40):
There was diplomacy.
There was decorum.
Our leaders never would haveacted like this in a White House
context.
This is new.
So we've now entered into thestage of we now elected someone
who used to be a reality TV starwho is behaving like one.
And I think that part

Bob (37:00):
is kind of sad.
Yeah, and I think a lot ofChristians have issues with the
character qualities of leaders.
No leader's perfect.
Wish they were.
And yet, here we are.

Dave (37:13):
Yeah.
Do you guys think they're goingto...
patch it up?
Do you think there's any hopefor this relationship?

Bob (37:19):
I think what I've heard people comment on Trump is Trump
seems to be angry at somebodyone day and then he accepts
somebody back in the next day.
So I think there's apossibility of reconciliation
here.
Trump seems to have forgiven alot of other people.
But we'll see.
I don't

Dave (37:36):
know.
Depends.
Well, time will tell.
But it's been an eventfulweekend.
2025, man, it's been a year sofar.
There's been a lot going on.
That was the Behind the PulpitRoyal Rumble.
Awesome.
Well, let us know what you guysthink.
We got a lot of stories.
Did you just kind of whip thatup while we were talking?

Tim (37:53):
No, I had that before.
I just didn't have the chanceto put it up.
I love it.
So which one's Bob and whichone's Dave?

Dave (38:01):
Very good.
Well, moving on.
That was that.
We do want to talk about...

Tim (38:04):
We do have an audience

Dave (38:05):
question.
Oh, good.
Yeah, let's talk about audiencequestions.
I'd love to do that.

Tim (38:09):
What was the question this week?
So we had an audience questionsubmitted to me by my friend DJ,
who is a listener of the show,listens every week.
Hey, what's What's up, DJ?
And he's been going through thebook of Numbers.
God bless you, DJ.
Numbers 21, 13 through 14mentions the book of the Wars of

(38:30):
the Lord.
Google says it's a completelylost, non-canonical book,
possibly adjacent to the book ofJasher, which is also
non-canon.
Should these books hold anyweight?
A friend said that it's justheretical, but then why would
the word mention a hereticaltranscript?

Dave (38:47):
No, definitely not heretical.
That's not true at all.
I don't know what friend saidthat, but that's not accurate.
So there are several times inthe Old Testament that refers to
books, annals, records, thingslike that.

Bob (39:02):
I have a list of them.
Latin Chronicles and Kings

Dave (39:05):
mentioned.
I have a list of them herebecause I actually...
have studied what's called theredaction criticism for quite
some time, which is when theBible gets edited.
And these books that sometimesget cited by Old Testament
authors are no longer inexistence, but yet they were in

(39:26):
existence at the time, and theOld Testament authors made use
of some of them.
One of them is the book thatyou just mentioned, although
there's a lot of other ones aswell.
So back then they had records,they kept logs, and the authors
of the scriptures used thoserecords and used those logs in
order to write the books of theBible.
So they did research, kind oflike the Gospel of Luke at the

(39:48):
beginning.
Luke's like, hey, there's abunch of other stuff I looked
at.
I interviewed some eyewitnessesand I looked into this for a
while and then he came up withthe Gospel of Luke.
In that way, I think the OldTestament similarly has evidence
of the fact that it wasresearched, right?

Bob (40:06):
Yeah, and so that particular, the Annals of the
Wars, I forget what it wascalled, was cataloging Israel's
military victories and alsobeing used there to cite the
borders of Israel at the time,was at least one of the reasons
it was used in context inNumbers 21.

Dave (40:27):
yeah so occasionally you'll come across a book like
that that the bible cites andit's like man i wish we still
had a copy of this and maybe oneday they'll be excavating
something and they'll be likehey here's that book that was
referenced we found it big findthat doesn't necessarily mean
that that book was inspired justbecause the bible quotes
something doesn't mean the thingthat it's quoting is inspired

(40:49):
the bible's inspired but thatdoesn't The Bible can quote
other things.
You know, Paul quoted poets inthe book of Acts.
There's other sources ofinformation that are not
necessarily inspired.
But then when the Bible writersquote them, they do that under
the inspiration of the HolySpirit.
And at that point, we recognizethe Bible as inspired there.

(41:10):
Tim, am I making sense to you?
I mean, I'm trying to explainthis in a way that's simple.
Noah, what

Tim (41:17):
do you think?
Yeah?

Dave (41:18):
Yeah.

Tim (41:19):
I think so.

Dave (41:19):
Yeah.
All right.
You want me to read you theother examples?
Yeah.
Just for fun?
Yeah.
All right.
Obviously.
If you guys want to tune outfor 60 seconds, this is going to
be very boring.
Okay.
So here we go.
So here's the extra biblicalbooks quoted in the Old
Testament.
The Book of the Wars of Yahwehis the one you mentioned from
Numbers 21.
The Book of Jasher.
Joshua 10.
The book of the annals ofSolomon, 1 Kings 11.

(41:41):
The book of the annals of thekings of Israel, 1 Kings 14.
The books of the annals of KingDavid, 1 Chronicles 27-24.
The annals of Samuel the seer,the annals of Nathan the
prophet.
The annals of Gad the seer, 1Chronicles 29.
The annals of Nathan theprophet, the prophecy of Ahijah.
The Shilonite and the visionsof Iddo the seer.

(42:03):
That's a good name for yournext...
Son, Iddo.
2 Chronicles 9.
The annals of Shemaiah, theprophet of Iddo, of the kings.
2 Chronicles 24.
The acts of Uzziah.
2 Chronicles 26.
The book of the kings of Judahand Israel.
That's 2 Chronicles 32.
The annals of the kings ofIsrael.
2 Chronicles 33.
The book of the annals.

(42:25):
Nehemiah 12.
Finally, the book of the annalsof the kings of Media and
Persia.
Esther chapter 10.
So that's a complete list frommy thesis of all of the extra
biblical books that the OldTestament quotes that we don't
have anymore.
And they must have been aroundat some point.
And at some point they stoppedneeding to preserve them,
probably because the Bible didwhat we needed it to do.

(42:47):
And so, yeah, good question.
I appreciate you even noticingthat from the book of Numbers.
A lot of people would neverpick that out.
So kudos to you for yourobservational skills.
And thank you for yourquestion.
And

Bob (43:00):
we're on.
You got a thank you from PastorDave.
We're on,

Dave (43:03):
too.

Bob (43:04):
Did you see how excited he got to answer that question?

Dave (43:07):
Our favorite part of the show.
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
It's the book war.
The last rivalry of the day isthe one between Pastor Bob and
Pastor Dave.
So, we've been neck and neckhere.
I think I'm ahead.
Is that right, Tim?
You are ahead.
This is the score after lastweek.
I'm winning.
14 to 13.

Tim (43:27):
Um...
That is correct.

Dave (43:29):
But we had a war last week.
You did.
Is there results of that?

Tim (43:34):
Yeah.
The winner is this book righthere.

Dave (43:38):
Oh, yeah.
John Piper.
Brothers, we are notprofessionals.

Tim (43:43):
Now, I'm a little disappointed.

Dave (43:45):
Why?
We

Tim (43:47):
got one vote.

Dave (43:49):
Oh.
Hey, guys.
I appreciate the unanimity, butwe need...

Bob (43:57):
We need a little bit more.
So should we rethink what we'redoing here?
Maybe we should go back tohaving Tim and Noah vote if
nobody's going to participate.
You know what?

Tim (44:04):
We might have to.
We were doing okay on thevoting.
It might have been because itwas the first week back from a
couple of

Bob (44:11):
weeks.
You know what we should do?
We should invite a staff memberin to come in just for the book
and try to get the differentstaff member to choose.
Maybe we should offer a prize.
We could rotate that.
Yeah, a prize.
There you go.
A toy.

Tim (44:24):
Listeners, if you're listening, we will take the
privilege away from you if youdon't start voting.
A threat.

Bob (44:31):
Can one vote be counted as a win?
I feel like we need to have atleast three people voting.

Tim (44:35):
You gotta vote, people.

Dave (44:37):
You gotta go vote.
Alright.
Please vote.
We're begging you.
Please, please vote.
Alright.
So, Bob, your book's in yourhand.
Why don't you go first?

Bob (44:45):
Yeah, so this book was recommended to me.
It's called Disability in theChurch, A Vision for Diversity
and Inclusion as it Relates toDisabled Folks by Lamar
Hardwick, who's known as the,well, he's a pastor and he's got
autism.
So we've been talking about howdo we develop a disability

(45:06):
ministry here at MBC.
I'm not quite sure whathappened right there.
We've got to get these flags.
We've got to get the flags forthe book.
Anyway, we're working withJohnny and Friends Disability
Ministry and a woman named Sarahcame out and she recommended
this book to me.
I've found it to be prettyhelpful in terms of thinking

(45:27):
about some of the issues as itrelates to disability in the
church.
A lot of talk from Luke 14 andthe parable of the great
banquet.
So if you're interested in thattopic, this will probably be
something we continue to circleback to.
So Disability in the Church,Lamar Hartwick, there you go.
That'll be my submission fortoday.

Dave (45:47):
Looks good.
I was trying to plug somethingin, but it's not working, man.
I don't know.
Anyway, so my book is...
Is your book dead?
I got a regular book, and itdoesn't die.
So this one is a book writtenby the Arbinger Institute that I
read a few years ago that wasabsolutely groundbreaking.
It's called Leadership andSelf-Deception, Getting Out of
the Box.
It is so profound.

(46:07):
This is a very deep book, andthe implications for your life
are...
incredible so this waspublished like 25 years ago it's
not a Christian book it is asecular book but it continues to
sell even in Christian circlesbecause I think it talks about
the concept of self-deception ina way that is completely

(46:29):
compatible with the definitionof sin in Christianity so it
talks about the universal needthat we have for
self-justification and when wedo something wrong our
conscience like bothers us andwe have to silence the
conscience.
And so the book surmises thatthe manner in which we can
silence our conscience is byfinding some way to justify

(46:54):
ourselves, usually throughblaming others.
And when we get in that place,we're in the box and we can no
longer see what we've done wrongbecause we're now committed to
blaming someone else or findingsome reason why I'm not guilty
of what I actually did to pingmy conscience in the first
place.
It is a universal humancondition we are all

(47:15):
self-deceived this book explainsexactly what we do and the the
illustration he gives in thebook is really fascinating he's
like imagine you have a newbornand there you are sleeping next
to your spouse and the newbornstarts crying uncontrollably and
you really don't feel likegetting out of bed in order to
take care of the baby and youpretend To be asleep and not

(47:39):
able to hear the crying whileyou wait for your spouse to get
up and care for the child.
This is going to ping yourconscience because you know that
you have been selfishlybehaving here in bed.
And at that point, the personin the book starts to imagine
wrong things that their spousehas done that will somehow

(48:01):
justify why they didn't have toget up out of bed.
Well, you know.
They should get up anywaybecause, after all, my spouse
did such and such and suchtoday.
And you start actually havingthis terribly disdainful
attitude towards this person,not because they really did
anything wrong, but because youhave a need to self-justify.

(48:22):
And that happens all over theplace, at home, in the family,
in marriage.
at the workplace.
You could even say that thisprobably happens on a more broad
scale, maybe on a nationalscale, maybe on a global scale.
You have international criseswhere one side hates the other
side, and in order to justifytheir behavior, they have to

(48:44):
keep hating the other side.
There is no other choice thanto hate the other side.
So this book is really good.
You should read this book.
And Bob's book's good too, butif you can read both...
That's

Bob (48:56):
my

Dave (48:57):
book today.

Bob (48:57):
Somebody recommended that book to me years ago, and I read
it, and it's very good.
I would recommend that book toyou.
Maybe I'll do the assist on therecommendation.
If you win, maybe I'll get halfa point.
I don't know.
We'll see.
We recommend you decide.
We're looking for more than onevote today, guys.
Help us out.
We need at least three votesfor it to count, Tim.

(49:18):
That's my wise

Tim (49:19):
saying.
From now on, we need threevotes for it to count.
Otherwise, it's voided.
And then Noah and I win.
The veldt gets the point.
Well, then we can say that youguys have to vote.

Bob (49:27):
Oh,

Tim (49:28):
yeah.
We can do that.
All right.
Yeah.
I think Noah and I should juststart voting.

Bob (49:32):
All

Noah (49:33):
right.
Vote.
We're going to get a minimum oftwo each week.

Bob (49:35):
Okay.
So why don't you guys...
You guys could vote right now,and then we can see if you pick
the right book next week.

Tim (49:44):
Oh, I should, like, make a prediction?

Bob (49:45):
So...
Let's go on.
Okay, no, we're not doing that.
Sermon, sermon.
I like the idea of pulling inthe staff member into the seat
over here and having themdecide.
I agree.
You can have like a mysterystaff person.
We can recommend the book andthen a mystery staff person
comes in and has to decide.

Tim (50:02):
Well, we need to talk about the widows.

Dave (50:04):
Yeah, we do.
So first Timothy chapter five,Bob, that's where we are.
We're doing the blueprint of ahealthy church.
We got to this section and it'slike, what are we doing here?
So pastor Bob, here's yourchallenge.
60 second flyover.
What is first Timothy fiveabout?
Um,

Bob (50:20):
So 1 Timothy 5 starts to talk about how we should be
engaging in theseintergenerational relationships
within the church, within thefamily of God.
And then he gives a case studyon widows.
I'm really distracted by Davebeing behind me right there.
He's trying to plug hiscomputer in.
Don't mind me.
Pay attention to the...

(50:41):
Pay no attention to that manbehind

Speaker 05 (50:43):
me.

Bob (50:44):
Paul gives an extended...
treatment on widows in theearly church and gives a few
principles about how we shouldbe helping those that are in
need.
It's really a chapter onbenevolence.
And next week, I think you'regoing to get into actually how
you support your pastorsfinancially.
But he gives somequalifications for widows that

(51:06):
are really in need and how wecan care for them and gives some
disqualifications for somewidows.
But the call ultimately is forfamily to step in, the church to
be a second line, say Andultimately, we should care for
the most vulnerable among us.
Those are the applicationpoints.
And we talked about some keyprinciples that the text drew
out.
So I'm happy to talk aboutthose now if you'd like.

(51:26):
Thank you for that flyover.

Dave (51:28):
It's a passage that I don't think gets preached on a
lot.

Bob (51:31):
It doesn't.
It does not.
I told

Dave (51:33):
you that one of my professors developed a sermon
and it was like the title wasWho's Going to Take Care of
Grandma?
That could have been a title.
It was in my mind, but I didn'twant to steal it.
It's an issue of like...
Actual practical consequence.
I feel like your sermon wasreally practical.
We all have to deal withconcepts like aging parents.
We all have to figure out howto care for the needy.
And how do you do that in a waythat's generous, Christlike,

(51:56):
but also responsible and notenabling people?
So tell me, what do you thinkis...
going on behind this lonelinessissue.
That was the key theme that youdecided to go with.
Yeah, there could be others,but that's the one that I went
with.
Are you talking about back thenor today?
Yeah, why are they experiencingthis isolation?

(52:17):
Why are they struggling withthis?
What's the problem?
How come the church can't getit together over there in
Ephesus?
What's in the way of themreally experiencing the true
community that the church issupposed to be?
Yeah.
Paul wrote the letter of theEphesians, and it was like, hey,
one Lord, one faith, onebaptism.
Let's get together, put off theold man, put on the new man,

(52:39):
and let's do life together.
But yet here we are, not thatlong after that, and man,
Ephesus is kind of a mess.
They're struggling

Bob (52:49):
with the loneliness thing.
It's a tendency of the churchin every generation for us to
ultimately become selfish tosome extent.
And so I think that's at leastpart of what the church was
dealing with in Ephesus at thetime.
And we tend to go into thegroups that we feel most
comfortable with and look downon the people that we don't
agree with.
And that may have been what wasgoing on here.

(53:09):
But...
In Roman society, as I wastrying to explain about the
widows, if the husband died andthe widow had nobody to care for
them, then she was very much onthe outside of society.
She was looked down upon.
She could be exploited.

(53:30):
And there's reasons that Jesusspeaks up for widows quite a
bit, that the Old Testament haslots of verses about widows and
orphans, that these are thepeople that are overlooked in
and not able to take care ofthemselves.
And so I think Paulsurprisingly spends about 12
verses right here talking aboutwidows, as well as the other

(53:51):
verses throughout the scripturethat talk about this category of
people.

Dave (53:55):
How do you think this passage challenges our current
cultural attitude towards theelderly or towards widows or
towards the vulnerable ingeneral?

Bob (54:08):
Yeah, so...
highlighted in the messageabout how I do think we're,
we're obsessed with youth thatin American culture in
particular, maybe not so much inother cultures.
Um, we, everybody wants to stayyoung.
Everybody wants to stay young.
Everybody wants to be young.
And we always want to capturethose that are the under
thirties because if we capturethem when they're young, they're

(54:30):
going to stay with us for therest of their lives.
You had that forever 21 graphicbehind.
Yeah.
I noticed that number, a numberof years ago made that
observation.
You, you, title your storeForever 21 because, hey, don't
you want to be 21 forever?
Wasn't that a good age?
Yeah.
Yeah, at least physically.
We don't value wisdom.
You told us sometimes it's okayjust to act your age.

(54:50):
It is.
At some point.
Sometimes you need to act yourage.
Yeah.
I don't want to see youdressing like you're a teenager
anymore.
If you were a teenager, howwould you dress?
You wouldn't be wearing thatsalmon shirt, I don't think.
I feel

Dave (55:01):
like I follow this biblical principle perfectly,
actually.
My kids would definitely say,my dad is not trying to...
be cool at all.
And they'd be right about that.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think sometimes we strugglewith that.
Now, let me ask you a balancequestion.
So how do we balance compassionwith stewardship?

(55:21):
We want to have compassion, butwe also have finite, limited
resources, right?
So how do we strike the balancethere?
And how does Paul instructTimothy to strike the balance
there?
And how can we apply that totoday?
We want to be generous.
We want to be compassionate.
But we also want to be goodstewards.
We want to be wise.
How do we

Bob (55:39):
strike

Dave (55:40):
the balance?

Bob (55:41):
Yeah, and I think this is something that Paul does a
pretty good job in this text ofoutlining.
So he's very specific, youknow, when he's talking about
the widows, the older widows inverse 9, he specifically says,
hey, she's got to be...
older than 60, which, ofcourse, as I explained at that
time, was the age when mostlikely the widow was not going

(56:05):
to be getting married again.
So she couldn't find a husband,she couldn't work.
Those are the widows that aremost in need.
And that's the generalprinciple, I think, of this
section, is that we should, as achurch, prioritize those that
are the most vulnerable, themost in need, those that don't
have this first-line caresystem, caring relationship with
their children and theirimmediate family.

(56:27):
And that's why theapplicational principles are
that, that your family is whatyou should care for first.
I mean, Paul has some prettystrong language in verse eight
about how you need to take careof your family.
If you don't, you're worse thanan unbeliever.
Wow.
Talks in verse four about howchildren and grandchildren
should pay their parents back ifthey've taken care of them.
And in our Americanindividualistic society, this is

(56:52):
something that a lot of peoplepush back against, especially if
they don't have a goodrelationship with their family.
So those are some goodguidelines for us.
Take care of your family first.
If the church encounterssomebody that does not have
somebody to care for them, thoseare the people we should be
prioritizing because we have afinite amount of resources.

(57:15):
We'd love to help everybody,but we can't help everybody, and
some people really don't needas much help as others.

Dave (57:23):
You know what I thought would be like a powerful
application?
If everybody, because of yoursermon, just checked on the
elderly person in your family.
Like, what if we all did that?
Just check on them.
Ask them if they need anythingand show that you care.
Sometimes they can beforgotten.

Bob (57:42):
Yeah.
And if you're older, you get toa certain age.
I know this from speaking withpeople.
At some age, people feel like Idon't matter anymore.
I'm not relevant.
I'm too old.
Nobody cares what I have tothink, what I have to say.
And speaking of loneliness,that can be a very lonely
situation, even more so ifyou're older and you have no

(58:04):
resources to take care ofyourself.
That's a very lonely anddesperate situation.
And that's at least part ofwhat Paul's talking about here,
I think.

Dave (58:14):
Yeah, I mean, I so just I see the value of an elderly
person, even if that person hasdiminished capacities and lack
of ability to care forthemselves or even do that much
work or even talking like justhaving a patriarch at your
Thanksgiving table.
Or a matriarch or agreat-grandmother.

(58:36):
Just having that person in theroom, just in the chair.
Maybe they can't even reallyparticipate.
They can't play the game.
They can't really do much.
But just having them therebrings such a gravitas.
Their presence is doingsomething.
Their presence is meaningful.
It's like, wow, this is a hugelegacy issue.

(58:57):
My great-grandmother was arounduntil she was in her early 90s.
And I remember, God bless you,I remember just appreciating the
fact that

Bob (59:10):
she was...
Please do not sneeze right intothe microphone.
She was around.
That's nothing to sneeze atright here, Pastor Dan.

Dave (59:18):
I know.
My great-grandmother, she was awonderful presence just to
enjoy and, hey...
It was a blessing to have herinto her 90s.
And so appreciate the elderlyin your family.
Respect them.
Show them

Bob (59:38):
honor.
Well, I'll go off on that.
So I have one livinggrandparent.
Do you have any grandparentsthat are still alive or they all
passed on?

Dave (59:45):
My dad's dad passed, my dad's mom passed, my mom's dad
passed, my mom's mom passed.
No, I don't.

Bob (59:52):
I had to think about that.
I was going to notice youdidn't need to think about that
for a while.
So my father's mother, mygrandmother on my dad's side is
still alive.
She is 95, just turned 95,still driving.
She still drives up to churchseveral days a week, still
sharp, but she's 95.
Several days a week?
Yeah, I was actually checkingwith my mom yesterday.

(01:00:14):
I said, have you seen grandmarecently?
She goes, yeah, yeah, everyonce in a while on Friday.
She's still driving up onFridays because she does the
treasury work at the churchshe's at.
But yeah, 95, still moving.
And we always thought that shewas the type of person who's,
she's going to be working anddoing stuff until the day she
dies.
She's moving.
Wow.
But at the same time, she's 95.

(01:00:37):
And who knows how much longershe will be with us.
And so the moments that youspend with her are precious.
Because think about it, she wasborn in 1929.
So she was born right at thetime of the Great Depression
coming in, World War II.
And she lived through all thatstuff.
And that experience at somepoint, probably in the fairly
near future is gonna be gone.
So don't sneeze at that, thosemoments you have.

(01:01:01):
Tim and

Dave (01:01:03):
Noah, you guys have grandparents that are still
living?

Tim (01:01:05):
I have one grandmother.

Dave (01:01:07):
Oh, actually, I saw your grandmother two weeks ago.
Yes, she was here.
Oh, yeah.
Shout out to Tim's grandma.

Tim (01:01:14):
Alfreda.
I don't think she listens, butmaybe she will this episode.

Bob (01:01:17):
Alfreda gets a shout out.
Well, just clip this out andsend it to her, right, Tim?
Sounds good.
How about you, Noah?
We've been very blessed.
All four of my

Noah (01:01:24):
grandparents are still living.
All four?
Yeah.

Dave (01:01:26):
All right.
And one of your parents was inthe ministry?
One of your grandparents was inthe ministry?

Noah (01:01:30):
Yeah.
My grandpa and grandma on mymother's side, they both served
in ministry.
Yeah.

Dave (01:01:36):
Locally, right?

Noah (01:01:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
My grandpa was one of thepastors at Baskin Ridge
Presbyterian Church for like 30years.

Bob (01:01:44):
Wow.

Noah (01:01:44):
Okay.
Yeah.
And the tree was alive on hiswatch.
Let the record show.
During

Bob (01:01:49):
his entire watch, it was alive.
And when he left, the treedied.
So it was because of hisdeparture.
The graves had left and it allwent down.
So yeah, so one of the pointswe had was esteeming your
elders.
That was for verses 9 and 10.
And I think we need to verymuch appreciate our seniors.
And the other point I mentionedis that we have a lot of senior
communities in our area.

(01:02:09):
So senior ministry is a bigmission field that we often
overlook and that we shouldn't.

Dave (01:02:14):
One of the things people may not know about Mellington
Baptist Church is we partnerwith other churches in the
Basking Ridge area in order tofound a community for the
elderly who are low incomecalled Ridge Oak.
And it's a part of their bylawsthat a member at large at
Mellington Baptist Church has tosit on

Bob (01:02:33):
their board.
You know, we didn't think aboutthat.
I should have given them ashout out in my message.
They're coming over tomorrowand doing a tour.
So we're going to have RidgeOak here with us.
Yeah.

Dave (01:02:42):
So, you know, that's our way of just maybe making sure
we're doing our duty in ourcommunity to create a caring

Bob (01:02:48):
environment.
And what they do is, right, andthey provide housing that subs
so that if you make...
less money, you can still havea place that you can afford to
live at.
Yeah.
So there's always a waitinglist.
It's a wonderful community.
My mother-in-law lives therenow, too, so she's benefited
from that.
All right.
So we have a personal referralright here.
There you go.
You do have to wait severalyears to get in, usually.

(01:03:09):
She got in unusually quick, Ithink, because of COVID.

Dave (01:03:14):
Anything

Bob (01:03:14):
else

Dave (01:03:15):
on 1 Timothy 5 before we wrap up the sermon segment
today?

Bob (01:03:18):
Well, the only thing I would mention in here that I
thought was interesting was thecommentary on the younger widows
at the end.
Every commentary that I readsaid these younger widows just
cannot control themselves andtheir desires.
Paul was very concerned thatthey were going to want to go
off and get married and maybemarry an unbeliever.
And very interesting.

(01:03:38):
The point that I made with thatis that you should never let
romantic relationships defineyou, that your relationship with
Jesus should be first, becauseit's very easy to get caught up
in the winds of culture and bepulled away from Christ and the
gospel.
So that's at least part of whatPaul is saying here.

Dave (01:03:58):
Great message.
Thanks for that practical word.
Next week, we're going to betalking about 1 Timothy 5,
verses 17 through all the wayinto chapter six, verse two.
And the theme there isintegrity.
And so we look forward tocontinuing our study as we look
at the blueprints for a healthychurch.
And now we've come to that partof our program where the

(01:04:19):
producers take over and give usa lot of anxiety.

Tim (01:04:22):
Oh, we got to check this out.

Dave (01:04:24):
What's going on here?
What's happening?

Bob (01:04:30):
Oh, no.
Look at

Dave (01:04:31):
that microphone.
Look at that.
Tim is having some fun with

Bob (01:04:34):
chat GPT today.
I'm going to have some

Tim (01:04:36):
fun.

Bob (01:04:37):
So how did you come up with those pictures right there?
It looks pretty good.
Pretty good, right?
Okay.
I have way more hair than Iactually do.
I'll take that.
I took some

Tim (01:04:45):
of your head shots and I threw it in there.

Bob (01:04:48):
Wow.
Okay.
The Theology Sprint.
Why is it not in 16x9, Tim?
Listen, I asked it for 16x9,

Tim (01:04:54):
believe it or not.

Bob (01:04:56):
Well, that's not 16x9.
Let the record state it says 60seconds on there.

Tim (01:05:03):
I'll let OpenAI know.
So I will kick it over to mypartner in crime, Noah Graves,
for the Theology Sprint.

Noah (01:05:09):
All right.
So this Theology Sprint isinspired by the conversation we
had earlier regarding N.T.
Wright and some of his...
stuff that he had going on withpeople who were denying the
resurrection.
It's somewhat related to that.
And the question is, is itpossible to be a born-again,
saved Christian and believe allcore tenets of the faith and yet
deny the inspiration ofScripture?

Dave (01:05:37):
Okay.
Bob, why don't you start here,and I want to bring up a chart
that I made about this.
Okay.

Bob (01:05:45):
Well, I think perhaps early in your journey, there may be a
moment where you question that,but as you grow in your faith,
that's something you will notquestion, that the Word of God
is living and active, and it'ssomething that pierces your
heart and your soul, that theWord of God, as Jesus said, does
not return void.
So no, over the long term, Idon't think that is something

(01:06:09):
that you, if you are a trueborn-again believer, will deny.
And I'm sure Dave has a chartof a spectrum here of things
that must be attained to as atrue believer.

Dave (01:06:21):
I just emailed it to Tim, and it's a worthy exercise to
go, what are the essentialdoctrines?
Like, what do you have to holdon to, the cardinal doctrines of
the faith, to be a Christian?
You've got to have biblicalclarity on these things.
You've got to, you know, here'swhat is supported by the
history of the church.
Here's what we find in theBible.

(01:06:41):
If you don't hold to thesethings, you're outside of the
pale of orthodoxy.
You're in severe doctrinalerror.
You are now a mission field forother Christians to come and
share with you the truth, right?
So here's my list, and I thinkit's going to include everything

(01:07:02):
that Noah said, but I'll startwith the Trinity, the person of
Christ, the hypostatic union,fully God, fully man.
The historical life of Christ,meaning the virgin birth, his
sinlessness, his miracles, andhis physical death, burial,
resurrection, his atonement, thegospel, the physical return,
the second coming of Christ, thegospel of grace alone, faith

(01:07:25):
alone, Christ alone.
I think you have to affirm theuniversality of sin.
And then I think you have toaffirm the ultimate authority
and inspiration of the Bible.
Here's the thing.
I don't think you have to usethe word inerrancy.
And I think there's room fordebate amongst Christians about

(01:07:48):
that word.
I think there are people whoare Christians who don't care
for that word, who don't like touse that word.
And there's reasons for that.
I disagree with them, but Idon't feel comfortable excluding
them as my brothers or sistersin Christ.
And then I think we just needto affirm that all the rest of
those things.

(01:08:08):
And that's really what aChristian has to believe.
Now, how much of that do youfully understand the day you
accept the gospel and walk thesawdust trail and like, you
know, commit to Christ and bowyour head and pray the sinner's
prayer?
Probably not all of it.
But if you are studying theBible and you are, you know,
actually really diving intothese things, I think you're
going to have to affirm theBible as special revelation from

(01:08:29):
God is a tenant that our faithcannot really even start without
affirming because that's thefoundation.
Is there a God and has herevealed himself in the inspired
scriptures?
If you don't start there, howdo you get to the rest of the
doctrines that Christianityteaches?
You've got to somehow affirmthat this book is from God,

(01:08:50):
which is an amazing reality.
God wanted to talk to us and heput his message in a book
called the Bible.
So I would say, along with Bob,yeah, you got to affirm that.
Noah?
You want to push back?
I don't want to push back.
You want to play devil'sadvocate?
You want to take a differentposition?

Bob (01:09:08):
No.
All right.
You want to pull an N.T.
Wright over there or what?
N.T.
Wright.
Good

Dave (01:09:16):
question.
Good sprint.
Probably more than 60 seconds,but appreciate the
thoughtfulness.

Bob (01:09:20):
All right, Tim.
Body life, man.
Maybe the art of the graphicsshould say 60 seconds-ish.
Ish, yeah.
Indeed.
Did you get my chart, man,

Tim (01:09:29):
or no?
I couldn't turn it into animage.
All right.
Next week, we'll share thechart and

Bob (01:09:32):
see.
We got some announcements herebefore we get out.
You got a meeting in eightminutes here, Pastor Dave.
We got a...
Oh, my.
What time is it?
Here we

Tim (01:09:39):
go.
Boom.
So I can take the first one.

Bob (01:09:42):
All

Tim (01:09:42):
right.
Take it.
So here at NBC, we have areally awesome high school boys
discipleship.
ministry called Band ofBrothers where we meet bi-weekly
and we just discuss and grow inthe Lord.
And this summer we're havingthe theme of candor and conduct.
We are going to be examiningthe scripture and trying to

(01:10:03):
figure out how should we speak,how should we live, how should
we be perceived as a man of God,a young man of God in today's
world, just really focusing onour character.
So if you're a high school boythat is listening, which is
doubtful, or if you're a parentof a high school boy that's
listening which is more likelyuh we will be starting at
johnny's house on june 26th atseven o'clock it'll be a bonfire

(01:10:25):
and barbecue come on out andit's gonna we're gonna be
meeting every week this summerup until the beginning of
september um except for july 3rdso that's that

Bob (01:10:33):
all right i'll give you a 60 second follow-up define
candor

Tim (01:10:37):
candor like how we how we speak the way we speak to, to
one another.
Is that, is that accurate?
Like the, the words we chooseto use and how, how we use, how

Dave (01:10:46):
we, how we choose to say them.
Authentic speech.
Yes.
Yeah.
I think Dave Marks would beproud of this title.
He would.
Yeah.
He's digging that word candor.
I love it.
Radical candor.
You gotta have radical candor.

Bob (01:10:58):
Radical

Dave (01:10:58):
candor.

Bob (01:10:59):
Radical

Tim (01:10:59):
acceptance.
I love radical candor.

Bob (01:11:01):
That was a good impression, by the way.
Candor, frankness or sincerityof expression, openness.
Radical candor.
We're moving on, Bob.
This Wednesday is the

Dave (01:11:10):
worship night.
June 11th, 7

Bob (01:11:11):
p.m.
That was a

Dave (01:11:12):
very statement dripping with candor right there.
Join us.
We'd love to have you here.
It's going to be a good nightof seeking the Lord.
And the teens are doing it, butJohnny opened up the doorways
to anybody who's

Bob (01:11:26):
interested.
These are these respectfulintergenerational relationships
we talked about.
Come one, come all.

Tim (01:11:30):
It's going to be intergenerational worship.
So bring your lawn chairs andyour picnic blankets because
it's going to be a lawn...
vehicle.
Awesome.
Next.

Dave (01:11:41):
Hey,

Bob (01:11:41):
here we go.
Car wash.
It's a tradition.
This coming Saturday, 9 to 3p.m.
This helps to support the youthfor their mission trip that's
coming up this summer.
Come get your car wash.
It's free.
If you want to donate to helpthem out, you can.
Although I hear the kids thatare serving have gotten some
sponsors.
So it's up to you.
However the spirit leads.
But we do want you to have anice clean car and get all that

(01:12:04):
pollen off of it from the lastfew months.
Scrub-a-dub-dub.
Next.
Scrub-a-dub-dub.

Dave (01:12:09):
Summer Sundays, we got a little bit of a change in
schedule.
So the kids are 1045 serviceonly for nursery, preschool, and
elementary.
So just be aware of that.
There is no kids programming atthe 9 a.m.
And then the teens are comingup on the end, man.
We have graduation Sunday, andthe final rush is June 18th, the

(01:12:30):
final rush Sunday.
It's June 22nd.
It's been a great year.
Appreciate Johnny and hisleadership.
Yesterday was the culminationof the year, saying goodbye to
the seniors.
Johnny does always such a greatjob, just pastorally
shepherding that moment, sayingsomething unique and
individualized for eachgraduate.
I appreciate his heart to dothat.
And 2025 is almost in thebooks.

(01:12:51):
So thanks for another greatyear.
And those are theannouncements.
Is that right, Tim?
End of show.
Thank you guys for watchingBehind the Pulpit.
All right.
That was quite an episode,Pastor Dave.
That was a rumble.
We'll see you next week.