January 1, 2026 • 47 mins
Brains, Bibles, and Beyond! — Episode 57Should We Burn the Christian Flag?What happens when faith, culture, patriotism, and symbolism collide? In this thought-provoking episode, we tackle a surprising and controversial question: Should Christians burn the Christian flag?We explore where the Christian flag came from, what it represents, and whether it carries biblical authority—or unintended baggage. Is it a helpful symbol of unity, or does it risk blending Christianity with nationalism and tradition in ways Scripture never intended? Along the way, we examine what the Bible actually says about worship, symbols, and allegiance, challenging listeners to think carefully about how faith is expressed in public and private life.If you care about biblical faithfulness, cultural discernment, and thinking deeply beyond surface-level traditions, this episode is for you. Get ready for honest conversation, careful theology, and a few assumptions put to the test.🎙️ Brains engaged. Bibles open. Going beyond.www.brainsandbibles.orgwww.thinklikechrist.org
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Go are you recorded, everybody? And welcome back to another
episode of Brains, Bibles and beyond.
We're so glad you have joined us.
After all, it has been said thatthis is the world's greatest
podcast. I have Nate Day with Think Like
Christ Ministries and this is our resident theologian Joel
(00:23):
Willoughby with Brains and Bibles.
What's on the agenda? I have no idea what we're doing,
what we do first. All right.
Everybody grab your theological receptacle and we're going to
dig right in. Let's do it.
Spicy. Not everyone's meant for the
(00:48):
slurp. Let's keep it rolling.
We're good. Wow.
On your mark when you're ready, OK.
Excuse me. We're so glad you've joined us
all, you budding theologians. All right, On our first segment
(01:09):
today. Yeah, on my word, my nose hurts.
On our first segment today, we have a little game we like to
claw stump the theologian. And today we have a new guest.
Reader, this is my favorite youngest child, Malachi, Why
don't you come on over here and read us our question today, OK?
All right, shake him up. Shake him up and reach in the
(01:31):
hat. Here's the mic.
Why does God forgive us? All right, why does God forgive
us? Why does God forgive us?
Well, so it's not how so we can skip that part.
So the the very question, why? Very good question, very
profound. But I think it's also a simple
(01:53):
answer, even though it is profound and it's just the idea
that God loves us, so he didn't have to do anything for us.
Mankind messed up Adam and Eve in the garden, Genesis 3, there
was sin utterly rejecting him, hating him, not wanting him.
God had to go to them. But he came up with his plan of
redemption. Even before he condemned one
single person, He already had a plan of how sins would be
(02:17):
forgiven. And why does he do that?
It is simply for one thing to have a relationship with us, a
happy, harmonious relationship. That's a really beautiful thing.
Is that because I'm special? Because he's special.
That's right. Well, you know, he we're special
to him, You know what I mean? Like in that sense.
Yeah. Yeah.
(02:37):
And that and the offer is freelygiven.
But he does not force us to lovehim.
You know, love, by the very definition, is free.
It's a free choice. So yes, we, we.
He chooses us. We choose him.
It's a happy relationship. Yeah.
All right. So really, that's all it is.
Does that answer our question? Yes, or do we stop the
(02:58):
theologian answer? All right, That answers the
question all right. If you disagree, send us your
comments. Please.
Remember, if they're positive comments, e-mail me at
podcast@thingslikechrist.org. If they're negative comments,
e-mail Joel Do. You remember the e-mail address?
Brainsandbiblesjoel@brainsandbibles.org.Yep, that's the one.
(03:22):
That's the one. All right.
We've had problems in this in the past.
All right, moving on to our nextsegment.
All right, what you got? Once again, I have searched all
the articles in the entire Internet.
Wow. Yeah, all the vaults.
All of them. I searched them all looking for
anything newsworthy that would be worth reading on our show.
(03:45):
We have high standards. We do not have standards.
I found this article. This was dated May 30th 2025.
Is an AP article OK? So you have time recording just
yesterday? Yes, the headline caught my eye.
A show inside a cathedral featured raw chickens and
(04:07):
diapers. Really.
Yeah, the German president was in attendance.
OK. All right.
Where was this at? Is Germany a cathedral?
But where? Where?
What's the place? Well, let me let me I read the
first paragraph. I got excited.
German President. Yeah, yeah, it was in Germany.
I'm guessing a performance inside a Catholic cathedral in
(04:27):
Germany earlier this month that featured raw, plucked chickens
wrapped in diapers on stage and the country's president and the
local Archbishop in the audiencehas prompted the church and
municipal leaders to apologize that the show hurt religious
feelings. Religious feelings.
(04:48):
Yeah, that's interesting. The show Westphalia Side Story.
Oh boy. See.
What they did there was part of a May 15th celebration to mark
the 1200 and 50th anniversary asWestphalia.
That's a lot a region and Northwestern and Germany Video
Footy Show Video Footy shows onewoman and two shirtless men
(05:09):
singing Meat is Meat, apparentlyspoofing Australia band Opus
1948 pop song Live Is Life with Size and Dancing and dead
chickens on stage in front of the cathedral's altar.
There we go. That's.
(05:29):
That's a lot to take in. There's a lot for the senses.
You should see the picture. I want to see the picture.
You don't want to see the picture, but you should see the
picture anyway, yeah? There you go though.
That's our World News for today,guys.
Yikes. That's now I'm more cultured.
I, I don't even, I don't even know what to say.
Like I just don't know what to say.
(05:50):
Chickens and diapers, that's. Chickens, yeah, they're like,
raw, like. Something.
Raw chickens. Little drumstick sticking out.
Yep, little drumstick sticking out with a diaper and they're
like holding them in there like the MU faucet thing with one
hand. There we go.
OK. Yeah.
All right. So moving on, Joel.
Yeah, next segment, this is all yours.
(06:11):
Just do something a little more positive.
Or useful. So never mind the title, you
know, Should we burn the Christian flag?
OK, OK, now let's. Forget the more positive part.
Well, it can be. Let's have a little flag burden.
Oh wait, no, you're asking the question.
(06:32):
I'm asking the question. I'm asking the question.
I'm not saying to do it, I'm asking the.
Question Should we? So really, really, you know, why
is there a Christian flag? What do we do with it?
OK, why? Why is it good?
Bad. Doesn't matter.
I don't know why I. Want us to really think about it
so so a series of questions herethat we're going to kind of at
least somewhat cover where did it come from?
(06:53):
What is the etiquette with the flag?
You know, there's flag etiquettewith everything else.
When you fly it, how you fly, it's how you take it down, you
know, you know, whatever. So.
So the due respect of a of a flag.
Right. Right.
Not law, but it's etiquette. Have you ever recited its pledge
about you, Nate? Have you?
I have no idea what the pledge pledge is to the flag.
(07:15):
We'll say what it is. I know what it is to the
American flag. OK, yeah.
So no, I have not. So I've been in some schools, a
few different schools where we would be like pledge the
American flag, the Christian flag into the Bible.
So we're not even really going to touch, we're not going to
touch the Bible pledge at all. And I'll make a couple
references to the flag, the American flag, I mean, but the
focus here is the Christian flag.
(07:37):
All right? So how should we honor the
Christian flag? Should we do it at all, or how
do we do it? You know, that kind of thing.
Is it a moral to have a Christian flag?
So, you know, a moral, in other words, has nothing to do with
morality at all. That that's what that means.
Or is there some sort of good orevil with that?
(07:57):
So, OK, where'd it come from? It's kind of interesting.
I think most people have lost this information.
If you talk to them, no one's even would have the Christian
flag. They would.
No, no clue really. Yeah, probably.
Not but the first thought of it.The first thought of it.
So not actually made. I don't know the exact date of
it being made. It was shortly after.
But you have to go way back to 1897, OK, in good old Brooklyn,
(08:22):
you know, I don't know. I work.
So my first thought would have been like times of the Crusades
or something. Yeah, yeah, you'd think so.
And my second guess would have been 1800s.
That's the first thing I thoughtof, you know, like the banners
and stuff and. You know, I mean, I saw some of
those movies and the Shields, they have the cross on them.
Monty Python. Yeah.
I I don't know what movies. I don't.
I've never actually staffed through one of those.
(08:42):
It's just, I just know of it. Yeah.
So anyways, 1897 in Brooklyn, NYSo this is what happened.
A Superintendent of a Christian School.
His name's Charles Overton. And there's this event and the
guy that's supposed to come up and do the opening speech is is
not showing up. And now it's like it's real
(09:03):
bummer. A super short like like just a
few minutes before somebody's supposed to talk.
So him being the Superintendent,he he's when it gets called up
there, he has to sure cover. He's a boss, man.
So, you know, I have tons of grace for somebody that has to
suddenly no preparation, no thought about it, has to speak
in front of people. And, and by the way, whatever I
(09:23):
say here, there's no criticism against this guy, by the way, No
OK, So but he makes this impromptu speech and as he's
speaking, he, he kind of knows the American flag in the room.
And so he gets, he starts talking about it and he and he
speaks about symbolism and identity, OK, important
concepts. So then he just kind of, you
know, off the cuff, just kind ofsays, well, maybe Christians
(09:44):
should have their own flag. OK, doesn't hurt to ask a
question. Yeah, right.
I mean, you can't fault a guy for throwing out an idea.
That that doesn't doesn't matter.
Nothing that's wrong with symbolism.
You know, there's there's a place for.
It right, right. And remembrance and all those
different things, yes. Right.
So, so. Well, sometime later, not sure
exactly when, and shortly after,another man, don't know who that
(10:05):
is exactly, but someone else helped that dream become a
reality. They made it happen.
OK, So what about the design? Think about the design of it.
And so we'll have to for our audience, YouTube audience, have
to show the flag. I can see it.
If they don't know what it lookslike, we'll have to we'll have
our producer superimpose the flag, do something there.
I. Don't know what that magic is.
(10:25):
Technology I can do. It OK, so it has the same red,
white and blue as the American flag, of course.
Coincidence. As Made in America.
I don't think it's but OK, so same same there.
So what about the meaning of thecolors?
So with this, I think there is avery direct parallel with the
(10:48):
American flag, which is interesting, kind of
interesting. Now the meaning of the colors,
they can be argued. It's one of those things where
there's not like a written document that was formal about
this. And so I think some people have
kind of made their own and but there does seem to be a general
consensus and that's what I'm with the information I've
gathered. This is what I'm producing here.
(11:09):
OK, so the red for the American flag is hardiness and valor,
symbolizing courage in the bloodshed for freedom.
OK, emphasis there. Bloodshed for freedom.
The Christian flag, red is Christ's blood and love.
OK OK then with whites for the American flag, purity and
innocence reflecting moral integrity in the idealism of the
(11:32):
founding. OK, so purity, innocence, right?
This is good. So that that's with the
Christian flag. White is purity or in some of us
say peace, but I think purity isthe emphasis.
You have Christ's blood, you have purity, you know, that kind
of thing. I think that does make sense.
And then blue for the American flag, vigilance, perseverance,
(11:53):
justice during the commitment touphold what is rights that
righteousness there right. OK.
So with with blue, the Christianflag, faith, truth.
So truth and what is rights, youknow, because those kind of
things that kind of go together as well.
Maybe I'm stretching it a little, but I do think that
there's a direct something goingon here, red, white and blue and
(12:13):
similar meanings. OK, Then I then I went ahead and
did like all this extra looking up stuff about the American
flag's origins. Kind of cool.
But anyways, we'll save that probably for not another time.
It's just, yeah, it's kind of cool to have.
We're not a political. Talk show Yeah, we're not.
OK so who uses the Christian flag?
(12:34):
You know, you think about, you know, because some might assume.
I got the answer. All Christians must but.
Christians use it. Yeah, right, right.
Yeah. Well, it's definitely, I don't
know of any non Christians that would use this.
So I don't think there is. I don't know.
At least not well. Not professing non Christians.
(12:55):
So it quickly, this thing started into the 1800s, it
quickly spread through Christianity in America.
Start with the Methodist. That was the group originally
that where, where it all came from there.
And then, but mostly today, fromwhat I gather, you know, it
would be actually hard to figurethis out maybe because you'd
have to have data of every single church there is, you
(13:17):
know, which is kind of impossible.
But from what I gather, it's mostly seen among the Catholic
community and then Baptist. And then just on from there,
just, you know, it goes on, dwindles out.
Now Catholics is Baptist. It's just about the same thing.
There's some key differences. Key differences, yeah, so.
We should. We should do an episode on that
(13:37):
someday. The differences.
Denominational differences if you I would have to have
somebody that's a good representative from each one.
Yeah, that's fine. Because otherwise it might look
like I'm just, you know, you. Can volunteer for this, just
send us an e-mail. Might be interesting.
Might be interesting. I like I like good discussion.
Yeah, I think, I think we could do really well so.
(13:58):
But it's not used by all denominations.
No, not everybody uses it so. It's not a universal Christian
flag. Yeah, there's a number of.
It was made, it was intended to be, I think.
I think that was a symbol, a banner that all could unite
under. Isn't that kind of?
That's the idea behind. The idea?
Yeah, this is our, but not everybody.
Not everybody united behind it, right?
OK, so I'm gonna raise 5 potential problems.
(14:22):
You can decide audience, you candecide if it's a problem, you
know, but I'm going to, I'm going to raise them.
Concerns or questions? Yes, that kind of thing.
But as far as my like kind of like my outline goes just to
make it fit well, it's you know,I have a problem and it's wrong
something and five of those. OK, so the first one wrong
(14:43):
foundation. OK, so just kind of making us
think through it. All right, So you could say did
it come about in a good way? I don't think there's any bad
intentions by the way at all. But I.
Think the attention was good? God, he never expressed a desire
(15:04):
for a flag. I feel like if you want a flag,
you tell us, you know, you know.Yeah, that's just just the
thought, OK. Jesus alone, from what I see in
all scripture, I think there is room for a little argument, but
basically Jesus alone has been the physical representation of
(15:25):
God's Kingdom. OK, so he comes in.
So you see something like in Luke 17 and verses 2021, he's
talking with Pharisees and it says being asked by the
Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, He answered
them, the Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be
observed, nor will they say, look here it is or there for
(15:46):
behold, the Kingdom of God is inthe midst of you.
So the idea of like in the middle, like they were probably
a circle around him, He's talking to them, Hey, right,
right among you right here. He's representing as the king,
representing the Kingdom. OK, So do we need something else
now? I don't know.
(16:07):
Has God said anything about representing heavenly things
like such as his Kingdom, you know, now I would say his
Kingdom is a is it's a real physical Kingdom that is coming.
It'll be on the earth, but it, it exists already and it'll be
coming down from heaven. That's kind of the idea.
Jesus being the institutor of such things as well.
(16:27):
There'll be New Jerusalem and things at the very end, you know
all that. OK, so has God said anything
about representing heavenly things with physical objects?
Yes. Yeah.
So the first thing that came to my mind as you were asking this
Exodus 21st 4 you should not make for yourself a carved
(16:51):
image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or thatis in the water under the earth.
Yeah, now there's. No, no.
Shall you bow down and serve them right?
And that's kind of the point of that.
So verse 3, no other gods beforeme, verse 5, do not bow down to
them or serve them. So that is the focus that you're
(17:15):
worshipping these things. Yeah, making making an image
that you worship. So you can't just say nothing.
It's the fact that's being worshipped.
OK, yeah. However, and I.
Don't think people worship the flag.
I would say not everyone does. I think there might be some some
wrong things happening. Just like there's some people
(17:35):
that worship the American flag. I think some people can worship
the cross. Some people can worship the
cross. It's like that song you'll rug a
cross. It's basically just about.
Yeah, it's not well. You remember when they had the,
you know, the old the serpent onthe post, Yes, and they had
didn't have to get rid of that get.
Back in numbers, yeah. They were worshiping the the
worship in that. Yeah, Moses makes his thing out
(17:55):
of believe those brass, maybe something some shiny metal and
so that, you know, the sun hits it out there.
When you get like the snake look, look up and and you'll be
yelled. It was Jesus's illustration of
what he would do, you know, thathe would be on the cross, lifted
up. You believe in Him on the cross,
you know. So that's got, you know, John. 3
(18:17):
Nicodemus. That was, you know, that was
obviously, I don't know if you call it a symbol, whatever you
call it, someone looking forwardto what Jesus was going to do
for. Us, yes.
So it wasn't a bad thing because.
Because people are stupid. Yeah, they said worshipping
because. It was at first it was.
It was faith in what God would do.
It was worshipping Him, but thenit became idolatry of wow, that
(18:39):
pole is what saves us. Look at that pole.
Yeah, yes. And so, yeah.
Just like with sacrificing of lambs.
Yeah, that that that lamb didn'tsave you.
The lamb didn't save you. Right.
It was the picture of what would.
OK, yeah, Anyways, so but just putting it out there and I'm, I
start out kind of slow and I'm building up, Yeah.
(18:59):
So just just put it out there, All right, so.
Tracking. Problem 2.
We're bringing up wrong identity, OK?
It was designed to establish Christian identity.
You know, my argument a little bit is wasn't there already
Christian identity? You know, there's we like, do we
not know who we were? We were confused.
(19:19):
We we couldn't unite. We're like, what do we do?
We need something. Well, and to be fair, the law of
Christians aren't united, right?They just need the flag.
Yeah, right. That's all OK.
Rally so they I mean, they probably did see a problem.
Christians aren't as united as they should be, and so they're
(19:41):
not solving the correct. Way.
Is that way possible? Yeah.
So, you know, has this help us unite?
Just give us something to unite under.
All right. So I mean I understand intent
here. So I, I think about, I've
actually even spoken on our identity as Christians and I
what, what I would focus on, Thefirst thing I think of is Romans
(20:02):
6, Romans 6. There's a lot with Romans 6.
I kind of narrowed it down to a key few verses, which is verses
3 through 11. I won't read all of that, but
I'll just highlight just go through a few things, mainly in
the beginning and it says all ofus were baptized into Christ.
You just, you know, those who believe, and we're baptized into
(20:22):
his death, buried therefore withhim by baptism into death.
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in news of life.
I'm kind of skipping a little bit here and running through.
We have been unified, sorry. We have been united with Him in
a death like his. We shall certainly be united
with Him in a resurrection like his.
OK, we believe that we also livewith him as skipping, skipping,
(20:43):
skipping. Now in that verse 11.
So you also, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
That's our identity. Our identity is we have died in
Christ or buried in Christ. We, we have new life resurrected
in Christ. We are part of the body of
Christ, you know. Our identity needs to be in
Christ. Yeah, that's the problem.
And our unity needs to be in Christ.
Yes, that's what unifies us. Yes, exactly.
(21:05):
Or a flag. I'm just thinking that there's
probably no need of a flag for identity.
Sure. OK, so there it is then, First
Corinthians 6. OK, our identity is in Christ's
payment as well. So you know kind of a little bit
more of what I've already said, but just to bring out that one
(21:27):
piece for to narrow it down here, just toward the end of
that First Corinthians 6/19/20 says or do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you
have from God? You are not your own, for you
are bought with a price. So, you know, those who believe
we are bought by the blood of Christ, He owns us.
You know, that's my identity. I'm, I'm his property in a
(21:50):
sense, you know, I'm his servant.
So big, big thing there. The flag.
I don't think it really adds to that.
That's, that's all. That's all I'm saying.
That's all I'm saying. All right, then, of course, a
big one. One more.
What, what? What can you think of?
Anything else? Enlighten me.
Loving one another, you know, hesays.
(22:11):
You know. John 133435 He says, you know,
basically how can someone identify you as a disciple of
Christ? Yeah, he says.
He says a new commandment I giveto you, that you love one
another just as I loved you. That's the new part, this
example. Just as I have loved you, you
also are to love one another. Verse 35 By this all people will
(22:33):
know that you are my disciples if you have love for one
another. So a big identifying key
characteristics so we can spiritually identify in you
know, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, things
like that. But for as far as a physical
outward identity, I say there itis, Love one another as Christ
has loved us. Or have a flag.
There's two options there. Yeah, maybe I didn't think about
(22:56):
then. Yeah.
All right, problem three. OK, possibly wrong image.
OK, wrong image. So just to kind of show you
where I'm going here, the Old Testament, you'll you'll see the
word image, you'll see the word idol.
It's the same Hebrew word. Typically there might be some,
some place where there's a different Hebrew word and they
use that same English word. But basically across the board
(23:18):
image and idol, it's the same thing.
So we bear the image of God. And so what's really cool about
that, that I really like, I really appreciate it is, you
know, you are to make no sort of, you know, idol of God.
Well, but God already did the job well, he made us.
We are the living, breathing images or idols, so to speak.
(23:40):
Is it really wouldn't be the wrong word there because the
connotations, but just to kind of show you the the parallel.
But we are that living, breathing images of God, you
know, and so it's like, you know, rocks that hit the mirror
because sin destroys. And so we look in the mirror and
there's little shreds, shrapnelsof a reflection there.
That's kind of how we reflect God.
(24:01):
And then when we trusted him forsalvation, it's like those
shards of glass start to slowly come together.
We see a little more of that picture.
OK. And then finally it's fully
together when we are glorified. Yeah.
So it's all with him without sending all that.
So God made us his images to represent him.
Jesus identified his Kingdom by his attributes, miracles and
(24:23):
teachings, all those sort of things.
Those those. That's the image that's out
there. No flag.
Yes, Jesus, He walked the earth.He could have made a flag.
He knew about flags. They already existed.
They're around. Just because he didn't make a
flag doesn't make it wrong. I'm.
Just saying that. You know, doesn't necessarily
make it wrong. It's not like he just couldn't
(24:45):
think it up. No flags would have existed
around I. Think he was in his head having
omniscience and he just decided I'd rather not That's that's
kind of. It's not necessarily an argument
saying, you know, insane. Like that's the thing.
Just because somebody didn't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't do
it, right, Right. So OK, it's another thought,
(25:05):
another thought. So it'll be fair here.
As we think about like this, theidentity, the image, like what
we're putting out there and things, of course, Jesus being
the exact imprint of his nature.Hebrews 1/3 sort of an idea.
He is the most perfect image of God, obviously being God
himself. But you know, even of the
Father. That's what it's saying.
(25:26):
So let let me let's go to the pledge.
Let's go to the pledge. Yeah, I I don't know it.
So yeah, the. Original pledge because it's
changed a little bit over time. The original pledge.
That the United States pledge has.
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is that's, you know,
that's how things work, so. Thanks suggest.
Says I affirm my loyalty to the Christian flag and to our Savior
whose cross it bears. One spiritual fellowship under
(25:49):
that cross uniting us in serviceand love.
OK, OK. So there's my thoughts.
OK then, now I'm going to show you the modern pledge.
OK, very similar, but here we go.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to our Savior
for His Kingdom. It stands, one Savior,
crucified, risen and coming again with life and liberty for
(26:12):
all who believe. OK, I have another thought.
You have to share your thoughts.I have two thoughts.
Please do thought #1 is the second one they tried to copy
the American pledge. There's some similarities there.
No, they tried to copy it. My other, my other.
My other thought is I think, I think Jesus has come before the
(26:33):
flag when I'm pledging stuff. I just, you know.
Order of operations. There point of yeah, point of
priority here. I think it would help if if he
was. Ever feel better about it?
I, I, I, I don't know this pledge, but just here in the
pledge, I think. And they're they're I.
Think I should pledge allegianceto Jesus before I pledge
allegiance to the flag? Well, and it's, it's also an
(26:56):
equal footing. You know, I pledge to the flag
and to our savior. So is there a difference?
Is there? Are they equal?
Because just by words alone, I'dsay it looks like they're equal.
Yeah. You know, and I don't, I don't
really like that. I'm kind of against that idea.
No, no. Also, to be fair, nobody really
believes that the flag in Jesus is equal, right?
(27:19):
Correct. People say in the pledge they're
not like, Oh yeah, Jesus is justthe same as my flag, Joel.
Yeah, I think Jesus should be above the flag.
How about you? I agree.
OK. Next point All right so another
observation I make about the pledge is it's just there's no
(27:39):
Father and Holy Spirit being mentioned here and you know it's
it's not a statement of faith creed something like that, but
it's just interesting. There's no name of Jesus.
You you can. We we know her.
You know who? Yeah.
Well, I think we know who they're discussing.
There's there would be no one else, no other figure that would
(28:01):
fit in with one Savior crucified, risen and coming
again. So, yeah, so it is him.
But I do think it is important to have the name of Jesus.
I, I think, I think the Bible makes a big deal about that.
And no, I know their name is, iseven saved, you know, so it's
important to use the name of Jesus.
So I, yeah, some issues I'm raising here for us to be aware.
(28:21):
Maybe we can do a little better Even so we have, you know, the
Christian flag and savior kind of really on this equal footing.
And, you know, if you, I think, yeah, you're right.
And savior should be first. Yeah.
And then, you know, Father, Son,you know, where's the name of
Jesus, Where's the Holy Spirit? But maybe those aren't really as
big of a deal as we're making them out to be.
But then I want to just bring up.
(28:43):
A kind of big question. This is a big deal.
It's about thinking. It's about thinking.
But here here's a big one that Ithink that culturally we kind of
missed the boat on. We just kind of really have not
really thought about this anymore at all.
And you know, that's what the pledge itself, just in general,
a pledge to use a Bible word, soto speak of our translations.
(29:07):
It'd be more like vow or oath, sure, OK, But we, we don't
really, it's almost like 2 separate worlds.
I can pledge allegiance to whatever, but then there's these
vows and oaths and scripture that are really serious, but
they're really the same thing, You know, I, I would say, you
know, you know, maybe the step up would be like, it actually
like, you know, cutting a covenant kind of thing, right?
(29:28):
So that that'd be a different level, but these vows and oaths
are a part of that even and there's and places.
You were required to pay them. There any any vow really.
So we're going to hop over to Ecclesiastes 5 and we're going
to see just kind of this level of gravity, the seriousness in
the situation. So Ecclesiastes 5 the 1st 7
(29:51):
verses here guard your steps when you go to the House of God
to draw a near to listen is better than to offer the
sacrifice of fools. They do not know that they are
doing evil. Be not rash like quick with your
mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before
God. So this, this, you know, big
hey, just caution, pause, think about what you're saying.
(30:14):
Yeah. You know, even just in prayer,
right? Just think about what you're
saying, you know, make it meaningful, not vain, not
repetitious, things like that. Yeah.
And here is specifically. Like this something in the Bible
talks about no vain repetition. Yeah, yeah, that's in there too.
Like the heathens? Yeah, right.
Referencing prayer, right? Yeah, of course.
So then it says, you know the reasoning here that you know not
(30:37):
to utter this hasty word before God, for God is in heaven and
you are on earth. In other words, know your place
before him. This is the almighty creator.
This is this is the the God of the universe.
Therefore, let your words be few.
You know, the only, the only kind of prayers really that are
criticized in Scripture are longprayers.
Kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting not to
(30:59):
say that we can't have long prayers because even Jesus says,
hey, can't you can't you stay awake for one hour?
He's asked him to pray in guarding Yosemite.
So not even one hour. So there's obviously, you know,
there is an expectation to to keep praying.
But the usually when people havelong prayers in Scripture,
they're criticized because it's vain, it's repetitious.
(31:20):
Doing it for the show. Yeah, doing it for the show.
Wrong reason. Yeah, right.
But here, but here it's, you know, it's saying, hey,
recognize who you're actually talking to.
Let your words be few. We'd be quick to listen kind of
thing. Then verse three.
I love this beautiful poetry fora dream.
Comes with much business in a fool's voice with many words.
(31:41):
I love that. That's that's a good.
That's a good. Very good.
When you vow A vow to God, do not delay paying it where he has
no pleasure in. Fools pay what you vow.
So not even a delay. You know, you, you make a vow,
you better get to it. It is super important.
Anything he says in verse 5, youknow, we're taking it even more
serious here. It is better that you should not
(32:01):
vow than that you should vow andnot pay.
Yeah. Let not your mouth lead you into
sin. And do not say before the
messenger that it was a mistake.Why should God be angry at your
voice and destroy the work of your hands?
For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is
vanity. But God is the one you must
fear. Wow, pretty intense stuff.
(32:24):
There's actually a whole kind ofa systematic study I did with
with vows, that kind of a thing.Sure.
And I, I won't go through all that right now, but I think I'll
just. Pop this up in the description,
yeah? Yeah, well, we'll, we'll do that
and I'll just have these verse references with just a little
like like a one sentence deal next to it.
And so you could just not not that that is the conclusion, but
that helps you with a study. You can you can then study those
(32:46):
things. Study it.
Yeah, that, that'd be good stuff.
I'll say a lot about vows. There's a lot there.
There's a lot there. A lot of examples.
If you pay a valve or you make avalve, that was not a good
valve, There's actually things you could go do to yeah to to
get out. So you think of like, you know,
you think of like a rash vow, Jeff's vow that like that's a
big, big one there in judges and.
Had he, had he known the law better, he got there.
(33:08):
Was there was actually a a way to to not pay his vow and still
be right with God? Yeah, I believe it's Leviticus
5, and I've said this enough to people, but I'm actually going
to look it up here real quick. But Leviticus 5I do believe it
has the where. It's where it says, you know,
there's a certain sacrifice and things that you can do if you
(33:30):
realize that you make a vow and you're like, Oh, no, this is
actually sinful. Yeah, I should not have made
this. Vow should not have done this.
OK, and just a quick glance, I don't remember which chapter
news, so I I'll I'll look it up later.
But yeah, it's. We'll put it in the.
Description. We'll do that too.
Yeah, yeah. Our producer will remind us yes.
Of course we will. So, but it's there, it's, it's
(33:51):
somewhere around there. And of course, the idea is that
even there had to be a sacrificebecause it, you know, of course,
a picture of Christ dying for our sin.
And the idea is that that's justa serious thing, like someone
had to come and die for you because of this, this, you know,
serious sin shed blood. That's that's pretty.
It's pretty amazing. So God's the one you must fear
when you make a vow, you're really fearing something.
(34:13):
The most common reference to this today was when someone
says, I swear, I swear. Sure.
You know what, what do you mean?You're swearing on what's,
what's the sacrifice? What do you what, what, what's
going on here? And it's because they, they fear
that they won't be trusted, you know, for whatever reason, they,
they fear they're going to lose respect or something.
(34:33):
But we should just be fearing God.
Or they just want to overemphasize something.
Yeah, it it's, you know, but it's still thoughtless as well
all the time, definitely, which is brings back to the other
point. So Matthew 5, go over there and
you will see how Jesus talks about this very thing.
And so of course, with this Sermon on the Mount, he's kind
(34:54):
of really just preaching the OldTestament as it should have
always been preached. And religious leadership just
messed it up so bad. This is all like, jaw-dropping
stuff. Getting to the heart of the
matter, yeah. He's just getting raped.
I love it. It's good.
So then verse 33 of Matthew 5 says again, you have heard that
was said to those of old. You shall not swear falsely, but
shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
(35:14):
But I say to you so, So what they that's all they taught
about it. All they taught was OK if you
make this oath falsely. In other words, you're not
you're not doing it, but shall perform to the Lord what you
have sworn. You should you should do it.
You know you make a value do it.That's the idea.
(35:36):
He says, but I'm going to I'm going to tell you something a
little different here, but I sayto you do not take an oath at
all. Like that's the better advice
for you actually, you know, he so like, I'm not going to
encourage you to make oaths and he gets them to really think
about this. He says, don't take an oath at
all either by heaven. Why?
For it's the throne of God. You can't, you can't say I swear
(35:56):
on the throne of heaven, you know, or something like that,
because. You have no power over.
Yeah, if, if, if you don't go through with it, What you can't?
What, you're going to give up Throne?
It's not yours. Yeah, right.
You know, and it says in verse 35 or by the earth, for it's his
footstool. You know it's gone.
It's not yours. He's conquered it.
You haven't. You know, that kind of a thing.
What? Are you going to do about it?
Or by Jerusalem, you know, the city, right, the city of the
(36:18):
great King. So then you can't even do that.
You know, he may see a mess of my hometown.
That's Jesus the Messiah, you know, the great the one Psalm 2,
all the other messianic Psalms, It's his.
And so then verse 36 and do not take an oath by your your head.
You might think, well, I can just swear on my own self,
right. For you cannot make one hair
white or black. You don't have actually control
(36:41):
over your full self. No, you know, which is really
interesting. And so you can't really swear by
anything is what he's saying. So then he says this, this is
the solution because someone's going to say, wait a minute.
So then how do I show people that I really, really mean it?
Just answer that. Verse 37.
Let what you say be simply yes or no.
(37:03):
Anything more than this comes from evil.
Maybe stop lying and people willbelieve you.
Be a person of integrity, you know, that's you have to prove
yourself, you know, growing up and whatnot, but.
This is actually a pet peeve of mine.
The the, the, what people say all the time now is I'm not
lying. And then they sound like thank
you for calling by what you're about to say.
(37:23):
So you lie so much you have to tell me when you're not lying.
Right, right, right. And I know it's just, you know,
but that's almost the same type of phrase.
We're just trying to emphasize now what we're saying, right,
right. As if we're not trustworthy.
Now I think. And we do, and we do that now
and and we do it out of havoc because you hear other people
say it and we want to emphasize something.
So I'm not like necessarily likemaking fun of people for it, but
(37:44):
I kind of am because I'll say this one.
This is a pet peeve of mine. If if someone says all right,
all right, you know, let me be honest or I'm going to be honest
with you, I'll say that I actually.
It's really the same phrase. Well, I think this is the way
the language morphs. What they're really saying is
let me be blunt with you. I'm going to be blunt.
Yes, that's what they're saying.Because so it's just the way our
language changes sometimes. But this, you know, where you're
(38:06):
having to say trust me, trust me, trust me.
You know, I, I have to promise something super special because
you don't normally trust me. Like there's a there's a problem
there. They're character flaw, you
know, OK, so I don't want to beat that to death.
James 512 He he, he kind of repeats that there as well.
That same kind of teaching. I just think not enough people
think enough before they make anoath or vow or just in general
(38:30):
just talking. They're just talking out loud,
just talking. So then if we jump over to
Proverbs 20, and I'm going to goahead and just jump right over
to verse, verses 24 and 25, Proverbs 20, I was going to get
a little bit more than that, butI think I was going to cut to
that. So verses 24 and 25, a man's
(38:51):
steps are from the Lord. How then can man understand his
way? You don't know what direction
you're really going to go in thefuture.
You know, there's, we have plans, we have ideas, we should
think about the future, but God can direct you at any point.
I mean, we're commanded to be wise, so.
We have to be very careful about.
And all those things. So yeah, we're supposed to be
planning to think about the future.
(39:12):
An oath is always future becauseyou're making an oath because of
something is uncertain in the future.
What if we swear in your mother's grave?
That's an odd one, because what are you going to do about it if
you don't follow through? Like what?
You know, if someone swears to me on my mother's grave, OK,
that doesn't really make it any more serious to me because, and
(39:33):
I mean, this makes it, you know,it's kind of a disgusting
picture in my head, you know, getting you're out of there or
something. You know, it's like what?
That's disgusting. Like what do you you're not
really thinking about your saying, you know, it's yeah,
crazy. And then verse 25, it is a snare
like trap to say rashly quickly,it is holy and to reflect only
after making vows. And so you're, you're so anxious
(39:56):
to say, OK, this is only for theLord or this is only for this
use here or whatever it is. And we actually kind of see a
piece of this kind of play outs later on when Jesus talking to
the Pharisees once again, But they they say, Hey, it's, it's
holy, it's set apart, right? It's dedicated, you know, and so
to to and then reflect only after making vows.
(40:17):
How many times can we say that even, I mean, even about my own
self, I could say that where I didn't really think about the,
the full consequences or logicalend of something till after I
already spoke, you know? And it's like, oh, that, yeah,
that was kind of dumb. That was kind of dumb.
You know, I'm there too, here and there.
We just need to make it less andless of a practice, you know,
(40:39):
take these things seriously, these things seriously.
So then, yeah, we'll get to the other part later.
So I want you to think about this is problem #5 OK, Wrong
place. The wrong place.
OK. So we've had, we've had a few.
Fans here. Consider the place of the
(41:00):
Christian flag in several contexts.
OK, in your heart, That's the first one.
Most important, I'd say if if you are in a situation where you
would be expected to make that pledge of the Christian flag,
OK, there's different contexts, different circles that this
would happen. If you are going to recite this
(41:21):
vow, you know, really think about the words you're saying
and follow through. If you're going to say those
words, you know, and here's the deal.
Like I, I, I taught seven years junior high and high school and
I had a homeroom and there we had the pledge to the American
flag, Christian flag in the Bible, Christian School.
And so I would kind of talk about.
(41:42):
Would you hear this feel then? I would not give this full
spiel, but it was just a it was just a simplified version of
consider, you know, the, the significance of what you're
saying and if you should be saying it at all.
And so I allowed them to not sayit if they, if they chose to not
(42:03):
pledge allegiance to the Christian flag.
I said that's OK. But if you do say it, then just
guard your heart, you know, justmake sure that the serious,
serious thing before the Lord. Sure.
And I just, and I just let them go on their own.
Like I can't judge their hearts or anything.
So, so it's, it's also, you know, churches, homes, wherever,
(42:25):
like should it be there? What's the purpose?
Just think about it like is what's the goal?
What are we, what are we trying to get out of this?
Like what's, what are we trying to accomplish?
You know, that's all it wants tothink about.
But then there's there's one bigone that I really will say this
is not just thinking about us. I think this is actually advice
(42:46):
I'm going to give that that should be a change.
OK, so. This this goes thing.
I know where you're going this. Goes to the flag etiquettes.
OK, so the idea of. Because what?
What does the Christian flag represent again?
It's Christ. Kingdom.
OK, yes, All right. So that clearly should go under
the American flag. Yeah.
Well, that's where it normally is, and so I was.
(43:07):
Joking, by the way. What what people don't
understand, it's kind of lost ona lot of people, is the whole
point of why the American flag is supposed to fly the highest.
The whole point of it is that inAmerica that is the number one
Kingdom. That that's that's our country.
Yeah. That, that, that is it.
And so it is. If you're in a different
country, we'd expect you to fly your flag highest.
(43:29):
Yes, absolutely. Because that's normal, correct?
Correct. And so but the Kingdom of Jesus
should be higher than all the countries.
If it is symbolizing the the Christ's Kingdom, which is the
whole point of it, you know, that's the identity and you're
identifying with it. Even then, if you are going to
(43:49):
have the flag, no matter where it is, it should be higher than
every other flag. Yes, every other.
Flag. I'd buy that.
And that's the one I I'm demanding.
I'm saying this must be if. You're going to fly it.
It must fly, right? Because you you would then say
Christ's Kingdom is superior to all other.
That's there's bottom line. Yeah, OK.
(44:11):
And so I don't, I don't criticize people that don't do
it yet. The idea is that I don't think
people have thought about it. I would agree with that.
And so, yeah. And so I, you know, I want to
hold off on that judgement, but you should think about.
It a lot of our traditions, though, that we have in
Christian and in our churches, we don't think about it.
We do it because we've always done it that way.
(44:34):
And I think there's lots of things that would fall under the
same advice. Think about it.
Yeah, Why? Why do we have this tradition?
Just think about it. It'll be like something like the
American flag. Don't let it touch the ground.
Christian flag falls over. We'll get it tomorrow.
It's like, well, show honor where honors.
(44:56):
Do you know if you're if you're going to have it, just think
through these things. Just think through these things
so that my my solution, just just consider these things.
Think about it. We must honor God as holy, set
apart from everything. And so we're going to consider
the words as we close here my part anyways, Mark 76 through 9.
Okay, and so he says Jesus is talking verse 6.
(45:16):
He said to them, well, did Isaiah prophecy of you
hypocrites as it is written. So he's gonna quote Isaiah 2913
and I just want to remind again,hypocrites says before, but it's
made of two different Greek words basically under in
judgment. And so in in modern vernacular,
you would say it's under the radar.
It went below the radar. In other words, you missed the
point completely. Idea.
(45:38):
Yeah, missed the point underneath you're.
Missing the point. Yes, Yeah.
Well. Sometimes we too.
It's like you've memorized the entire Old Testament and you
don't know God's talking to you right now in your face.
Yeah, Jesus, standing there looking at you, talking to you.
Like come on, you missed the point.
OK, so then he quotes it and in verse 6 he's quoting in Isaiah
2913. This people honors me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me.
(46:00):
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men, so making them equal and so we can apply
it to our situation here. So then he continues on in verse
8 says you leave the command of God and hold to the tradition of
men. And he said to them, you have a
fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to
establish your tradition. Big stuff.
So we have to be careful when wehave our traditions.
(46:22):
I'm not saying tradition is bad inherently.
No, sometimes the traditions were founded for good reasons.
It is very good. There's, there's, we see, we
could always remember. Why?
Right. And if your answer to that
question is because we've alwaysdone it that way, you may need
to stop and reconsider. You know, that should not be
probably your first and definitely not your only
(46:42):
response. That's the way we've always done
it. Yeah, right.
OK. That's that's all the
considerations. All right, so let's wrap up.
The question really isn't shouldwe burn the Christian flag?
The question really is, is how big should the fire be?
There's a little bit of an attention getter there, yeah.
(47:03):
So I would say, you know me personally, I say I'm not going
to go buy one. I have no need of having one
yet. I'm not going to have an
automatic judgement if I walk into your church or something
and see it. So.
Absolutely not. Yeah.
So all right, give you all something to think about.
And thank you all once again forjoining us.
And we will see you next time. Please like, subscribe, follow,
(47:23):
share and give us a thumbs up. See you later.
Thank you.
Go are you recorded, everybody? And welcome back to another
episode of Brains, Bibles and beyond.
We're so glad you have joined us.
After all, it has been said thatthis is the world's greatest
podcast. I have Nate Day with Think Like
Christ Ministries and this is our resident theologian Joel
(00:23):
Willoughby with Brains and Bibles.
What's on the agenda? I have no idea what we're doing,
what we do first. All right.
Everybody grab your theological receptacle and we're going to
dig right in. Let's do it.
Spicy. Not everyone's meant for the
(00:48):
slurp. Let's keep it rolling.
We're good. Wow.
On your mark when you're ready, OK.
Excuse me. We're so glad you've joined us
all, you budding theologians. All right, On our first segment
(01:09):
today. Yeah, on my word, my nose hurts.
On our first segment today, we have a little game we like to
claw stump the theologian. And today we have a new guest.
Reader, this is my favorite youngest child, Malachi, Why
don't you come on over here and read us our question today, OK?
All right, shake him up. Shake him up and reach in the
(01:31):
hat. Here's the mic.
Why does God forgive us? All right, why does God forgive
us? Why does God forgive us?
Well, so it's not how so we can skip that part.
So the the very question, why? Very good question, very
profound. But I think it's also a simple
(01:53):
answer, even though it is profound and it's just the idea
that God loves us, so he didn't have to do anything for us.
Mankind messed up Adam and Eve in the garden, Genesis 3, there
was sin utterly rejecting him, hating him, not wanting him.
God had to go to them. But he came up with his plan of
redemption. Even before he condemned one
single person, He already had a plan of how sins would be
(02:17):
forgiven. And why does he do that?
It is simply for one thing to have a relationship with us, a
happy, harmonious relationship. That's a really beautiful thing.
Is that because I'm special? Because he's special.
That's right. Well, you know, he we're special
to him, You know what I mean? Like in that sense.
Yeah. Yeah.
(02:37):
And that and the offer is freelygiven.
But he does not force us to lovehim.
You know, love, by the very definition, is free.
It's a free choice. So yes, we, we.
He chooses us. We choose him.
It's a happy relationship. Yeah.
All right. So really, that's all it is.
Does that answer our question? Yes, or do we stop the
(02:58):
theologian answer? All right, That answers the
question all right. If you disagree, send us your
comments. Please.
Remember, if they're positive comments, e-mail me at
podcast@thingslikechrist.org. If they're negative comments,
e-mail Joel Do. You remember the e-mail address?
Brainsandbiblesjoel@brainsandbibles.org.Yep, that's the one.
(03:22):
That's the one. All right.
We've had problems in this in the past.
All right, moving on to our nextsegment.
All right, what you got? Once again, I have searched all
the articles in the entire Internet.
Wow. Yeah, all the vaults.
All of them. I searched them all looking for
anything newsworthy that would be worth reading on our show.
(03:45):
We have high standards. We do not have standards.
I found this article. This was dated May 30th 2025.
Is an AP article OK? So you have time recording just
yesterday? Yes, the headline caught my eye.
A show inside a cathedral featured raw chickens and
(04:07):
diapers. Really.
Yeah, the German president was in attendance.
OK. All right.
Where was this at? Is Germany a cathedral?
But where? Where?
What's the place? Well, let me let me I read the
first paragraph. I got excited.
German President. Yeah, yeah, it was in Germany.
I'm guessing a performance inside a Catholic cathedral in
(04:27):
Germany earlier this month that featured raw, plucked chickens
wrapped in diapers on stage and the country's president and the
local Archbishop in the audiencehas prompted the church and
municipal leaders to apologize that the show hurt religious
feelings. Religious feelings.
(04:48):
Yeah, that's interesting. The show Westphalia Side Story.
Oh boy. See.
What they did there was part of a May 15th celebration to mark
the 1200 and 50th anniversary asWestphalia.
That's a lot a region and Northwestern and Germany Video
Footy Show Video Footy shows onewoman and two shirtless men
(05:09):
singing Meat is Meat, apparentlyspoofing Australia band Opus
1948 pop song Live Is Life with Size and Dancing and dead
chickens on stage in front of the cathedral's altar.
There we go. That's.
(05:29):
That's a lot to take in. There's a lot for the senses.
You should see the picture. I want to see the picture.
You don't want to see the picture, but you should see the
picture anyway, yeah? There you go though.
That's our World News for today,guys.
Yikes. That's now I'm more cultured.
I, I don't even, I don't even know what to say.
Like I just don't know what to say.
(05:50):
Chickens and diapers, that's. Chickens, yeah, they're like,
raw, like. Something.
Raw chickens. Little drumstick sticking out.
Yep, little drumstick sticking out with a diaper and they're
like holding them in there like the MU faucet thing with one
hand. There we go.
OK. Yeah.
All right. So moving on, Joel.
Yeah, next segment, this is all yours.
(06:11):
Just do something a little more positive.
Or useful. So never mind the title, you
know, Should we burn the Christian flag?
OK, OK, now let's. Forget the more positive part.
Well, it can be. Let's have a little flag burden.
Oh wait, no, you're asking the question.
(06:32):
I'm asking the question. I'm asking the question.
I'm not saying to do it, I'm asking the.
Question Should we? So really, really, you know, why
is there a Christian flag? What do we do with it?
OK, why? Why is it good?
Bad. Doesn't matter.
I don't know why I. Want us to really think about it
so so a series of questions herethat we're going to kind of at
least somewhat cover where did it come from?
(06:53):
What is the etiquette with the flag?
You know, there's flag etiquettewith everything else.
When you fly it, how you fly, it's how you take it down, you
know, you know, whatever. So.
So the due respect of a of a flag.
Right. Right.
Not law, but it's etiquette. Have you ever recited its pledge
about you, Nate? Have you?
I have no idea what the pledge pledge is to the flag.
(07:15):
We'll say what it is. I know what it is to the
American flag. OK, yeah.
So no, I have not. So I've been in some schools, a
few different schools where we would be like pledge the
American flag, the Christian flag into the Bible.
So we're not even really going to touch, we're not going to
touch the Bible pledge at all. And I'll make a couple
references to the flag, the American flag, I mean, but the
focus here is the Christian flag.
(07:37):
All right? So how should we honor the
Christian flag? Should we do it at all, or how
do we do it? You know, that kind of thing.
Is it a moral to have a Christian flag?
So, you know, a moral, in other words, has nothing to do with
morality at all. That that's what that means.
Or is there some sort of good orevil with that?
(07:57):
So, OK, where'd it come from? It's kind of interesting.
I think most people have lost this information.
If you talk to them, no one's even would have the Christian
flag. They would.
No, no clue really. Yeah, probably.
Not but the first thought of it.The first thought of it.
So not actually made. I don't know the exact date of
it being made. It was shortly after.
But you have to go way back to 1897, OK, in good old Brooklyn,
(08:22):
you know, I don't know. I work.
So my first thought would have been like times of the Crusades
or something. Yeah, yeah, you'd think so.
And my second guess would have been 1800s.
That's the first thing I thoughtof, you know, like the banners
and stuff and. You know, I mean, I saw some of
those movies and the Shields, they have the cross on them.
Monty Python. Yeah.
I I don't know what movies. I don't.
I've never actually staffed through one of those.
(08:42):
It's just, I just know of it. Yeah.
So anyways, 1897 in Brooklyn, NYSo this is what happened.
A Superintendent of a Christian School.
His name's Charles Overton. And there's this event and the
guy that's supposed to come up and do the opening speech is is
not showing up. And now it's like it's real
(09:03):
bummer. A super short like like just a
few minutes before somebody's supposed to talk.
So him being the Superintendent,he he's when it gets called up
there, he has to sure cover. He's a boss, man.
So, you know, I have tons of grace for somebody that has to
suddenly no preparation, no thought about it, has to speak
in front of people. And, and by the way, whatever I
(09:23):
say here, there's no criticism against this guy, by the way, No
OK, So but he makes this impromptu speech and as he's
speaking, he, he kind of knows the American flag in the room.
And so he gets, he starts talking about it and he and he
speaks about symbolism and identity, OK, important
concepts. So then he just kind of, you
know, off the cuff, just kind ofsays, well, maybe Christians
(09:44):
should have their own flag. OK, doesn't hurt to ask a
question. Yeah, right.
I mean, you can't fault a guy for throwing out an idea.
That that doesn't doesn't matter.
Nothing that's wrong with symbolism.
You know, there's there's a place for.
It right, right. And remembrance and all those
different things, yes. Right.
So, so. Well, sometime later, not sure
exactly when, and shortly after,another man, don't know who that
(10:05):
is exactly, but someone else helped that dream become a
reality. They made it happen.
OK, So what about the design? Think about the design of it.
And so we'll have to for our audience, YouTube audience, have
to show the flag. I can see it.
If they don't know what it lookslike, we'll have to we'll have
our producer superimpose the flag, do something there.
I. Don't know what that magic is.
(10:25):
Technology I can do. It OK, so it has the same red,
white and blue as the American flag, of course.
Coincidence. As Made in America.
I don't think it's but OK, so same same there.
So what about the meaning of thecolors?
So with this, I think there is avery direct parallel with the
(10:48):
American flag, which is interesting, kind of
interesting. Now the meaning of the colors,
they can be argued. It's one of those things where
there's not like a written document that was formal about
this. And so I think some people have
kind of made their own and but there does seem to be a general
consensus and that's what I'm with the information I've
gathered. This is what I'm producing here.
(11:09):
OK, so the red for the American flag is hardiness and valor,
symbolizing courage in the bloodshed for freedom.
OK, emphasis there. Bloodshed for freedom.
The Christian flag, red is Christ's blood and love.
OK OK then with whites for the American flag, purity and
innocence reflecting moral integrity in the idealism of the
(11:32):
founding. OK, so purity, innocence, right?
This is good. So that that's with the
Christian flag. White is purity or in some of us
say peace, but I think purity isthe emphasis.
You have Christ's blood, you have purity, you know, that kind
of thing. I think that does make sense.
And then blue for the American flag, vigilance, perseverance,
(11:53):
justice during the commitment touphold what is rights that
righteousness there right. OK.
So with with blue, the Christianflag, faith, truth.
So truth and what is rights, youknow, because those kind of
things that kind of go together as well.
Maybe I'm stretching it a little, but I do think that
there's a direct something goingon here, red, white and blue and
(12:13):
similar meanings. OK, Then I then I went ahead and
did like all this extra looking up stuff about the American
flag's origins. Kind of cool.
But anyways, we'll save that probably for not another time.
It's just, yeah, it's kind of cool to have.
We're not a political. Talk show Yeah, we're not.
OK so who uses the Christian flag?
(12:34):
You know, you think about, you know, because some might assume.
I got the answer. All Christians must but.
Christians use it. Yeah, right, right.
Yeah. Well, it's definitely, I don't
know of any non Christians that would use this.
So I don't think there is. I don't know.
At least not well. Not professing non Christians.
(12:55):
So it quickly, this thing started into the 1800s, it
quickly spread through Christianity in America.
Start with the Methodist. That was the group originally
that where, where it all came from there.
And then, but mostly today, fromwhat I gather, you know, it
would be actually hard to figurethis out maybe because you'd
have to have data of every single church there is, you
(13:17):
know, which is kind of impossible.
But from what I gather, it's mostly seen among the Catholic
community and then Baptist. And then just on from there,
just, you know, it goes on, dwindles out.
Now Catholics is Baptist. It's just about the same thing.
There's some key differences. Key differences, yeah, so.
We should. We should do an episode on that
(13:37):
someday. The differences.
Denominational differences if you I would have to have
somebody that's a good representative from each one.
Yeah, that's fine. Because otherwise it might look
like I'm just, you know, you. Can volunteer for this, just
send us an e-mail. Might be interesting.
Might be interesting. I like I like good discussion.
Yeah, I think, I think we could do really well so.
(13:58):
But it's not used by all denominations.
No, not everybody uses it so. It's not a universal Christian
flag. Yeah, there's a number of.
It was made, it was intended to be, I think.
I think that was a symbol, a banner that all could unite
under. Isn't that kind of?
That's the idea behind. The idea?
Yeah, this is our, but not everybody.
Not everybody united behind it, right?
OK, so I'm gonna raise 5 potential problems.
(14:22):
You can decide audience, you candecide if it's a problem, you
know, but I'm going to, I'm going to raise them.
Concerns or questions? Yes, that kind of thing.
But as far as my like kind of like my outline goes just to
make it fit well, it's you know,I have a problem and it's wrong
something and five of those. OK, so the first one wrong
(14:43):
foundation. OK, so just kind of making us
think through it. All right, So you could say did
it come about in a good way? I don't think there's any bad
intentions by the way at all. But I.
Think the attention was good? God, he never expressed a desire
(15:04):
for a flag. I feel like if you want a flag,
you tell us, you know, you know.Yeah, that's just just the
thought, OK. Jesus alone, from what I see in
all scripture, I think there is room for a little argument, but
basically Jesus alone has been the physical representation of
(15:25):
God's Kingdom. OK, so he comes in.
So you see something like in Luke 17 and verses 2021, he's
talking with Pharisees and it says being asked by the
Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, He answered
them, the Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be
observed, nor will they say, look here it is or there for
(15:46):
behold, the Kingdom of God is inthe midst of you.
So the idea of like in the middle, like they were probably
a circle around him, He's talking to them, Hey, right,
right among you right here. He's representing as the king,
representing the Kingdom. OK, So do we need something else
now? I don't know.
(16:07):
Has God said anything about representing heavenly things
like such as his Kingdom, you know, now I would say his
Kingdom is a is it's a real physical Kingdom that is coming.
It'll be on the earth, but it, it exists already and it'll be
coming down from heaven. That's kind of the idea.
Jesus being the institutor of such things as well.
(16:27):
There'll be New Jerusalem and things at the very end, you know
all that. OK, so has God said anything
about representing heavenly things with physical objects?
Yes. Yeah.
So the first thing that came to my mind as you were asking this
Exodus 21st 4 you should not make for yourself a carved
(16:51):
image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or thatis in the water under the earth.
Yeah, now there's. No, no.
Shall you bow down and serve them right?
And that's kind of the point of that.
So verse 3, no other gods beforeme, verse 5, do not bow down to
them or serve them. So that is the focus that you're
(17:15):
worshipping these things. Yeah, making making an image
that you worship. So you can't just say nothing.
It's the fact that's being worshipped.
OK, yeah. However, and I.
Don't think people worship the flag.
I would say not everyone does. I think there might be some some
wrong things happening. Just like there's some people
(17:35):
that worship the American flag. I think some people can worship
the cross. Some people can worship the
cross. It's like that song you'll rug a
cross. It's basically just about.
Yeah, it's not well. You remember when they had the,
you know, the old the serpent onthe post, Yes, and they had
didn't have to get rid of that get.
Back in numbers, yeah. They were worshiping the the
worship in that. Yeah, Moses makes his thing out
(17:55):
of believe those brass, maybe something some shiny metal and
so that, you know, the sun hits it out there.
When you get like the snake look, look up and and you'll be
yelled. It was Jesus's illustration of
what he would do, you know, thathe would be on the cross, lifted
up. You believe in Him on the cross,
you know. So that's got, you know, John. 3
(18:17):
Nicodemus. That was, you know, that was
obviously, I don't know if you call it a symbol, whatever you
call it, someone looking forwardto what Jesus was going to do
for. Us, yes.
So it wasn't a bad thing because.
Because people are stupid. Yeah, they said worshipping
because. It was at first it was.
It was faith in what God would do.
It was worshipping Him, but thenit became idolatry of wow, that
(18:39):
pole is what saves us. Look at that pole.
Yeah, yes. And so, yeah.
Just like with sacrificing of lambs.
Yeah, that that that lamb didn'tsave you.
The lamb didn't save you. Right.
It was the picture of what would.
OK, yeah, Anyways, so but just putting it out there and I'm, I
start out kind of slow and I'm building up, Yeah.
(18:59):
So just just put it out there, All right, so.
Tracking. Problem 2.
We're bringing up wrong identity, OK?
It was designed to establish Christian identity.
You know, my argument a little bit is wasn't there already
Christian identity? You know, there's we like, do we
not know who we were? We were confused.
(19:19):
We we couldn't unite. We're like, what do we do?
We need something. Well, and to be fair, the law of
Christians aren't united, right?They just need the flag.
Yeah, right. That's all OK.
Rally so they I mean, they probably did see a problem.
Christians aren't as united as they should be, and so they're
(19:41):
not solving the correct. Way.
Is that way possible? Yeah.
So, you know, has this help us unite?
Just give us something to unite under.
All right. So I mean I understand intent
here. So I, I think about, I've
actually even spoken on our identity as Christians and I
what, what I would focus on, Thefirst thing I think of is Romans
(20:02):
6, Romans 6. There's a lot with Romans 6.
I kind of narrowed it down to a key few verses, which is verses
3 through 11. I won't read all of that, but
I'll just highlight just go through a few things, mainly in
the beginning and it says all ofus were baptized into Christ.
You just, you know, those who believe, and we're baptized into
(20:22):
his death, buried therefore withhim by baptism into death.
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in news of life.
I'm kind of skipping a little bit here and running through.
We have been unified, sorry. We have been united with Him in
a death like his. We shall certainly be united
with Him in a resurrection like his.
OK, we believe that we also livewith him as skipping, skipping,
(20:43):
skipping. Now in that verse 11.
So you also, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
That's our identity. Our identity is we have died in
Christ or buried in Christ. We, we have new life resurrected
in Christ. We are part of the body of
Christ, you know. Our identity needs to be in
Christ. Yeah, that's the problem.
And our unity needs to be in Christ.
Yes, that's what unifies us. Yes, exactly.
(21:05):
Or a flag. I'm just thinking that there's
probably no need of a flag for identity.
Sure. OK, so there it is then, First
Corinthians 6. OK, our identity is in Christ's
payment as well. So you know kind of a little bit
more of what I've already said, but just to bring out that one
(21:27):
piece for to narrow it down here, just toward the end of
that First Corinthians 6/19/20 says or do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you
have from God? You are not your own, for you
are bought with a price. So, you know, those who believe
we are bought by the blood of Christ, He owns us.
You know, that's my identity. I'm, I'm his property in a
(21:50):
sense, you know, I'm his servant.
So big, big thing there. The flag.
I don't think it really adds to that.
That's, that's all. That's all I'm saying.
That's all I'm saying. All right, then, of course, a
big one. One more.
What, what? What can you think of?
Anything else? Enlighten me.
Loving one another, you know, hesays.
(22:11):
You know. John 133435 He says, you know,
basically how can someone identify you as a disciple of
Christ? Yeah, he says.
He says a new commandment I giveto you, that you love one
another just as I loved you. That's the new part, this
example. Just as I have loved you, you
also are to love one another. Verse 35 By this all people will
(22:33):
know that you are my disciples if you have love for one
another. So a big identifying key
characteristics so we can spiritually identify in you
know, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, things
like that. But for as far as a physical
outward identity, I say there itis, Love one another as Christ
has loved us. Or have a flag.
There's two options there. Yeah, maybe I didn't think about
(22:56):
then. Yeah.
All right, problem three. OK, possibly wrong image.
OK, wrong image. So just to kind of show you
where I'm going here, the Old Testament, you'll you'll see the
word image, you'll see the word idol.
It's the same Hebrew word. Typically there might be some,
some place where there's a different Hebrew word and they
use that same English word. But basically across the board
(23:18):
image and idol, it's the same thing.
So we bear the image of God. And so what's really cool about
that, that I really like, I really appreciate it is, you
know, you are to make no sort of, you know, idol of God.
Well, but God already did the job well, he made us.
We are the living, breathing images or idols, so to speak.
(23:40):
Is it really wouldn't be the wrong word there because the
connotations, but just to kind of show you the the parallel.
But we are that living, breathing images of God, you
know, and so it's like, you know, rocks that hit the mirror
because sin destroys. And so we look in the mirror and
there's little shreds, shrapnelsof a reflection there.
That's kind of how we reflect God.
(24:01):
And then when we trusted him forsalvation, it's like those
shards of glass start to slowly come together.
We see a little more of that picture.
OK. And then finally it's fully
together when we are glorified. Yeah.
So it's all with him without sending all that.
So God made us his images to represent him.
Jesus identified his Kingdom by his attributes, miracles and
(24:23):
teachings, all those sort of things.
Those those. That's the image that's out
there. No flag.
Yes, Jesus, He walked the earth.He could have made a flag.
He knew about flags. They already existed.
They're around. Just because he didn't make a
flag doesn't make it wrong. I'm.
Just saying that. You know, doesn't necessarily
make it wrong. It's not like he just couldn't
(24:45):
think it up. No flags would have existed
around I. Think he was in his head having
omniscience and he just decided I'd rather not That's that's
kind of. It's not necessarily an argument
saying, you know, insane. Like that's the thing.
Just because somebody didn't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't do
it, right, Right. So OK, it's another thought,
(25:05):
another thought. So it'll be fair here.
As we think about like this, theidentity, the image, like what
we're putting out there and things, of course, Jesus being
the exact imprint of his nature.Hebrews 1/3 sort of an idea.
He is the most perfect image of God, obviously being God
himself. But you know, even of the
Father. That's what it's saying.
(25:26):
So let let me let's go to the pledge.
Let's go to the pledge. Yeah, I I don't know it.
So yeah, the. Original pledge because it's
changed a little bit over time. The original pledge.
That the United States pledge has.
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is that's, you know,
that's how things work, so. Thanks suggest.
Says I affirm my loyalty to the Christian flag and to our Savior
whose cross it bears. One spiritual fellowship under
(25:49):
that cross uniting us in serviceand love.
OK, OK. So there's my thoughts.
OK then, now I'm going to show you the modern pledge.
OK, very similar, but here we go.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to our Savior
for His Kingdom. It stands, one Savior,
crucified, risen and coming again with life and liberty for
(26:12):
all who believe. OK, I have another thought.
You have to share your thoughts.I have two thoughts.
Please do thought #1 is the second one they tried to copy
the American pledge. There's some similarities there.
No, they tried to copy it. My other, my other.
My other thought is I think, I think Jesus has come before the
(26:33):
flag when I'm pledging stuff. I just, you know.
Order of operations. There point of yeah, point of
priority here. I think it would help if if he
was. Ever feel better about it?
I, I, I, I don't know this pledge, but just here in the
pledge, I think. And they're they're I.
Think I should pledge allegianceto Jesus before I pledge
allegiance to the flag? Well, and it's, it's also an
(26:56):
equal footing. You know, I pledge to the flag
and to our savior. So is there a difference?
Is there? Are they equal?
Because just by words alone, I'dsay it looks like they're equal.
Yeah. You know, and I don't, I don't
really like that. I'm kind of against that idea.
No, no. Also, to be fair, nobody really
believes that the flag in Jesus is equal, right?
(27:19):
Correct. People say in the pledge they're
not like, Oh yeah, Jesus is justthe same as my flag, Joel.
Yeah, I think Jesus should be above the flag.
How about you? I agree.
OK. Next point All right so another
observation I make about the pledge is it's just there's no
(27:39):
Father and Holy Spirit being mentioned here and you know it's
it's not a statement of faith creed something like that, but
it's just interesting. There's no name of Jesus.
You you can. We we know her.
You know who? Yeah.
Well, I think we know who they're discussing.
There's there would be no one else, no other figure that would
(28:01):
fit in with one Savior crucified, risen and coming
again. So, yeah, so it is him.
But I do think it is important to have the name of Jesus.
I, I think, I think the Bible makes a big deal about that.
And no, I know their name is, iseven saved, you know, so it's
important to use the name of Jesus.
So I, yeah, some issues I'm raising here for us to be aware.
(28:21):
Maybe we can do a little better Even so we have, you know, the
Christian flag and savior kind of really on this equal footing.
And, you know, if you, I think, yeah, you're right.
And savior should be first. Yeah.
And then, you know, Father, Son,you know, where's the name of
Jesus, Where's the Holy Spirit? But maybe those aren't really as
big of a deal as we're making them out to be.
But then I want to just bring up.
(28:43):
A kind of big question. This is a big deal.
It's about thinking. It's about thinking.
But here here's a big one that Ithink that culturally we kind of
missed the boat on. We just kind of really have not
really thought about this anymore at all.
And you know, that's what the pledge itself, just in general,
a pledge to use a Bible word, soto speak of our translations.
(29:07):
It'd be more like vow or oath, sure, OK, But we, we don't
really, it's almost like 2 separate worlds.
I can pledge allegiance to whatever, but then there's these
vows and oaths and scripture that are really serious, but
they're really the same thing, You know, I, I would say, you
know, you know, maybe the step up would be like, it actually
like, you know, cutting a covenant kind of thing, right?
(29:28):
So that that'd be a different level, but these vows and oaths
are a part of that even and there's and places.
You were required to pay them. There any any vow really.
So we're going to hop over to Ecclesiastes 5 and we're going
to see just kind of this level of gravity, the seriousness in
the situation. So Ecclesiastes 5 the 1st 7
(29:51):
verses here guard your steps when you go to the House of God
to draw a near to listen is better than to offer the
sacrifice of fools. They do not know that they are
doing evil. Be not rash like quick with your
mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before
God. So this, this, you know, big
hey, just caution, pause, think about what you're saying.
(30:14):
Yeah. You know, even just in prayer,
right? Just think about what you're
saying, you know, make it meaningful, not vain, not
repetitious, things like that. Yeah.
And here is specifically. Like this something in the Bible
talks about no vain repetition. Yeah, yeah, that's in there too.
Like the heathens? Yeah, right.
Referencing prayer, right? Yeah, of course.
So then it says, you know the reasoning here that you know not
(30:37):
to utter this hasty word before God, for God is in heaven and
you are on earth. In other words, know your place
before him. This is the almighty creator.
This is this is the the God of the universe.
Therefore, let your words be few.
You know, the only, the only kind of prayers really that are
criticized in Scripture are longprayers.
Kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting not to
(30:59):
say that we can't have long prayers because even Jesus says,
hey, can't you can't you stay awake for one hour?
He's asked him to pray in guarding Yosemite.
So not even one hour. So there's obviously, you know,
there is an expectation to to keep praying.
But the usually when people havelong prayers in Scripture,
they're criticized because it's vain, it's repetitious.
(31:20):
Doing it for the show. Yeah, doing it for the show.
Wrong reason. Yeah, right.
But here, but here it's, you know, it's saying, hey,
recognize who you're actually talking to.
Let your words be few. We'd be quick to listen kind of
thing. Then verse three.
I love this beautiful poetry fora dream.
Comes with much business in a fool's voice with many words.
(31:41):
I love that. That's that's a good.
That's a good. Very good.
When you vow A vow to God, do not delay paying it where he has
no pleasure in. Fools pay what you vow.
So not even a delay. You know, you, you make a vow,
you better get to it. It is super important.
Anything he says in verse 5, youknow, we're taking it even more
serious here. It is better that you should not
(32:01):
vow than that you should vow andnot pay.
Yeah. Let not your mouth lead you into
sin. And do not say before the
messenger that it was a mistake.Why should God be angry at your
voice and destroy the work of your hands?
For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is
vanity. But God is the one you must
fear. Wow, pretty intense stuff.
(32:24):
There's actually a whole kind ofa systematic study I did with
with vows, that kind of a thing.Sure.
And I, I won't go through all that right now, but I think I'll
just. Pop this up in the description,
yeah? Yeah, well, we'll, we'll do that
and I'll just have these verse references with just a little
like like a one sentence deal next to it.
And so you could just not not that that is the conclusion, but
that helps you with a study. You can you can then study those
(32:46):
things. Study it.
Yeah, that, that'd be good stuff.
I'll say a lot about vows. There's a lot there.
There's a lot there. A lot of examples.
If you pay a valve or you make avalve, that was not a good
valve, There's actually things you could go do to yeah to to
get out. So you think of like, you know,
you think of like a rash vow, Jeff's vow that like that's a
big, big one there in judges and.
Had he, had he known the law better, he got there.
(33:08):
Was there was actually a a way to to not pay his vow and still
be right with God? Yeah, I believe it's Leviticus
5, and I've said this enough to people, but I'm actually going
to look it up here real quick. But Leviticus 5I do believe it
has the where. It's where it says, you know,
there's a certain sacrifice and things that you can do if you
(33:30):
realize that you make a vow and you're like, Oh, no, this is
actually sinful. Yeah, I should not have made
this. Vow should not have done this.
OK, and just a quick glance, I don't remember which chapter
news, so I I'll I'll look it up later.
But yeah, it's. We'll put it in the.
Description. We'll do that too.
Yeah, yeah. Our producer will remind us yes.
Of course we will. So, but it's there, it's, it's
(33:51):
somewhere around there. And of course, the idea is that
even there had to be a sacrificebecause it, you know, of course,
a picture of Christ dying for our sin.
And the idea is that that's justa serious thing, like someone
had to come and die for you because of this, this, you know,
serious sin shed blood. That's that's pretty.
It's pretty amazing. So God's the one you must fear
when you make a vow, you're really fearing something.
(34:13):
The most common reference to this today was when someone
says, I swear, I swear. Sure.
You know what, what do you mean?You're swearing on what's,
what's the sacrifice? What do you what, what, what's
going on here? And it's because they, they fear
that they won't be trusted, you know, for whatever reason, they,
they fear they're going to lose respect or something.
(34:33):
But we should just be fearing God.
Or they just want to overemphasize something.
Yeah, it it's, you know, but it's still thoughtless as well
all the time, definitely, which is brings back to the other
point. So Matthew 5, go over there and
you will see how Jesus talks about this very thing.
And so of course, with this Sermon on the Mount, he's kind
(34:54):
of really just preaching the OldTestament as it should have
always been preached. And religious leadership just
messed it up so bad. This is all like, jaw-dropping
stuff. Getting to the heart of the
matter, yeah. He's just getting raped.
I love it. It's good.
So then verse 33 of Matthew 5 says again, you have heard that
was said to those of old. You shall not swear falsely, but
shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
(35:14):
But I say to you so, So what they that's all they taught
about it. All they taught was OK if you
make this oath falsely. In other words, you're not
you're not doing it, but shall perform to the Lord what you
have sworn. You should you should do it.
You know you make a value do it.That's the idea.
(35:36):
He says, but I'm going to I'm going to tell you something a
little different here, but I sayto you do not take an oath at
all. Like that's the better advice
for you actually, you know, he so like, I'm not going to
encourage you to make oaths and he gets them to really think
about this. He says, don't take an oath at
all either by heaven. Why?
For it's the throne of God. You can't, you can't say I swear
(35:56):
on the throne of heaven, you know, or something like that,
because. You have no power over.
Yeah, if, if, if you don't go through with it, What you can't?
What, you're going to give up Throne?
It's not yours. Yeah, right.
You know, and it says in verse 35 or by the earth, for it's his
footstool. You know it's gone.
It's not yours. He's conquered it.
You haven't. You know, that kind of a thing.
What? Are you going to do about it?
Or by Jerusalem, you know, the city, right, the city of the
(36:18):
great King. So then you can't even do that.
You know, he may see a mess of my hometown.
That's Jesus the Messiah, you know, the great the one Psalm 2,
all the other messianic Psalms, It's his.
And so then verse 36 and do not take an oath by your your head.
You might think, well, I can just swear on my own self,
right. For you cannot make one hair
white or black. You don't have actually control
(36:41):
over your full self. No, you know, which is really
interesting. And so you can't really swear by
anything is what he's saying. So then he says this, this is
the solution because someone's going to say, wait a minute.
So then how do I show people that I really, really mean it?
Just answer that. Verse 37.
Let what you say be simply yes or no.
(37:03):
Anything more than this comes from evil.
Maybe stop lying and people willbelieve you.
Be a person of integrity, you know, that's you have to prove
yourself, you know, growing up and whatnot, but.
This is actually a pet peeve of mine.
The the, the, what people say all the time now is I'm not
lying. And then they sound like thank
you for calling by what you're about to say.
(37:23):
So you lie so much you have to tell me when you're not lying.
Right, right, right. And I know it's just, you know,
but that's almost the same type of phrase.
We're just trying to emphasize now what we're saying, right,
right. As if we're not trustworthy.
Now I think. And we do, and we do that now
and and we do it out of havoc because you hear other people
say it and we want to emphasize something.
So I'm not like necessarily likemaking fun of people for it, but
(37:44):
I kind of am because I'll say this one.
This is a pet peeve of mine. If if someone says all right,
all right, you know, let me be honest or I'm going to be honest
with you, I'll say that I actually.
It's really the same phrase. Well, I think this is the way
the language morphs. What they're really saying is
let me be blunt with you. I'm going to be blunt.
Yes, that's what they're saying.Because so it's just the way our
language changes sometimes. But this, you know, where you're
(38:06):
having to say trust me, trust me, trust me.
You know, I, I have to promise something super special because
you don't normally trust me. Like there's a there's a problem
there. They're character flaw, you
know, OK, so I don't want to beat that to death.
James 512 He he, he kind of repeats that there as well.
That same kind of teaching. I just think not enough people
think enough before they make anoath or vow or just in general
(38:30):
just talking. They're just talking out loud,
just talking. So then if we jump over to
Proverbs 20, and I'm going to goahead and just jump right over
to verse, verses 24 and 25, Proverbs 20, I was going to get
a little bit more than that, butI think I was going to cut to
that. So verses 24 and 25, a man's
(38:51):
steps are from the Lord. How then can man understand his
way? You don't know what direction
you're really going to go in thefuture.
You know, there's, we have plans, we have ideas, we should
think about the future, but God can direct you at any point.
I mean, we're commanded to be wise, so.
We have to be very careful about.
And all those things. So yeah, we're supposed to be
planning to think about the future.
(39:12):
An oath is always future becauseyou're making an oath because of
something is uncertain in the future.
What if we swear in your mother's grave?
That's an odd one, because what are you going to do about it if
you don't follow through? Like what?
You know, if someone swears to me on my mother's grave, OK,
that doesn't really make it any more serious to me because, and
(39:33):
I mean, this makes it, you know,it's kind of a disgusting
picture in my head, you know, getting you're out of there or
something. You know, it's like what?
That's disgusting. Like what do you you're not
really thinking about your saying, you know, it's yeah,
crazy. And then verse 25, it is a snare
like trap to say rashly quickly,it is holy and to reflect only
after making vows. And so you're, you're so anxious
(39:56):
to say, OK, this is only for theLord or this is only for this
use here or whatever it is. And we actually kind of see a
piece of this kind of play outs later on when Jesus talking to
the Pharisees once again, But they they say, Hey, it's, it's
holy, it's set apart, right? It's dedicated, you know, and so
to to and then reflect only after making vows.
(40:17):
How many times can we say that even, I mean, even about my own
self, I could say that where I didn't really think about the,
the full consequences or logicalend of something till after I
already spoke, you know? And it's like, oh, that, yeah,
that was kind of dumb. That was kind of dumb.
You know, I'm there too, here and there.
We just need to make it less andless of a practice, you know,
(40:39):
take these things seriously, these things seriously.
So then, yeah, we'll get to the other part later.
So I want you to think about this is problem #5 OK, Wrong
place. The wrong place.
OK. So we've had, we've had a few.
Fans here. Consider the place of the
(41:00):
Christian flag in several contexts.
OK, in your heart, That's the first one.
Most important, I'd say if if you are in a situation where you
would be expected to make that pledge of the Christian flag,
OK, there's different contexts, different circles that this
would happen. If you are going to recite this
(41:21):
vow, you know, really think about the words you're saying
and follow through. If you're going to say those
words, you know, and here's the deal.
Like I, I, I taught seven years junior high and high school and
I had a homeroom and there we had the pledge to the American
flag, Christian flag in the Bible, Christian School.
And so I would kind of talk about.
(41:42):
Would you hear this feel then? I would not give this full
spiel, but it was just a it was just a simplified version of
consider, you know, the, the significance of what you're
saying and if you should be saying it at all.
And so I allowed them to not sayit if they, if they chose to not
(42:03):
pledge allegiance to the Christian flag.
I said that's OK. But if you do say it, then just
guard your heart, you know, justmake sure that the serious,
serious thing before the Lord. Sure.
And I just, and I just let them go on their own.
Like I can't judge their hearts or anything.
So, so it's, it's also, you know, churches, homes, wherever,
(42:25):
like should it be there? What's the purpose?
Just think about it like is what's the goal?
What are we, what are we trying to get out of this?
Like what's, what are we trying to accomplish?
You know, that's all it wants tothink about.
But then there's there's one bigone that I really will say this
is not just thinking about us. I think this is actually advice
(42:46):
I'm going to give that that should be a change.
OK, so. This this goes thing.
I know where you're going this. Goes to the flag etiquettes.
OK, so the idea of. Because what?
What does the Christian flag represent again?
It's Christ. Kingdom.
OK, yes, All right. So that clearly should go under
the American flag. Yeah.
Well, that's where it normally is, and so I was.
(43:07):
Joking, by the way. What what people don't
understand, it's kind of lost ona lot of people, is the whole
point of why the American flag is supposed to fly the highest.
The whole point of it is that inAmerica that is the number one
Kingdom. That that's that's our country.
Yeah. That, that, that is it.
And so it is. If you're in a different
country, we'd expect you to fly your flag highest.
(43:29):
Yes, absolutely. Because that's normal, correct?
Correct. And so but the Kingdom of Jesus
should be higher than all the countries.
If it is symbolizing the the Christ's Kingdom, which is the
whole point of it, you know, that's the identity and you're
identifying with it. Even then, if you are going to
(43:49):
have the flag, no matter where it is, it should be higher than
every other flag. Yes, every other.
Flag. I'd buy that.
And that's the one I I'm demanding.
I'm saying this must be if. You're going to fly it.
It must fly, right? Because you you would then say
Christ's Kingdom is superior to all other.
That's there's bottom line. Yeah, OK.
(44:11):
And so I don't, I don't criticize people that don't do
it yet. The idea is that I don't think
people have thought about it. I would agree with that.
And so, yeah. And so I, you know, I want to
hold off on that judgement, but you should think about.
It a lot of our traditions, though, that we have in
Christian and in our churches, we don't think about it.
We do it because we've always done it that way.
(44:34):
And I think there's lots of things that would fall under the
same advice. Think about it.
Yeah, Why? Why do we have this tradition?
Just think about it. It'll be like something like the
American flag. Don't let it touch the ground.
Christian flag falls over. We'll get it tomorrow.
It's like, well, show honor where honors.
(44:56):
Do you know if you're if you're going to have it, just think
through these things. Just think through these things
so that my my solution, just just consider these things.
Think about it. We must honor God as holy, set
apart from everything. And so we're going to consider
the words as we close here my part anyways, Mark 76 through 9.
Okay, and so he says Jesus is talking verse 6.
(45:16):
He said to them, well, did Isaiah prophecy of you
hypocrites as it is written. So he's gonna quote Isaiah 2913
and I just want to remind again,hypocrites says before, but it's
made of two different Greek words basically under in
judgment. And so in in modern vernacular,
you would say it's under the radar.
It went below the radar. In other words, you missed the
point completely. Idea.
(45:38):
Yeah, missed the point underneath you're.
Missing the point. Yes, Yeah.
Well. Sometimes we too.
It's like you've memorized the entire Old Testament and you
don't know God's talking to you right now in your face.
Yeah, Jesus, standing there looking at you, talking to you.
Like come on, you missed the point.
OK, so then he quotes it and in verse 6 he's quoting in Isaiah
2913. This people honors me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me.
(46:00):
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men, so making them equal and so we can apply
it to our situation here. So then he continues on in verse
8 says you leave the command of God and hold to the tradition of
men. And he said to them, you have a
fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to
establish your tradition. Big stuff.
So we have to be careful when wehave our traditions.
(46:22):
I'm not saying tradition is bad inherently.
No, sometimes the traditions were founded for good reasons.
It is very good. There's, there's, we see, we
could always remember. Why?
Right. And if your answer to that
question is because we've alwaysdone it that way, you may need
to stop and reconsider. You know, that should not be
probably your first and definitely not your only
(46:42):
response. That's the way we've always done
it. Yeah, right.
OK. That's that's all the
considerations. All right, so let's wrap up.
The question really isn't shouldwe burn the Christian flag?
The question really is, is how big should the fire be?
There's a little bit of an attention getter there, yeah.
(47:03):
So I would say, you know me personally, I say I'm not going
to go buy one. I have no need of having one
yet. I'm not going to have an
automatic judgement if I walk into your church or something
and see it. So.
Absolutely not. Yeah.
So all right, give you all something to think about.
And thank you all once again forjoining us.
And we will see you next time. Please like, subscribe, follow,
(47:23):
share and give us a thumbs up. See you later.
Thank you.
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