January 30, 2025 • 48 mins
What if our obsession with appearances is preventing us from living authentic lives? This episode tackles the fine line between honesty and manipulation, exploring how societal pressures often lead us to present curated versions of ourselves. Join us as we start with some light-hearted banter about hair loss and impersonations before delving into the serious conversation about the ninth commandment and its implications for honesty in our communities. We dissect how this age-old principle remains relevant today, especially when navigating conflicts and disputes, urging listeners to embrace truthfulness as a foundation for strong, meaningful relationships.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
I'm going to be solo today,just here to talk to you all.
I guess I'm fired, oh hey.
You ruined my intro, justin,I'm so sorry.
No Justin's here, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It turns out I'll be doing this solo today.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
One of the people stopped and they heard that Let
me do my best.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Tim impression.
Hello everyone, I'm Tim Brown.
I'm here with my good friendJustin.
How was that?
Was that?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
decent, I think so.
I mean, you got that deep.
I wish I sounded that cool,juicy voice you know, do I?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I can't do it.
Yeah, I can't do it.
As clean, I'll get there.
Let me work on it.
I'll do a Tim one day andpeople will freak out.
We'll switch chairs too.
When we do it, I'll shave myhead, it'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Don't you do that to the world, Justin?
You have hair.
You flaunt that.
Hey, speaking of lies.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let's get into it.
I've been going bald for awhile.
Dude, it's probably going tohappen to me, it probably will.
It's definitely been thinningout.
So far, so good, you know youthink it looks nice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
There's a guy on staff where I'm like is somebody
going to tell him it's time?
Is somebody going to tell himit's time?
I don't want to be that guy,but somebody should tell him.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Somebody's got to let him know.
Hey, buddy, it's time.
Those last hairs are screamingfor mercy.
Give it to them.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They're hanging on by nothing.
That's so funny.
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I'm like you don't want to say those things because
God will do it to you.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
There's some things.
You just can't say All right,buddy?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Well, okay, we're on number nine.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Commandment number nine.
Commandment number nine Allright, not bearing false witness
against your neighbor, againstyour neighbor.
So it's totally fine to do thatwith people that aren't Good
yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Good.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What's considered?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
neighbor.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
The Bible uses that terminology all the time
Neighbor tends to be thephraseology used, because it
wasn't a globalist culture.
We live in a day and age wherewe know what's going on in
Scotland.
You know what I mean.
But that was not the nature andway of people in this time
(02:24):
period.
Everybody's frame of referencewas the people that I'm living
and doing life and you know myfuture and everything with you
didn't have this idea of youknow different people in
different places doing differentthings in different cultures.
We have that idea today becausewe have kind of a pluralistic,
(02:46):
secular mentality in generalthat likes to weigh everything
and everyone is equal, no matterhow they do things or what
they're doing.
That was not the mentality ofpeople back in the day and it's
not the mentality of societiesthat thrive, for the record,
just throwing it out there.
But the idea was the peoplethat you are doing life with,
(03:08):
the community that you are apart of and the culture that you
are desiring to give andbenefit.
Those are your neighbors.
So anywhere that you would go,any place, you find yourself,
the place that you are.
That is your neighbor.
Those are the people thatyou're with, the people you just
come into contact with on adaily basis?
Yeah, yeah, I mean it very much,is the culture that I'm a part
(03:31):
of.
Okay, mm-hmm, okay, and therewasn't this idea of, well, we
have to honor or figure out howto make it work with the pygmies
.
You know, yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't a thing like that.
That's how we tend to think.
But, yeah, neighbor.
Neighbor ultimately means so faras it depends on you, in the
area, the culture, the placethat you find yourself, seek its
(03:53):
wellbeing and treat them asneighbors.
This is the story of when Jesusmakes the point with the story
of the good Samaritan.
You know, the guy asks him whois my neighbor?
And he's like the people thatyou're around.
I'm like, yeah, but they're notpart of my culture, I don't
care, treat them well, seektheir benefits, seek their
wellbeing.
(04:13):
And those guys were literallynext door.
You know what I mean.
It wasn't like those guys werean ocean away.
They literally were on like thesame plot of land.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, an ocean away.
Literally, we're on like thesame plot of land.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
So our tendency is to befactious and ultimately, our
goal should be to no treateveryone like you would a
neighbor.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Okay, Don't withhold so when we're talking about the
ninth one here.
Do not bear false witnessagainst thy neighbor.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Was that just lying?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Ultimately, this language is associated more with
, like a courtroom.
So this commandment and thethird commandment we've talked
about before are deeply related,right, like they have this
clear connection about the waythat we should process, like
using God's name in vain and notbearing false witness against
(05:01):
your neighbor are two sides ofthe coin when it comes to how
I'm in relationship with God andunderstanding my standard
before him.
And then this commandment isreally how that extends and
works its way out into the worldaround me and the people around
me.
So, yeah, this is functionallysaying hey, in a tiff or a
(05:24):
kerfuffle or whatever you wantto call it, when you find
yourself in a place wheredifficulty is happening, don't
be somebody who is telling liesabout your neighbor to get your
way.
Don't be somebody who isfalsely saying something so that
you can manipulate thesituation to get what you want
out of it, that you canmanipulate the situation to get
(05:51):
what you want out of it.
So we tend to man this iseverywhere.
This is, I mean, this iseverywhere.
You want to talk about the mostpervasive commandment as far as
it's being broken, not bearingfalse witness, I feel like is
just everywhere and it makessense, right, like Satan is
(06:12):
quite literally called thefather of lies, right?
I think I like the ESV'stranslation.
It says something like whenSatan speaks lies, he speaks out
of his own character.
When Satan speaks lies, hespeaks out of his own character.
Like, literally, this is, thisis his, this is the
(06:32):
representation of his character.
Is that he?
He tells?
He tells lies to people.
That's, that's everything thathe does.
This is part of why Jesus issaying let your yes be yes, let
your no be no.
You know what I mean?
Like, just just tell the truth.
Anything else man is comingfrom somewhere else.
So you're trying to manipulatea situation and make it
something that it's not supposedto be.
This is the whole idea of thetruth setting you free, and I
mean the Bible has a lot to sayabout.
(06:54):
Hey, tell the freaking truth.
Tell the freaking truth and youget into Deuteronomic law and
some of the areas where it talksabout this specifically and how
this works.
Like Deuteronomy 19.
If a malicious witness arises toaccuse a person of wrongdoing,
that both parties to the disputeshall appear before the Lord,
before the priests and thejudges who are in office in
(07:14):
those days.
The judges shall inquirediligently and if the witness is
a false witness and has accusedhis brother falsely, then you
shall do to him as he had meantto do to his brother, so you
shall purge the evil from yourmidst.
Great reminder, like God sayinghey, this is the father saying
to the boy who's taking hisdaughter out.
Whatever you do to her, I'mgoing to do to you.
(07:35):
Right, like it's this thereshould be a respect, there
should be an honor in how wetreat each other and think about
these things.
So, when I think about thiscommandment, tim, ultimately I
think about social media almostimmediately.
I think about dating sites, Ithink about Instagram, I think
about filters that people usefor the pictures that they have.
(07:57):
I think about, like, the waythat people are constantly
trying to manipulate situationsby either a adding to the truth,
b withholding the full truth orc just outright lying yeah, you
know, um or outright giving afalsity.
I guess you could say, but it'suh, it's kind of everywhere,
(08:21):
man like like uh, you knowsomebody, somebody's setting up
a dating profile.
You know what I mean?
I was like oh, this or that.
You're like well, are youfudging the truth?
Great question, if you putsomething on your job
application that's not true,it's a lie.
What are you doing?
Well, I'm trying to manipulatethe situation to get what I want
.
I saw something the other daythat was like we'll take a
(08:46):
regular picture that you haveand we'll turn it into like a
business picture for yourprofile.
I'm like you didn't actuallytake that picture.
You weren't actually there.
You get like deep fakes reallyfast and what's happening?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
with AI Dude it's.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
The culture of deception is insane.
I'm trying to think about the.
I think it was the guy whoactually created the atomic bomb
who said the truth is sovaluable it's usually guarded by
an army of lies.
It's like you have to digthrough stuff to find it.
I think he said the only thingmore dramatic or dangerous than
(09:23):
the atomic bomb, it's truthitself.
Like people are horrified,people finding out the real
truth, what's actually going onin circumstances, and it begs
the question why, you know it'salso turned kind of everything
into a conspiracy.
Nobody trusts authority anymore.
(09:44):
Nobody trusts authority anymore.
Nobody trusts governmentanymore.
Nobody trusts anybody who youknow is supposed to be allegedly
, you know, trustworthy.
And we've come to a culture nowwhere it's almost worse because
it's not that lying, peoplelying and living in a culture
where lying is such a big dealmakes you work harder for the
(10:06):
truth.
It actually makes you care lessabout what the truth actually
is because you feel like youhave no way to find it, so it
doesn't really matter.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What about would you consider like going back to the
dating profile stuff or the jobapplication?
The stuff I'm going to tell youare just the best parts of me,
but I'm not going to tell youabout insecurities or my doubts,
fears.
Is that a form of lying?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Not necessarily.
I bring this up real quick,sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But, like if I was asked for a different position,
it's like, well, let's talk toyou see, if this is something.
It's like, yeah, I want to dothis.
Yeah, but it's always been mewho's like I got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I don't know if I can .
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Like I want to, but I'm going to need some skills
and practices and training, andlike I can't just jump in here.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, everybody sat down with an overshare or two,
right?
You're like, oh my gosh, Idon't need to know all of this.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I feel like that's me , because I don't want them to
hire me and be like oh, you'renot the guy, that's something
worse, I really would like thisjob, but I got to tell you I'm a
terrible person.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, okay, and I doubt everything.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's basically.
I think what comes outsometimes is like I want you to
be 100% sure you know whatyou're dealing with here.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Look, it's not that, hey, I have to explain every
aspect of everyone or toeveryone about everything.
It's pertinent information thatyou are withholding, All right.
Really, what it is is willfullybeing malicious or manipulative
, and I would say, having atender conscience where you're
(11:41):
like I want to make sure thatI'm not being manipulative is a
good thing.
I don't think that's a badthing.
I don't think it's somethingthat our, our, um, let's say our
, our culture values.
You know what I mean.
Like, I don't think peoplevalue honesty the way that they
should.
Now, they value appearancesover honesty.
(12:02):
A thousand to one.
I would say everybody acts likethey, you acts like they value
honesty, which is why SelenaGomez is posting videos online
of herself crying about theimmigration laws that are going
on, and then, when she getsflack from her own fan base, she
takes it off immediately.
Well, if you actually caredabout what you were saying, you
(12:24):
would leave it up, but if it wasjust virtue signaling oh, I
didn't realize that you weren'tinterested in that I guess I'll
take it down now.
Okay, now see, this is afalsity, it's just manipulation
and it's pretty prevalent man.
But no, yeah, it's not that Ihave to share every ounce of
everything about myself witheveryone that I talk to.
(12:46):
No, it's what's the informationthat's relevant, so that I'm
not being disingenuous ormanipulative in any given
circumstance, and I would saythat's tricky.
Yeah To me, tim, I'll just gohere for a second.
Okay, let's talk about makeup,can we Just for a minute?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I haven't worn that in years.
Go ahead, I still wear the highheels, but only when I'm by
myself.
So many comments.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
What is the, what's the purpose of makeup?
Ultimately, beauty, okay, yeah,this could be just, let's say,
elevating the features that arealready there.
Sure, all right, done correctly.
Could makeup be disingenuous?
Yeah, okay, is it like we wouldsay, a filter is disingenuous,
right?
Sure, like, yeah, it's not whatyou look like.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And then I met you and your dating profile and
you're 50 years older, or um,you've seen those videos of like
the like, I think the japanesegirls makeup removal stuff I
don't think so you put likerubber prosthetics to make
themselves look like 20 yearsyounger.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It's creepy that's wild, it is creepy wild, you
have knives cutting throughtheir noses and it takes.
It didn't look like they're 80years old now, so it's wild,
sorry yeah, it's scary, but butwhat I would say so it's
interesting to me is like, okay,if you and I'll just go here
for a second if you're a womanand you're wearing like, let's
say, uh, high heels, mini skirt,excessive, you know, makeup or
(14:19):
whatever long, you did thatthing to your eyes that I don't
understand.
That makes you look like anEgyptian, you know like eyebrows
.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That's a thing.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There is a there is a type of way that you can
present yourself where you'reusing more like, let's say, uh,
sexual manipulation in yourinteractions and in your dress.
Then then let's say authentic,real, um, let's say, using who
you actually are versus what youhave.
To me it would be the samething as a, as a guy flaunting,
(14:51):
uh, how much money he makes andwhat he drives, and what he
wears and what he dresses andall this stuff to to uh, let's
say, try to try to catch a lady.
Like there's a way, there's away that you should present
yourself where you're notpresenting yourself as a product
, but you're presenting yourselfas a person.
I think presenting yourself as aproduct is a form of
(15:11):
manipulation and lying.
You're trying to be a salesmanfor yourself and I'm not.
Look, here's the deal.
I'm not saying women don't wearmakeup and don't wear nice
clothes.
No, there's a differencebetween hey, god has given me a
body, this is how I look.
I want to dress up for myhusband or my family, or I want
to make sure that I look like adecent human individual.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Present yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
well, go put bonnets on and be weird Guys.
I'm not saying you can't have anice car or whatever.
The question is is that the,the, is that the stamp of who
you are?
Is that what you're using toget what you want?
Or are you somebody who ishonorable, loves the Lord you
know what I mean Tells the truth, has virtue, has character and
(15:55):
is upfront about, let's say, um,the, the things about you that
maybe aren't as beautiful orserious on the outside, like,
let's be honest, anytime you getinto a relationship with
somebody you're meeting, there'sa social interaction that is a
little bit normal.
Let's say, you're notimmediately like here's all the,
here's the 56 issues that Ihave, you're starting with, do I
(16:17):
even like hanging out with you?
And then, once there's sometrust okay, I see you're not
trying to manipulate me Let meshare some things that.
Let me see what you do withthese.
Is this a problem?
Is this an okay?
Now we're, we're taking thingsa level.
This is a normal process forrelationships, but what happens
now is we lie to each other.
We hook up and then we find outwho each other actually are and
(16:41):
then we break up and usuallythere's a baby.
You know what I mean and it'slike well great, what was that?
That was two peoplemanipulating each other, and the
consequences of that ishorrible.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Just telling you what you want to hear, more so than
anything else.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, and it's more like a transaction right Based
on a couple of false premises toget what I wanted or what you
wanted or whatever, and it'sreally messy.
Obviously, this can happen inlots of different circumstances.
Anybody who's been lied torealizes how horrible this
(17:15):
actually feels and how terriblethis really is.
Judas betraying Jesus isultimately a lie.
Betrayal is a lie.
It's this idea that I couldtrust someone, that we had
friendship, that you weresharing with me who you were,
and then it turns out you weresomebody else and working for
the other side.
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's a problem?
Is there a good way to lie?
Well, and not in the sense ofbe better at manipulating people
, but is there circumstanceswhere lying would be acceptable?
If I were to tell the truth, itwould make things way worse.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah.
So the classic lie that peoplebring up in scripture is in
Egypt, when Pharaoh is trying tomurder all these babies, he
tells the midwives hey, if it'sa boy when the baby arrives, I
want you to kill the baby.
And the midwives keep arrivinglate and they're like oh, these
(18:14):
Hebrew women, man, they're justquick with their labors, they're
having these babies and takingcare of it themselves before we
even get there.
So we haven't been able to killthem.
And it says that God basicallyhonored what they did.
They were lying ultimately toprotect life.
So is it acceptable to deceivewicked people and wicked things
(18:38):
so that you can protect life?
Yes, like.
Here's a question to ask that'slike a more classic hey Tim,
would you lie to an authoritywho is trying to take your
family to a death camp?
100% I would right yeah,absolutely.
Is that justified before God?
Yes, because what are you doing?
Ultimately, you're trying tohonor God and protect your
(18:58):
family from somebody who iswicked and evil, who does not
have the right intent at heart.
But that's a consequence of youcould misunderstand the spirit
of the law here and the letterof the law, which is what Jesus
tends to bring up all the time,like when he's talking about hey
man, he tells the Phariseeslike you guys tithe your dill
(19:19):
and cumin and mint, but youneglect the things in the law
that are actually more importantthan that.
You're really good at followingthis rule, but when it's
convenient, you make a rule tomake it not the case.
So if somebody said, well, I hadto tell the truth.
Usually the only time somebodysays that is when they threw
somebody else under the bus.
You know what I mean.
Because they didn't actuallywant to be honest and acted like
(19:46):
they were doing somethingvirtuous, which is bearing false
witness.
Because what did I do?
I lied about the intentions ofmy heart and I shared with you
something that actually wasn'tthe case.
This is why the Bible is usinglanguage all the time.
Like the Lord judges the heart,man tends to judge the
appearance, but God is lookingat you and who you are and
what's actually going on in yourguts, and our tendency is to
(20:10):
play a game of manipulation withpeople so that we can get ahead
and get what we want.
And it's messy.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It's messy.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The term we associate with this most readily now is
politics or being a politician.
Right Is is intentionallymanipulating social situations
and appearances to to bringabout a particular, you know
order or regime or whatever itis that you want to you want to
bring about.
But it happens from the timeyou, you know we're kids.
It's very easy.
(20:40):
You don't have to teach yourkids to lie.
You have to teach them to tellthe truth.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, well, that's very true.
Could you throw in slanderingand gossip into this mix too?
Yeah, yeah because it'sultimately manipulation.
But gossip is not necessarilylying, is it?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Gossip is saying something that may or may not be
true about somebody withouttheir ability to defend
themselves.
Okay, so if I'm talking tosomebody and I'm saying
so-and-so, said this, is thattheir side of the story too?
Or is it just my side of thestory?
Yeah, just my side of the story.
So what does that mean?
It's not the full truth.
(21:20):
My side of the story Just myside of the story.
So what does that mean?
It's not the full truth?
One of the big problems that wehave today, tim, is this
question about is somebodyguilty until proven innocent, or
are they innocent until provenguilty?
And I just was reading thisstory about this guy who was
accused of rape, who was goingto go into the NFL like star
athlete, did an amazing job.
(21:41):
This girl hated him, accusedhim of rape, he was convicted
and then, five years later,after five years of him being in
prison, she confessed that itwas a lie.
She did it just to get back athim for something Never happened
and he went to prison, ruinedhis entire career, could have
been in the NFL making millionsof dollars, whatever and was
(22:06):
basically thrown in prisonbecause somebody said something
that was untrue.
That's bearing false witnessagainst your neighbor, and
that's people taking the side ofsomebody just because without
actually figuring out if thatperson was guilty or not,
actually figuring out if thatperson was guilty or not.
And our um, look man, this isprevalent today, this is very
prevalent today, and I wouldjust say that, um, the cultural
(22:28):
Marxist perspective that ispretty darn prevalent in our
world today is you are guiltybecause of who you are, not even
what you've done.
Uh, if you're white, you'reguilty.
If you're a man, you're guilty.
If you're straight, you'reguilty.
If you're Christian, you'reguilty.
Of all of that and some.
Why Did I do anything?
(22:50):
No, no, it's not what you did,it's who you are right.
Well, everything that you do iswrong.
Even if you do the right thing,it's wrong.
The joke is, what was it?
It's the Matt Walsh thing Iwatched.
He was talking to somebodyabout his kids.
He's like if my kids want todress up like Moana, I'm
stealing their culture, but ifthey dress up like Elsa, well,
(23:14):
they're just proliferating thesame mentality of white
supremacy.
What do I do?
You're screwed either way, nomatter what you do.
Why?
Because we've come up with away to interpret whatever you do
as guilty and playing into somekind of plot or something like
that.
I would also throw into thiscategory false information that
we continue to put forwardwithout checking.
(23:34):
So, look, I'm not a fan offact-checking, okay, because you
and I both know the Gestapo.
You know what I mean.
The fact-checkers arehilariously biased, which is
such an ironic thing that thepeople that are supposed to help
with hey, let's get youinformation about this so that
(23:55):
you can make an educateddecision before you post this or
send this to somebody else orquote this.
Fine, but it was all very biasedand wrong.
Make an educated decisionbefore you post this or send
this to somebody else or quotethis.
Fine, but it was all verybiased and wrong.
But ultimately, it is a verygood thing, before you quote
something or take something outof context, to research it a
little bit, look into it beforeyou just say, oh, I heard this
(24:15):
happen or that happened,especially looking at, I was
listening to the.
I don't know if it was calledthe confirmation or what with
Pete Hegseth, tim, did you watchany of that?
No, he's this guy and it'shilarious.
He.
Basically you get to sit infront of 50 other government
employees while they just grillyou about all the things that
you did in your past, or a quotethat you said or what you wrote
(24:37):
in your book oh, is this thenew Secretary of Defense guy?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, past.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
or a quote that you said, or what you wrote in your
book oh, is this the newSecretary of Defense guy?
Yeah, yeah, I've seen that andhe's awesome, dude, love the guy
.
I've seen that they're mad athis tattoo that says Deisville
is Jerusalem cross and someother stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
The Christian tattoo you talked about yeah, I love it
.
I mean like I literally I wonknow what that means either.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So tattoos are not much to me.
Yeah, yeah, but if you want tokill somebody, you can dig up
whatever quote you want.
You can take it out of contextand you can use it to destroy
people.
And it was funny watchingpeople take this guy and just
take quotes out of context andtake things out of context to
try to frame somebody as anabsolute monster.
(25:23):
It's really sad.
I was like man, this is ourculture.
But perhaps the most importantarea that I would like to talk
about today, tim, is how peopledo this with the Bible.
Yeah, ultimately, what drivesme more crazy than anything else
(25:45):
is seeing so-called pastors andso-called ministers of the
gospel take the word of God anddestroy it with how they
communicate it and destroy itwith how they communicate it,
how they prove text, how theyuse the Bible to manipulate
(26:05):
people, manipulate and drivetheir own agendas.
And, man, it's easy to do.
I mean, I hate to say it, butyou can almost make the Bible
say anything if you manipulateit enough.
You know what I mean.
You can take verses and you cansay this clearly means this If
you don't take the context ofthe Bible, the purpose of the
(26:29):
Bible, the authority of theBible, I mean, isn't it amazing
to me how many horrible likeleftist progressive politicians
try to quote the Bible to getpeople to do things, while
they're totally fine murderingbabies, right?
You know what I mean?
Like okay, we smell that and weknow that's disingenuous, but
why does it work?
Because there's something aboutscripture itself that we know
(26:54):
is authoritative.
There's something there, butwhat we would like it to do is
serve our own agendas instead ofGod's.
This is why Satan quotesscripture to Jesus to tempt him
in the desert.
Right, matthew 4 is this wholepicture of Satan going to Jesus
and like, you know what theBible says, don't you?
And Jesus is like shut up.
(27:16):
Actually, it says he shows thedevil with the words that he's
quoting from scripture, thathe's missing the fuller context
of what's actually there.
You are pulling something outof context and you're using it
to to literally, um, toliterally be satanic.
(27:38):
Yeah and uh, it it happens alot.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Here's where I go.
When you say this with pastorsand stuff, yeah, um, I mean we
could fit all the pastors wehave on staff here in a room and
nobody's going to agree ahundred percent with everything
they're going to say Uh yeah,pastors, we have on staff here
in a room and nobody's going toagree a hundred percent with
everything.
They're going to say, yeah,everybody's going to have like
slightly different takes oncertain things.
(28:01):
Sure, yeah, but if I'm supposedto tell when a pastor is taking
stuff out of context or stuff,am I supposed to have some
theology degree now, like I'msupposed to know this thing
better than the pastor does inorder to learn from him, in
order to be able to tell whenit's false and when it's not?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Dude, great question, great question.
One thing that the Bible givesus with regard to this is in the
book of Acts.
It talks about these guyscalled the Bereans who, when
Paul would say things, it saysthey would go and they would
study the scriptures to see ifwhat he said was accurate.
So I would say this if you hearsomething that a pastor or
(28:37):
someone else says that doesn'tsound right, go look up what he
said in the Bible.
Read, read the context, readsome commentaries about it, see,
bounce it off.
Some other people test it tosee if this is in fact true.
This is what the Bible istelling us to do is don't just
take one person's opinion onsomething.
(29:00):
Check all the facts.
Innocent until proven guilty,right.
So if somebody says somethinglike okay, maybe that's the case
, let's go study, let's go see,but if you study and that's not
the case, then don't listen tothe person.
I think what's hard is thatoftentimes we don't really care.
If it feels like it fits ouragenda and sounds good, we'll
(29:22):
just roll with it.
Yeah, like I'm not going tocheck on something that I
already feel like I agree with.
What I'll check on is when ithits something that I feel like
I don't agree with, and that's agood thing and also can be a
bad thing, because there's beenmany times in my life where the
Bible has blown up my opinionsin a very frustrating way, or a
pastor has blown up myperception of a text in a very
(29:42):
frustrating way, where I'm like,and then you got to go back
Like, dang it, I've been wrong.
I've been wrong about this,I've been wrong about this
perspective and that perspective.
Tim, there's many things I'vesaid, especially just early on,
even in some of the podcasts,that I would think about now.
I'm like, yeah, I probablywouldn't say it that way.
I don't know if I'd communicatethis this way.
When I first got saved myopinion of the Old Testament and
(30:04):
the law and its significanceand stuff, and I was like I'd go
back now.
I'd just I'd probably tell thatguy, hey, buddy, close, but
there's a little more here.
Uh, you know, keep, keepworking, and it's.
And there's a difference between, um, you know, let's say, lying
intentionally or beingmanipulative, and and
(30:25):
accidentally lying right.
One is intentional, one isaccidental.
If you tell your wife, um, hey,I think your shoes are under
the bed and actually they wereunder the dresser, she could be
like my husband is a liar.
No, no, could it be that yourpastor misspoke when he said
(30:46):
something?
Sure, those things can happen.
Again, we're judging ultimatelythe heart of something.
What was this person trying toaccomplish?
Did their words and what theycommunicated match their heart's
intent?
How are we judging those things?
And so what I would say, tim,is yeah, be a Berean, you should
(31:08):
study your Bible.
Two, understand the areas wherethere is margin or areas where
we can discuss further and thinkthrough some things that maybe
need more time to develop andconsider and work through.
And then also consider the factthat there are a lot of people
who have written on these things, and if you hit something and
you're not sure, you don't haveto study that alone.
(31:30):
I would say talk to the personwho said it, get more
information from them and thentalk to a couple people that you
really trust, that love theword and know the Bible.
And it's good I've said this onthe podcast before it's good to
read people that disagree withyou.
It's a good thing to do.
I'm a Calvinist.
Unapologetically, I got threeor four books by guys who
(31:52):
absolutely hate Calvinists Allof David Hunt's work and
Leighton Flowers and whateverbooks I can get my hands on by
guys that disagree.
Great why?
Because you know what they're,my brothers in Christ, and I
don't have to agree witheverything that they say.
It's good to read people thathave different perspectives than
you do.
They're wrong, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I think Christians do what you were talking about,
with half-truths, gossiping,where people will just repeat a
headline that they read and notactually read the article
themselves.
I think Christians do that too,where they quote some
theologian who's been dead for300 years but, not have no idea
(32:35):
anything else beyond that,because he read a book once and
he agreed with it.
You know what I mean.
Like they're just repeatingwhat they read, and not from any
other deep sense of who whereit's coming from.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, just proliferating like ideas without
any bedrock underneath it.
Yeah, yeah, and I'd say all ofus are guilty of that at some
level.
Yeah, because you're finite,right, you can't have every bit
of information about everything,but it's so fun when you talk
to guys who do have a wealth ofinformation and depth in a
particular area.
(33:06):
Man, they can just go there.
Like watching Wes Huff on JoeRogan the other day was so fun.
He's like you know, you hearlies about people, what their
thoughts are on the, on thecanon and textual critics and
different stuff.
And then having somebody whospent literally his life work is
that and just go ahead, ask thequestions and let me just kill
(33:26):
those in front of you right now.
So fun to see.
And as pastors, it's weirdbecause you're trying to be a
generalist and a specialist.
You got to be able to talk toeverybody and you got to be able
to talk to a plumber.
You got to be able to talk to apolitician.
You got to be able to talk toyou know media, whatever.
(33:46):
You got to be able to talk todifferent people in different
places of life, understand someof where they're at and be able
to help, pour into them, coach,encourage and pastor those
people in whatever place theyare in life.
And what's going on?
Why?
Because God has something tosay to each of those people.
The Bible has somethingvaluable to give and communicate
to each of those people from anauthoritative place, and you,
(34:07):
as a pastor, need to be a mediumfor that.
However, you need to be aspecialist with the Bible itself
and scripture and churchhistory and the things that go
along with communicating theword of God.
So you're always in the tensionbetween how do I communicate
somebody to somebody who is in aworld where this is their
specialty?
How am I to be the bridge?
(34:28):
How can I cross that bridge?
How?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
can I?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
be a communicator of the word of God where I'm being
authentic and not going too far.
This is where you get into someof the difficulty with
methodology and church ingeneral, like how far should you
go to communicate to somebodywithin their own world without
lowering the standard of God'sholiness or bastardizing?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
the gospel?
I was actually trying to bringthat up too.
Is that when you have somebodywith, well, this is, I guess,
kind of for you as a pastor, butwhen somebody has just a
different perspective than whatis being preached and doesn't
feel right or something, rightyeah, but they can't bring it up
without being shamed or shunnedor yeah.
Yeah, yeah, like, how do youdeal with that?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What I have found, Tim, is that people usually feel
that way, haven't talked to thepastor.
They usually just feel that wayin the congregation.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
In the congregation.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
yeah, and I would say the best thing that person can
do is actually sit down with apastor, because you find that
the pastor actually wants tocommunicate with you, talk with
you, help you work through thosedoubts, and behind closed doors
, that's a lot of what thepastor is doing is helping you
work through all the stuff whereyou're not there yet.
(35:47):
And what makes it really hardfor people to work through all
the areas where they're notthere yet is if they believe
that everyone else in thatcongregation totally agrees and
is on the same page abouteverything.
Some people feel alone, tim,because they're trying, they're,
let's say, they're being morehonest about where they're at
than others.
That's not a bad thing.
Ultimately, it is a bad thingif you don't do anything with it
(36:11):
.
Carl Jung, for what it's worth.
I was just talking to a pastorabout this the other day.
He wrote about and I think it'scalled the Shadow man, His
whole bit on this gosh.
It was this idea that everybodyhas this, let's say, area of
themselves that's dark andfrustrating or in doubt or in
(36:34):
turmoil, and if you don'tconfront that thing, it comes
out in really awful ways and Ineed to like go, and we're
talking about truth telling here.
So I'm like I should go getsome reference points for this
one specifically, but I thinkthe idea will at least you'll
understand His point was thatpeople are always happy, always
smiling, always fine, tend to belike serial killers because
(36:58):
they have this really awful waythat they're getting out the
things that they're not, let'ssay the darkness that they're
dealing with and reallyunhealthy ways, and then so that
they can continue to alwaysshow this easy, chill, super
nice demeanor they're not realpeople, they're two people.
You know what I mean Realpeople.
You have doubts you got to workthrough, you have frustrations,
(37:20):
you have concerns and you'retrying to get to a place where
those things are made right.
And what I would tell you isJesus is saying hey, being a
liar isn't that you're not, thatyou're.
You know, let me say it thisway being a truth teller doesn't
mean you don't have doubts orthings you're working through or
(37:40):
frustrations that you're unsureabout.
Being a truth teller meansyou're willing to bring those
things to Jesus to allow him tohelp straighten those things out
or work those things out withyou.
And I think a lot of people arelike well, I don't really want
to work through them.
I don't actually want answers.
I like being in here because if, as long as I have these doubts
or these areas where I'm notsure I'm allowed to work in the
(38:03):
gray, I can still get away withthe sin.
I can still kind of do thisthing because I'm undecided.
Most of that indecision comesout then as a frustration with
God or his people, because it'sconvenient to blame other people
for being the reason that youaren't confronting the lies in
(38:25):
your life.
Right truth and he is, he isthe way, the truth and the life,
and Satan is the father of lies.
Then the lies that you'redealing with are really going to
want to hide and hate the truththat Jesus represents.
(38:45):
The greatest analogy of thisthroughout all of scripture is
the light and the dark.
You see this?
I mean it's just all theseillustrations throughout
scripture about light and dark,righteousness and wickedness.
They're supposed to be thesetwo things that are happening.
Yeah, and John?
The Gospel of John makes itreally clear that the light has
come into the world and men lovedarkness rather than light.
(39:08):
What does that mean?
I would rather not expose topeople what's actually going on
in my heart, lest they find outthat I'm manipulating and I'm a
terrible person.
Yeah, when truth comes into asituation, liars really hate.
It really throws a wrench intheir plans.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I find that they either get really angry or they
accept it.
Yeah, yeah, I would they getangry and defensive and
everything, or they're like huh,okay, maybe I'll actually think
this and I would say anger anddefense is just ultimately
hiding.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, acceptance is is maybe closer to like
submission, right, like okay, Iwas exposed, I got to do better,
I got to change, I got to dobetter, I got to change, I got
to do this and it what's whatscripture is calling us to do is
, hey, meet with Jesus and getthat taken care of before you
get exposed.
Yeah, meet with Jesus and getthis right before it has to be
(40:05):
something awful, I think it'stip first Timothy.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
It says live without excuse.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And I take that a lot in my daily life.
Yeah, yeah, and I take that alot in my daily life.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, what I love in 1 Timothy in particular I think
it's 1 Timothy 1.5, it says thegoal of our instruction I take
this very seriously as a pastoris love from a pure heart, a
clean conscience and a sincerefaith.
Because there's a tension, Tim,where ministry, in the worst
(40:33):
sense, can feel like an MLM.
You know what I mean.
I have this product that I'mselling and I need to be a
really good salesman, and then Igot to get two people who will
go tell other people and getthem to come as well, so I can
build this giant pyramid scheme.
You know what I mean.
(40:54):
Like there's a tension there andthere's a sense in which it's
like okay, god has given usthese principles, he's told us
to go bring the gospel to peoplehe's called us to invite.
Well, so what does dark do?
Well, it counterfeits the lightand uses that kind of strategy
that God has for the wrongthings instead of the right
things.
So it's more like guns in thehands of good people versus guns
in the hands of bad people.
(41:15):
It's less the method, it's moreof the reason or the end game
for the method.
But if you're devoid of lovefrom a clear conscience, a pure
heart and a sincere faith, youcan become a manipulator, and
you can become a world-classmanipulator.
You can be a pastor who'sseemingly a good person, who
(41:38):
also happens to be doing shotswith Justin Bieber and cheating
on his wife.
All right, shots fired, dealwith it.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
I mean, I'll confess I've used my position at work,
not here, but just in general,because people view me a certain
way and I know way, yeah, and Iknow that Yep, which allows me
to get away with things that Ishould have no business getting
away with.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Sure, and I know that sometimes yeah, and you're
aware of that, right, I am awareof that, yeah, and I think
Jesus would say to anybody who'sdealing with that come to me
Right, come to me, let's getthat taken care of, let's make
(42:24):
this right and ultimately, tim,the way that the Bible spells
this out, or the antidote forbearing false witness is
repentance.
It is bringing stuff to Jesusand it's like this is the.
I brought this up before Timeither, and I think it was Matt
Chandler who originally saidthis, and I don't know how many
years ago it was Probably 10years ago.
I remember hearing this and itchanged the way that I thought
(42:48):
about how I wanted to walk, howI wanted to do life.
But he said you can either makerepentance and confession a
normal part of your life or youcan be a liar.
Wow, and I remember thinking,okay, that's the clearest that
I've heard anybody just comeright out and say that Either
you're going to bring your stuffto Jesus, work through it and
get that right, or you're goingto walk around in church and
(43:10):
pretend that it's been maderight instead and it's not a
substitute at all and whatyou'll find is that you
eventually enjoy being accepted.
You enjoy being accepted as aChristian more than you enjoy
loving Jesus, and that's not asubstitute Like that is not
(43:35):
better.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
It's just more comfortable in the moment.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, yeah, and eventually, man, it will go
badly for you because Jesusloves you too much to leave you
in that place.
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, before we wrap up, when you were talking about
the gray people who live in thegray, yeah.
I heard this thing and it wasabout, you know, people who sit
on the fence.
We hear that a lot asChristians or the lukewarm
Christians that get spat outRight Well, I heard this story
and I don't know if it's true orit was a dream or vision, or
whatever.
But this guy said he had adream.
Let's go with that.
(44:06):
Yeah, no-transcript.
Sit on this fence.
that way I could have bothworlds yeah and he said the
(44:26):
lights went out and then satanappeared.
He says, well, hey, I didn'tchoose, I didn't choose you, I
didn't choose god.
So what didn't choose God?
So what are you doing here andjust saying it's like I own the
fence?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Oh man, that's so good.
That's so good.
That got me a little bit.
Indecision is decision.
It's like right Interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, I own the fence .
Indecision is decision.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
That's fantastic, man .
Yeah, ultimately, agnosticism,you know.
What I mean is this idea thatthat, like, we can't really know
, so I'll just, I'll set myselfin the middle and if God's going
to condemn me for not makinghimself more clear to me, well,
that's his fault.
No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
You're lying Exactly.
Yeah, because I've heard thatand it's always scared me too.
Am I on the fence on stuff?
A lot, probably, but it'sbecause I haven't figured stuff
out, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I would just want to tell people the truth always
pays off, because lying doessomething to you as an
individual man.
There's, it's, it is acorrupting feeling.
It is a horrible life to liveand you will find yourself
forgetting who you are in thename of becoming what you think
you're supposed to be.
(45:33):
And if you want like a reallife example of this, I would
say look no further than likechild actors.
If you teach somebody whenthey're a young kid, uh, to to
act like other people and wearother people and walk around as
other people, and then they wakeup and they're alcoholics and
drug addicts and everything else, it's like well, well, what
happened?
Well, the entire time where I'msupposed to be growing in the
(45:55):
fullness of who I'm supposed tobe and developing who I am, I've
spent all that time beingsomebody else instead.
And now I have every identityand whatever coach in the world
trying to tell me how to getback to some norm.
But the only thing that makesme feel normal is living in an
alternate reality.
What does that?
Drugs and lying puts you in analter why?
(46:16):
Cause I'm no longer okay withreality.
It's not good for me, and soeverybody's finding the the way
to anesthetize and get away fromthat stuff but ultimately come
to the light, come to truth.
It's better, it's just better.
And um, it's probably some guysout there, some girls with you,
know porn problems and stuff andyou don't want to tell your
(46:38):
spouse about that.
Man, start now.
It only gets worse.
There's people out there,probably with you know you've
been embezzling money or you gotsomething going on like that.
Dude, just come clean, likecome to the light, get the
weight off your chest, breathedeep and if you come to Jesus
with those things and you makerepentance and confession a
regular part of your life,you're going to be a whole lot
(46:59):
happier and you're not going tobe walking in a place where the
ninth commandment is justbreathing down your neck.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, you know.
Mark Twain had a quote I alwaysliked.
He said if you always tell thetruth, you never have to
remember anything.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
You don't have to remember any lies anyways, it's
definitely you're still going toneed to remember some things.
But yeah, you're not going tocarry around that that guilty
conscience and have to rememberhow to continue to manipulate
things.
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, or what part of the lie that you have to
remember, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Well, and Tim you, um , you, I brought this up before,
but I feel like before I gotsaved, I didn't know how to hang
out with two different groupsof friends because I was two
different people.
It was like I don't know how toact with them or them.
So I got around both of themand I was just quiet because I
was like I don't really know howto navigate this.
If you're doing what you'resupposed to be doing, you could
(47:49):
be around anybody and you'regoing to be the same person.
I'm not saying you're going toshare all the same details.
I talked to my wife, probably alittle bit differently than the
president.
You know what I mean, but thethe the reality that if you're
doing it right, you can be whoyou actually are, around anybody
, and that would be evidencethat you're you're walking in
the light, as he is in the light.
(48:10):
Cool, all right, buddy.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Well.
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
I'm going to be solo today,just here to talk to you all.
I guess I'm fired, oh hey.
You ruined my intro, justin,I'm so sorry.
No Justin's here, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It turns out I'll be doing this solo today.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
One of the people stopped and they heard that Let
me do my best.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Tim impression.
Hello everyone, I'm Tim Brown.
I'm here with my good friendJustin.
How was that?
Was that?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
decent, I think so.
I mean, you got that deep.
I wish I sounded that cool,juicy voice you know, do I?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I can't do it.
Yeah, I can't do it.
As clean, I'll get there.
Let me work on it.
I'll do a Tim one day andpeople will freak out.
We'll switch chairs too.
When we do it, I'll shave myhead, it'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Don't you do that to the world, Justin?
You have hair.
You flaunt that.
Hey, speaking of lies.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let's get into it.
I've been going bald for awhile.
Dude, it's probably going tohappen to me, it probably will.
It's definitely been thinningout.
So far, so good, you know youthink it looks nice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
There's a guy on staff where I'm like is somebody
going to tell him it's time?
Is somebody going to tell himit's time?
I don't want to be that guy,but somebody should tell him.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Somebody's got to let him know.
Hey, buddy, it's time.
Those last hairs are screamingfor mercy.
Give it to them.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They're hanging on by nothing.
That's so funny.
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I'm like you don't want to say those things because
God will do it to you.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
There's some things.
You just can't say All right,buddy?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Well, okay, we're on number nine.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Commandment number nine.
Commandment number nine Allright, not bearing false witness
against your neighbor, againstyour neighbor.
So it's totally fine to do thatwith people that aren't Good
yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Good.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What's considered?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
neighbor.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
The Bible uses that terminology all the time
Neighbor tends to be thephraseology used, because it
wasn't a globalist culture.
We live in a day and age wherewe know what's going on in
Scotland.
You know what I mean.
But that was not the nature andway of people in this time
(02:24):
period.
Everybody's frame of referencewas the people that I'm living
and doing life and you know myfuture and everything with you
didn't have this idea of youknow different people in
different places doing differentthings in different cultures.
We have that idea today becausewe have kind of a pluralistic,
(02:46):
secular mentality in generalthat likes to weigh everything
and everyone is equal, no matterhow they do things or what
they're doing.
That was not the mentality ofpeople back in the day and it's
not the mentality of societiesthat thrive, for the record,
just throwing it out there.
But the idea was the peoplethat you are doing life with,
(03:08):
the community that you are apart of and the culture that you
are desiring to give andbenefit.
Those are your neighbors.
So anywhere that you would go,any place, you find yourself,
the place that you are.
That is your neighbor.
Those are the people thatyou're with, the people you just
come into contact with on adaily basis?
Yeah, yeah, I mean it very much,is the culture that I'm a part
(03:31):
of.
Okay, mm-hmm, okay, and therewasn't this idea of, well, we
have to honor or figure out howto make it work with the pygmies
.
You know, yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't a thing like that.
That's how we tend to think.
But, yeah, neighbor.
Neighbor ultimately means so faras it depends on you, in the
area, the culture, the placethat you find yourself, seek its
(03:53):
wellbeing and treat them asneighbors.
This is the story of when Jesusmakes the point with the story
of the good Samaritan.
You know, the guy asks him whois my neighbor?
And he's like the people thatyou're around.
I'm like, yeah, but they're notpart of my culture, I don't
care, treat them well, seektheir benefits, seek their
wellbeing.
(04:13):
And those guys were literallynext door.
You know what I mean.
It wasn't like those guys werean ocean away.
They literally were on like thesame plot of land.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, an ocean away.
Literally, we're on like thesame plot of land.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
So our tendency is to befactious and ultimately, our
goal should be to no treateveryone like you would a
neighbor.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Okay, Don't withhold so when we're talking about the
ninth one here.
Do not bear false witnessagainst thy neighbor.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Was that just lying?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Ultimately, this language is associated more with
, like a courtroom.
So this commandment and thethird commandment we've talked
about before are deeply related,right, like they have this
clear connection about the waythat we should process, like
using God's name in vain and notbearing false witness against
(05:01):
your neighbor are two sides ofthe coin when it comes to how
I'm in relationship with God andunderstanding my standard
before him.
And then this commandment isreally how that extends and
works its way out into the worldaround me and the people around
me.
So, yeah, this is functionallysaying hey, in a tiff or a
(05:24):
kerfuffle or whatever you wantto call it, when you find
yourself in a place wheredifficulty is happening, don't
be somebody who is telling liesabout your neighbor to get your
way.
Don't be somebody who isfalsely saying something so that
you can manipulate thesituation to get what you want
out of it, that you canmanipulate the situation to get
(05:51):
what you want out of it.
So we tend to man this iseverywhere.
This is, I mean, this iseverywhere.
You want to talk about the mostpervasive commandment as far as
it's being broken, not bearingfalse witness, I feel like is
just everywhere and it makessense, right, like Satan is
(06:12):
quite literally called thefather of lies, right?
I think I like the ESV'stranslation.
It says something like whenSatan speaks lies, he speaks out
of his own character.
When Satan speaks lies, hespeaks out of his own character.
Like, literally, this is, thisis his, this is the
(06:32):
representation of his character.
Is that he?
He tells?
He tells lies to people.
That's, that's everything thathe does.
This is part of why Jesus issaying let your yes be yes, let
your no be no.
You know what I mean?
Like, just just tell the truth.
Anything else man is comingfrom somewhere else.
So you're trying to manipulatea situation and make it
something that it's not supposedto be.
This is the whole idea of thetruth setting you free, and I
mean the Bible has a lot to sayabout.
(06:54):
Hey, tell the freaking truth.
Tell the freaking truth and youget into Deuteronomic law and
some of the areas where it talksabout this specifically and how
this works.
Like Deuteronomy 19.
If a malicious witness arises toaccuse a person of wrongdoing,
that both parties to the disputeshall appear before the Lord,
before the priests and thejudges who are in office in
(07:14):
those days.
The judges shall inquirediligently and if the witness is
a false witness and has accusedhis brother falsely, then you
shall do to him as he had meantto do to his brother, so you
shall purge the evil from yourmidst.
Great reminder, like God sayinghey, this is the father saying
to the boy who's taking hisdaughter out.
Whatever you do to her, I'mgoing to do to you.
(07:35):
Right, like it's this thereshould be a respect, there
should be an honor in how wetreat each other and think about
these things.
So, when I think about thiscommandment, tim, ultimately I
think about social media almostimmediately.
I think about dating sites, Ithink about Instagram, I think
about filters that people usefor the pictures that they have.
(07:57):
I think about, like, the waythat people are constantly
trying to manipulate situationsby either a adding to the truth,
b withholding the full truth orc just outright lying yeah, you
know, um or outright giving afalsity.
I guess you could say, but it'suh, it's kind of everywhere,
(08:21):
man like like uh, you knowsomebody, somebody's setting up
a dating profile.
You know what I mean?
I was like oh, this or that.
You're like well, are youfudging the truth?
Great question, if you putsomething on your job
application that's not true,it's a lie.
What are you doing?
Well, I'm trying to manipulatethe situation to get what I want
.
I saw something the other daythat was like we'll take a
(08:46):
regular picture that you haveand we'll turn it into like a
business picture for yourprofile.
I'm like you didn't actuallytake that picture.
You weren't actually there.
You get like deep fakes reallyfast and what's happening?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
with AI Dude it's.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
The culture of deception is insane.
I'm trying to think about the.
I think it was the guy whoactually created the atomic bomb
who said the truth is sovaluable it's usually guarded by
an army of lies.
It's like you have to digthrough stuff to find it.
I think he said the only thingmore dramatic or dangerous than
(09:23):
the atomic bomb, it's truthitself.
Like people are horrified,people finding out the real
truth, what's actually going onin circumstances, and it begs
the question why, you know it'salso turned kind of everything
into a conspiracy.
Nobody trusts authority anymore.
(09:44):
Nobody trusts authority anymore.
Nobody trusts governmentanymore.
Nobody trusts anybody who youknow is supposed to be allegedly
, you know, trustworthy.
And we've come to a culture nowwhere it's almost worse because
it's not that lying, peoplelying and living in a culture
where lying is such a big dealmakes you work harder for the
(10:06):
truth.
It actually makes you care lessabout what the truth actually
is because you feel like youhave no way to find it, so it
doesn't really matter.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What about would you consider like going back to the
dating profile stuff or the jobapplication?
The stuff I'm going to tell youare just the best parts of me,
but I'm not going to tell youabout insecurities or my doubts,
fears.
Is that a form of lying?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Not necessarily.
I bring this up real quick,sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But, like if I was asked for a different position,
it's like, well, let's talk toyou see, if this is something.
It's like, yeah, I want to dothis.
Yeah, but it's always been mewho's like I got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I don't know if I can .
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Like I want to, but I'm going to need some skills
and practices and training, andlike I can't just jump in here.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, everybody sat down with an overshare or two,
right?
You're like, oh my gosh, Idon't need to know all of this.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I feel like that's me , because I don't want them to
hire me and be like oh, you'renot the guy, that's something
worse, I really would like thisjob, but I got to tell you I'm a
terrible person.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, okay, and I doubt everything.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's basically.
I think what comes outsometimes is like I want you to
be 100% sure you know whatyou're dealing with here.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Look, it's not that, hey, I have to explain every
aspect of everyone or toeveryone about everything.
It's pertinent information thatyou are withholding, All right.
Really, what it is is willfullybeing malicious or manipulative
, and I would say, having atender conscience where you're
(11:41):
like I want to make sure thatI'm not being manipulative is a
good thing.
I don't think that's a badthing.
I don't think it's somethingthat our, our, um, let's say our
, our culture values.
You know what I mean.
Like, I don't think peoplevalue honesty the way that they
should.
Now, they value appearancesover honesty.
(12:02):
A thousand to one.
I would say everybody acts likethey, you acts like they value
honesty, which is why SelenaGomez is posting videos online
of herself crying about theimmigration laws that are going
on, and then, when she getsflack from her own fan base, she
takes it off immediately.
Well, if you actually caredabout what you were saying, you
(12:24):
would leave it up, but if it wasjust virtue signaling oh, I
didn't realize that you weren'tinterested in that I guess I'll
take it down now.
Okay, now see, this is afalsity, it's just manipulation
and it's pretty prevalent man.
But no, yeah, it's not that Ihave to share every ounce of
everything about myself witheveryone that I talk to.
(12:46):
No, it's what's the informationthat's relevant, so that I'm
not being disingenuous ormanipulative in any given
circumstance, and I would saythat's tricky.
Yeah To me, tim, I'll just gohere for a second.
Okay, let's talk about makeup,can we Just for a minute?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I haven't worn that in years.
Go ahead, I still wear the highheels, but only when I'm by
myself.
So many comments.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
What is the, what's the purpose of makeup?
Ultimately, beauty, okay, yeah,this could be just, let's say,
elevating the features that arealready there.
Sure, all right, done correctly.
Could makeup be disingenuous?
Yeah, okay, is it like we wouldsay, a filter is disingenuous,
right?
Sure, like, yeah, it's not whatyou look like.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And then I met you and your dating profile and
you're 50 years older, or um,you've seen those videos of like
the like, I think the japanesegirls makeup removal stuff I
don't think so you put likerubber prosthetics to make
themselves look like 20 yearsyounger.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It's creepy that's wild, it is creepy wild, you
have knives cutting throughtheir noses and it takes.
It didn't look like they're 80years old now, so it's wild,
sorry yeah, it's scary, but butwhat I would say so it's
interesting to me is like, okay,if you and I'll just go here
for a second if you're a womanand you're wearing like, let's
say, uh, high heels, mini skirt,excessive, you know, makeup or
(14:19):
whatever long, you did thatthing to your eyes that I don't
understand.
That makes you look like anEgyptian, you know like eyebrows
.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That's a thing.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There is a there is a type of way that you can
present yourself where you'reusing more like, let's say, uh,
sexual manipulation in yourinteractions and in your dress.
Then then let's say authentic,real, um, let's say, using who
you actually are versus what youhave.
To me it would be the samething as a, as a guy flaunting,
(14:51):
uh, how much money he makes andwhat he drives, and what he
wears and what he dresses andall this stuff to to uh, let's
say, try to try to catch a lady.
Like there's a way, there's away that you should present
yourself where you're notpresenting yourself as a product
, but you're presenting yourselfas a person.
I think presenting yourself as aproduct is a form of
(15:11):
manipulation and lying.
You're trying to be a salesmanfor yourself and I'm not.
Look, here's the deal.
I'm not saying women don't wearmakeup and don't wear nice
clothes.
No, there's a differencebetween hey, god has given me a
body, this is how I look.
I want to dress up for myhusband or my family, or I want
to make sure that I look like adecent human individual.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Present yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
well, go put bonnets on and be weird Guys.
I'm not saying you can't have anice car or whatever.
The question is is that the,the, is that the stamp of who
you are?
Is that what you're using toget what you want?
Or are you somebody who ishonorable, loves the Lord you
know what I mean Tells the truth, has virtue, has character and
(15:55):
is upfront about, let's say, um,the, the things about you that
maybe aren't as beautiful orserious on the outside, like,
let's be honest, anytime you getinto a relationship with
somebody you're meeting, there'sa social interaction that is a
little bit normal.
Let's say, you're notimmediately like here's all the,
here's the 56 issues that Ihave, you're starting with, do I
(16:17):
even like hanging out with you?
And then, once there's sometrust okay, I see you're not
trying to manipulate me Let meshare some things that.
Let me see what you do withthese.
Is this a problem?
Is this an okay?
Now we're, we're taking thingsa level.
This is a normal process forrelationships, but what happens
now is we lie to each other.
We hook up and then we find outwho each other actually are and
(16:41):
then we break up and usuallythere's a baby.
You know what I mean and it'slike well great, what was that?
That was two peoplemanipulating each other, and the
consequences of that ishorrible.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Just telling you what you want to hear, more so than
anything else.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, and it's more like a transaction right Based
on a couple of false premises toget what I wanted or what you
wanted or whatever, and it'sreally messy.
Obviously, this can happen inlots of different circumstances.
Anybody who's been lied torealizes how horrible this
(17:15):
actually feels and how terriblethis really is.
Judas betraying Jesus isultimately a lie.
Betrayal is a lie.
It's this idea that I couldtrust someone, that we had
friendship, that you weresharing with me who you were,
and then it turns out you weresomebody else and working for
the other side.
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's a problem?
Is there a good way to lie?
Well, and not in the sense ofbe better at manipulating people
, but is there circumstanceswhere lying would be acceptable?
If I were to tell the truth, itwould make things way worse.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah.
So the classic lie that peoplebring up in scripture is in
Egypt, when Pharaoh is trying tomurder all these babies, he
tells the midwives hey, if it'sa boy when the baby arrives, I
want you to kill the baby.
And the midwives keep arrivinglate and they're like oh, these
(18:14):
Hebrew women, man, they're justquick with their labors, they're
having these babies and takingcare of it themselves before we
even get there.
So we haven't been able to killthem.
And it says that God basicallyhonored what they did.
They were lying ultimately toprotect life.
So is it acceptable to deceivewicked people and wicked things
(18:38):
so that you can protect life?
Yes, like.
Here's a question to ask that'slike a more classic hey Tim,
would you lie to an authoritywho is trying to take your
family to a death camp?
100% I would right yeah,absolutely.
Is that justified before God?
Yes, because what are you doing?
Ultimately, you're trying tohonor God and protect your
(18:58):
family from somebody who iswicked and evil, who does not
have the right intent at heart.
But that's a consequence of youcould misunderstand the spirit
of the law here and the letterof the law, which is what Jesus
tends to bring up all the time,like when he's talking about hey
man, he tells the Phariseeslike you guys tithe your dill
(19:19):
and cumin and mint, but youneglect the things in the law
that are actually more importantthan that.
You're really good at followingthis rule, but when it's
convenient, you make a rule tomake it not the case.
So if somebody said, well, I hadto tell the truth.
Usually the only time somebodysays that is when they threw
somebody else under the bus.
You know what I mean.
Because they didn't actuallywant to be honest and acted like
(19:46):
they were doing somethingvirtuous, which is bearing false
witness.
Because what did I do?
I lied about the intentions ofmy heart and I shared with you
something that actually wasn'tthe case.
This is why the Bible is usinglanguage all the time.
Like the Lord judges the heart,man tends to judge the
appearance, but God is lookingat you and who you are and
what's actually going on in yourguts, and our tendency is to
(20:10):
play a game of manipulation withpeople so that we can get ahead
and get what we want.
And it's messy.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It's messy.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The term we associate with this most readily now is
politics or being a politician.
Right Is is intentionallymanipulating social situations
and appearances to to bringabout a particular, you know
order or regime or whatever itis that you want to you want to
bring about.
But it happens from the timeyou, you know we're kids.
It's very easy.
(20:40):
You don't have to teach yourkids to lie.
You have to teach them to tellthe truth.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, well, that's very true.
Could you throw in slanderingand gossip into this mix too?
Yeah, yeah because it'sultimately manipulation.
But gossip is not necessarilylying, is it?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Gossip is saying something that may or may not be
true about somebody withouttheir ability to defend
themselves.
Okay, so if I'm talking tosomebody and I'm saying
so-and-so, said this, is thattheir side of the story too?
Or is it just my side of thestory?
Yeah, just my side of the story.
So what does that mean?
It's not the full truth.
(21:20):
My side of the story Just myside of the story.
So what does that mean?
It's not the full truth?
One of the big problems that wehave today, tim, is this
question about is somebodyguilty until proven innocent, or
are they innocent until provenguilty?
And I just was reading thisstory about this guy who was
accused of rape, who was goingto go into the NFL like star
athlete, did an amazing job.
(21:41):
This girl hated him, accusedhim of rape, he was convicted
and then, five years later,after five years of him being in
prison, she confessed that itwas a lie.
She did it just to get back athim for something Never happened
and he went to prison, ruinedhis entire career, could have
been in the NFL making millionsof dollars, whatever and was
(22:06):
basically thrown in prisonbecause somebody said something
that was untrue.
That's bearing false witnessagainst your neighbor, and
that's people taking the side ofsomebody just because without
actually figuring out if thatperson was guilty or not,
actually figuring out if thatperson was guilty or not.
And our um, look man, this isprevalent today, this is very
prevalent today, and I wouldjust say that, um, the cultural
(22:28):
Marxist perspective that ispretty darn prevalent in our
world today is you are guiltybecause of who you are, not even
what you've done.
Uh, if you're white, you'reguilty.
If you're a man, you're guilty.
If you're straight, you'reguilty.
If you're Christian, you'reguilty.
Of all of that and some.
Why Did I do anything?
(22:50):
No, no, it's not what you did,it's who you are right.
Well, everything that you do iswrong.
Even if you do the right thing,it's wrong.
The joke is, what was it?
It's the Matt Walsh thing Iwatched.
He was talking to somebodyabout his kids.
He's like if my kids want todress up like Moana, I'm
stealing their culture, but ifthey dress up like Elsa, well,
(23:14):
they're just proliferating thesame mentality of white
supremacy.
What do I do?
You're screwed either way, nomatter what you do.
Why?
Because we've come up with away to interpret whatever you do
as guilty and playing into somekind of plot or something like
that.
I would also throw into thiscategory false information that
we continue to put forwardwithout checking.
(23:34):
So, look, I'm not a fan offact-checking, okay, because you
and I both know the Gestapo.
You know what I mean.
The fact-checkers arehilariously biased, which is
such an ironic thing that thepeople that are supposed to help
with hey, let's get youinformation about this so that
(23:55):
you can make an educateddecision before you post this or
send this to somebody else orquote this.
Fine, but it was all very biasedand wrong.
Make an educated decisionbefore you post this or send
this to somebody else or quotethis.
Fine, but it was all verybiased and wrong.
But ultimately, it is a verygood thing, before you quote
something or take something outof context, to research it a
little bit, look into it beforeyou just say, oh, I heard this
(24:15):
happen or that happened,especially looking at, I was
listening to the.
I don't know if it was calledthe confirmation or what with
Pete Hegseth, tim, did you watchany of that?
No, he's this guy and it'shilarious.
He.
Basically you get to sit infront of 50 other government
employees while they just grillyou about all the things that
you did in your past, or a quotethat you said or what you wrote
(24:37):
in your book oh, is this thenew Secretary of Defense guy?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, past.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
or a quote that you said, or what you wrote in your
book oh, is this the newSecretary of Defense guy?
Yeah, yeah, I've seen that andhe's awesome, dude, love the guy
.
I've seen that they're mad athis tattoo that says Deisville
is Jerusalem cross and someother stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
The Christian tattoo you talked about yeah, I love it
.
I mean like I literally I wonknow what that means either.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So tattoos are not much to me.
Yeah, yeah, but if you want tokill somebody, you can dig up
whatever quote you want.
You can take it out of contextand you can use it to destroy
people.
And it was funny watchingpeople take this guy and just
take quotes out of context andtake things out of context to
try to frame somebody as anabsolute monster.
(25:23):
It's really sad.
I was like man, this is ourculture.
But perhaps the most importantarea that I would like to talk
about today, tim, is how peopledo this with the Bible.
Yeah, ultimately, what drivesme more crazy than anything else
(25:45):
is seeing so-called pastors andso-called ministers of the
gospel take the word of God anddestroy it with how they
communicate it and destroy itwith how they communicate it,
how they prove text, how theyuse the Bible to manipulate
(26:05):
people, manipulate and drivetheir own agendas.
And, man, it's easy to do.
I mean, I hate to say it, butyou can almost make the Bible
say anything if you manipulateit enough.
You know what I mean.
You can take verses and you cansay this clearly means this If
you don't take the context ofthe Bible, the purpose of the
(26:29):
Bible, the authority of theBible, I mean, isn't it amazing
to me how many horrible likeleftist progressive politicians
try to quote the Bible to getpeople to do things, while
they're totally fine murderingbabies, right?
You know what I mean?
Like okay, we smell that and weknow that's disingenuous, but
why does it work?
Because there's something aboutscripture itself that we know
(26:54):
is authoritative.
There's something there, butwhat we would like it to do is
serve our own agendas instead ofGod's.
This is why Satan quotesscripture to Jesus to tempt him
in the desert.
Right, matthew 4 is this wholepicture of Satan going to Jesus
and like, you know what theBible says, don't you?
And Jesus is like shut up.
(27:16):
Actually, it says he shows thedevil with the words that he's
quoting from scripture, thathe's missing the fuller context
of what's actually there.
You are pulling something outof context and you're using it
to to literally, um, toliterally be satanic.
(27:38):
Yeah and uh, it it happens alot.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Here's where I go.
When you say this with pastorsand stuff, yeah, um, I mean we
could fit all the pastors wehave on staff here in a room and
nobody's going to agree ahundred percent with everything
they're going to say Uh yeah,pastors, we have on staff here
in a room and nobody's going toagree a hundred percent with
everything.
They're going to say, yeah,everybody's going to have like
slightly different takes oncertain things.
(28:01):
Sure, yeah, but if I'm supposedto tell when a pastor is taking
stuff out of context or stuff,am I supposed to have some
theology degree now, like I'msupposed to know this thing
better than the pastor does inorder to learn from him, in
order to be able to tell whenit's false and when it's not?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Dude, great question, great question.
One thing that the Bible givesus with regard to this is in the
book of Acts.
It talks about these guyscalled the Bereans who, when
Paul would say things, it saysthey would go and they would
study the scriptures to see ifwhat he said was accurate.
So I would say this if you hearsomething that a pastor or
(28:37):
someone else says that doesn'tsound right, go look up what he
said in the Bible.
Read, read the context, readsome commentaries about it, see,
bounce it off.
Some other people test it tosee if this is in fact true.
This is what the Bible istelling us to do is don't just
take one person's opinion onsomething.
(29:00):
Check all the facts.
Innocent until proven guilty,right.
So if somebody says somethinglike okay, maybe that's the case
, let's go study, let's go see,but if you study and that's not
the case, then don't listen tothe person.
I think what's hard is thatoftentimes we don't really care.
If it feels like it fits ouragenda and sounds good, we'll
(29:22):
just roll with it.
Yeah, like I'm not going tocheck on something that I
already feel like I agree with.
What I'll check on is when ithits something that I feel like
I don't agree with, and that's agood thing and also can be a
bad thing, because there's beenmany times in my life where the
Bible has blown up my opinionsin a very frustrating way, or a
pastor has blown up myperception of a text in a very
(29:42):
frustrating way, where I'm like,and then you got to go back
Like, dang it, I've been wrong.
I've been wrong about this,I've been wrong about this
perspective and that perspective.
Tim, there's many things I'vesaid, especially just early on,
even in some of the podcasts,that I would think about now.
I'm like, yeah, I probablywouldn't say it that way.
I don't know if I'd communicatethis this way.
When I first got saved myopinion of the Old Testament and
(30:04):
the law and its significanceand stuff, and I was like I'd go
back now.
I'd just I'd probably tell thatguy, hey, buddy, close, but
there's a little more here.
Uh, you know, keep, keepworking, and it's.
And there's a difference between, um, you know, let's say, lying
intentionally or beingmanipulative, and and
(30:25):
accidentally lying right.
One is intentional, one isaccidental.
If you tell your wife, um, hey,I think your shoes are under
the bed and actually they wereunder the dresser, she could be
like my husband is a liar.
No, no, could it be that yourpastor misspoke when he said
(30:46):
something?
Sure, those things can happen.
Again, we're judging ultimatelythe heart of something.
What was this person trying toaccomplish?
Did their words and what theycommunicated match their heart's
intent?
How are we judging those things?
And so what I would say, tim,is yeah, be a Berean, you should
(31:08):
study your Bible.
Two, understand the areas wherethere is margin or areas where
we can discuss further and thinkthrough some things that maybe
need more time to develop andconsider and work through.
And then also consider the factthat there are a lot of people
who have written on these things, and if you hit something and
you're not sure, you don't haveto study that alone.
(31:30):
I would say talk to the personwho said it, get more
information from them and thentalk to a couple people that you
really trust, that love theword and know the Bible.
And it's good I've said this onthe podcast before it's good to
read people that disagree withyou.
It's a good thing to do.
I'm a Calvinist.
Unapologetically, I got threeor four books by guys who
(31:52):
absolutely hate Calvinists Allof David Hunt's work and
Leighton Flowers and whateverbooks I can get my hands on by
guys that disagree.
Great why?
Because you know what they're,my brothers in Christ, and I
don't have to agree witheverything that they say.
It's good to read people thathave different perspectives than
you do.
They're wrong, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I think Christians do what you were talking about,
with half-truths, gossiping,where people will just repeat a
headline that they read and notactually read the article
themselves.
I think Christians do that too,where they quote some
theologian who's been dead for300 years but, not have no idea
(32:35):
anything else beyond that,because he read a book once and
he agreed with it.
You know what I mean.
Like they're just repeatingwhat they read, and not from any
other deep sense of who whereit's coming from.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, just proliferating like ideas without
any bedrock underneath it.
Yeah, yeah, and I'd say all ofus are guilty of that at some
level.
Yeah, because you're finite,right, you can't have every bit
of information about everything,but it's so fun when you talk
to guys who do have a wealth ofinformation and depth in a
particular area.
(33:06):
Man, they can just go there.
Like watching Wes Huff on JoeRogan the other day was so fun.
He's like you know, you hearlies about people, what their
thoughts are on the, on thecanon and textual critics and
different stuff.
And then having somebody whospent literally his life work is
that and just go ahead, ask thequestions and let me just kill
(33:26):
those in front of you right now.
So fun to see.
And as pastors, it's weirdbecause you're trying to be a
generalist and a specialist.
You got to be able to talk toeverybody and you got to be able
to talk to a plumber.
You got to be able to talk to apolitician.
You got to be able to talk toyou know media, whatever.
(33:46):
You got to be able to talk todifferent people in different
places of life, understand someof where they're at and be able
to help, pour into them, coach,encourage and pastor those
people in whatever place theyare in life.
And what's going on?
Why?
Because God has something tosay to each of those people.
The Bible has somethingvaluable to give and communicate
to each of those people from anauthoritative place, and you,
(34:07):
as a pastor, need to be a mediumfor that.
However, you need to be aspecialist with the Bible itself
and scripture and churchhistory and the things that go
along with communicating theword of God.
So you're always in the tensionbetween how do I communicate
somebody to somebody who is in aworld where this is their
specialty?
How am I to be the bridge?
(34:28):
How can I cross that bridge?
How?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
can I?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
be a communicator of the word of God where I'm being
authentic and not going too far.
This is where you get into someof the difficulty with
methodology and church ingeneral, like how far should you
go to communicate to somebodywithin their own world without
lowering the standard of God'sholiness or bastardizing?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
the gospel?
I was actually trying to bringthat up too.
Is that when you have somebodywith, well, this is, I guess,
kind of for you as a pastor, butwhen somebody has just a
different perspective than whatis being preached and doesn't
feel right or something, rightyeah, but they can't bring it up
without being shamed or shunnedor yeah.
Yeah, yeah, like, how do youdeal with that?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What I have found, Tim, is that people usually feel
that way, haven't talked to thepastor.
They usually just feel that wayin the congregation.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
In the congregation.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
yeah, and I would say the best thing that person can
do is actually sit down with apastor, because you find that
the pastor actually wants tocommunicate with you, talk with
you, help you work through thosedoubts, and behind closed doors
, that's a lot of what thepastor is doing is helping you
work through all the stuff whereyou're not there yet.
(35:47):
And what makes it really hardfor people to work through all
the areas where they're notthere yet is if they believe
that everyone else in thatcongregation totally agrees and
is on the same page abouteverything.
Some people feel alone, tim,because they're trying, they're,
let's say, they're being morehonest about where they're at
than others.
That's not a bad thing.
Ultimately, it is a bad thingif you don't do anything with it
(36:11):
.
Carl Jung, for what it's worth.
I was just talking to a pastorabout this the other day.
He wrote about and I think it'scalled the Shadow man, His
whole bit on this gosh.
It was this idea that everybodyhas this, let's say, area of
themselves that's dark andfrustrating or in doubt or in
(36:34):
turmoil, and if you don'tconfront that thing, it comes
out in really awful ways and Ineed to like go, and we're
talking about truth telling here.
So I'm like I should go getsome reference points for this
one specifically, but I thinkthe idea will at least you'll
understand His point was thatpeople are always happy, always
smiling, always fine, tend to belike serial killers because
(36:58):
they have this really awful waythat they're getting out the
things that they're not, let'ssay the darkness that they're
dealing with and reallyunhealthy ways, and then so that
they can continue to alwaysshow this easy, chill, super
nice demeanor they're not realpeople, they're two people.
You know what I mean Realpeople.
You have doubts you got to workthrough, you have frustrations,
(37:20):
you have concerns and you'retrying to get to a place where
those things are made right.
And what I would tell you isJesus is saying hey, being a
liar isn't that you're not, thatyou're.
You know, let me say it thisway being a truth teller doesn't
mean you don't have doubts orthings you're working through or
(37:40):
frustrations that you're unsureabout.
Being a truth teller meansyou're willing to bring those
things to Jesus to allow him tohelp straighten those things out
or work those things out withyou.
And I think a lot of people arelike well, I don't really want
to work through them.
I don't actually want answers.
I like being in here because if, as long as I have these doubts
or these areas where I'm notsure I'm allowed to work in the
(38:03):
gray, I can still get away withthe sin.
I can still kind of do thisthing because I'm undecided.
Most of that indecision comesout then as a frustration with
God or his people, because it'sconvenient to blame other people
for being the reason that youaren't confronting the lies in
(38:25):
your life.
Right truth and he is, he isthe way, the truth and the life,
and Satan is the father of lies.
Then the lies that you'redealing with are really going to
want to hide and hate the truththat Jesus represents.
(38:45):
The greatest analogy of thisthroughout all of scripture is
the light and the dark.
You see this?
I mean it's just all theseillustrations throughout
scripture about light and dark,righteousness and wickedness.
They're supposed to be thesetwo things that are happening.
Yeah, and John?
The Gospel of John makes itreally clear that the light has
come into the world and men lovedarkness rather than light.
(39:08):
What does that mean?
I would rather not expose topeople what's actually going on
in my heart, lest they find outthat I'm manipulating and I'm a
terrible person.
Yeah, when truth comes into asituation, liars really hate.
It really throws a wrench intheir plans.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I find that they either get really angry or they
accept it.
Yeah, yeah, I would they getangry and defensive and
everything, or they're like huh,okay, maybe I'll actually think
this and I would say anger anddefense is just ultimately
hiding.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, acceptance is is maybe closer to like
submission, right, like okay, Iwas exposed, I got to do better,
I got to change, I got to dobetter, I got to change, I got
to do this and it what's whatscripture is calling us to do is
, hey, meet with Jesus and getthat taken care of before you
get exposed.
Yeah, meet with Jesus and getthis right before it has to be
(40:05):
something awful, I think it'stip first Timothy.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
It says live without excuse.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And I take that a lot in my daily life.
Yeah, yeah, and I take that alot in my daily life.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, what I love in 1 Timothy in particular I think
it's 1 Timothy 1.5, it says thegoal of our instruction I take
this very seriously as a pastoris love from a pure heart, a
clean conscience and a sincerefaith.
Because there's a tension, Tim,where ministry, in the worst
(40:33):
sense, can feel like an MLM.
You know what I mean.
I have this product that I'mselling and I need to be a
really good salesman, and then Igot to get two people who will
go tell other people and getthem to come as well, so I can
build this giant pyramid scheme.
You know what I mean.
(40:54):
Like there's a tension there andthere's a sense in which it's
like okay, god has given usthese principles, he's told us
to go bring the gospel to peoplehe's called us to invite.
Well, so what does dark do?
Well, it counterfeits the lightand uses that kind of strategy
that God has for the wrongthings instead of the right
things.
So it's more like guns in thehands of good people versus guns
in the hands of bad people.
(41:15):
It's less the method, it's moreof the reason or the end game
for the method.
But if you're devoid of lovefrom a clear conscience, a pure
heart and a sincere faith, youcan become a manipulator, and
you can become a world-classmanipulator.
You can be a pastor who'sseemingly a good person, who
(41:38):
also happens to be doing shotswith Justin Bieber and cheating
on his wife.
All right, shots fired, dealwith it.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
I mean, I'll confess I've used my position at work,
not here, but just in general,because people view me a certain
way and I know way, yeah, and Iknow that Yep, which allows me
to get away with things that Ishould have no business getting
away with.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Sure, and I know that sometimes yeah, and you're
aware of that, right, I am awareof that, yeah, and I think
Jesus would say to anybody who'sdealing with that come to me
Right, come to me, let's getthat taken care of, let's make
(42:24):
this right and ultimately, tim,the way that the Bible spells
this out, or the antidote forbearing false witness is
repentance.
It is bringing stuff to Jesusand it's like this is the.
I brought this up before Timeither, and I think it was Matt
Chandler who originally saidthis, and I don't know how many
years ago it was Probably 10years ago.
I remember hearing this and itchanged the way that I thought
(42:48):
about how I wanted to walk, howI wanted to do life.
But he said you can either makerepentance and confession a
normal part of your life or youcan be a liar.
Wow, and I remember thinking,okay, that's the clearest that
I've heard anybody just comeright out and say that Either
you're going to bring your stuffto Jesus, work through it and
get that right, or you're goingto walk around in church and
(43:10):
pretend that it's been maderight instead and it's not a
substitute at all and whatyou'll find is that you
eventually enjoy being accepted.
You enjoy being accepted as aChristian more than you enjoy
loving Jesus, and that's not asubstitute Like that is not
(43:35):
better.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
It's just more comfortable in the moment.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, yeah, and eventually, man, it will go
badly for you because Jesusloves you too much to leave you
in that place.
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, before we wrap up, when you were talking about
the gray people who live in thegray, yeah.
I heard this thing and it wasabout, you know, people who sit
on the fence.
We hear that a lot asChristians or the lukewarm
Christians that get spat outRight Well, I heard this story
and I don't know if it's true orit was a dream or vision, or
whatever.
But this guy said he had adream.
Let's go with that.
(44:06):
Yeah, no-transcript.
Sit on this fence.
that way I could have bothworlds yeah and he said the
(44:26):
lights went out and then satanappeared.
He says, well, hey, I didn'tchoose, I didn't choose you, I
didn't choose god.
So what didn't choose God?
So what are you doing here andjust saying it's like I own the
fence?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Oh man, that's so good.
That's so good.
That got me a little bit.
Indecision is decision.
It's like right Interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, I own the fence .
Indecision is decision.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
That's fantastic, man .
Yeah, ultimately, agnosticism,you know.
What I mean is this idea thatthat, like, we can't really know
, so I'll just, I'll set myselfin the middle and if God's going
to condemn me for not makinghimself more clear to me, well,
that's his fault.
No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
You're lying Exactly.
Yeah, because I've heard thatand it's always scared me too.
Am I on the fence on stuff?
A lot, probably, but it'sbecause I haven't figured stuff
out, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I would just want to tell people the truth always
pays off, because lying doessomething to you as an
individual man.
There's, it's, it is acorrupting feeling.
It is a horrible life to liveand you will find yourself
forgetting who you are in thename of becoming what you think
you're supposed to be.
(45:33):
And if you want like a reallife example of this, I would
say look no further than likechild actors.
If you teach somebody whenthey're a young kid, uh, to to
act like other people and wearother people and walk around as
other people, and then they wakeup and they're alcoholics and
drug addicts and everything else, it's like well, well, what
happened?
Well, the entire time where I'msupposed to be growing in the
(45:55):
fullness of who I'm supposed tobe and developing who I am, I've
spent all that time beingsomebody else instead.
And now I have every identityand whatever coach in the world
trying to tell me how to getback to some norm.
But the only thing that makesme feel normal is living in an
alternate reality.
What does that?
Drugs and lying puts you in analter why?
(46:16):
Cause I'm no longer okay withreality.
It's not good for me, and soeverybody's finding the the way
to anesthetize and get away fromthat stuff but ultimately come
to the light, come to truth.
It's better, it's just better.
And um, it's probably some guysout there, some girls with you,
know porn problems and stuff andyou don't want to tell your
(46:38):
spouse about that.
Man, start now.
It only gets worse.
There's people out there,probably with you know you've
been embezzling money or you gotsomething going on like that.
Dude, just come clean, likecome to the light, get the
weight off your chest, breathedeep and if you come to Jesus
with those things and you makerepentance and confession a
regular part of your life,you're going to be a whole lot
(46:59):
happier and you're not going tobe walking in a place where the
ninth commandment is justbreathing down your neck.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, you know.
Mark Twain had a quote I alwaysliked.
He said if you always tell thetruth, you never have to
remember anything.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
You don't have to remember any lies anyways, it's
definitely you're still going toneed to remember some things.
But yeah, you're not going tocarry around that that guilty
conscience and have to rememberhow to continue to manipulate
things.
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, or what part of the lie that you have to
remember, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Well, and Tim you, um , you, I brought this up before,
but I feel like before I gotsaved, I didn't know how to hang
out with two different groupsof friends because I was two
different people.
It was like I don't know how toact with them or them.
So I got around both of themand I was just quiet because I
was like I don't really know howto navigate this.
If you're doing what you'resupposed to be doing, you could
(47:49):
be around anybody and you'regoing to be the same person.
I'm not saying you're going toshare all the same details.
I talked to my wife, probably alittle bit differently than the
president.
You know what I mean, but thethe the reality that if you're
doing it right, you can be whoyou actually are, around anybody
, and that would be evidencethat you're you're walking in
the light, as he is in the light.
(48:10):
Cool, all right, buddy.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Well.
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