January 14, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode, Daniel Willis shares his inspiring journey from a tumultuous past to a faith-driven life as a videographer and editor spreading the gospel. Join us as we delve into transformative journeys of faith, exploring the intersections of personal testimony, early Christian teachings, and the pursuit of authentic discipleship. Through an engaging conversation, we uncover the challenges and triumphs of living out the Sermon on the Mount in today's world, offering insights and inspiration for those seeking to deepen their walk with Christ.
Learn more about Sattler College.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Sound Faith - website and YouTube channel that Daniel maintains
- The Historic Faith - website with teachings about the early Christian faith
Timestamps:
0:00 – Discovering Faith and Mission Work
8:33 – Seeking Truth Amid Denominational Differences
17:12 – Exploring Early Christian Beliefs
26:36 – Navigating Truth in Denominational Differences
41:25 – Navigating Responsible Media Consumption
53:24 – Reflective Questions on Faith and Service
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zack Johnson (00:00):
All right, it's December 9th 2024.
This is take three actually.
Daniel Willis (00:10):
Oh, don't say that.
Zack Johnson (00:12):
No, I made a joke that we filmed earlier, or we
recorded an hour long and thenit didn't get recorded.
So we're going to re-record.
Yes, I'm here with DanielWillis.
Daniel, welcome to Boston.
Hey, thanks, it's weird to saythat twice, so I'm.
I'll just start off by askingwhat is your current work and
(00:34):
where can we, where can we findsome of the work that you do?
Daniel Willis (00:36):
just to frame sort of who you are and what
you're doing currently yeah, Iam a videographer and video
editor and I edit for differentYouTube channels, Including
Sadler's.
Including Sadler that'simportant, I'm just kidding.
I used to do it for thefollowers the way they wanted it
in-house, just because there'speople that wanted to do it.
But for Strength to StrengthSound Faith, Sound Faith, Music,
(01:00):
Hope for Wonder in Amish, AllNations, Bible Translators and a
bunch of other YouTube channelson and off, like Kingdom
Fellowship Weekends once a year.
There's certain things that arejust a few times a year, but it
was my passion because ithelped.
Things like that.
Videos that I've seen onlinebrought me to a more obedient
faith Following Christ,following the Sermon on the
(01:22):
Mount and having a brotherhoodand not being a Lone Ranger.
It was something that's becomevery passionate to me and so,
thankfully, God gave me theability to make it a job where I
can feed my family by editingfor these different faithful
churches.
Zack Johnson (01:37):
Yeah.
So I'm really excited to haveyou here, because here we always
record some things and they getsent off from the internet and
I know that you're doing a lotof it on the other end.
But I'd love to launch with thetypical what's your condensed
story?
I know you could probably talkfor a long time about your story
.
Some bits of your testimony,some of your passions will
(01:59):
probably come out through that.
Can you condense that?
Daniel Willis (02:02):
into a?
Yeah, growing up I wasn't in anormal christian family.
My dad was an alcoholic, mybrothers were into drugs and
selling drugs.
I got a felony when I was 13,started fight clubs, sent people
to hospital, destroyed allkinds of properties did, did all
kinds of bad things, includingmeant literally planning to kill
(02:24):
someone, and didn't do it,thankfully.
And Christ got a hold of methrough my football coach,
invited me to go to a StarlightCrusade, a Baptist preaching
event where they have all thisentertainment for children and
these bands.
And then there's this hellfireand brimstone sermon and I had
just got a felony and knew thatsomething was wrong and the
(02:48):
pastor, it felt like, wasdescribing me and all the sins
and these things that I could befree from.
And I honestly do believe thatafter that baptism, god was
working with me and guiding me.
I wasn't perfect.
I couldn't read.
I didn't go to churchafterwards.
I didn't have a Bible.
I wasn't capable of reading.
(03:09):
I didn't read very well at all,I should say my reading
comprehension was very low.
I was a bully.
Then, after I became aChristian, I knew that I was
supposed to abstain from sexualrelations and not do drugs and I
realized my bullying was notchrist-like, and so I started
bullying the bullies.
(03:29):
And what, what did you call itlast?
Oh, vigilante, vigilante, yeah,what I did.
And when it wasn't good itseemed good.
Until when I turned 16 andstarted going to church I
realized a lot of the thingsthat I thought were godly
weren't godly, and my lifechanged a lot at that point.
But they realized I hadstruggled reading and they gave
(03:52):
me an NLT and I told them I wasstruggling reading that.
Then one of my elders gave methe Bible on CD or somehow I got
a hold of it I'm pretty surethat's how it was and then I
just listened to it and listenedto it and read and listened to
it and it just became like mypassion.
It was like everything I wantto do is consume the bible.
I carried it around, uh, highschool and I think everybody
(04:15):
thought I was extremely weirdbecause I went from this you
know, jock, beating up people,to always talking about jesus
and giving people hugs andtelling them that we actually
have to live for Christ.
Then went to Johnson University, met my wife, was called into
missions work and I had a triplemajor missions, bible and TESOL
(04:39):
or ESL major.
And then me and my wife.
We got that because we wereplanning to go to China and I
needed to know about missionsand what not to do mostly.
Zack Johnson (04:51):
And then did you yeah, when you started, did you
know you wanted to go to China?
Not?
Daniel Willis (04:56):
necessarily so.
A lot of the people from thesebackground churches maybe think
of my story as a veryevangelical kind of thing.
When I was 13, actually after Igot the felony I was sitting at
a church after doing communityservice at that church, and I
knew sitting there that I wasn'tsupposed to just be someone
(05:18):
sitting there, that I wasactually supposed to.
I'd just been baptized and Iwas supposed to do something
else.
Like my imagination was to be apreacher and but I didn't want
to, but like I just had thislike feeling I'm supposed to be
preaching and and so I foughtthat feeling for a long time.
And then at Johnson BibleCollege, what the church of
(05:41):
Christ that I went to.
Before I went to Johnson BibleCollege, one of the sermons on
Noah was making yourselfavailable to God, and he taught
us like when you hearmissionaries preach or anything
like that, make yourselfavailable, like ask God if it's
what he wants you to do or not.
So I got to college and we hadchapel every day and during
(06:01):
Wednesdays we'd havemissionaries and one of the
missionaries was from China andI was actually working full time
to pay for the college and Iwas doing homework and I
shouldn't have been in chapel,but I was trying to get homework
done that was due.
And then, after his message, Isaid, god, is this what you want
me to do?
Where am I go?
Kind of a habitual thing.
(06:21):
And then I got chills all overmy body and I was like god, I
don't want an answer from chillsand I just want to know is this
what you want me to do, whereyou want me to go?
And they increased and thenasked again.
And then I had no idea whatchina was like.
All I knew was everybody waskung fu artists and great at
ping pong and really short andstarving, um, and none of that
(06:45):
is really true, but the.
And then I started crying and Iwas like, okay, I'll go.
And then, literally after that,he literally answered my prayer
and let me know, I'm supposedto go to china.
And so I switched my major frompreaching to missions.
And then then I realized youhave to when you go to china.
You have to.
When you go to China, you haveto get a visa and you can't just
(07:05):
go.
And so then I had to figure outhow to get in there.
So I changed my major, added amajor.
Anyway, then we get to China.
Is there anything you want tointerject?
Okay, and we the.
(07:40):
There's a lot that happenedbefore the first church plant.
But we had a church plant thatI did with a Baptist pastor
because nobody.
All the other missionaries werekind excited to see someone
else that wanted to try to dothat.
So I started working with himand as we were planning this
church and reaching out andfinding people and bringing
people to Christ, I realizedhalf of his sermons literally
were sending me to hell.
(08:01):
He would say something in asermon like if you believe this
way, you're going to hell.
If you believe baptism doesanything to save you or wash
away your sins, you're going tohell.
He would say something in asermon like if you believe this
way, you're going to hell.
If you believe baptism doesanything to save you or wash
away your sins, you're going tohell.
If you believe you can pleasethe lord you know he equated it
to works, righteousness, as ifyou're trying to work which I
didn't believe you can earn yoursalvation.
But I believed we can, lord,and uh anyway, and he would say
(08:24):
any that those things made mereally start to to question my
faith, especially whenever hewould.
He had a different opinion onmodesty and women's roles in the
church and the headship ororder, and as I studied those
things I realized I was wrongabout a lot of the things he
(08:45):
preached on he was right, but Istill thought he was wrong about
a lot of the other things.
And as I dug into these mattersI realized there's so much more
I didn't know.
And we were going to aninternational church at the same
time and I was gettingconfronted by Calvinists and
Pentecostals and all kinds ofdifferent missionaries, so I was
(09:06):
the only missionary that hadthis like church of Christ kind
of mindset, and actually none ofthe.
We all got along but none of usreally saw eye to eye at the
same time, and so it made me I'dhad an that in my Christian
life.
That much until this point.
And so it made me really dig inand try to figure out what the
(09:29):
truth was.
And we started a second churchplant.
We moved out of the city andfurther out of the city where we
didn't know missionaries wereliving, and we tried to start
one there.
And then I realized I wasreally afraid to teach at this
moment because everything that Ihad learned I don't know how
much of it was the truth,because I was discovering all
(09:51):
kinds of things that I was doingwrong and that I taught that
was wrong.
I decided we're going to readall the way through each.
There's a teacher that said thebest way to read all the
scriptures is, when you start abook, start read it from start
to finish.
And so we started.
(10:13):
We found Chinese people willingto do that, and we started
doing that on Thursdays, andthere I would ask questions like
what does this mean about God?
What does it mean to a man and,if it's true, what are we
supposed to do with it?
(10:33):
And their answers were just sosimple and pure and they would
see things that were obviouslywritten there, but because of
the perspective that was givento me, I didn't see it.
And things like uh, no matterwhat and all things, don't
complain or argue.
And I took it so serious thatthat really, I had always been
in churches where peoplecomplain and argue and you were
(10:54):
telling you were telling meearlier, this was like people
interacting with the scripturesfor the first time.
Yeah, a lot of them, yeah, yeah,like, yeah, there's a few
ladies that were uh, uh, theywere had gone to the three self
church, which is a governmentchurch, but they couldn't read
and the three self churchdoesn't.
(11:16):
I'm not going to get into that,that's.
It's just not a good thing.
Most, most of the time.
Every once in a while you findone that's decent, but they
rotate the leaders and half ofthem are communist party
officials and don't believe inChrist at all and they're
teaching, you know, for theirtheir make, helping trying to
make Christians like uphold tothe communist parties.
(11:36):
You know thoughts or whatever,but they couldn't read and they
we.
Sometimes we just read out loud.
But then we realized, on thelonger books, like Matthew, mark
and Luke and some of the OldTestament books, it was easier
to just play the audio and allof us follow along and it just
became so real to them.
After Matthew was the first one, they all wanted to stick
(11:58):
around and read Luke and it waslike one o'clock in the morning
and I was like, yeah, I got togo home, my wife's at home and I
got work tomorrow and um, butthey were so excited to hear the
word of God.
And through that, when we gotto Corinthians, all the ladies
asked me about the head coveringand I first brushed it off and
(12:20):
just said, oh, it's theprostitutes or it's a long hair.
And then I got home and I waslike, how could it be?
Both Like if it's the long hair, then it wouldn't have been the
prostitutes.
And my mind was just made upbecause it was.
It is the long hair and becauseof the prostitutes in Corinth.
And then I started searching itand my wife ends up asking me
about it and I didn't bring itup to her and she had been
(12:44):
reading because we were at that.
She knew what we were going tobe reading that night and she
wasn't there.
And then eventually I said youjust need to read it and, you
know, make up your mind on it.
And we, because we had alreadygone on this journey and started
changing everything to thealmost the most literal version
(13:04):
of what scripture is, the mostsimple understanding of it.
And she came out of the roomone day, a few days later, with
a beanie on her head and I neverseen her wear it in this house,
and so it's like.
I was like, is this it?
And she was like, yeah, it,let's do this.
We discussed it like maybe inthe future, if we found out
(13:26):
we're wrong, you know she'llstop wearing head coverings.
And then we started to try tofigure out at that point were we
some weird cult, like we don'tknow anybody in the world who
wears head coverings?
Never heard of it except incollege when they were telling
us why.
It was only for that time backthen.
(13:47):
And then we couldn't findpeople who were non-resistant.
Well, anyway, that was laterwhen we found that there were
other people online.
We found Followers of the Wayand Kingdom Fellowship Weekend
weekend, and there's two sermonsthat were hugely impactful.
(14:08):
One was the well, first of allI saw I kept showing, pausing it
every time someone in the crowdwas wearing a head cover and I
was like casey, look, and likeuh.
Then there's a sermon.
Casey was at work and is giveme children or die.
I think is the name, and Idon't even remember what he said
(14:29):
at this point, but I know thatit affected me where I, when my
wife, got home from work, I waslike you need to not be working,
you spending spending time withthe children and raising your
children, and so then we had tokind of adjust our life to one
less income.
And uh, but it was so.
(14:49):
It was 10 times more blessingsand I mean it was, it's just
what we needed.
And then the other one was thejust war debate, like the second
, we heard Dean and David,especially Dean Taylor when he
talked about did Jesus reallymean everything he said?
And can you follow Christwithout following Christ?
Right, and those things justrang so true.
(15:10):
And then the whole argument ofthe just war debate made me
instantly connect a bunch ofdots and realize that we are
supposed to be non-resistant, weare supposed to love our
enemies, even if it means dyingand being killed by our enemies,
instead of fighting and killingback.
And it just was a reallyforeign thing that made all the
(15:32):
scriptures start to make sense.
And I mean not just that, butit was.
There was so many weird thingsthat I still didn't understand,
because how can it be Jesus'steachings and you teachings and
fight and whatever?
We were chased out of China,basically.
And when we got to the States,we moved up to Pennsylvania.
(15:54):
We called to follow MatthewMiliani.
He said check out KFW and seewhat it's all about.
And so we went to KFW andeventually joined Chambersburg
Christian Fellowship.
That's kind of how we got herewell, yeah, again, I always it's
.
Zack Johnson (16:12):
I feel like we could go in 90 different
directions, but I'll just we'lltrace the ones that we've talked
about a little bit more.
So we were talking a little bitabout the number of
denominations out there.
I mentioned that if you do aquick search, it's either 30, 40
, 50,000 different denominationsfor our children, for college
(16:41):
students, along.
Hey, how do you, how do youdiscern what is truth when there
are so many competing,competing truths, and I think, I
think, in a certain point, thatthere will always be certain
differences that exist there.
Okay, but how do you thinkabout, like a base, how do you
test some of these denominationsand pursue truth or what's been
(17:05):
helpful to you in your life?
I kind of we already chattedabout it a little bit before,
but yeah, so it.
Daniel Willis (17:12):
it was a huge question of mine that that
question is what came up when Iwas surrounded by these
missionaries who all believesomething different, and and I'm
sitting there thinking how canone of these has to be true, or
none of them?
But they can't all be truebecause they're all conflicting
with each other.
And so I actually didn't have aton of peace about it, even
(17:35):
when we were on the journey,just following what we can
simply see in the scriptures,because what if we were wrong?
And so, when moving toChambersburg, I didn't really
know about this thing that wenow call the historic faith, and
it's the faith in Jude that wasonce delivered to all the
(17:57):
saints, and it was a completefaith that we're supposed to
contend earnestly for.
And it was a complete faiththat we're supposed to contend
earnestly for.
And if it was handed to thesaints, who are these saints?
And whenever I discovered notdiscovered, like I was out
hunting for them, but wheneversomeone mentioned people
mentioned the early Christiansand reading that all these early
(18:22):
Christians came to the sameconclusions of whenever you
follow it, simply, you arenon-resistant.
You do die for your enemiesinstead of fight.
You'd rather be stolen from, togive instead of receive.
I mean every single doctrinethat is hard to swallow that
most denominations would justtwist to make it more
(18:44):
comfortable for themselves oreven make it the opposite.
They actually believe, just,literally and simply, and it is
crazy to me that they got somany followers with how, from
the outside looking in, it is ahigh cost compared to there is
no cost almost in the save megospel.
(19:05):
It's in the of I accept Christso that I can be forgiven and
then nothing changes.
It's like there's cost.
And anyway, the early church iswhat gave me peace about it,
because it was these, theapostles handing this down to
(19:25):
the saints and they allunderstood the sermon mount for
today and as a literal teaching.
They all understood the gospelmessage as simply obeying
basically everything in therewithout twisting it and the, the
head covering, and I mean youname a hard teaching.
Zack Johnson (19:45):
they, you know yeah, and I think I think
earlier we there's this wheneveryou talk about the early church
, I think you have to be reallythere's some amazing things, and
then there's some like warnings, yeah, to put in.
And I think when, if peoplefirst start reading xyz author,
usually you read somethingthat's like, well, that is
(20:09):
coming out of left field.
We were talking.
I'd love to do you have anyexamples that come to your mind
on hey, when is when is theearly church useful, and are you
, are you still allowed to readthem, even though some of their
writings might seem prettypretty far out?
Daniel Willis (20:26):
I don't know what your thoughts are on that yeah,
there's actually a lot ofthings that will make a modern
day christian cringe.
There's a lot of things thatare hard to swallow, that are
actually important things.
But then there's things thatare like Clement of Alexandria.
When he talks about food andsauces Like when I read it I was
(20:48):
like I love ketchup and mustardand mayonnaise and ranch and
he's like saying run away anddon't, don't.
He's like talking about thesauces like they're evil.
But then if you keep reading, heeventually saying that's
because people are chasing thesethings all around the world,
looking for all the perfectingredients and spending all
their time and money to makethis one sauce that they
(21:11):
basically worship.
And it wasn't like just goingto your local store and grabbing
a sauce and for your whatever.
And then the other thing waslike hot showers.
I remember reading he wassaying we shouldn't get hot
showers and I was thinking likewhat's the problem?
But in the context back thenand they didn't have water
(21:33):
heaters you just plug in thewall and 20 minutes later you
have a hot shower.
It's they would spend half aday or quarter of the day
boiling water with a servant,normally so that they can be
comforted for a little bit oftime and I'm not saying that it
was completely uh, but hewouldn't have been dogmatic and
(21:54):
all the early.
It wasn't like all the earlyChristians saw these exact.
If if all of the earlyChristians would have been
talking about these things, thenmaybe it would have merit, you
know, but it wasn't.
It's like a one, this one guy,and a very godly guy at that,
who I would say is very credible.
But pointing out something thathe probably witnessed, some of
(22:15):
his church, the people in hischurch, spending too much money
and for something that you knowwasn't exactly needed, or
chasing sauces around the world.
But some things that are alsohard to swallow that are very
important is they would haveread the Septuagint, for example
, and nowadays, not long ago Iwas lifelong friends basically
(22:44):
won't talk to us because we readthe septuagint, no other reason
, and it went from luther sayingit was edifying but not
scripture.
And then a bunch of people,including jesus and others, who
quote it in our scriptures andthe early christians reading it
and following it and quoting it,quoting from it through most of
(23:06):
history until pretty recentlyand now friends are like that
opened my eyes that, okay, theseptuagint isn't some evil thing
.
And actually just recently.
Somehow people have beenconvinced that we shouldn't read
the septuagint.
Zack Johnson (23:20):
It's wrong and the septuagint is just a greek
translation of the hebrew text,plus some, plus a few other
things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I met your family thismorning and one of your sons
name is ignatius, and I'm notthe.
I'm not the expert on the earlychristian writers, but they've
(23:41):
obviously meant a lot to youenough that you would name your
sons after them.
But if you're trying to likeget started on hey, how do I
even poke around these resources?
Do you have any recommendationson a good place to start for
anybody that's kind ofinterested and yeah, um.
Daniel Willis (24:01):
Well, first of all, the early Christians are
absolutely not scripture.
They are fallible men who arereally, really intelligent and
who really you could tell thatthey spend their life consuming
the scripture.
It seems like they have so muchmemorized and just quote left
and right without references,and it's just they put a lot of
(24:25):
us, or maybe most of us, toshame.
But they're absolutely fallible, and not that they have all
these things that we can'tlisten to, but they're not the
scriptures.
But there's a few places.
One I really enjoyed JohnKersostom.
He resonates with me.
I don't know if he does withothers.
He's a little bit past thefirst 300 years of uh,
(24:48):
christianity, but he seems to bein line with it.
But also there's we have ahistoric faith online resources
that you could also go and seewhat the early christians said
about lots of different topicsthat would kind of introduce you
into um to get your feet wet tosee what they believed.
Zack Johnson (25:07):
And you're even saying that most of the most
quoted passages come frommatthew 5 to 7 in the sermon on
the mount.
That was like there.
Yeah, there's a lot ofattention to that.
Daniel Willis (25:17):
If you don't know if we should be following the
sermon mount today and you read,if you go get the book called
uh, early Commentary on theSermon on the Mount by Elliot
Nash.
It doesn't have his own words.
I do think he translated hemade it more modern English, but
that was it and it goes fromthe beginning of the Sermon on
(25:37):
the Mount Matthew 5 through 7,and just goes like if it's a
Beatitudes, he just puts all thequotes about the beatitudes and
what they believed about it andit's a really thick book and it
seems definitely, in my opinion, that has to be the thing they
wrote about most right, and itobviously was.
(25:58):
And they call it the law, likethe, the new law that we're
supposed to be following.
And you know we have a, a new, aking, the new moses,
Zack Johnson (26:07):
Yeah, and the new moses, yeah, yeah, and I think I
think just that I'm not reallysure I've spoken to a lot of
people about this idea ofdeveloping just this almost like
an insatiable hunger for truththat you're willing to engage
with new things kind ofcontinuously, and I don't know
if you have any thoughts on,like, how do you develop that
(26:30):
kind of hunger for truth that'sstill open to new, new things?
Because you know, I'm trying tosay where all of us have
changed over time in ourtestimonies.
So how do we disciple and raisepeople where they're becoming
convinced of truth but in acertain way, still open to have
(26:53):
new information come in as theyencounter new stuff to shape
their beliefs?
Is there any set like the rightguardrails around that, or is
it just going to be a sort of alifelong pursuit?
Daniel Willis (27:04):
Yeah, I think it's a good question.
I think that wherever, whateverdominate denomination you're a
part of, you're going to be onguard and try to keep other
things out, and it those, thepeople from that denomination,
would probably uh, keep not wanttheir followers to be opened up
(27:25):
new things.
The problem is is there are the44 or whatever thousand
denominations, and the questionis is how do we know what's true
?
I don't have peace with justhow do I say this.
So when you have a wholedenomination based on someone
(27:45):
who was from the 1800s or the1500s and it never was anything
before that, we should know ourhistory, right?
Um, and I'm not answering yourquestion very well no I think um
, I do have.
Zack Johnson (27:57):
I did have a reason to go through what I said
but I think I think part of theit's more of me just making a
comment with a question is thatsomehow we want to.
There's a.
There's a quote that by a guynamed belthasar belthasar
hubmeyer I actually brought himup earlier that truth is
unkillable, and that should bereally refreshing for christians
is like you can discover thistruth.
(28:18):
It kind of ties with whatyou're saying.
However, we can, it's.
It's really hard to know whenwe've arrived versus when we
need to keep looking.
Daniel Willis (28:28):
I have actually something really good, two
things about that.
So have you seen that?
There's a short that I saw onetime and it was some soccer
chant and they'd put the wordson the screen of what it it
sounded like and one of them waslike that is embarrassing.
(28:48):
Have you heard that?
See, I know what you're talkingabout and it goes, goes through
, and it's like whatever theyput on the screen.
You heard that and and so Ifeel like a lot of the I um, the
, a lot of the denominationsthat we're in.
We're given a lens and then weread, we're given what it's
supposed to mean and then weread something that could
(29:10):
literally be saying the opposite, but we're reading what we
think it's supposed to meanbecause it was put on the screen
.
We're hearing these.
That is embarrassing when it'ssome other language, some other
chant, and somehow we'reprogrammed into seeing these
things.
And another example is not longago and.
(29:31):
I walked outside after filmingsomething and me and my son
walked straight to our car andthere's this Hispanic man just
digging in our car and he grabssomething out and puts it in his
pocket and I was like I'dreally appreciate it If whatever
you took out of there you'dgive to me.
And he's like looking so guiltyat me and he's like like just
looked and I'm like I'd reallyappreciate it.
(29:53):
I said it again and then hekind of walked by me and I was
like I don't know what to do andI so I was open the door to get
in the car and he like pushedthe door and I'm like what is
going on here?
And then chantelle, who's stuckhere, she, she was there and
she goes hey, dan, is that yourcar over there?
And it was.
(30:17):
And so I parked is right infront of our church building.
I parked there yesterday forsix hours, the day before for
six hours.
That same spot, the same make,model color.
If you had asked me momentsbefore, 1 million percent, that
dude is digging in my car, it'syour stuff Taking my stuff.
I was like the thing is we canbe 100 percent convinced of
something being true and we canbe 100 percent wrong.
(30:37):
And so you have all thesedenominations pre-programmed us
to see something, a certain way,and we all think we're right.
Right and somewhere there is atruth and we have to be open.
This is what I was trying toget to is you were saying, well,
how can we be excited to go,look at these new things?
(31:01):
And a lot of denominations wouldtell you, put guards up, don't
look at anything else.
But we should be truth seekersand we should try to find out
the source, the primary sources,where it all started, and be
able to admit when we're wrong,like, okay, what if I would have
just kept getting in thatdude's car and saying it was my
car?
It's like that was my car overthere.
(31:24):
So I to finish the story, bythe way, I apologize sincerely
met a guy.
He didn't know spanish, I mean,he didn't know english.
That's why I look so guilty,because this burly guy walks up
to him and is like sayingsomething and right behind him,
like, like, like, looking,intruding in his space because
it was his car.
But I thought it was my car, soI thought I was in my space.
(31:45):
You know somebody?
Zack Johnson (31:46):
just happened.
Daniel Willis (31:47):
To watch the interaction from afar, yeah, and
so I'm like the and my son alsothought it was our car and even
looking in it and even when Iopened the back door I opened
the back door to get in it hadcar seats, look just like our
car, everything.
It was dark, it was at night,but it, like Chantel said that I
thought it was my car and thennot to say that his friend came
(32:09):
up and he's like, oh, is thatyour car?
It's the same year and he spokeEnglish and I was like I am so
sorry and I gave him both bighugs and they're really good
about it and happy, and I mean Iwasn't angry, angrily, saying
anything, but it was scary tothat guy probably, and that's
why I looked guilty.
It was because he was like whatis this guy saying?
He's on my grill and and he'strying to open my car door, so
(32:32):
it looked like he was guiltyfrom stealing something.
But it was just.
But that's how we can bedeceived.
We can really think something'strue and it'd be a lie, and so
if you really want to know ifit's the truth, we have to keep
working hard to find the truth.
Satan wants to.
Satan's biggest weapon, hisbest weapon, it's the lie that
(32:54):
lies, the greatest lie is thelie that lies closest to the
truth.
So he takes the truth and hetwists it just enough.
And if he can get someone whothinks they're a believer and
thinks they're right with God tobelieve, uh and.
But he's yet he's the enemy ofgod, he's on satan's side, but
(33:15):
he he's never going going to tryto get right with god because
he thinks he's right with god,right.
And so satan wants all of us.
Satan, I think, would ratherhave a bunch of people I'm not
sure which one's worse knowingyou're the enemy god and
choosing to be the enemy God, orbecause then, if you choose,
(33:36):
you know you're the enemy If youhave a choice to change and be
on the right side.
But if you think you're on theright side but you're on the
wrong side, you don't even knowyou need to switch teams, and so
Satan wants.
Satan has helped thesedenominations become what they
are and um, be disobedient andsay you can't please the lord
(33:57):
and so like.
If you have any thought thatthe bible actually might mean
what it says and jesus mightactually want us to do what he's
saying, it's our responsibilityto seek first the kingdom and
dig these things out and try tofigure out this, these matters,
and see what was handed down.
One One is that the Bible saysthat the faith was once for all
delivered to the saints thatwe're supposed to be earnestly
(34:20):
contending for.
What is it that we're supposedto contend for?
It wasn't what our parentshanded down to us.
It was what the apostles handeddown to the next generation.
What was handed to our parentshas a what's the probability of.
If there's 44 000 denominations, I bet some of them are in line
(34:40):
with god and walk them with aword, but like, what's our
chances of being in the rightone?
And I think it's reallyimportant to communicate.
Zack Johnson (34:49):
If people didn't catch it that, I think that
they'll that the book of lifehas people's names written
across wide swaths of these 100.
There's not.
I I think sometimes we're indanger of this, like there's
only one way and everybody elseis off of it.
Daniel Willis (35:03):
But I'll turn on a few things that yeah, and I
and I said that last time, sothis is take two of the the
podcast.
That's right, and the last timeI did say I believe there's
faithful devoutout Christiansand all these different
denominations.
But one of the things that I'vediscovered is that there are
there are churches that don'thave divorce and remarriage.
(35:24):
There are churches that aren'tdon't have people on on drugs
and aren't looking atpornography or if, if there are
some that happen, they'refighting against it tooth and
nail Right and they're makingbig decisions to stay off media
or to minimize it and to notscroll and things that pull us.
What was that quote last time?
(35:45):
You said about the evil, theroad from evil or something.
Zack Johnson (35:50):
The highway of the the upright is to flee from
evil.
It's a proverb, yeah, yeah.
Daniel Willis (35:54):
There's there the highway of the.
The upright is to flee fromevil.
It's a proverb.
Yeah, yeah, there's, there'schurches that are doing that and
there's people doing that, andthen there's, and anyway, yes, I
do believe that, but I wouldn'twant to be a part of something
that the chances of my childrengoing off into the world or
getting divorced is 50 50 chance.
That's right.
Zack Johnson (36:15):
I would rather be with a brotherhood that you know
strives to obey christ andeverything yeah, I was just a
couple of things you said mademe think about it's.
These aren't my thoughts, butwhen I, we, we have all our
students take a statisticscourse here and yeah, and I
actually think it's reallyinteresting, there's a guy that
(36:35):
comes and gives a, gives a guestlecture.
His name's byron byron smuckerand he's a.
He has a phd in statistics.
He's really really really sharpand he comes and talks about
statistics and faith and it'sit's actually shocking.
A lot of people haven't heardfaith talked about in
statistical terms.
Yeah, where.
And he just he, he basicallylays out the thesis that like,
(36:59):
hey, there's a differencebetween confidence and certainty
and statistics is not aboutcertainty, it's about confidence
.
Yeah, I think I think allowingthat to enter into your faith is
actually really freeing for alot of people.
Yeah, because I think a lot ofpeople have been raised to think
that, hey, if you're notcertain, then that's a problem.
(37:21):
Like you're not allowed to haveany doubts, but very few things
in life are.
Can we operate in certainties,and as soon as you do, I think
that's that's a problem.
So I always after this lecture,we always make some jokes that
if you ever hear anybody say I'm100% certain that X, y or Z.
You hear politicians say it,you hear different people.
(37:43):
I always say just write themoff.
You can't be on so many things.
But it's actually engaging withyour confidence.
It's actually engaging withyour confidence where I think
the early church.
The more you read of them, yourconfidence levels towards what
the scriptures mean I thinkstart to change more towards the
literal and less away from thecontextual sort of cultural
(38:08):
arguments.
The X, y, z is just for us.
And then you mentioned JohnConstostum as like a really good
place to start and people.
Daniel Willis (38:19):
Where can you find?
So my the easiest, and thereare free things out there, but
they're not normally allcompiled and searchable.
I mean, if you're very techsavvy you can search them.
But the kindle versions there'stwo or three that are like a
dollar, dollar 99, I don't knowthe exact cost now but they'll
have the whole, uh, pre and postnicene sets together and you
(38:45):
can uh, they're just really it'sa little hard because there's a
lot of, there are a lot ofwritings that actually are
spurious writings in them andthey'll normally say they're
spurious.
So you can't just readeverything in it.
You have to pay attention towhat the beginning says, because
it could just be some writingthat was written thousands of
(39:06):
years later under Ignatius, andit might not be his writing at
all, not thousands of years, butway later.
So you have to pay attention tothe beginnings.
But yeah, the kindle, um andkindle is the the easiest way to
get your feet wet yeah, that'sgreat and it's pretty cheap too.
Zack Johnson (39:26):
So anyone curious?
So the other thing I thought itwould be really interesting to
talk about is just like contentand media.
So content creation, digitalmedia and how you think about
guiding our interaction withthat.
I always I make some a lot ofjokes and that, on the one hand,
I get up behind the pulper onstage and warn people about the
(39:51):
effects of media consumption andand then, on the other end,
there seems to be thisincredible opportunity with the
internet creating sermons,creating content and letting it
spread and getting to the rightpeople, and I actually think
this is probably going to bereally something we should
constantly be thinking about.
(40:13):
But how do you think about sortof the balance between caution
and then the versus opportunitywith the power of the internet,
creating videos, um, socialmedia, the whole ecosystem and
youtube?
Daniel Willis (40:29):
I know, yeah, there's there's a lot of
different ways to take thatconversation yeah it, technology
isn't in itself evil, but wecan use it for good or for evil,
or we cannot use it, and it'sokay.
There's plenty of godly Amishthat aren't going to touch it.
And and there's times in ourlives where you know we need to
(41:01):
step away from it completely or,you know, focus on something
else and we, if we can't handleit, or if we can't control
ourselves, or if we're alwayslooking for the next dopamine
hit and we've found, findourselves addicted to something.
But it is the way that Christhas used these tools from
(41:26):
different things, like thefollowers of the way and kingdom
fellowship weekend, that mademe realize there's communities
of these people living out thesimple teachings of the Bible
the Bible is in their mostliteral interpretation, and that
I wasn't alone.
I think that my opinion wewouldn't have continued.
We might have, but I don'tthink we would have continued if
we didn't have a community ofpeople that also believe the
same thing.
We'd just be these lone rangersand feel like we're ostracizing
(41:47):
ourselves for no reason.
Why not just join the faithonly we can't please the Lord,
the faith only.
You know, like that we can'tplease the lord.
And um, why wear the headcovering.
And why does any of this matter?
You know, I think that knowingthat there was, uh, probably
millions of people doing this,if not more, I don't even know
(42:09):
um it like with these videosthat are on YouTube, I have a
feeling it saved our lives, umthat God could have used
something else.
So I have a passion to put itonline and to try to bring other
people out of the worldlychurches and out of disobedience
(42:32):
, and and to trying to liveworthy of the gospel of Christ.
But I do think that's the exactwords we should use as a
balance.
If we find we can't controlourselves, it's better to cut
off the hand.
Radical amputation, yeah.
But if we like in this ministry, we need to be uh.
(42:55):
When we go online, we need tomake sure we're not just
endlessly scrolling.
Have a purpose.
I mean, you can look up stuffthat's like, uh, the new tech or
things that aren't necessarilygodly, and but know what you're
going to look for.
Don't just waste time fordopamine hits.
And.
And have accountabilitypartners.
Have the apps on your phonethat tell people, have open
(43:20):
discussion with discipleshipgroups, yeah.
Zack Johnson (43:23):
I think a weekly conversation with people you
trust is a huge You're jokingthe question that our groups, my
church, uses, and thensomething similar seems have you
looked at anything foolish ormoral and pornographic?
Yeah, in the last week, like Ithink it's that important that
we need to review it that oftenwith each other.
Daniel Willis (43:44):
But anyway, one of our I won't be able to say
this, but I'm going to say itOne of our things that we say is
we say would you watch it withDebra Bursa, that's the white,
the godly woman in your church?
No, we watch it.
It actually changed after thattoo.
(44:04):
Would you watch it with otherbrothers in the church?
Because we found that not,there are foolish things that
aren't ungodly and yes, god,there's funny things of you know
.
And are we wasting time?
Some of those questions likewhat, what's the reason and
behind it, um, but like, wouldwe share it with our brothers
(44:26):
and sisters?
If not, then we probablyshouldn't be digging into any of
that mine.
Zack Johnson (44:31):
So I know this is this is funny for me, but what
I've even found is, even whenyou have peer level brothers,
that sometimes you kind of giveeach other passes because you
know it's like you're allstruggling with the same thing.
So you start to give passes.
I always in my context if I, ifI'm like, would I watch this in
front of somebody that isviewing me as like a leader in
(44:55):
some capacity?
Yeah, and even my kids like, oryour grandma, or something like
that, but I think that's like areally interesting perspective.
Like, if there's some new to thefaith, would you want them to
catch you watching this thingwhen you're trying to disciple
them into the ways of Christ?
And so basically, I just wantto hear your thoughts.
Daniel Willis (45:19):
you think it's probably worth people paying
attention to creating goodcontent, leveraging what we can
leverage I absolutely think thatif the gospel of the kingdom is
going to get out to everybodythat, yeah, we can do it, we can
go knock on doors.
Like you know, the job of awitness did a really good job
(45:42):
and you're still doing a goodjob.
You're going to be an elder.
You got to knock on 150 doors,but so we put out uh, they had.
I was looking into thestatistics I don't remember what
they were of how many peopleactually become a Jehovah
Witness.
They knock on a ton of doors toget one convert.
And we last month and it wasmostly because of shorts, but we
(46:09):
had like around 50,000, there'sa few days that it was 50,000
views in one month 28 daysthat's how youtube splits it up
for the sound fave channel andlike the percentages of the
convert are really low.
But it's like knocking on theirdoors, like we're knocking on
their doors and really easily,like we have the ability to
(46:29):
infiltrate their homes and likewe can choose to not use it.
But I feel like it'sirresponsible that we have the
ability to go into and it waslike all these countries, like
the netherlands though there's alist of all these countries, of
people watching it.
I'm thinking you know how hardit would have been to go to
those countries.
And then we're getting peoplelike saying that their lives
(46:52):
have been changed and peoplemoving in because they watched
YouTube.
And to me it's not anything onYouTube.
Yeah, to me it's totally worthit.
But we have to be responsible.
We're not condoning justwatching anything that's on
YouTube or any.
And Facebook is one thing that Ido want to warn about.
Absolutely I don't think youshould watch video content on
(47:15):
Facebook.
I really think their algorithmhas they don't care.
If you don't want to watchsomething Like on YouTube, you
can say not interested and youreport it as sexual.
And I make it a habit to reportanything, anything that's like
the world wouldn't think whatthe things I report is sexual
Like.
Most everybody would thinkthat's ridiculous.
That I'm saying think what thethings I report is sexual like
most everybody would thinkthat's ridiculous.
(47:36):
And I'm saying that's sexualbut it's obviously sexually
appealing.
You hit not interested, reportand then not interested, and
then with a in a very short timeyou don't get these
recommendations or whatever youcall them.
You don't get things in yourfeed that are bad I mean I'm not
saying everything, but notsexually stimulating at all, and
(47:57):
every once in a while you mightget something, but you just get
in the habit of reporting itand saying not interested.
If the if in the future that'snot the case, I think I would
possibly get off the platformaltogether and try to figure out
some other way.
But facebook, you can say notinterested and or whatever it is
, you can report it, but itdoesn't matter, they just keep
(48:17):
feeding it and so it's like youdon't, don't get on.
In my opinion it's.
I don't think the algorithmitself is evil, but whoever made
it doesn't care about rightmorals or what people want to
not see right.
Is that a way to say that?
Zack Johnson (48:31):
yeah, that makes sense well, and I just I think
that I think I agree with youand I I do agree with you.
(48:53):
That's why I I Is that a way?
I say that in my own humblefailings on thinking, I'm
stronger than I am with notbeing allured by things that are
foolish, immoral andpornographic.
There's a constant allure outthere and I think there's power
there, but technology untetheredfrom morals produces terrible
(49:16):
consequences and we just have tobe careful with that.
Daniel Willis (49:20):
What, what is a foolish?
Zack Johnson (49:25):
Well, you tell me no, I mean, I think foolish.
Daniel Willis (49:30):
So I watch videos .
Editing videos, right yeah, howto like make something in the
background look like it's in theforeground and this guy I
forget his name there's all thislike almost magic tricks with
editing.
Zack Johnson (49:42):
Like I still can't figure out how he does it, but
it's half the time funny orfoolish and like I think, I
think, if you're using contentfor a skill you're trying to
acquire, it would be hard for meto put that in the foolish
category, but I think, like justa lot.
Daniel Willis (49:58):
It's always been a thing that it's fun to put out
there, because I don't know itfeels like.
Zack Johnson (50:03):
It feels like there's a lot of comedy out
there that's very prevalent,that runs it, I think.
I think it makes you kind offeel good and you laugh, but
there I think a lot of comedycan be foolish.
There's like there's the coursejoking message that I think a
to political banter, that yeah,just because I think it it's
(50:38):
interesting and intriguing, Iput some of that stuff in the
foolish category.
Um, yeah, endless, endlessshows about shows, about movie
shows and consumer digest stuff.
I think a lot of us could endup watching reviews on a product
we're looking for for likethree hours.
(50:59):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, but I think each of ushas to really identify that a
lot of that for ourselves.
But I think there are prettyblack and white foolish things
to stay away from.
Daniel Willis (51:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's what.
Like it's just hard.
The word is from yeah.
Yeah, that's what, like it'sjust hard.
The word is seems broad to me,like there's something can be
like my brothers in christ willdo something, maybe foolish, but
I don't think it was wrong.
Like, and I don't mean in asingle way no, no that really go
.
That was funny and we we talk.
Zack Johnson (51:30):
We talk about this verse, about when we're that
Paul says cast off the sin andthe weight, and I think even
Paul identifies things that aresinful and then things that are
just weights, and I think that Ithink there is a category of
things that maybe not might bein the sinful category, but
(51:52):
they're not don't have worth.
You can, yeah, you can, fill inthe the blank like doing x made
me a better person, like and Ithink those are the category of
weights that they're notprohibited, so to speak, but it
would.
We would be better people atthe end of our lives if we learn
how to have a like.
Daniel Willis (52:10):
Oh, that's a good way to talk about it, I don't
know.
It's just whenever it's next topornographic, it's like, okay,
well, you know, swatching theboy stick his tongue to the ice
pole was foolish, but it wasn'tin that category over there.
Are they right next to eachother in this question, because
we have the same question, soyeah, yeah, I'm not gonna.
Zack Johnson (52:31):
I could try to get into my own like theory of
what's foolish for myself, butbut I but I think.
I think at the end of the day,the Holy Spirit gives us a
conscience.
And if, if people have aninstinct to confess that you
watch something foolish, that'swhere I'm always like I think
you should jump on that and belike if you're going to confess
it, then don't like, try not todo it again, right, it and don't
(52:56):
like, try not to do it again.
Daniel Willis (52:57):
right, well, I only confess, yeah, a lot of the
things, because there there'sso many things that in all day
life, not just on videos, butyou go anywhere and hang out for
a minute, yeah, something willbe foolish in front of you and
it's like but it wasn't like Iwant to surrender anything- yeah
, I think it's like for me ifanyway.
That's why they changed thething to would you watch it with
(53:20):
certain female?
It's hilarious.
Zack Johnson (53:21):
That makes sense Um, that's a good.
It's actually a good way tothink about it.
Think about the person youvalue most and then make frame
that as your reflective question.
Yeah, is there?
I know we went all over theplace, I'm sorry.
No, no, this is great.
This is great.
Is there?
Is there anything else you wantto cover?
Daniel Willis (53:39):
we're kind of approaching the hour here and
it's always helpful to sort ofwrap it up you know I'm really
thankful for the things thatyou're working on and your
service here and, uh, I don'tdon't have a whole lot extra.
I've probably said stuff,another one that we could have
said, but yeah, and our firstrecording and your work again.
(54:02):
Sound faith is sort of uh, yeah, that's how we're used the
historic faith are kind of likethe biggest things we do.
And then all nations, bibletranslators, and strength, of
strength.
Zack Johnson (54:14):
If you haven't seen them, they're great and so
sound faith is a youtube channel, just you can find it on
youtube, and the historic faithis a website yep, with a, I
can't remember if there's ayoutube no, there is a youtube
channel, but it's not as I heard.
Daniel Willis (54:27):
Yeah, you have to go on the website to find the
content.
The website and then there'sthe strength of strength books
is a really good one, with a lotof really edifying books, um,
and scroll publishing and, yeah,some some good things out there
and saddler podcast great.
Zack Johnson (54:47):
Well, hopefully the satellite probably gets gets
better over time.
But hey, daniel, thanks forthanks for being here with us,
and God bless you.
All right, it's December 9th 2024.
This is take three actually.
Daniel Willis (00:10):
Oh, don't say that.
Zack Johnson (00:12):
No, I made a joke that we filmed earlier, or we
recorded an hour long and thenit didn't get recorded.
So we're going to re-record.
Yes, I'm here with DanielWillis.
Daniel, welcome to Boston.
Hey, thanks, it's weird to saythat twice, so I'm.
I'll just start off by askingwhat is your current work and
(00:34):
where can we, where can we findsome of the work that you do?
Daniel Willis (00:36):
just to frame sort of who you are and what
you're doing currently yeah, Iam a videographer and video
editor and I edit for differentYouTube channels, Including
Sadler's.
Including Sadler that'simportant, I'm just kidding.
I used to do it for thefollowers the way they wanted it
in-house, just because there'speople that wanted to do it.
But for Strength to StrengthSound Faith, Sound Faith, Music,
(01:00):
Hope for Wonder in Amish, AllNations, Bible Translators and a
bunch of other YouTube channelson and off, like Kingdom
Fellowship Weekends once a year.
There's certain things that arejust a few times a year, but it
was my passion because ithelped.
Things like that.
Videos that I've seen onlinebrought me to a more obedient
faith Following Christ,following the Sermon on the
(01:22):
Mount and having a brotherhoodand not being a Lone Ranger.
It was something that's becomevery passionate to me and so,
thankfully, God gave me theability to make it a job where I
can feed my family by editingfor these different faithful
churches.
Zack Johnson (01:37):
Yeah.
So I'm really excited to haveyou here, because here we always
record some things and they getsent off from the internet and
I know that you're doing a lotof it on the other end.
But I'd love to launch with thetypical what's your condensed
story?
I know you could probably talkfor a long time about your story
.
Some bits of your testimony,some of your passions will
(01:59):
probably come out through that.
Can you condense that?
Daniel Willis (02:02):
into a?
Yeah, growing up I wasn't in anormal christian family.
My dad was an alcoholic, mybrothers were into drugs and
selling drugs.
I got a felony when I was 13,started fight clubs, sent people
to hospital, destroyed allkinds of properties did, did all
kinds of bad things, includingmeant literally planning to kill
(02:24):
someone, and didn't do it,thankfully.
And Christ got a hold of methrough my football coach,
invited me to go to a StarlightCrusade, a Baptist preaching
event where they have all thisentertainment for children and
these bands.
And then there's this hellfireand brimstone sermon and I had
just got a felony and knew thatsomething was wrong and the
(02:48):
pastor, it felt like, wasdescribing me and all the sins
and these things that I could befree from.
And I honestly do believe thatafter that baptism, god was
working with me and guiding me.
I wasn't perfect.
I couldn't read.
I didn't go to churchafterwards.
I didn't have a Bible.
I wasn't capable of reading.
(03:09):
I didn't read very well at all,I should say my reading
comprehension was very low.
I was a bully.
Then, after I became aChristian, I knew that I was
supposed to abstain from sexualrelations and not do drugs and I
realized my bullying was notchrist-like, and so I started
bullying the bullies.
(03:29):
And what, what did you call itlast?
Oh, vigilante, vigilante, yeah,what I did.
And when it wasn't good itseemed good.
Until when I turned 16 andstarted going to church I
realized a lot of the thingsthat I thought were godly
weren't godly, and my lifechanged a lot at that point.
But they realized I hadstruggled reading and they gave
(03:52):
me an NLT and I told them I wasstruggling reading that.
Then one of my elders gave methe Bible on CD or somehow I got
a hold of it I'm pretty surethat's how it was and then I
just listened to it and listenedto it and read and listened to
it and it just became like mypassion.
It was like everything I wantto do is consume the bible.
I carried it around, uh, highschool and I think everybody
(04:15):
thought I was extremely weirdbecause I went from this you
know, jock, beating up people,to always talking about jesus
and giving people hugs andtelling them that we actually
have to live for Christ.
Then went to Johnson University, met my wife, was called into
missions work and I had a triplemajor missions, bible and TESOL
(04:39):
or ESL major.
And then me and my wife.
We got that because we wereplanning to go to China and I
needed to know about missionsand what not to do mostly.
Zack Johnson (04:51):
And then did you yeah, when you started, did you
know you wanted to go to China?
Not?
Daniel Willis (04:56):
necessarily so.
A lot of the people from thesebackground churches maybe think
of my story as a veryevangelical kind of thing.
When I was 13, actually after Igot the felony I was sitting at
a church after doing communityservice at that church, and I
knew sitting there that I wasn'tsupposed to just be someone
(05:18):
sitting there, that I wasactually supposed to.
I'd just been baptized and Iwas supposed to do something
else.
Like my imagination was to be apreacher and but I didn't want
to, but like I just had thislike feeling I'm supposed to be
preaching and and so I foughtthat feeling for a long time.
And then at Johnson BibleCollege, what the church of
(05:41):
Christ that I went to.
Before I went to Johnson BibleCollege, one of the sermons on
Noah was making yourselfavailable to God, and he taught
us like when you hearmissionaries preach or anything
like that, make yourselfavailable, like ask God if it's
what he wants you to do or not.
So I got to college and we hadchapel every day and during
(06:01):
Wednesdays we'd havemissionaries and one of the
missionaries was from China andI was actually working full time
to pay for the college and Iwas doing homework and I
shouldn't have been in chapel,but I was trying to get homework
done that was due.
And then, after his message, Isaid, god, is this what you want
me to do?
Where am I go?
Kind of a habitual thing.
(06:21):
And then I got chills all overmy body and I was like god, I
don't want an answer from chillsand I just want to know is this
what you want me to do, whereyou want me to go?
And they increased and thenasked again.
And then I had no idea whatchina was like.
All I knew was everybody waskung fu artists and great at
ping pong and really short andstarving, um, and none of that
(06:45):
is really true, but the.
And then I started crying and Iwas like, okay, I'll go.
And then, literally after that,he literally answered my prayer
and let me know, I'm supposedto go to china.
And so I switched my major frompreaching to missions.
And then then I realized youhave to when you go to china.
You have to.
When you go to China, you haveto get a visa and you can't just
(07:05):
go.
And so then I had to figure outhow to get in there.
So I changed my major, added amajor.
Anyway, then we get to China.
Is there anything you want tointerject?
Okay, and we the.
(07:40):
There's a lot that happenedbefore the first church plant.
But we had a church plant thatI did with a Baptist pastor
because nobody.
All the other missionaries werekind excited to see someone
else that wanted to try to dothat.
So I started working with himand as we were planning this
church and reaching out andfinding people and bringing
people to Christ, I realizedhalf of his sermons literally
were sending me to hell.
(08:01):
He would say something in asermon like if you believe this
way, you're going to hell.
If you believe baptism doesanything to save you or wash
away your sins, you're going tohell.
He would say something in asermon like if you believe this
way, you're going to hell.
If you believe baptism doesanything to save you or wash
away your sins, you're going tohell.
If you believe you can pleasethe lord you know he equated it
to works, righteousness, as ifyou're trying to work which I
didn't believe you can earn yoursalvation.
But I believed we can, lord,and uh anyway, and he would say
(08:24):
any that those things made mereally start to to question my
faith, especially whenever hewould.
He had a different opinion onmodesty and women's roles in the
church and the headship ororder, and as I studied those
things I realized I was wrongabout a lot of the things he
(08:45):
preached on he was right, but Istill thought he was wrong about
a lot of the other things.
And as I dug into these mattersI realized there's so much more
I didn't know.
And we were going to aninternational church at the same
time and I was gettingconfronted by Calvinists and
Pentecostals and all kinds ofdifferent missionaries, so I was
(09:06):
the only missionary that hadthis like church of Christ kind
of mindset, and actually none ofthe.
We all got along but none of usreally saw eye to eye at the
same time, and so it made me I'dhad an that in my Christian
life.
That much until this point.
And so it made me really dig inand try to figure out what the
(09:29):
truth was.
And we started a second churchplant.
We moved out of the city andfurther out of the city where we
didn't know missionaries wereliving, and we tried to start
one there.
And then I realized I wasreally afraid to teach at this
moment because everything that Ihad learned I don't know how
much of it was the truth,because I was discovering all
(09:51):
kinds of things that I was doingwrong and that I taught that
was wrong.
I decided we're going to readall the way through each.
There's a teacher that said thebest way to read all the
scriptures is, when you start abook, start read it from start
to finish.
And so we started.
(10:13):
We found Chinese people willingto do that, and we started
doing that on Thursdays, andthere I would ask questions like
what does this mean about God?
What does it mean to a man and,if it's true, what are we
supposed to do with it?
(10:33):
And their answers were just sosimple and pure and they would
see things that were obviouslywritten there, but because of
the perspective that was givento me, I didn't see it.
And things like uh, no matterwhat and all things, don't
complain or argue.
And I took it so serious thatthat really, I had always been
in churches where peoplecomplain and argue and you were
(10:54):
telling you were telling meearlier, this was like people
interacting with the scripturesfor the first time.
Yeah, a lot of them, yeah, yeah,like, yeah, there's a few
ladies that were uh, uh, theywere had gone to the three self
church, which is a governmentchurch, but they couldn't read
and the three self churchdoesn't.
(11:16):
I'm not going to get into that,that's.
It's just not a good thing.
Most, most of the time.
Every once in a while you findone that's decent, but they
rotate the leaders and half ofthem are communist party
officials and don't believe inChrist at all and they're
teaching, you know, for theirtheir make, helping trying to
make Christians like uphold tothe communist parties.
(11:36):
You know thoughts or whatever,but they couldn't read and they
we.
Sometimes we just read out loud.
But then we realized, on thelonger books, like Matthew, mark
and Luke and some of the OldTestament books, it was easier
to just play the audio and allof us follow along and it just
became so real to them.
After Matthew was the first one, they all wanted to stick
(11:58):
around and read Luke and it waslike one o'clock in the morning
and I was like, yeah, I got togo home, my wife's at home and I
got work tomorrow and um, butthey were so excited to hear the
word of God.
And through that, when we gotto Corinthians, all the ladies
asked me about the head coveringand I first brushed it off and
(12:20):
just said, oh, it's theprostitutes or it's a long hair.
And then I got home and I waslike, how could it be?
Both Like if it's the long hair, then it wouldn't have been the
prostitutes.
And my mind was just made upbecause it was.
It is the long hair and becauseof the prostitutes in Corinth.
And then I started searching itand my wife ends up asking me
about it and I didn't bring itup to her and she had been
(12:44):
reading because we were at that.
She knew what we were going tobe reading that night and she
wasn't there.
And then eventually I said youjust need to read it and, you
know, make up your mind on it.
And we, because we had alreadygone on this journey and started
changing everything to thealmost the most literal version
(13:04):
of what scripture is, the mostsimple understanding of it.
And she came out of the roomone day, a few days later, with
a beanie on her head and I neverseen her wear it in this house,
and so it's like.
I was like, is this it?
And she was like, yeah, it,let's do this.
We discussed it like maybe inthe future, if we found out
(13:26):
we're wrong, you know she'llstop wearing head coverings.
And then we started to try tofigure out at that point were we
some weird cult, like we don'tknow anybody in the world who
wears head coverings?
Never heard of it except incollege when they were telling
us why.
It was only for that time backthen.
(13:47):
And then we couldn't findpeople who were non-resistant.
Well, anyway, that was laterwhen we found that there were
other people online.
We found Followers of the Wayand Kingdom Fellowship Weekend
weekend, and there's two sermonsthat were hugely impactful.
(14:08):
One was the well, first of allI saw I kept showing, pausing it
every time someone in the crowdwas wearing a head cover and I
was like casey, look, and likeuh.
Then there's a sermon.
Casey was at work and is giveme children or die.
I think is the name, and Idon't even remember what he said
(14:29):
at this point, but I know thatit affected me where I, when my
wife, got home from work, I waslike you need to not be working,
you spending spending time withthe children and raising your
children, and so then we had tokind of adjust our life to one
less income.
And uh, but it was so.
(14:49):
It was 10 times more blessingsand I mean it was, it's just
what we needed.
And then the other one was thejust war debate, like the second
, we heard Dean and David,especially Dean Taylor when he
talked about did Jesus reallymean everything he said?
And can you follow Christwithout following Christ?
Right, and those things justrang so true.
(15:10):
And then the whole argument ofthe just war debate made me
instantly connect a bunch ofdots and realize that we are
supposed to be non-resistant, weare supposed to love our
enemies, even if it means dyingand being killed by our enemies,
instead of fighting and killingback.
And it just was a reallyforeign thing that made all the
(15:32):
scriptures start to make sense.
And I mean not just that, butit was.
There was so many weird thingsthat I still didn't understand,
because how can it be Jesus'steachings and you teachings and
fight and whatever?
We were chased out of China,basically.
And when we got to the States,we moved up to Pennsylvania.
(15:54):
We called to follow MatthewMiliani.
He said check out KFW and seewhat it's all about.
And so we went to KFW andeventually joined Chambersburg
Christian Fellowship.
That's kind of how we got herewell, yeah, again, I always it's
.
Zack Johnson (16:12):
I feel like we could go in 90 different
directions, but I'll just we'lltrace the ones that we've talked
about a little bit more.
So we were talking a little bitabout the number of
denominations out there.
I mentioned that if you do aquick search, it's either 30, 40
, 50,000 different denominationsfor our children, for college
(16:41):
students, along.
Hey, how do you, how do youdiscern what is truth when there
are so many competing,competing truths, and I think, I
think, in a certain point, thatthere will always be certain
differences that exist there.
Okay, but how do you thinkabout, like a base, how do you
test some of these denominationsand pursue truth or what's been
(17:05):
helpful to you in your life?
I kind of we already chattedabout it a little bit before,
but yeah, so it.
Daniel Willis (17:12):
it was a huge question of mine that that
question is what came up when Iwas surrounded by these
missionaries who all believesomething different, and and I'm
sitting there thinking how canone of these has to be true, or
none of them?
But they can't all be truebecause they're all conflicting
with each other.
And so I actually didn't have aton of peace about it, even
(17:35):
when we were on the journey,just following what we can
simply see in the scriptures,because what if we were wrong?
And so, when moving toChambersburg, I didn't really
know about this thing that wenow call the historic faith, and
it's the faith in Jude that wasonce delivered to all the
(17:57):
saints, and it was a completefaith that we're supposed to
contend earnestly for.
And it was a complete faiththat we're supposed to contend
earnestly for.
And if it was handed to thesaints, who are these saints?
And whenever I discovered notdiscovered, like I was out
hunting for them, but wheneversomeone mentioned people
mentioned the early Christiansand reading that all these early
(18:22):
Christians came to the sameconclusions of whenever you
follow it, simply, you arenon-resistant.
You do die for your enemiesinstead of fight.
You'd rather be stolen from, togive instead of receive.
I mean every single doctrinethat is hard to swallow that
most denominations would justtwist to make it more
(18:44):
comfortable for themselves oreven make it the opposite.
They actually believe, just,literally and simply, and it is
crazy to me that they got somany followers with how, from
the outside looking in, it is ahigh cost compared to there is
no cost almost in the save megospel.
(19:05):
It's in the of I accept Christso that I can be forgiven and
then nothing changes.
It's like there's cost.
And anyway, the early church iswhat gave me peace about it,
because it was these, theapostles handing this down to
(19:25):
the saints and they allunderstood the sermon mount for
today and as a literal teaching.
They all understood the gospelmessage as simply obeying
basically everything in therewithout twisting it and the, the
head covering, and I mean youname a hard teaching.
Zack Johnson (19:45):
they, you know yeah, and I think I think
earlier we there's this wheneveryou talk about the early church
, I think you have to be reallythere's some amazing things, and
then there's some like warnings, yeah, to put in.
And I think when, if peoplefirst start reading xyz author,
usually you read somethingthat's like, well, that is
(20:09):
coming out of left field.
We were talking.
I'd love to do you have anyexamples that come to your mind
on hey, when is when is theearly church useful, and are you
, are you still allowed to readthem, even though some of their
writings might seem prettypretty far out?
Daniel Willis (20:26):
I don't know what your thoughts are on that yeah,
there's actually a lot ofthings that will make a modern
day christian cringe.
There's a lot of things thatare hard to swallow, that are
actually important things.
But then there's things thatare like Clement of Alexandria.
When he talks about food andsauces Like when I read it I was
(20:48):
like I love ketchup and mustardand mayonnaise and ranch and
he's like saying run away anddon't, don't.
He's like talking about thesauces like they're evil.
But then if you keep reading, heeventually saying that's
because people are chasing thesethings all around the world,
looking for all the perfectingredients and spending all
their time and money to makethis one sauce that they
(21:11):
basically worship.
And it wasn't like just goingto your local store and grabbing
a sauce and for your whatever.
And then the other thing waslike hot showers.
I remember reading he wassaying we shouldn't get hot
showers and I was thinking likewhat's the problem?
But in the context back thenand they didn't have water
(21:33):
heaters you just plug in thewall and 20 minutes later you
have a hot shower.
It's they would spend half aday or quarter of the day
boiling water with a servant,normally so that they can be
comforted for a little bit oftime and I'm not saying that it
was completely uh, but hewouldn't have been dogmatic and
(21:54):
all the early.
It wasn't like all the earlyChristians saw these exact.
If if all of the earlyChristians would have been
talking about these things, thenmaybe it would have merit, you
know, but it wasn't.
It's like a one, this one guy,and a very godly guy at that,
who I would say is very credible.
But pointing out something thathe probably witnessed, some of
(22:15):
his church, the people in hischurch, spending too much money
and for something that you knowwasn't exactly needed, or
chasing sauces around the world.
But some things that are alsohard to swallow that are very
important is they would haveread the Septuagint, for example
, and nowadays, not long ago Iwas lifelong friends basically
(22:44):
won't talk to us because we readthe septuagint, no other reason
, and it went from luther sayingit was edifying but not
scripture.
And then a bunch of people,including jesus and others, who
quote it in our scriptures andthe early christians reading it
and following it and quoting it,quoting from it through most of
(23:06):
history until pretty recentlyand now friends are like that
opened my eyes that, okay, theseptuagint isn't some evil thing
.
And actually just recently.
Somehow people have beenconvinced that we shouldn't read
the septuagint.
Zack Johnson (23:20):
It's wrong and the septuagint is just a greek
translation of the hebrew text,plus some, plus a few other
things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I met your family thismorning and one of your sons
name is ignatius, and I'm notthe.
I'm not the expert on the earlychristian writers, but they've
(23:41):
obviously meant a lot to youenough that you would name your
sons after them.
But if you're trying to likeget started on hey, how do I
even poke around these resources?
Do you have any recommendationson a good place to start for
anybody that's kind ofinterested and yeah, um.
Daniel Willis (24:01):
Well, first of all, the early Christians are
absolutely not scripture.
They are fallible men who arereally, really intelligent and
who really you could tell thatthey spend their life consuming
the scripture.
It seems like they have so muchmemorized and just quote left
and right without references,and it's just they put a lot of
(24:25):
us, or maybe most of us, toshame.
But they're absolutely fallible, and not that they have all
these things that we can'tlisten to, but they're not the
scriptures.
But there's a few places.
One I really enjoyed JohnKersostom.
He resonates with me.
I don't know if he does withothers.
He's a little bit past thefirst 300 years of uh,
(24:48):
christianity, but he seems to bein line with it.
But also there's we have ahistoric faith online resources
that you could also go and seewhat the early christians said
about lots of different topicsthat would kind of introduce you
into um to get your feet wet tosee what they believed.
Zack Johnson (25:07):
And you're even saying that most of the most
quoted passages come frommatthew 5 to 7 in the sermon on
the mount.
That was like there.
Yeah, there's a lot ofattention to that.
Daniel Willis (25:17):
If you don't know if we should be following the
sermon mount today and you read,if you go get the book called
uh, early Commentary on theSermon on the Mount by Elliot
Nash.
It doesn't have his own words.
I do think he translated hemade it more modern English, but
that was it and it goes fromthe beginning of the Sermon on
(25:37):
the Mount Matthew 5 through 7,and just goes like if it's a
Beatitudes, he just puts all thequotes about the beatitudes and
what they believed about it andit's a really thick book and it
seems definitely, in my opinion, that has to be the thing they
wrote about most right, and itobviously was.
(25:58):
And they call it the law, likethe, the new law that we're
supposed to be following.
And you know we have a, a new, aking, the new moses,
Zack Johnson (26:07):
Yeah, and the new moses, yeah, yeah, and I think I
think just that I'm not reallysure I've spoken to a lot of
people about this idea ofdeveloping just this almost like
an insatiable hunger for truththat you're willing to engage
with new things kind ofcontinuously, and I don't know
if you have any thoughts on,like, how do you develop that
(26:30):
kind of hunger for truth that'sstill open to new, new things?
Because you know, I'm trying tosay where all of us have
changed over time in ourtestimonies.
So how do we disciple and raisepeople where they're becoming
convinced of truth but in acertain way, still open to have
(26:53):
new information come in as theyencounter new stuff to shape
their beliefs?
Is there any set like the rightguardrails around that, or is
it just going to be a sort of alifelong pursuit?
Daniel Willis (27:04):
Yeah, I think it's a good question.
I think that wherever, whateverdominate denomination you're a
part of, you're going to be onguard and try to keep other
things out, and it those, thepeople from that denomination,
would probably uh, keep not wanttheir followers to be opened up
(27:25):
new things.
The problem is is there are the44 or whatever thousand
denominations, and the questionis is how do we know what's true
?
I don't have peace with justhow do I say this.
So when you have a wholedenomination based on someone
(27:45):
who was from the 1800s or the1500s and it never was anything
before that, we should know ourhistory, right?
Um, and I'm not answering yourquestion very well no I think um
, I do have.
Zack Johnson (27:57):
I did have a reason to go through what I said
but I think I think part of theit's more of me just making a
comment with a question is thatsomehow we want to.
There's a.
There's a quote that by a guynamed belthasar belthasar
hubmeyer I actually brought himup earlier that truth is
unkillable, and that should bereally refreshing for christians
is like you can discover thistruth.
(28:18):
It kind of ties with whatyou're saying.
However, we can, it's.
It's really hard to know whenwe've arrived versus when we
need to keep looking.
Daniel Willis (28:28):
I have actually something really good, two
things about that.
So have you seen that?
There's a short that I saw onetime and it was some soccer
chant and they'd put the wordson the screen of what it it
sounded like and one of them waslike that is embarrassing.
(28:48):
Have you heard that?
See, I know what you're talkingabout and it goes, goes through
, and it's like whatever theyput on the screen.
You heard that and and so Ifeel like a lot of the I um, the
, a lot of the denominationsthat we're in.
We're given a lens and then weread, we're given what it's
supposed to mean and then weread something that could
(29:10):
literally be saying the opposite, but we're reading what we
think it's supposed to meanbecause it was put on the screen
.
We're hearing these.
That is embarrassing when it'ssome other language, some other
chant, and somehow we'reprogrammed into seeing these
things.
And another example is not longago and.
(29:31):
I walked outside after filmingsomething and me and my son
walked straight to our car andthere's this Hispanic man just
digging in our car and he grabssomething out and puts it in his
pocket and I was like I'dreally appreciate it If whatever
you took out of there you'dgive to me.
And he's like looking so guiltyat me and he's like like just
looked and I'm like I'd reallyappreciate it.
(29:53):
I said it again and then hekind of walked by me and I was
like I don't know what to do andI so I was open the door to get
in the car and he like pushedthe door and I'm like what is
going on here?
And then chantelle, who's stuckhere, she, she was there and
she goes hey, dan, is that yourcar over there?
And it was.
(30:17):
And so I parked is right infront of our church building.
I parked there yesterday forsix hours, the day before for
six hours.
That same spot, the same make,model color.
If you had asked me momentsbefore, 1 million percent, that
dude is digging in my car, it'syour stuff Taking my stuff.
I was like the thing is we canbe 100 percent convinced of
something being true and we canbe 100 percent wrong.
(30:37):
And so you have all thesedenominations pre-programmed us
to see something, a certain way,and we all think we're right.
Right and somewhere there is atruth and we have to be open.
This is what I was trying toget to is you were saying, well,
how can we be excited to go,look at these new things?
(31:01):
And a lot of denominations wouldtell you, put guards up, don't
look at anything else.
But we should be truth seekersand we should try to find out
the source, the primary sources,where it all started, and be
able to admit when we're wrong,like, okay, what if I would have
just kept getting in thatdude's car and saying it was my
car?
It's like that was my car overthere.
(31:24):
So I to finish the story, bythe way, I apologize sincerely
met a guy.
He didn't know spanish, I mean,he didn't know english.
That's why I look so guilty,because this burly guy walks up
to him and is like sayingsomething and right behind him,
like, like, like, looking,intruding in his space because
it was his car.
But I thought it was my car, soI thought I was in my space.
(31:45):
You know somebody?
Zack Johnson (31:46):
just happened.
Daniel Willis (31:47):
To watch the interaction from afar, yeah, and
so I'm like the and my son alsothought it was our car and even
looking in it and even when Iopened the back door I opened
the back door to get in it hadcar seats, look just like our
car, everything.
It was dark, it was at night,but it, like Chantel said that I
thought it was my car and thennot to say that his friend came
(32:09):
up and he's like, oh, is thatyour car?
It's the same year and he spokeEnglish and I was like I am so
sorry and I gave him both bighugs and they're really good
about it and happy, and I mean Iwasn't angry, angrily, saying
anything, but it was scary tothat guy probably, and that's
why I looked guilty.
It was because he was like whatis this guy saying?
He's on my grill and and he'strying to open my car door, so
(32:32):
it looked like he was guiltyfrom stealing something.
But it was just.
But that's how we can bedeceived.
We can really think something'strue and it'd be a lie, and so
if you really want to know ifit's the truth, we have to keep
working hard to find the truth.
Satan wants to.
Satan's biggest weapon, hisbest weapon, it's the lie that
(32:54):
lies, the greatest lie is thelie that lies closest to the
truth.
So he takes the truth and hetwists it just enough.
And if he can get someone whothinks they're a believer and
thinks they're right with God tobelieve, uh and.
But he's yet he's the enemy ofgod, he's on satan's side, but
(33:15):
he he's never going going to tryto get right with god because
he thinks he's right with god,right.
And so satan wants all of us.
Satan, I think, would ratherhave a bunch of people I'm not
sure which one's worse knowingyou're the enemy god and
choosing to be the enemy God, orbecause then, if you choose,
(33:36):
you know you're the enemy If youhave a choice to change and be
on the right side.
But if you think you're on theright side but you're on the
wrong side, you don't even knowyou need to switch teams, and so
Satan wants.
Satan has helped thesedenominations become what they
are and um, be disobedient andsay you can't please the lord
(33:57):
and so like.
If you have any thought thatthe bible actually might mean
what it says and jesus mightactually want us to do what he's
saying, it's our responsibilityto seek first the kingdom and
dig these things out and try tofigure out this, these matters,
and see what was handed down.
One One is that the Bible saysthat the faith was once for all
delivered to the saints thatwe're supposed to be earnestly
(34:20):
contending for.
What is it that we're supposedto contend for?
It wasn't what our parentshanded down to us.
It was what the apostles handeddown to the next generation.
What was handed to our parentshas a what's the probability of.
If there's 44 000 denominations, I bet some of them are in line
(34:40):
with god and walk them with aword, but like, what's our
chances of being in the rightone?
And I think it's reallyimportant to communicate.
Zack Johnson (34:49):
If people didn't catch it that, I think that
they'll that the book of lifehas people's names written
across wide swaths of these 100.
There's not.
I I think sometimes we're indanger of this, like there's
only one way and everybody elseis off of it.
Daniel Willis (35:03):
But I'll turn on a few things that yeah, and I
and I said that last time, sothis is take two of the the
podcast.
That's right, and the last timeI did say I believe there's
faithful devoutout Christiansand all these different
denominations.
But one of the things that I'vediscovered is that there are
there are churches that don'thave divorce and remarriage.
(35:24):
There are churches that aren'tdon't have people on on drugs
and aren't looking atpornography or if, if there are
some that happen, they'refighting against it tooth and
nail Right and they're makingbig decisions to stay off media
or to minimize it and to notscroll and things that pull us.
What was that quote last time?
(35:45):
You said about the evil, theroad from evil or something.
Zack Johnson (35:50):
The highway of the the upright is to flee from
evil.
It's a proverb, yeah, yeah.
Daniel Willis (35:54):
There's there the highway of the.
The upright is to flee fromevil.
It's a proverb.
Yeah, yeah, there's, there'schurches that are doing that and
there's people doing that, andthen there's, and anyway, yes, I
do believe that, but I wouldn'twant to be a part of something
that the chances of my childrengoing off into the world or
getting divorced is 50 50 chance.
That's right.
Zack Johnson (36:15):
I would rather be with a brotherhood that you know
strives to obey christ andeverything yeah, I was just a
couple of things you said mademe think about it's.
These aren't my thoughts, butwhen I, we, we have all our
students take a statisticscourse here and yeah, and I
actually think it's reallyinteresting, there's a guy that
(36:35):
comes and gives a, gives a guestlecture.
His name's byron byron smuckerand he's a.
He has a phd in statistics.
He's really really really sharpand he comes and talks about
statistics and faith and it'sit's actually shocking.
A lot of people haven't heardfaith talked about in
statistical terms.
Yeah, where.
And he just he, he basicallylays out the thesis that like,
(36:59):
hey, there's a differencebetween confidence and certainty
and statistics is not aboutcertainty, it's about confidence
.
Yeah, I think I think allowingthat to enter into your faith is
actually really freeing for alot of people.
Yeah, because I think a lot ofpeople have been raised to think
that, hey, if you're notcertain, then that's a problem.
(37:21):
Like you're not allowed to haveany doubts, but very few things
in life are.
Can we operate in certainties,and as soon as you do, I think
that's that's a problem.
So I always after this lecture,we always make some jokes that
if you ever hear anybody say I'm100% certain that X, y or Z.
You hear politicians say it,you hear different people.
(37:43):
I always say just write themoff.
You can't be on so many things.
But it's actually engaging withyour confidence.
It's actually engaging withyour confidence where I think
the early church.
The more you read of them, yourconfidence levels towards what
the scriptures mean I thinkstart to change more towards the
literal and less away from thecontextual sort of cultural
(38:08):
arguments.
The X, y, z is just for us.
And then you mentioned JohnConstostum as like a really good
place to start and people.
Daniel Willis (38:19):
Where can you find?
So my the easiest, and thereare free things out there, but
they're not normally allcompiled and searchable.
I mean, if you're very techsavvy you can search them.
But the kindle versions there'stwo or three that are like a
dollar, dollar 99, I don't knowthe exact cost now but they'll
have the whole, uh, pre and postnicene sets together and you
(38:45):
can uh, they're just really it'sa little hard because there's a
lot of, there are a lot ofwritings that actually are
spurious writings in them andthey'll normally say they're
spurious.
So you can't just readeverything in it.
You have to pay attention towhat the beginning says, because
it could just be some writingthat was written thousands of
(39:06):
years later under Ignatius, andit might not be his writing at
all, not thousands of years, butway later.
So you have to pay attention tothe beginnings.
But yeah, the kindle, um andkindle is the the easiest way to
get your feet wet yeah, that'sgreat and it's pretty cheap too.
Zack Johnson (39:26):
So anyone curious?
So the other thing I thought itwould be really interesting to
talk about is just like contentand media.
So content creation, digitalmedia and how you think about
guiding our interaction withthat.
I always I make some a lot ofjokes and that, on the one hand,
I get up behind the pulper onstage and warn people about the
(39:51):
effects of media consumption andand then, on the other end,
there seems to be thisincredible opportunity with the
internet creating sermons,creating content and letting it
spread and getting to the rightpeople, and I actually think
this is probably going to bereally something we should
constantly be thinking about.
(40:13):
But how do you think about sortof the balance between caution
and then the versus opportunitywith the power of the internet,
creating videos, um, socialmedia, the whole ecosystem and
youtube?
Daniel Willis (40:29):
I know, yeah, there's there's a lot of
different ways to take thatconversation yeah it, technology
isn't in itself evil, but wecan use it for good or for evil,
or we cannot use it, and it'sokay.
There's plenty of godly Amishthat aren't going to touch it.
And and there's times in ourlives where you know we need to
(41:01):
step away from it completely or,you know, focus on something
else and we, if we can't handleit, or if we can't control
ourselves, or if we're alwayslooking for the next dopamine
hit and we've found, findourselves addicted to something.
But it is the way that Christhas used these tools from
(41:26):
different things, like thefollowers of the way and kingdom
fellowship weekend, that mademe realize there's communities
of these people living out thesimple teachings of the Bible
the Bible is in their mostliteral interpretation, and that
I wasn't alone.
I think that my opinion wewouldn't have continued.
We might have, but I don'tthink we would have continued if
we didn't have a community ofpeople that also believe the
same thing.
We'd just be these lone rangersand feel like we're ostracizing
(41:47):
ourselves for no reason.
Why not just join the faithonly we can't please the Lord,
the faith only.
You know, like that we can'tplease the lord.
And um, why wear the headcovering.
And why does any of this matter?
You know, I think that knowingthat there was, uh, probably
millions of people doing this,if not more, I don't even know
(42:09):
um it like with these videosthat are on YouTube, I have a
feeling it saved our lives, umthat God could have used
something else.
So I have a passion to put itonline and to try to bring other
people out of the worldlychurches and out of disobedience
(42:32):
, and and to trying to liveworthy of the gospel of Christ.
But I do think that's the exactwords we should use as a
balance.
If we find we can't controlourselves, it's better to cut
off the hand.
Radical amputation, yeah.
But if we like in this ministry, we need to be uh.
(42:55):
When we go online, we need tomake sure we're not just
endlessly scrolling.
Have a purpose.
I mean, you can look up stuffthat's like, uh, the new tech or
things that aren't necessarilygodly, and but know what you're
going to look for.
Don't just waste time fordopamine hits.
And.
And have accountabilitypartners.
Have the apps on your phonethat tell people, have open
(43:20):
discussion with discipleshipgroups, yeah.
Zack Johnson (43:23):
I think a weekly conversation with people you
trust is a huge You're jokingthe question that our groups, my
church, uses, and thensomething similar seems have you
looked at anything foolish ormoral and pornographic?
Yeah, in the last week, like Ithink it's that important that
we need to review it that oftenwith each other.
Daniel Willis (43:44):
But anyway, one of our I won't be able to say
this, but I'm going to say itOne of our things that we say is
we say would you watch it withDebra Bursa, that's the white,
the godly woman in your church?
No, we watch it.
It actually changed after thattoo.
(44:04):
Would you watch it with otherbrothers in the church?
Because we found that not,there are foolish things that
aren't ungodly and yes, god,there's funny things of you know
.
And are we wasting time?
Some of those questions likewhat, what's the reason and
behind it, um, but like, wouldwe share it with our brothers
(44:26):
and sisters?
If not, then we probablyshouldn't be digging into any of
that mine.
Zack Johnson (44:31):
So I know this is this is funny for me, but what
I've even found is, even whenyou have peer level brothers,
that sometimes you kind of giveeach other passes because you
know it's like you're allstruggling with the same thing.
So you start to give passes.
I always in my context if I, ifI'm like, would I watch this in
front of somebody that isviewing me as like a leader in
(44:55):
some capacity?
Yeah, and even my kids like, oryour grandma, or something like
that, but I think that's like areally interesting perspective.
Like, if there's some new to thefaith, would you want them to
catch you watching this thingwhen you're trying to disciple
them into the ways of Christ?
And so basically, I just wantto hear your thoughts.
Daniel Willis (45:19):
you think it's probably worth people paying
attention to creating goodcontent, leveraging what we can
leverage I absolutely think thatif the gospel of the kingdom is
going to get out to everybodythat, yeah, we can do it, we can
go knock on doors.
Like you know, the job of awitness did a really good job
(45:42):
and you're still doing a goodjob.
You're going to be an elder.
You got to knock on 150 doors,but so we put out uh, they had.
I was looking into thestatistics I don't remember what
they were of how many peopleactually become a Jehovah
Witness.
They knock on a ton of doors toget one convert.
And we last month and it wasmostly because of shorts, but we
(46:09):
had like around 50,000, there'sa few days that it was 50,000
views in one month 28 daysthat's how youtube splits it up
for the sound fave channel andlike the percentages of the
convert are really low.
But it's like knocking on theirdoors, like we're knocking on
their doors and really easily,like we have the ability to
(46:29):
infiltrate their homes and likewe can choose to not use it.
But I feel like it'sirresponsible that we have the
ability to go into and it waslike all these countries, like
the netherlands though there's alist of all these countries, of
people watching it.
I'm thinking you know how hardit would have been to go to
those countries.
And then we're getting peoplelike saying that their lives
(46:52):
have been changed and peoplemoving in because they watched
YouTube.
And to me it's not anything onYouTube.
Yeah, to me it's totally worthit.
But we have to be responsible.
We're not condoning justwatching anything that's on
YouTube or any.
And Facebook is one thing that Ido want to warn about.
Absolutely I don't think youshould watch video content on
(47:15):
Facebook.
I really think their algorithmhas they don't care.
If you don't want to watchsomething Like on YouTube, you
can say not interested and youreport it as sexual.
And I make it a habit to reportanything, anything that's like
the world wouldn't think whatthe things I report is sexual
Like.
Most everybody would thinkthat's ridiculous.
That I'm saying think what thethings I report is sexual like
most everybody would thinkthat's ridiculous.
(47:36):
And I'm saying that's sexualbut it's obviously sexually
appealing.
You hit not interested, reportand then not interested, and
then with a in a very short timeyou don't get these
recommendations or whatever youcall them.
You don't get things in yourfeed that are bad I mean I'm not
saying everything, but notsexually stimulating at all, and
(47:57):
every once in a while you mightget something, but you just get
in the habit of reporting itand saying not interested.
If the if in the future that'snot the case, I think I would
possibly get off the platformaltogether and try to figure out
some other way.
But facebook, you can say notinterested and or whatever it is
, you can report it, but itdoesn't matter, they just keep
(48:17):
feeding it and so it's like youdon't, don't get on.
In my opinion it's.
I don't think the algorithmitself is evil, but whoever made
it doesn't care about rightmorals or what people want to
not see right.
Is that a way to say that?
Zack Johnson (48:31):
yeah, that makes sense well, and I just I think
that I think I agree with youand I I do agree with you.
(48:53):
That's why I I Is that a way?
I say that in my own humblefailings on thinking, I'm
stronger than I am with notbeing allured by things that are
foolish, immoral andpornographic.
There's a constant allure outthere and I think there's power
there, but technology untetheredfrom morals produces terrible
(49:16):
consequences and we just have tobe careful with that.
Daniel Willis (49:20):
What, what is a foolish?
Zack Johnson (49:25):
Well, you tell me no, I mean, I think foolish.
Daniel Willis (49:30):
So I watch videos .
Editing videos, right yeah, howto like make something in the
background look like it's in theforeground and this guy I
forget his name there's all thislike almost magic tricks with
editing.
Zack Johnson (49:42):
Like I still can't figure out how he does it, but
it's half the time funny orfoolish and like I think, I
think, if you're using contentfor a skill you're trying to
acquire, it would be hard for meto put that in the foolish
category, but I think, like justa lot.
Daniel Willis (49:58):
It's always been a thing that it's fun to put out
there, because I don't know itfeels like.
Zack Johnson (50:03):
It feels like there's a lot of comedy out
there that's very prevalent,that runs it, I think.
I think it makes you kind offeel good and you laugh, but
there I think a lot of comedycan be foolish.
There's like there's the coursejoking message that I think a
to political banter, that yeah,just because I think it it's
(50:38):
interesting and intriguing, Iput some of that stuff in the
foolish category.
Um, yeah, endless, endlessshows about shows, about movie
shows and consumer digest stuff.
I think a lot of us could endup watching reviews on a product
we're looking for for likethree hours.
(50:59):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, but I think each of ushas to really identify that a
lot of that for ourselves.
But I think there are prettyblack and white foolish things
to stay away from.
Daniel Willis (51:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's what.
Like it's just hard.
The word is from yeah.
Yeah, that's what, like it'sjust hard.
The word is seems broad to me,like there's something can be
like my brothers in christ willdo something, maybe foolish, but
I don't think it was wrong.
Like, and I don't mean in asingle way no, no that really go
.
That was funny and we we talk.
Zack Johnson (51:30):
We talk about this verse, about when we're that
Paul says cast off the sin andthe weight, and I think even
Paul identifies things that aresinful and then things that are
just weights, and I think that Ithink there is a category of
things that maybe not might bein the sinful category, but
(51:52):
they're not don't have worth.
You can, yeah, you can, fill inthe the blank like doing x made
me a better person, like and Ithink those are the category of
weights that they're notprohibited, so to speak, but it
would.
We would be better people atthe end of our lives if we learn
how to have a like.
Daniel Willis (52:10):
Oh, that's a good way to talk about it, I don't
know.
It's just whenever it's next topornographic, it's like, okay,
well, you know, swatching theboy stick his tongue to the ice
pole was foolish, but it wasn'tin that category over there.
Are they right next to eachother in this question, because
we have the same question, soyeah, yeah, I'm not gonna.
Zack Johnson (52:31):
I could try to get into my own like theory of
what's foolish for myself, butbut I but I think.
I think at the end of the day,the Holy Spirit gives us a
conscience.
And if, if people have aninstinct to confess that you
watch something foolish, that'swhere I'm always like I think
you should jump on that and belike if you're going to confess
it, then don't like, try not todo it again, right, it and don't
(52:56):
like, try not to do it again.
Daniel Willis (52:57):
right, well, I only confess, yeah, a lot of the
things, because there there'sso many things that in all day
life, not just on videos, butyou go anywhere and hang out for
a minute, yeah, something willbe foolish in front of you and
it's like but it wasn't like Iwant to surrender anything- yeah
, I think it's like for me ifanyway.
That's why they changed thething to would you watch it with
(53:20):
certain female?
It's hilarious.
Zack Johnson (53:21):
That makes sense Um, that's a good.
It's actually a good way tothink about it.
Think about the person youvalue most and then make frame
that as your reflective question.
Yeah, is there?
I know we went all over theplace, I'm sorry.
No, no, this is great.
This is great.
Is there?
Is there anything else you wantto cover?
Daniel Willis (53:39):
we're kind of approaching the hour here and
it's always helpful to sort ofwrap it up you know I'm really
thankful for the things thatyou're working on and your
service here and, uh, I don'tdon't have a whole lot extra.
I've probably said stuff,another one that we could have
said, but yeah, and our firstrecording and your work again.
(54:02):
Sound faith is sort of uh, yeah, that's how we're used the
historic faith are kind of likethe biggest things we do.
And then all nations, bibletranslators, and strength, of
strength.
Zack Johnson (54:14):
If you haven't seen them, they're great and so
sound faith is a youtube channel, just you can find it on
youtube, and the historic faithis a website yep, with a, I
can't remember if there's ayoutube no, there is a youtube
channel, but it's not as I heard.
Daniel Willis (54:27):
Yeah, you have to go on the website to find the
content.
The website and then there'sthe strength of strength books
is a really good one, with a lotof really edifying books, um,
and scroll publishing and, yeah,some some good things out there
and saddler podcast great.
Zack Johnson (54:47):
Well, hopefully the satellite probably gets gets
better over time.
But hey, daniel, thanks forthanks for being here with us,
and God bless you.
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