December 24, 2025 • 33 mins
Michael Berry holds a candid conversation with David Klingler on life after football, discovering Scripture, and launching the podcast “Teach Me the Bible.”
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time. Time time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
When I make a list of the most popular things
we do on this show over the years, having done
this for twenty years now, playing a Paul Harvey clip,
be up there, playing a rush limball clip will be
up there. Having doctor ed young on, be up there.
Those are things. And then I will discover in my meanderings.
(00:45):
Usually somebody will send it to me, someone talking about
a book of the Bible, a character in the by
person in the Bible, or a parable or something of
the sort, or what a verse means to them. And
I'll find, you know, some Bible teacher who explains that
(01:06):
in a way that is compelling, and so we'll we'll
share those. And it's amazing how many people will say,
where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Where do I find that?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Because they want to they want to listen again, or
they want to share it with someone else.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And so it's something that we enjoyed doing, and.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I intend to probably do much more of it going
forward because I enjoy it, and it seems to be
something that you enjoy as well. So someone sent me
an email and said, hey, you were at uh when
David Kleingler was there. He was the superstar quarterback, went
to the Cincinnati Bengals first round draft pick. And I said, yes,
we weren't buddies, but I knew who he was. Obviously
(01:46):
we all did. He was a big man on campus.
And I'm always interested in where are they now? VH
one did one? And this may be my favorite where
are they now? For somebody who I didn't know what
he was up to. He's teaching the Bible, and from
what I understand, he's darn good at it. I have
gone on to his podcast which is called Teach Me
(02:07):
the Bible. He has a website Teach Me the Bible
lives out in Brenham. But I got to say, this
guy is doing literally doing the Lord's work. And I
was so delighted to see what he used his celebrity
and his skill set for. And so we reached out
through mutual friends to ask him to come on and
(02:27):
talk about his ministry. And I am honored to say
he's with us now. David Klingler, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Michael. Good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So take me from in in ninety two. You're drafted
by the Bengals. We'll talk football in a moment. Raiders
ninety six, ninety seven. Then you were on the practice
squad for the Packers. Football is over. Take me to
the next phase of your life. Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You well, well, that's a great question. So so football
was over pretty much after my second year in Cincinnati.
I had had elbow damage, went to surgery and they
said it was career ending. And and you know, one
of the things that I realized was that football is
not a career. Unless you're a coach. Then it's not
(03:15):
particularly a good career. You're just waiting to get fired,
it seemed to me. But but then the question was
what do you do next? And uh, you know, what
does life look like after you know, you're you? You've
done everything that you thought you wanted to do and
and and so that was kind of how football came
(03:36):
to an end. And and I remember it was actually, uh,
this the first off season i'd come back to Houston.
You know, we still had a home in Katie and
and the Oilers that was back when the Oilers were
in Houston. And came back to the off season and
was invited by the FCA Director of the Houston area
to go to the Oilers Bible Study. And I went
(03:58):
to the Oilers Bible Study and a guy named body
Backham was teaching the Bible study and many of you
may know that name, and and uh and we got
to talking after the study and he said, you know,
you need to quit football and go to seminary. And
I'm thinking, who in the world goes to seminary? You
know even know what that means. But that's kind of
(04:18):
how it started, you know. And uh, and just an
interest in h in the Bible and and so over
the next maybe eight years he kept after me and
and finally I had had a ranch out in the
Burton area Brenda Mary and uh, some some of you
know person pulled in wanted to buy the ranch, and
(04:38):
so I sold it and he said, well what do
I do now? I said, well, I'm going to go
to seminary. And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So you had I think a thousand acres.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Or more, No, it was it was about five hundred
little video.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, the world chat that's.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
A massive amount in Burton in why.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Well today back then, you know, gosh, so I wish
I'd have bought you know, you know everything. The light
touches back. If I'd have known then what I know now.
But but yeah, we you know, my plan was to
go retire, shut the gate and uh, you know, and
and you know, and just train some horses and and
(05:24):
my wife's plan was to raise our boys and uh
somewhere bigger than than Burton. And so we moved back
to the Kadi area. Boys went to Sinco Ranch High
School and and really enjoyed it there. But but you
know how it is living in a town and property
taxes and traffic and people and all that and uh,
and it was just time to get back out into
(05:44):
a little more space. And so we moved back out here.
We live in the Brenna Mary Now, Okay, so that's
what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You complete seminary and then what's the next step. At
that point what happened?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Well, the reason I went to sim I didn't want
to be a pastor. I didn't want to be a professor.
I that that wasn't even on the radar. I just
wanted to know the Bible. And and I remember hearing,
you know, I used to listen to the morning Christian
radio and Tony Evans was on Chucks WNDAHLL was on
(06:17):
UH and they they had two radio stations, or right,
two radio shows back to back, and I listened to them,
and then I just happened to go to church on Sunday,
and all three of them preached the same passage, but
none of them said the same thing. And I kept thinking,
you know, who are you supposed to listen to? Here?
You know, you got the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans,
(06:38):
the Baptists, and everybody's saying something different, and they're all
saying in some ways mutually exclusive things, and so who
are you supposed to listen to? And how do you
know what's right? And so I just went to seminary
to learn the Bible. I walked into my first seminary
class and U and this professor just made the Bible
(07:00):
is so simple and so understandable. You know, it wasn't
versus in iolation, but these actually made sense. You know,
one sentence went with the next sentence. Here, one verse
went with the next verson and the book started to
make sense, and and so it really captivated my curiosity.
I came home after the first night and and I said,
(07:23):
I want to get a PhD. And my wife's looked
at me like, who are you there?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
One day?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
One day? Yeah, one day, and that meant, you know,
one hundred and twenty hour degree. Yeah, and about half
about half of that degree was in was in the
Dallas area, so I couldn't take it in Houston. And
we had boys, and so I said, well, she said,
how are you going to do this? So I said,
I'll get up at three in the morning, I'll drive
and I'll be home, you know, in the afternoon or evening.
(07:49):
And it required learning Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and
you know, and then for the PhD, French and German
and you know, I don't know, you start piling up
the lane anguages and you start to lose track. But
it was just a passion to understand what, you know,
what does the Bible mean? And then and then once
(08:10):
I started to take theology classes and turn right, then
it really thought right there. Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
David Klingler is our guest. The site is teach Me
the Bible dot com.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
This is the Michael Berry Show. Locked and loaded, didn't loaded.
David Klingler is our guest.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He was he wrote too many as a college quarterback
at the University of Houston first round draft pick with
Cincinnati Bengals. But what he does now is far more interesting.
The website is teach Me the Bible dot com. There
is a podcast that effect. We're talking about fellow who
arrives at seminary. I mean, look, you don't get to
be a star quarterback and throw for almost ten thousand
(08:52):
yards in college without being a little cocky, right, So
he shows up the first day in seminary to catch
you folks up and decides after that, yeah, I'll go
ahead and get a PhD. Were you a good student
growing up? Were academics something? Because most athletes obviously weren't.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Were you?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know? I I went to so at University of Houston.
I was in the business program, and it was a
great school. And but things, I would pick up things
pretty quickly, uh, and so I didn't have to spend
a lot of time at it. Now, if I was
interested in it, boy, it became a passion. And so, yeah,
I could be a good student, but I was interested
in things I was interested in. You know how boys
(09:32):
are the things I wasn't interested in. I just had
no interest in you.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Know, So, so on a personal level, you were going
to seminary and driving back and forth and being a dad.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And I'm assuming you know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
That the sale of your property out in Burton kind
of you know, helped cover the bills and hopefully you
saved some of what you made as an athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Were you were you, were you working?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Were you earning a paycheck anywhere during this time or
just going to seminary, just going to seminary.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I had just had totally devoted myself to learn in
the Bible, not for any other really agenda or reason.
I just wanted to know the truth, so to speak.
And I was it was my second year of school,
and and the dean then of the College of Biblical
Studies here in Houston, as some of the students, was that,
(10:23):
you know that he was looking for some professors and
people to teach the Bible. And so he's asking the
professors at the seminary, do you have any good students?
And my name kept coming up, and so he asked
me to teach. And so I just went in and taught,
you know, told others what I had learned that was
taught by my professors. A couple of years later, the
(10:43):
Dallas Seminary asked me to teach, start teaching Biblical languages,
and then I started teaching Greek and Hebrew and Bible.
I was teaching actually at three schools before I had
finished my PhD. And which you know, they typically require
PhD to teach, but they had made an exception for me.
(11:04):
So I was teaching it at College Biblical Studies, at
Dallas Theological Seminary, and then at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
And again, my passion was just to learn the Bible,
and I realized that it wasn't that complicated. Boy, we
sure make it hard, but it wasn't it wasn't that
complicated to understand. And again maybe out of frustration, you know,
(11:29):
it's you know, I wanted to teach others so that
they could understand it, so you didn't have to listen
to what somebody says. The Bible says that you can
actually open it up, and we didn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Of it well.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And that was always, uh, you know, as a Southern Baptist,
I am a believer that I don't need a pope or.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Anyone else to translate for me.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You know, it's in my language, and it's it's my
personal journey and it applies to me and no one
needs to translate it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
How did you arrive at the concept of teach me
the Bible? Were people asking you that question? Because it's
so simple and so direct?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And I think that that was part of what I
found to be the appeal when I went to the
website and then started on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, it's a funny story. So we live out here
in Brenham, and so met a pastor out here and
just wanted to help him, you know, succeed in the pastor.
And it's such a bad job. It's a hard job
unless you're called to it. And so we would sit
on the porch and we would just talk about the
Bible and he'd ask, you know, hey, what about this,
(12:35):
and so we talk about it. Well, we hired a
worship pastor and he came in and you know, he
had made the statement to him. He says, you know,
we teach the Bible and we sing heresy, how can
I learn the Bible? Because so many of our Christian
songs are such bad theology. I said, well, why don't
you just come sit on the porch with us and
talk the Bible? And he said, you know, we need
(12:56):
to make a podcast of that, and that's how it started.
So I said, well, I don't even know what that
means podcasts, you know. He said, well, don't worry about that. Well,
I'll bring the microphones, will set it up. And so
he's our technology guy. So that's what we do. We
come in and and the microphones are set up and
they just ask questions and I talk, you know, tell
(13:18):
us about this book, and so we walk through the
book and it really is a simple concept, but it's
really had a great response.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
When when folks who grew up in the church but
maybe have have drifted away, or or folks who go
to a church and as you know, this is very
common where the Bible is not first and foremost, and
they said, I really want to get I want to
go deeper into where I want to engage in personal study,
not church going personal study. Do you have an approach
(13:46):
as to a place to begin or what what is
how do you handle that?
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, well, well it's really interesting that we so much
of so many people today come to seminary for just
that they they've been involved in church, but they want
to learn the Bible and and so they come in
thinking they know a whole bunch of stuff that usually
they come up, come in with their theology, with their
you know, with their life versus or whatever it is.
(14:14):
And and when you ask them to explain what that
verse is doing with the sentence right before to the
sentence right after it, they have they have they can't answer.
And you hear so often you know, you uh, start
in the Gospel of John or something like that. But
if I handed you any book, any any book and
said here, read this book, well, you would just start
at the beginning. And and that's where you ought to start.
(14:38):
In the Bible, you start at the beginning. You start
in Genesis, and and it's really a simple story. It's
the Bible is the revelation of God's redemptive history through
you know, through through human history. I mean it's just
in the beginning, uh, creation fall and off the Lord
(15:00):
goes to bring about his promised deliverer, and you get
to walk down that trail with the authors as they
tell the story of God's redemptive acts throughout human history,
culminating in the person of his son Jesus Christ. And
so it makes perfect sense. It's really simple to understand.
(15:23):
But if we start in the middle, or start with
some verse, or you start with some theological grid or
concept or defense. It becomes really convoluted very quickly.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Although full disclaim, full disclosure and disclaimer on your part,
your expertise is your PhD is actually an Old Testament
studies so would I would argue that in terms of accessibility,
most folks can start in the New Testament with a
lot greater ease to at least get to develop comfort
(15:55):
in who we're dealing with here, whereas the Old Testament
can be, in my opinion, can be a little tougher.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Nut to crack.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Well, yeah, so what happens is, let me start with
the Gospel of John. So so John tells the reader
why he wrote his his story, but many other signs
ge are scared in the presence of those disciples which
were not written in this book.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Hold right there, we're up against break. David Klingler is
our guest. The website is teach Me the Bible dot com,
and that is also the name of the podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
More for Me to have almost went the lawless to
the Michael Verie Show. David Klingler is our guest. Former
star quarterback.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Now Teach Me the bible dot com, or you can
listen to the podcast Teach Me About. You were talking
about the Book of John and and we're going to
to get to Paul's letters, I hope at some point,
because that's something that's always appealed to me. But you
were talking about we're talking about learning the Bible, and
I'm talking as much about self taught, which appears to
(17:02):
be a lot of what y'all do. And I love
that you're not trying to build an audience for yourself.
You're trying to It appears to me, at least my
study of what y'all done is to get people engage
themselves in a self help study of the Bible. And
I love that approach.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But anyway, go ahead, Yeah, our mission is to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. But
you know the Gospel of John. John is writing to
convince the reader that Jesus is the Christ. Well, if
I ask students, and I do this all the time
in seminary, okay, well what does that mean? And they
look at me with the blank stare like, I don't know,
(17:41):
Like Jesus Christ right, Like you know, if he was
wearing a jersey on the back of his jersey it
would say Christ like his last name. Well that's not
that's a title. He's the anointed King of Israel, proven
through what he does, through what he says. His words
and works matched those of the Old Testament. So he's
(18:04):
not somebody, because even John says so. Jesus even says
in the Gospel of John, in interacting with the Pharisees,
you know, you search the scriptures, because then you think
you have eternal life. But it's these that speak of me.
And of course he's talking about the Old Testament, that
all of creation was waiting for this one to appear,
and so that anticipation is built in the Old Testament.
(18:28):
And then you know, I love how Matthew presents it.
You know, the hope of the world walked onto the
scene in human form. John says that that the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us talking about John and
the other disciples, and we beheld his goal. He saw him,
We touched him our hands, and we stuck our fingers
(18:51):
in those holes, and so we proclaimed to you. And
so it's just such an amazing story that corresponds to history.
I mean, you look at the world around us and
even current events today and what's happening, and this whole
thing is heading towards the end of God's redemptive history,
and you know, so the reason why it's so relevant
(19:14):
to us is because you're in it. We're all in it,
you know, and so so it's just such a compelling
the story to me, that corresponds to life, to all
of our lives, and so I think it's something that
everybody needs to know for themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's a fascinating approach. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I have experienced something over the years, and I'm sure
you have tenfold, and that is that if I have
someone on to talk about the Bible, or if I
myself make a statement about my interpretation of something, there
are a certain number of people who it's the one
upsmanship of social media. They can't help themselves, but they
(19:56):
love to tell you how that's wrong because their pastor
said this, this or this, and I equate it to this.
If I were to go on Facebook today is a
toxic can be a toxic place, but it could also
be a wonderful place because we get some things done.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
They're kind of crowd sourcing. And if I were to say.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I went to David Klingler's home this weekend and he
made burgers for us and they were wonderful, delicious burgers
with cheese.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And meat and mayonnaise and bread.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I would out of the thousand people that would respond,
fifty of them would be, now, my brother's burgers are better,
even though they had never eaten your. There's just this
desire to kind of want to do you find people
to be after reviewing the podcast, A certain number of
them to be compat combative, argumentative, because I find that
the Bible brings that out in some people worse than
even sports fandom.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah. Yeah, politics, you deal with it. You know, it's politics, religion.
Those are areas in sports, right, politics for religion and sports.
So you know, those are kind of the three areas
where everybody is entitled to their own opinion, you know.
And you can't tell me any different, but you know,
(21:08):
but again what motivates me. I really like the example
of the Boreans that that Luke records in the Book
of Acts. You know that they're commended for going back
to the scriptures to see if these things are so.
And you know, and so I tell my students all
the time, don't listen to me, and I don't want
you to. You know, when you stand before the Lord
(21:30):
and say, well, doctor Klingler said, well, you know what
I tell them. Klingler' is a moron. He's been a
more in his whole life. He's just trying to help
you see what the scriptures say. So let's go back
to see if these things are are so? And so
often our interpretation of some verse doesn't make any sense.
(21:51):
You know, I hear the same ones all the time.
I can do all things through Christy strengthens me. Well
think about that for a second. Can you what can
you actually do through Christ is strengthens you? Can you
leap tall buildings with a single bound? Or mentoring a
kid in high school and he had that Philippians four
thirteen on his letter jacket and his name is Casey,
(22:12):
And I said, Casey, what's that phil four thirteen? And
he looked at me like, well, aren't you supposed to
be a Bible teacher. Aren't you supposed to know this?
He said, I can do all things through Christ, who
strengthens me. I said, we like what? And he got
this paniced look on his face, like I'm not so
sure now that you. You pressed me on it, and
so I said, well, how much do you bench pressed?
(22:33):
And he said, well, you know about three fifteen, so
that's pretty good for high school kid. I said, how
much you bench pressed with Christ's strengthened you? And he says, well,
I guess about the same. I said, what does that mean?
And noticed that Paul's writing to the Philippians and he
doesn't say, y'all can do all things through Christy strengthens y'all.
(22:53):
He could have said that, So what does he mean
when he says what he says? So? Really? Yeah, Well,
what he's talking about in the whole letter is that
he was concerned for these Philippians because, you know, the
it's a very alive and wealth theology today that if
(23:14):
you serve the Lord, right, if you serve whatever God
it is you serve, he will bless you physically and financially. Now,
and of course that's not the gospel, that's not Paul's reality.
Paul had everything you know that a religious leader would
desire when he was a Pharisee. But he comes to
Christ and all of a sudden he's being beaten and
(23:34):
persecuted and shipwrecked and everywhere he goes it's turning terrible
for him, and he's concerned with these Philippians who have
participated with him in the Gospel from the first Day
until now. They've been with him in his defense of
the Gospel, and he's concerned that they're going to leave
(23:55):
him because of the persecution that that's coming. And so
they sent him a gift, and he's thankful for the gift.
He's writing this in chapter four and he says, I'm
thankful for the gift, but I don't need it. I've
learned how to get along with plenty, and I've learned
how to get along with nothing. I'm amply supplied. I
(24:16):
can do all things through Christy strengthens me. He can
endure all suffering, he can endure all hardship because his
hope is in resurrection, not in you know stuff now,
life now, prosperity now. And so once you put it
in that context, now the reader, the Philippians who ought
(24:38):
to adopt Paul's theology to think the same way Paul thinks,
can say, ah, now I understand what he's saying, and
we too can do all things through We can endure
all things. To cross the strengthens us. And that's really
the reality of life, isn't it that? You know we
were talking, we were texting back and forth and we're
(24:58):
getting old here and you can see, yeah, you have
great hair.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I'm not quite as old as you give away.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
We'll continue our conversation with David Klingler. The website is
Teach Me the Bible dot Com. Teach Me the Bible
dot Com is also the name of the pipeline. We're
going to be changing the name of the Gulf of
Mexico to the.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Gulf of Smit of michael Berry, which has a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
David Klingler was once known as a star quarterback at
Stratford High School and then at the University of Houston,
where he was a third in the running for the
Heisman Trophy the year that Ty Detmer of BYU won it.
Rocket ismael number two at Notre Dame. He was his
first round draft pick for Cincinnati Bengals, and after his
career was over, or as he said, even before that,
(25:48):
he started looking for more meaning in life and he
wanted to learn the Bible, not to preach, not for
a living. He didn't need to worry about that, but
he wanted to understand and learn the Word of God,
so he went who the Dallas Theological Seminary and ended
up getting his PhD. And now teach me the Bible
dot com and the podcast teach me the Bible and
(26:12):
with us.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Now, let me give you this segment if you would.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And you've got about eight minutes, and I want you
to teach me the Bible of the Birth of Christ
as you would, and I'll give you a one minute
wrap up. But I'm my guessing as you got your
clock down pretty good.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
All right, So the assignment the birth.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Of would have been nice if I gave you the
lead time, I know. But anyway, well that's okay.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Well, well it's an Old Testament story, you know it really,
the birth of Christ is an Old Testament story. The
whole story is an anticipation. So we you know, we
go back to creation, we go back to the garden,
and you know, God has this mandate. Torri says, let
us make man in our image and our likeness. Let
him rule over the bird's ear, the fishes, He at
(27:00):
the beast of the field. He creates man and gives
him what creates the woman to help her. They were
to be fruitful and multiply image bears. And the serpent
comes into this scene. The antagonists, or the satan, we
call him all Satan means hastan. The adversary comes in
(27:20):
and de seizes the woman and the man's there with her,
and they eat of the forbidden tree, and they're kicked
out of the garden. They're removed from the tree of life.
And so now, man, you know, Adam's name is a
He comes from the adamah Adama means ground. He was
raised up out of the ground to never return to it,
(27:41):
to rule over the birds of the ear, the fishes,
sy the beast. I feel. And now he's going back
to the ground. And that creates the problem. And it's
our problem, right, we think we've got a lot of problems.
Our problem is you're you know, your days are numbered,
and you don't know if today's your last day. And
and so this introduces the problem. And the Lord declares
(28:03):
right there in Genesis three. The Church has always recognized
what we call the proto Evangelium, the first proclamation of
the Gospel, that the Lord was going to bring through
this woman, this one who would be born, who would
die for sin, we're reading a little bit in here,
but this is what's developed in the story. And so
the whole story of Genesis is tracking this promise, and
(28:25):
really nothing else practical attracts this promise down through the genealogies,
through Noah, through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Israel,
through Judah, through the family line of Peiz to the
to the house of David the king, and this promise
is given to him, and it's going to come through
this kingly line of David and Isaiah. The prophet shows
(28:49):
up and condemned the whole line of David and says,
a virgin will give birth, that I don't need you,
King a has I don't need you the Davidic line,
I don't need I'll do it by myself with a
little girl. And so all of creation, all of the
(29:09):
hope of the world waits for God to keep his promises.
As Israel is disobedient, thrown out of the land, dispersed
among the nations, and at the right time to the day,
as Daniel the Prophet prophesies, Christ is born, the promised
to one appears and he's proven through his words and
(29:32):
works that he is the one that the whole creation,
all of the law and the prophets and the psalms
was anticipating, and he walks onto the scene and does
exactly what was for told, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascends to
the right hand of the Father. And you know, and
that's the gospel story. That's the it's the story of
(29:53):
the births of Christ. So it's a thirty nine books
building towards the gospels. Everything is waning towards this lone
and when he's born, it is just, you know, the
hope of the world has appeared. And you know, and
so what.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know, you mentioned Philippians four thirteen and how people
use in a kind of a health and wellness. You know,
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
What are things about Christ's birth or life or I
don't want to get to teachings per se yet because
I want to save that. But what are things about
Christ's life that you think are not understood or widely misunderstood?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Well, I think that the from the very beginning. You know,
you think about Job and Job's friends. This it's this
theology that says, if you serve the Lord, or serve God,
whatever it is, you'll be blessed. Now you say, well,
that doesn't make any sense. It certainly didn't work for Paul.
It didn't work. I mean, you go back to the
(30:54):
very beginning of the of the Bible of Canaan.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Abel.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You know, Able was the righteous one, but Cain kills Abel.
I mean, it didn't work for Abel, It didn't work
for Jesus, it didn't work for the prophets. So Paul's
going to say things like, all who desired to be
godly in Christ, Jesus will suffer, will be persecuted. And
so this was Jesus's life, and so often I think that,
(31:20):
and we kind of learned this through through church history
and our unique American experience, that we've westernized the Gospel
and americanized it so that the means by which you
can experience the American dream is through Christ. He will
help you, you know, achieve all you want to achieve.
(31:43):
I know, the plans I have for you, declares the
Lord of future and hope. And so we go in there,
we grab that verse and jerk it out of context,
and we make it about us. And so you know,
Christ came as a suffering servant to lay down his
life for sin, and I don't think that we focus
on that near enough and call believers. And in the
(32:04):
early Church, first a few centuries, they viewed suffering martyrdom
as part of discipleship, to deny yourself and to take
up your cross, and it was very real to them.
But once the you know, Christianity kind of becomes the
(32:25):
state religion, or at least the accepted religion, persecution ends
and those verses kind of go away, and they're uncomfortable,
and now you know, it's yeah, and it becomes a
means by which we can achieve.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, it's not than and we we think Jesus because
we won the game.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I always think, well, does that mean the Lord
didn't care for the other team?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You know, there's this idea that you know, if I,
if I chuck up a deuce after the game, you
know that then God will favor me with victories and
awards and all those things. And it's always it's always
been interesting that that's that's almost this. I don't know
that that one's always bothered me a bit more than
the others.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I don't really know why David Klingler is our guest.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
He is.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
He is the man behind, along with a team around
him of teach Me the Bible dot Com and then
Teach Me the Bible dot Com podcast, which, like every
other podcast, is free and accessible and a great thing
to listen to as you're driving across the country or
just driving home.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
And he'll be our guest or more I mean
It's that time. Time time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
When I make a list of the most popular things
we do on this show over the years, having done
this for twenty years now, playing a Paul Harvey clip,
be up there, playing a rush limball clip will be
up there. Having doctor ed young on, be up there.
Those are things. And then I will discover in my meanderings.
(00:45):
Usually somebody will send it to me, someone talking about
a book of the Bible, a character in the by
person in the Bible, or a parable or something of
the sort, or what a verse means to them. And
I'll find, you know, some Bible teacher who explains that
(01:06):
in a way that is compelling, and so we'll we'll
share those. And it's amazing how many people will say,
where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Where do I find that?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Because they want to they want to listen again, or
they want to share it with someone else.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And so it's something that we enjoyed doing, and.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I intend to probably do much more of it going
forward because I enjoy it, and it seems to be
something that you enjoy as well. So someone sent me
an email and said, hey, you were at uh when
David Kleingler was there. He was the superstar quarterback, went
to the Cincinnati Bengals first round draft pick. And I said, yes,
we weren't buddies, but I knew who he was. Obviously
(01:46):
we all did. He was a big man on campus.
And I'm always interested in where are they now? VH
one did one? And this may be my favorite where
are they now? For somebody who I didn't know what
he was up to. He's teaching the Bible, and from
what I understand, he's darn good at it. I have
gone on to his podcast which is called Teach Me
(02:07):
the Bible. He has a website Teach Me the Bible
lives out in Brenham. But I got to say, this
guy is doing literally doing the Lord's work. And I
was so delighted to see what he used his celebrity
and his skill set for. And so we reached out
through mutual friends to ask him to come on and
(02:27):
talk about his ministry. And I am honored to say
he's with us now. David Klingler, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Michael. Good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So take me from in in ninety two. You're drafted
by the Bengals. We'll talk football in a moment. Raiders
ninety six, ninety seven. Then you were on the practice
squad for the Packers. Football is over. Take me to
the next phase of your life. Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You well, well, that's a great question. So so football
was over pretty much after my second year in Cincinnati.
I had had elbow damage, went to surgery and they
said it was career ending. And and you know, one
of the things that I realized was that football is
not a career. Unless you're a coach. Then it's not
(03:15):
particularly a good career. You're just waiting to get fired,
it seemed to me. But but then the question was
what do you do next? And uh, you know, what
does life look like after you know, you're you? You've
done everything that you thought you wanted to do and
and and so that was kind of how football came
(03:36):
to an end. And and I remember it was actually, uh,
this the first off season i'd come back to Houston.
You know, we still had a home in Katie and
and the Oilers that was back when the Oilers were
in Houston. And came back to the off season and
was invited by the FCA Director of the Houston area
to go to the Oilers Bible Study. And I went
(03:58):
to the Oilers Bible Study and a guy named body
Backham was teaching the Bible study and many of you
may know that name, and and uh and we got
to talking after the study and he said, you know,
you need to quit football and go to seminary. And
I'm thinking, who in the world goes to seminary? You
know even know what that means. But that's kind of
(04:18):
how it started, you know. And uh, and just an
interest in h in the Bible and and so over
the next maybe eight years he kept after me and
and finally I had had a ranch out in the
Burton area Brenda Mary and uh, some some of you
know person pulled in wanted to buy the ranch, and
(04:38):
so I sold it and he said, well what do
I do now? I said, well, I'm going to go
to seminary. And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So you had I think a thousand acres.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Or more, No, it was it was about five hundred
little video.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, the world chat that's.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
A massive amount in Burton in why.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Well today back then, you know, gosh, so I wish
I'd have bought you know, you know everything. The light
touches back. If I'd have known then what I know now.
But but yeah, we you know, my plan was to
go retire, shut the gate and uh, you know, and
and you know, and just train some horses and and
(05:24):
my wife's plan was to raise our boys and uh
somewhere bigger than than Burton. And so we moved back
to the Kadi area. Boys went to Sinco Ranch High
School and and really enjoyed it there. But but you
know how it is living in a town and property
taxes and traffic and people and all that and uh,
and it was just time to get back out into
(05:44):
a little more space. And so we moved back out here.
We live in the Brenna Mary Now, Okay, so that's
what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You complete seminary and then what's the next step. At
that point what happened?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Well, the reason I went to sim I didn't want
to be a pastor. I didn't want to be a professor.
I that that wasn't even on the radar. I just
wanted to know the Bible. And and I remember hearing,
you know, I used to listen to the morning Christian
radio and Tony Evans was on Chucks WNDAHLL was on
(06:17):
UH and they they had two radio stations, or right,
two radio shows back to back, and I listened to them,
and then I just happened to go to church on Sunday,
and all three of them preached the same passage, but
none of them said the same thing. And I kept thinking,
you know, who are you supposed to listen to? Here?
You know, you got the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans,
(06:38):
the Baptists, and everybody's saying something different, and they're all
saying in some ways mutually exclusive things, and so who
are you supposed to listen to? And how do you
know what's right? And so I just went to seminary
to learn the Bible. I walked into my first seminary
class and U and this professor just made the Bible
(07:00):
is so simple and so understandable. You know, it wasn't
versus in iolation, but these actually made sense. You know,
one sentence went with the next sentence. Here, one verse
went with the next verson and the book started to
make sense, and and so it really captivated my curiosity.
I came home after the first night and and I said,
(07:23):
I want to get a PhD. And my wife's looked
at me like, who are you there?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
One day?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
One day? Yeah, one day, and that meant, you know,
one hundred and twenty hour degree. Yeah, and about half
about half of that degree was in was in the
Dallas area, so I couldn't take it in Houston. And
we had boys, and so I said, well, she said,
how are you going to do this? So I said,
I'll get up at three in the morning, I'll drive
and I'll be home, you know, in the afternoon or evening.
(07:49):
And it required learning Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and
you know, and then for the PhD, French and German
and you know, I don't know, you start piling up
the lane anguages and you start to lose track. But
it was just a passion to understand what, you know,
what does the Bible mean? And then and then once
(08:10):
I started to take theology classes and turn right, then
it really thought right there. Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
David Klingler is our guest. The site is teach Me
the Bible dot com.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
This is the Michael Berry Show. Locked and loaded, didn't loaded.
David Klingler is our guest.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He was he wrote too many as a college quarterback
at the University of Houston first round draft pick with
Cincinnati Bengals. But what he does now is far more interesting.
The website is teach Me the Bible dot com. There
is a podcast that effect. We're talking about fellow who
arrives at seminary. I mean, look, you don't get to
be a star quarterback and throw for almost ten thousand
(08:52):
yards in college without being a little cocky, right, So
he shows up the first day in seminary to catch
you folks up and decides after that, yeah, I'll go
ahead and get a PhD. Were you a good student
growing up? Were academics something? Because most athletes obviously weren't.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Were you?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know? I I went to so at University of Houston.
I was in the business program, and it was a
great school. And but things, I would pick up things
pretty quickly, uh, and so I didn't have to spend
a lot of time at it. Now, if I was
interested in it, boy, it became a passion. And so, yeah,
I could be a good student, but I was interested
in things I was interested in. You know how boys
(09:32):
are the things I wasn't interested in. I just had
no interest in you.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Know, So, so on a personal level, you were going
to seminary and driving back and forth and being a dad.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And I'm assuming you know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
That the sale of your property out in Burton kind
of you know, helped cover the bills and hopefully you
saved some of what you made as an athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Were you were you, were you working?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Were you earning a paycheck anywhere during this time or
just going to seminary, just going to seminary.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I had just had totally devoted myself to learn in
the Bible, not for any other really agenda or reason.
I just wanted to know the truth, so to speak.
And I was it was my second year of school,
and and the dean then of the College of Biblical
Studies here in Houston, as some of the students, was that,
(10:23):
you know that he was looking for some professors and
people to teach the Bible. And so he's asking the
professors at the seminary, do you have any good students?
And my name kept coming up, and so he asked
me to teach. And so I just went in and taught,
you know, told others what I had learned that was
taught by my professors. A couple of years later, the
(10:43):
Dallas Seminary asked me to teach, start teaching Biblical languages,
and then I started teaching Greek and Hebrew and Bible.
I was teaching actually at three schools before I had
finished my PhD. And which you know, they typically require
PhD to teach, but they had made an exception for me.
(11:04):
So I was teaching it at College Biblical Studies, at
Dallas Theological Seminary, and then at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
And again, my passion was just to learn the Bible,
and I realized that it wasn't that complicated. Boy, we
sure make it hard, but it wasn't it wasn't that
complicated to understand. And again maybe out of frustration, you know,
(11:29):
it's you know, I wanted to teach others so that
they could understand it, so you didn't have to listen
to what somebody says. The Bible says that you can
actually open it up, and we didn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Of it well.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And that was always, uh, you know, as a Southern Baptist,
I am a believer that I don't need a pope or.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Anyone else to translate for me.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You know, it's in my language, and it's it's my
personal journey and it applies to me and no one
needs to translate it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
How did you arrive at the concept of teach me
the Bible? Were people asking you that question? Because it's
so simple and so direct?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And I think that that was part of what I
found to be the appeal when I went to the
website and then started on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, it's a funny story. So we live out here
in Brenham, and so met a pastor out here and
just wanted to help him, you know, succeed in the pastor.
And it's such a bad job. It's a hard job
unless you're called to it. And so we would sit
on the porch and we would just talk about the
Bible and he'd ask, you know, hey, what about this,
(12:35):
and so we talk about it. Well, we hired a
worship pastor and he came in and you know, he
had made the statement to him. He says, you know,
we teach the Bible and we sing heresy, how can
I learn the Bible? Because so many of our Christian
songs are such bad theology. I said, well, why don't
you just come sit on the porch with us and
talk the Bible? And he said, you know, we need
(12:56):
to make a podcast of that, and that's how it started.
So I said, well, I don't even know what that
means podcasts, you know. He said, well, don't worry about that. Well,
I'll bring the microphones, will set it up. And so
he's our technology guy. So that's what we do. We
come in and and the microphones are set up and
they just ask questions and I talk, you know, tell
(13:18):
us about this book, and so we walk through the
book and it really is a simple concept, but it's
really had a great response.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
When when folks who grew up in the church but
maybe have have drifted away, or or folks who go
to a church and as you know, this is very
common where the Bible is not first and foremost, and
they said, I really want to get I want to
go deeper into where I want to engage in personal study,
not church going personal study. Do you have an approach
(13:46):
as to a place to begin or what what is
how do you handle that?
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, well, well it's really interesting that we so much
of so many people today come to seminary for just
that they they've been involved in church, but they want
to learn the Bible and and so they come in
thinking they know a whole bunch of stuff that usually
they come up, come in with their theology, with their
you know, with their life versus or whatever it is.
(14:14):
And and when you ask them to explain what that
verse is doing with the sentence right before to the
sentence right after it, they have they have they can't answer.
And you hear so often you know, you uh, start
in the Gospel of John or something like that. But
if I handed you any book, any any book and
said here, read this book, well, you would just start
at the beginning. And and that's where you ought to start.
(14:38):
In the Bible, you start at the beginning. You start
in Genesis, and and it's really a simple story. It's
the Bible is the revelation of God's redemptive history through
you know, through through human history. I mean it's just
in the beginning, uh, creation fall and off the Lord
(15:00):
goes to bring about his promised deliverer, and you get
to walk down that trail with the authors as they
tell the story of God's redemptive acts throughout human history,
culminating in the person of his son Jesus Christ. And
so it makes perfect sense. It's really simple to understand.
(15:23):
But if we start in the middle, or start with
some verse, or you start with some theological grid or
concept or defense. It becomes really convoluted very quickly.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Although full disclaim, full disclosure and disclaimer on your part,
your expertise is your PhD is actually an Old Testament
studies so would I would argue that in terms of accessibility,
most folks can start in the New Testament with a
lot greater ease to at least get to develop comfort
(15:55):
in who we're dealing with here, whereas the Old Testament
can be, in my opinion, can be a little tougher.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Nut to crack.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Well, yeah, so what happens is, let me start with
the Gospel of John. So so John tells the reader
why he wrote his his story, but many other signs
ge are scared in the presence of those disciples which
were not written in this book.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Hold right there, we're up against break. David Klingler is
our guest. The website is teach Me the Bible dot com,
and that is also the name of the podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
More for Me to have almost went the lawless to
the Michael Verie Show. David Klingler is our guest. Former
star quarterback.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Now Teach Me the bible dot com, or you can
listen to the podcast Teach Me About. You were talking
about the Book of John and and we're going to
to get to Paul's letters, I hope at some point,
because that's something that's always appealed to me. But you
were talking about we're talking about learning the Bible, and
I'm talking as much about self taught, which appears to
(17:02):
be a lot of what y'all do. And I love
that you're not trying to build an audience for yourself.
You're trying to It appears to me, at least my
study of what y'all done is to get people engage
themselves in a self help study of the Bible. And
I love that approach.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But anyway, go ahead, Yeah, our mission is to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. But
you know the Gospel of John. John is writing to
convince the reader that Jesus is the Christ. Well, if
I ask students, and I do this all the time
in seminary, okay, well what does that mean? And they
look at me with the blank stare like, I don't know,
(17:41):
Like Jesus Christ right, Like you know, if he was
wearing a jersey on the back of his jersey it
would say Christ like his last name. Well that's not
that's a title. He's the anointed King of Israel, proven
through what he does, through what he says. His words
and works matched those of the Old Testament. So he's
(18:04):
not somebody, because even John says so. Jesus even says
in the Gospel of John, in interacting with the Pharisees,
you know, you search the scriptures, because then you think
you have eternal life. But it's these that speak of me.
And of course he's talking about the Old Testament, that
all of creation was waiting for this one to appear,
and so that anticipation is built in the Old Testament.
(18:28):
And then you know, I love how Matthew presents it.
You know, the hope of the world walked onto the
scene in human form. John says that that the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us talking about John and
the other disciples, and we beheld his goal. He saw him,
We touched him our hands, and we stuck our fingers
(18:51):
in those holes, and so we proclaimed to you. And
so it's just such an amazing story that corresponds to history.
I mean, you look at the world around us and
even current events today and what's happening, and this whole
thing is heading towards the end of God's redemptive history,
and you know, so the reason why it's so relevant
(19:14):
to us is because you're in it. We're all in it,
you know, and so so it's just such a compelling
the story to me, that corresponds to life, to all
of our lives, and so I think it's something that
everybody needs to know for themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's a fascinating approach. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I have experienced something over the years, and I'm sure
you have tenfold, and that is that if I have
someone on to talk about the Bible, or if I
myself make a statement about my interpretation of something, there
are a certain number of people who it's the one
upsmanship of social media. They can't help themselves, but they
(19:56):
love to tell you how that's wrong because their pastor
said this, this or this, and I equate it to this.
If I were to go on Facebook today is a
toxic can be a toxic place, but it could also
be a wonderful place because we get some things done.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
They're kind of crowd sourcing. And if I were to say.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I went to David Klingler's home this weekend and he
made burgers for us and they were wonderful, delicious burgers
with cheese.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And meat and mayonnaise and bread.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I would out of the thousand people that would respond,
fifty of them would be, now, my brother's burgers are better,
even though they had never eaten your. There's just this
desire to kind of want to do you find people
to be after reviewing the podcast, A certain number of
them to be compat combative, argumentative, because I find that
the Bible brings that out in some people worse than
even sports fandom.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah. Yeah, politics, you deal with it. You know, it's politics, religion.
Those are areas in sports, right, politics for religion and sports.
So you know, those are kind of the three areas
where everybody is entitled to their own opinion, you know.
And you can't tell me any different, but you know,
(21:08):
but again what motivates me. I really like the example
of the Boreans that that Luke records in the Book
of Acts. You know that they're commended for going back
to the scriptures to see if these things are so.
And you know, and so I tell my students all
the time, don't listen to me, and I don't want
you to. You know, when you stand before the Lord
(21:30):
and say, well, doctor Klingler said, well, you know what
I tell them. Klingler' is a moron. He's been a
more in his whole life. He's just trying to help
you see what the scriptures say. So let's go back
to see if these things are are so? And so
often our interpretation of some verse doesn't make any sense.
(21:51):
You know, I hear the same ones all the time.
I can do all things through Christy strengthens me. Well
think about that for a second. Can you what can
you actually do through Christ is strengthens you? Can you
leap tall buildings with a single bound? Or mentoring a
kid in high school and he had that Philippians four
thirteen on his letter jacket and his name is Casey,
(22:12):
And I said, Casey, what's that phil four thirteen? And
he looked at me like, well, aren't you supposed to
be a Bible teacher. Aren't you supposed to know this?
He said, I can do all things through Christ, who
strengthens me. I said, we like what? And he got
this paniced look on his face, like I'm not so
sure now that you. You pressed me on it, and
so I said, well, how much do you bench pressed?
(22:33):
And he said, well, you know about three fifteen, so
that's pretty good for high school kid. I said, how
much you bench pressed with Christ's strengthened you? And he says, well,
I guess about the same. I said, what does that mean?
And noticed that Paul's writing to the Philippians and he
doesn't say, y'all can do all things through Christy strengthens y'all.
(22:53):
He could have said that, So what does he mean
when he says what he says? So? Really? Yeah, Well,
what he's talking about in the whole letter is that
he was concerned for these Philippians because, you know, the
it's a very alive and wealth theology today that if
(23:14):
you serve the Lord, right, if you serve whatever God
it is you serve, he will bless you physically and financially. Now,
and of course that's not the gospel, that's not Paul's reality.
Paul had everything you know that a religious leader would
desire when he was a Pharisee. But he comes to
Christ and all of a sudden he's being beaten and
(23:34):
persecuted and shipwrecked and everywhere he goes it's turning terrible
for him, and he's concerned with these Philippians who have
participated with him in the Gospel from the first Day
until now. They've been with him in his defense of
the Gospel, and he's concerned that they're going to leave
(23:55):
him because of the persecution that that's coming. And so
they sent him a gift, and he's thankful for the gift.
He's writing this in chapter four and he says, I'm
thankful for the gift, but I don't need it. I've
learned how to get along with plenty, and I've learned
how to get along with nothing. I'm amply supplied. I
(24:16):
can do all things through Christy strengthens me. He can
endure all suffering, he can endure all hardship because his
hope is in resurrection, not in you know stuff now,
life now, prosperity now. And so once you put it
in that context, now the reader, the Philippians who ought
(24:38):
to adopt Paul's theology to think the same way Paul thinks,
can say, ah, now I understand what he's saying, and
we too can do all things through We can endure
all things. To cross the strengthens us. And that's really
the reality of life, isn't it that? You know we
were talking, we were texting back and forth and we're
(24:58):
getting old here and you can see, yeah, you have
great hair.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I'm not quite as old as you give away.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
We'll continue our conversation with David Klingler. The website is
Teach Me the Bible dot Com. Teach Me the Bible
dot Com is also the name of the pipeline. We're
going to be changing the name of the Gulf of
Mexico to the.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Gulf of Smit of michael Berry, which has a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
David Klingler was once known as a star quarterback at
Stratford High School and then at the University of Houston,
where he was a third in the running for the
Heisman Trophy the year that Ty Detmer of BYU won it.
Rocket ismael number two at Notre Dame. He was his
first round draft pick for Cincinnati Bengals, and after his
career was over, or as he said, even before that,
(25:48):
he started looking for more meaning in life and he
wanted to learn the Bible, not to preach, not for
a living. He didn't need to worry about that, but
he wanted to understand and learn the Word of God,
so he went who the Dallas Theological Seminary and ended
up getting his PhD. And now teach me the Bible
dot com and the podcast teach me the Bible and
(26:12):
with us.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Now, let me give you this segment if you would.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And you've got about eight minutes, and I want you
to teach me the Bible of the Birth of Christ
as you would, and I'll give you a one minute
wrap up. But I'm my guessing as you got your
clock down pretty good.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
All right, So the assignment the birth.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Of would have been nice if I gave you the
lead time, I know. But anyway, well that's okay.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Well, well it's an Old Testament story, you know it really,
the birth of Christ is an Old Testament story. The
whole story is an anticipation. So we you know, we
go back to creation, we go back to the garden,
and you know, God has this mandate. Torri says, let
us make man in our image and our likeness. Let
him rule over the bird's ear, the fishes, He at
(27:00):
the beast of the field. He creates man and gives
him what creates the woman to help her. They were
to be fruitful and multiply image bears. And the serpent
comes into this scene. The antagonists, or the satan, we
call him all Satan means hastan. The adversary comes in
(27:20):
and de seizes the woman and the man's there with her,
and they eat of the forbidden tree, and they're kicked
out of the garden. They're removed from the tree of life.
And so now, man, you know, Adam's name is a
He comes from the adamah Adama means ground. He was
raised up out of the ground to never return to it,
(27:41):
to rule over the birds of the ear, the fishes,
sy the beast. I feel. And now he's going back
to the ground. And that creates the problem. And it's
our problem, right, we think we've got a lot of problems.
Our problem is you're you know, your days are numbered,
and you don't know if today's your last day. And
and so this introduces the problem. And the Lord declares
(28:03):
right there in Genesis three. The Church has always recognized
what we call the proto Evangelium, the first proclamation of
the Gospel, that the Lord was going to bring through
this woman, this one who would be born, who would
die for sin, we're reading a little bit in here,
but this is what's developed in the story. And so
the whole story of Genesis is tracking this promise, and
(28:25):
really nothing else practical attracts this promise down through the genealogies,
through Noah, through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Israel,
through Judah, through the family line of Peiz to the
to the house of David the king, and this promise
is given to him, and it's going to come through
this kingly line of David and Isaiah. The prophet shows
(28:49):
up and condemned the whole line of David and says,
a virgin will give birth, that I don't need you,
King a has I don't need you the Davidic line,
I don't need I'll do it by myself with a
little girl. And so all of creation, all of the
(29:09):
hope of the world waits for God to keep his promises.
As Israel is disobedient, thrown out of the land, dispersed
among the nations, and at the right time to the day,
as Daniel the Prophet prophesies, Christ is born, the promised
to one appears and he's proven through his words and
(29:32):
works that he is the one that the whole creation,
all of the law and the prophets and the psalms
was anticipating, and he walks onto the scene and does
exactly what was for told, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascends to
the right hand of the Father. And you know, and
that's the gospel story. That's the it's the story of
(29:53):
the births of Christ. So it's a thirty nine books
building towards the gospels. Everything is waning towards this lone
and when he's born, it is just, you know, the
hope of the world has appeared. And you know, and
so what.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know, you mentioned Philippians four thirteen and how people
use in a kind of a health and wellness. You know,
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
What are things about Christ's birth or life or I
don't want to get to teachings per se yet because
I want to save that. But what are things about
Christ's life that you think are not understood or widely misunderstood?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Well, I think that the from the very beginning. You know,
you think about Job and Job's friends. This it's this
theology that says, if you serve the Lord, or serve God,
whatever it is, you'll be blessed. Now you say, well,
that doesn't make any sense. It certainly didn't work for Paul.
It didn't work. I mean, you go back to the
(30:54):
very beginning of the of the Bible of Canaan.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Abel.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You know, Able was the righteous one, but Cain kills Abel.
I mean, it didn't work for Abel, It didn't work
for Jesus, it didn't work for the prophets. So Paul's
going to say things like, all who desired to be
godly in Christ, Jesus will suffer, will be persecuted. And
so this was Jesus's life, and so often I think that,
(31:20):
and we kind of learned this through through church history
and our unique American experience, that we've westernized the Gospel
and americanized it so that the means by which you
can experience the American dream is through Christ. He will
help you, you know, achieve all you want to achieve.
(31:43):
I know, the plans I have for you, declares the
Lord of future and hope. And so we go in there,
we grab that verse and jerk it out of context,
and we make it about us. And so you know,
Christ came as a suffering servant to lay down his
life for sin, and I don't think that we focus
on that near enough and call believers. And in the
(32:04):
early Church, first a few centuries, they viewed suffering martyrdom
as part of discipleship, to deny yourself and to take
up your cross, and it was very real to them.
But once the you know, Christianity kind of becomes the
(32:25):
state religion, or at least the accepted religion, persecution ends
and those verses kind of go away, and they're uncomfortable,
and now you know, it's yeah, and it becomes a
means by which we can achieve.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, it's not than and we we think Jesus because
we won the game.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I always think, well, does that mean the Lord
didn't care for the other team?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You know, there's this idea that you know, if I,
if I chuck up a deuce after the game, you
know that then God will favor me with victories and
awards and all those things. And it's always it's always
been interesting that that's that's almost this. I don't know
that that one's always bothered me a bit more than
the others.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I don't really know why David Klingler is our guest.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
He is.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
He is the man behind, along with a team around
him of teach Me the Bible dot Com and then
Teach Me the Bible dot Com podcast, which, like every
other podcast, is free and accessible and a great thing
to listen to as you're driving across the country or
just driving home.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
And he'll be our guest or more I mean
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