Asking for a Friend Pt. 4: The Big Questions You’ve Been Afraid to Ask

Episode Transcript
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Ti’heasha Beasley (00:00):
Foreign.

Pastor Brent McQuay (00:10):
And welcome to another episode of Between
Sermons. I'm your host, Pastor Brent McWay.
Get to be the lead pastor here
at Disciples Church and get to hang
out with you for this amazing podcast,
which, you know, a lot of people
would celebrate their hundredth episode, but not
us. Here at Disciples Church, we wait
till the 101st episode to celebrate. And

(00:33):
actually just so. So Brett warned us,
gave us a heads up that last
week was going to be our 100th
episode, and we're like, oh, man, we
should do something special. And then. Sorry,
Brett. We just completely all about that.
So, yeah, we failed Brett, which is
never good. But. Yeah. So apparently this
is our 101st. Yeah. Episode. Does that.

(00:56):
That feels special?

It does a little. I mean, you've
been here since day one, Ground zero.
So how do you feel? I'm new
to this.

I. I feel like hitting a hundred
is. I'm surprised. Like, I didn't feel
like we had done that many.

Yeah.

But then part of me feels like,
well, we've been doing this for, like,
eight years, so we should have.

Absolutely.

Even though we do one a week.

Right.

The last couple years. So. Yeah, it's
kind of exciting. Kind of. I don't
know, different.

You're not excited. I can tell you're
excited.

You're not.

David Beasley (01:28):
It's longevity.

I'm excited because today we get to
answer the last, like, about 30 questions,
right?

30. Yep. About 30.

About 30 questions. And then the podcast
answerings are done, and I have to
do two more videos.

Okay.

So I've got 24 questions. You said
that I have a 25th. Possibly.

Possibly. So, yes. Yeah. Not.

Then I can answer that another way.
I actually got an email this morning
from somebody that has a question, and
so that does bring something up that.
That we need to figure out. Is,
is there a way for people to
keep sending in questions? Because I don't
want to teach our people that. No,
you only ask your questions one time.

One time a year.

You've got one week to ask questions.
And other than that, we're like, no.
So would there be a way where
people could submit questions on a regular
basis and we just pull them, answer
them at, like, the end of an
episode?

I like that idea. We can add
a question, a Q A segment. As
long as it's not like 300.

Well, I mean, it could be 300.
We'll do, like, three. Three.

Yeah.

A week.

Yeah. I like that.

We can do that until we're done.

So how about this? Let's let the
people vote.

Okay.

If you would like to add a
Q A section or segment to our
podcast, let us know in the comments
below. We are. I am literally going
to look in the comments and see
who voted and then we'll go from
there. How about that?

What about for the people that are
listening, like itunes or.

That is very true.

Or without comments.

That is very true.

Can they send an email in or
something?

Yes, send us an email. This is
your opening. No, you can send it
to media at DC DC1. I'm. I'm
drawing a blank.

One is spelled out o n e.

O n e. So, yeah, let us
know. DC o n e. So mediac
dot one o n e. Let us
know that way or in the comments.
How about that?

Sweet. I love it. That's awesome. I'm
just adding more work for you to
do.

You are.

And you're just like, oh, great. This
is awesome.

No, I am. If this works, I.
I want to be relevant to the
people.

All right. We've been ignoring your husband
for far too long.

Hi, guys.

Absolute.

Hi, everybody.

Hi, David.

I'm David.

Welcome to the 101 Show.

101. This is amazing. So I've been
a part of this journey. I've been.
This might be my third time, I
think on a podcast at least.

Right.

Yeah.

I feel like more than that.

Feel like part of the fam. This
is good.

You are definitely part of my family.

A lot of show. Of course you
have my last name.

Yes.

There are a lot of shows that
don't make it this far. A lot
of things, you know. Well, you know,
you've reached syndication if you was a
TV show.

We do our thing regardless of popularity.

We do.

If it's got three views.

We're.

Hey, we're coming back next week.

Consistency.

It's good.

All right. We've delayed long enough.

No, it wasn't a delay.

We've got 30 questions that are burning
in people's minds.

Yes.

Let's. Let's dive in.

Let's dive in. All right, question number
one. Are you guys ready? How. Yes.
How did we end up with so
many versions of the Bible and which
one is closest to the original languages?

Yeah. So that's. I love that kind
of question. I think we. We also.
We have to be a little bit
cautious with using the word version.

Yeah.

Because I think version is an accurate
word for this because, like, in. In
the original, like, a version was a.
Just another word for translation. Nowadays, if
it sounds like. When somebody's like, why
do we got so many versions of
the Bible. It sounds like we've got,
like, different Bibles.

Right.

And so, like, that's the, the part
that wouldn't be accurate. So I just
like using the word translation a little
bit more. Even though versions is technically
accurate, it just paints a different picture.
So, yeah, we have a lot of
different translations because languages are hard. And
so the Bible's written in Hebrew, Greek,
and a little bit in Aramaic. And

(05:27):
so we have to translate those languages
into something we can understand. And so
we have a lot of different translations
because a lot of different scholars, a
lot of different groups of people try
and do that better than somebody else.
Right. We're in, like, this total competition
with each other to do the best
job we can. And what ends up
really happening is translators, which is usually

(05:49):
teams of people, are trying to decide
between faithfulness to the original word and
readability. So, like, a funny example of
this that I love to use is
in the Old Testament. It talks about
how God is slow to anger, but
the actual Hebrew phrase for slow to
anger is he's long of nostril. So

(06:12):
God is long enough or long of
nose. The Hebrew word there could be
nostril or nose. So if you're reading
in your Bible and you're reading, wow,
God is long of nose, like, what.
What does that even mean?

He lost me.

Like, it, I mean, the translation for
it, the understanding, it was a idiom
in Hebrew that just meant that you're
slow to anger. So, like, you could
be like, man, you know, somebody cut
me off in traffic, but good thing
I'm long of nose. So I, you
know, I just waved at him with
all five finger.

Oh my.

And, you know, prayed for him to
have a good day. Right. Because I'm
long of nose.

That's intense.

It's just, it's just weird to say
it that way. And so if you're
looking for, like, the exact English word
that means the exact thing in Greek
or in Hebrew, you're going to end
up with some really weird Bibles.

Yeah.

And so we, we constantly are trying
to figure out, okay, what was intended
by the, the phrase, what is the
context of that Historically, when they were
using that, what did, what did that
mean for us today? And language is
constantly evolving.

Yeah.

And so, you know, in 1611, when
the king James version was, was translated,
it was language that was common to
the people then. Yeah, that language has
changed. Words don't mean the same thing
that they meant 500 years ago. And
so we, we have to constantly be
kind of updating things and then on

(07:33):
top of that, we're also discovering more
and more manuscripts as we get better
manuscripts and older manuscripts that are getting
closer and closer to the autographs, the
orig, we're able to make adjustments and
changes to things. So. Yeah, so we
have a lot of translations today because
of all that.

Yeah. Do you have the Gen Z
translation, man?

I've read, like, excerpts, so. Oh, it
is so bad.

I think we need to get that,
David, for sure.

Really.

But the, the question they did ask,
what's the. What was the last part
of the question? What's the best one?

Which one is the closest to the
original language?

Closest to the original language. So if
you look at, like, Bible translations on,
like, a spectrum where, like, on one
far end you want just word for
word, on the other side, you want
the most readable thing. So, like, the
message paraphrase is super readable. Like, you.
You get the language, but it's getting

(08:30):
further and further away from this. What
did the text actually say? And so
translations that fall closer to that, you
know, exact language, that word for word
faithfulness would probably be the new American
Standard Bible, nasb, the esv, the English
Standard Version, which is what I read.
And then a lot of people put
the new King James Version in that

(08:52):
category as well. For me, personally, I'm
an ESV guy, so that's, that's what
I gravitate to.

Yeah. What. What version do you like?
I know, but I'm asking.

I mean, my favorite is ESV as
well. You remember that? Remember we compared
big bulk ESV study Bibles?

That's true. Okay.

But I'll add to what Pastor Brent
said. It helps us. Like, the fact
of the matter is, when we have
various translations, it does help us remain
faithful as close as possible to the
original writings of the Scriptures. But also,
since language is evolving, it helps us
realize that sometimes the meaning of a
word is based on the context in
which is used. So every word doesn't.

(09:30):
So like today, like, in today's time,
if I use the word raw, right?
So if I'm saying. If I'm talking
about sports and I say that dude
is raw, somebody could say, you talking
about meat?

He's uncooked.

Are you not cooked? Or is he,
like, just. He. He just says whatever
he wants to say. No, raw means
he's good. He's. He's a very good
basketball player. Right. Or even that word
cooked. In today's time, our son walks
around and says, oh, man, I'm cooked.
What does that mean? That means I'm
in trouble. That means I lost. That
means, oh, this is not good. So
because language changes and shifts. That is

(10:02):
the reason why we have the manuscripts
and the reason why we have various
translations to help us understand the scriptures
a little bit better.

And there's words that have multiple meanings
even when you don't take into consideration,
like, cultural, like slang and different things
like that. Like. Like the. The word
bark. Okay, am I talking about a
tree or am I talking about a
dog? If I just say bark or.

The word flesh. Yeah, the word flesh.
In the Scriptures, flesh can mean human
being, a person. Flesh can mean sinful
nature. So trying to understand what it
means, you know, do not live according
to the flesh, but live according to
the spirit. Is that referring to don't
live in. According to my skin? Well,
in that context, it's referring to sin,

(10:46):
the sinful nature. But when Jesus came
in the flesh, he didn't come as
a sinner. He came as a human
in human form. So, yeah, you gotta
understand the context.

Oh, my gosh.

It all helps us understand. But I
actually, I like the challenge of a
good study. So I come across terms
in scrap, like, let me look that
up in the Greek and Hebrew. That's
just me. But.

So let's just make it known that
you guys know your Bible. But for
the purpose of this show, let's try
to keep it simple.

I thought we were keeping it simple.

To me, I thought that was keeping
the flesh this. That you wanted to
listen.

Guys, the reason we have various translations,
and I. And I like that term,
use the word translation, you know, rather
than version. I think that's good. Is
because we want to make. Because people
are attempting to. To make sure the
Scriptures are fleshed out in a way
that people can understand.

It's. It's a desire to be accurate
or. Or a desire to. To correctly
represent the original while making it easy
to understand for the most amount of
people. So how do you do both
of those things? And people are going
to choose which. Which one to, I

(12:00):
guess, emphasize?

Yes. Awesome. Next question is. I feel
like Pastor Carlton should have led this
because y' all three would have. I
know. That's crazy. Is the Bible the
word of God to humans, or is
it humans words about God?

Yes.

Okay.

There's elements of both within the Bible.
And so we've talked about this before,
but we also have to recognize the
Bible is not a book. It's. It's
a collection of books. And each of
those books was written by someone to
an audience for a Reason. And there
are. All of scripture is God breathed.
So you could say all of it
is God's words to us. But a

(12:45):
lot of it, it's historical accounting, right?
It's. It's documenting genealogies and connection points
between different people throughout scripture. Like, so
is that, like, is that God's word
for me? Like, that's going to edify
my life in some way? Probably not,
but it adds to the validity of
scripture. It adds to the historicity of
the Jewish people and what. What's taking

(13:06):
place. And so, yeah, there's. There's a
mixture of both. It's. There's prayers that
are written in the Bible that are
man's words towards God. And that's not
a bad thing. That's a good thing.
So.

Yeah.

Yeah. Depends on the verse.

Yeah. Awesome. Next question. In 1st Samuel
28, it talks about Saul asking to
talk with Samuel's ghosts. I've always wondered
if he was actually communicating with Samuel
or if this was an example of
necromancy. Necromancy and communicating with demons.

You don't play enough video games if
you don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm
like, necromancy. Never read that word. Okay.

That's when. That's when Black panther, when
he. When he. After he died. After
he. Yeah, when he takes the purple,
that. That flower and then he sees
his father on the. That's a example
of necromancy. But that's, you know, that's
Hollywood, but good.

Anyways, okay, so I. I think there's.
There's two things that are going on.
You could argue that that is a
form of necromancy. He went to a
witch to do it. Like, this wasn't
like a priest or a holy moment
that was supposed to happen. At the
same time, I would argue that it
actually is Samuel that he. He speaks

(14:25):
to, because if it was a demon,
the demon wouldn't have given the word
that same. Who gave. Like, like, he
actually basically cautioned Saul. Not really caution.
He just flat out tells him, hey,
you're gonna die tomorrow. And it's because
of your rebellion against God. It's because
you haven't done things right. And so
you and your. Your son are gonna

(14:47):
be killed tomorrow. And he is. And
his son is so, like, it was
like a spot on, accurate word that
I don't think. I think a demon
in that moment would have been like,
saw. You're good, man. Like, you know,
God's got you and life is gravy
and you're gonna be a millionaire and
drive a sports car. It's gonna be
great.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the fact that there's it's
an accurate. Yeah, I guess prophetic word
given from beyond the grave would probably
indicate that it really was the, the
prophet that he was talking to. But
does that mean that we should do
likewise? Absolutely not.

Absolutely.

Saul was in rebellion against God and
doing the thing that he did. So
not good.

Wow. All right, next question. In. In
Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, God makes
man in his own image and gave
them dominion, but he doesn't create Adam
and Eve until chapter two about verse
seven. So did humans exist before Adam
and Eve? And how do we interpret

(15:45):
this?

Yeah, so I think I've talked several
times now about how Genesis and Revelation
are the two hardest books of the
Bible to interpret. Stand by that. You
know, I'm really solid with everything in
the middle. It's just the beginning and
the end. That's like, I don't know,
man. But for, for this, I, I
think the best reading possible. And there

(16:08):
I'll start with. There are some Christians
who hold to a theistic evolution doctrine
that would say that these are two
separate creation accounts and that, yes, there
were other people. And, and for them,
that helps solve the problem of when
Cain was afraid of other people coming
to kill him. Where did those other

(16:28):
people come from? It was just him
and his family at the time. So,
like, they have scriptural basis for why
they believe what they believe. And, and
they argue really well how it can,
I guess, adhere with other scriptures. I
think the better interpretation of this is
that chapter one is the, the wide
angle view, chapter two is the zoom.

(16:51):
And so in chapter one, you're getting
kind of a broad sense of this
is God's creating the world. Chapter two
is here's how man plays into all
of this. And so there are some
apparent contradictions in Genesis 1 and Genesis
2 that I don't know if we've
talked about on the show before or
not, but it does get really nerdy.

(17:13):
But it talks about like, the order
of animals and plants. And man is
different in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2,
so it kind of reverses the order.
There are some super nerdy ways to
explain what, what's happening where there's these
parallels, where it's like Genesis Day 1
and 2, parallels 6 and 5 and

(17:34):
3 and 4. Apparently it's just, it's
way beyond my pay grade. Like, it's,
it's too heady even for me. But
I, I think that the, the best
understanding of Genesis 1 and 2 is
that they are not different events. They're
the same event, just highlighting different aspects
of it. I guess the best way
to put it. So I think sometimes

(17:56):
we try and read it chronologically like
Genesis 1 happened and then Genesis 2
happened, when they're really more of an
overlap.

Got it. Okay.

Anything you would add, David?

No, that's exactly where my train of
thought was going. It describes what happened
in Genesis 1. And then it gets
more specific when it says, so it
made man in his likeness and image.
Then, you know, then it says, later
on it says, okay, then I took
the dust of the ground, made Adam.
Then I said, oh, it's not good.
Adam named the animals. Then of course,

(18:27):
he says he named them all, but
he couldn't find anyone suitable for him,
clearly. So then God said, it's not
good for man to be alone. I'll
make a helpmate suitable for him. Then
puts him to sleep, takes the rib,
makes Eve. So it said in Genesis
1, this is what happened, but later
on it's explaining how it happened and
what happened and how mankind fell and
the serpent and everything else. So, yeah,

(18:48):
same train of thought.

And one of the, the best, I
guess, understandings or explanations for the apparent
contradiction of that, that order of creation
is Chapter two is talking about in
the garden and domesticated plants and animals.
So like when it talks about, in
chapter two, it talks about how no

(19:11):
plants of the field had been made
yet. The fact that they emphasize of
the field means, hey, there could have
been plants that would fit the Genesis
1 narrative, but there wasn't like corn
that's like cultivated and it's planted for
sustenance. And the same thing with the
animals that the, the order of things
is just because it's demonstrating what was

(19:32):
created in the garden itself. So there's,
there's ways that we can harmonize chapter
one and two, even in the apparent
contradictions. One of the super nerdy things
that I do have to say that's
really interesting though, and he'll love this.
So Genesis chapter one, God in Hebrew
is Elohim. In chapter two, it's Yahweh.

(19:55):
And so basically what that is, Elohim
is just the general term for God.
Yahweh is the personal name of God.
And so it kind of fits with
that whole Genesis 1 is this kind
of general view. Genesis 2 is this
specific creation because it's, it's showing the
relationship between a personal God and his
creation, Adam, which.

Puts emphasis on the fact that we're
made in his image and likeness.

Isn't that cool, though?

That's dope. Yeah, that's dope.

Yep. And the only. The only hint
to that in English is that chapter
two says, Lord the Lord God. Chapter
one just says God. No, that is
because Elohim and Yahweh.

That is cool. And that was actually,
I think, the first. You did, like,
a message where you pointed out where
his name was used differently. And my
dad. That was the sermon that made
them be like, oh, we're gonna go
to this church.

That's awesome.

Yeah, because it was like, wow. Like,
no one has ever broke that down
like that.

So it's because the word Lord shows
up up in three different variations in
English, because it's three different words in
Hebrew.

It's crazy.

It's fun times.

That is. That's awesome. When you think
about it. To learn. All right, the
next question. What constitutes being made in
God's image?

That's a great question and one that,
honestly, I wrestle with a little bit,
because the Bible doesn't really go out
of its way to explain. But I
think my best understanding of that is
that we are image bearers of God.
We are God's representation on the earth.
Animals don't represent God. Plants don't represent

(21:34):
God. The insects don't represent God. We
do. And so being made in the
image of God, I think is just
saying that we are God's expression on
this earth. And again, that's. That's. That's
one of those where, like, the Bible
doesn't really spell out, you know, and
he made a man in his image.
And by that we mean.

Yeah, yeah, right.

So, like, you have to kind of
infer some things. And so I've heard
a lot of arguments saying, you know,
well, it's because man is creative and
God is creative. It's like, yeah, but
I've seen monkeys, like, make tools, like,
stack things so they can get. I
saw a squid learn how to, like,
open the jar of, like, some food.
So, like, animals can get creative, too.

(22:19):
So what. What really makes us unique?

You're the only person to stop and
think about that.

Like, clearly not because somebody is asking.

Somebody's asking. Right. Okay. I would add
our ability. I was gonna go that
route, but our ability to. I'll still
go that route. Our ability to. It's
not just creative in a sense of.
Of just being able to figure out
something that's in front of us. It's
our ability, I guess, to imagine and

(22:48):
create something that doesn't exist yet. Not
Ex nihilo, not something out of nothing
like God does, but look at something
and be able to see an image
in something and see something that could
be cultivated and created that nobody else
sees. But, but we can bring it
to, we can bring it to the
surface. Our ability to have a will.
We have a will. We can love,

(23:11):
we can dislike.

My dog can't love. My dog loves.

No, I mean perfect love is a
human. I mean love in a sense
that to differentiate between wrong and right,
to be able to create ways for
societies and culture to be sustained and
cultivated like God does all those things.
I think those are some of the

(23:34):
indicators that show that we're made in
his image and likeness, not animals. Yes,
they can have their way, but even
still, we tame them, we tame animals,
we have dominion over animals. And a
lot of what animals learn, we teach
to a certain extent. So I would
say those are ways for us to

(23:55):
indicate that we're made in his image
and likeness.

It's an interesting thought experiment and we.

Value value as well.

I'm sorry, because here, here's where I'd
play devil's advocate with, with that approach,
which there's a lot of people that
hold that one. My issue would be
then that would imply that there are
some humans that have more of the
image of God than others. Because like
one of my children, I won't name
names. He cannot visualize anything. If, if

(24:24):
you do not spell out for this
child exactly what to do, how to
do it, where to do it, that'
he can't just picture something and create
it. His problem solving skills are non
existent. I have another child who can
problem solve, probably better than me. He
never stops. He's gonna run straight through
the wall. He's gonna figure it out.

(24:46):
He's gonna come with a solution. So
does that mean one of my children
is more in the image of God
than one of my other kids?

No, it doesn't. No, I understood the
definition I utilized.

It's easy to say, no, it doesn't.
But, but wouldn't. Wouldn't the argument that
you made imply that there are some
people that have more of the image
of God than others? If it's based
on abilities to do certain things.

I would say that put.

You on the spot.

Oh, my next question.

I would say no, no, no. I
would say that this is how.

Guys have when it comes to value
intellectual discussion.

I guess when God made us in
his image and his likeness, he instilled
a certain amount of value inside of
each of us that transcends our abilities
to do anything because it's the value
he gave us. But I will also
say creative ability doesn't have to mean,

(25:42):
like, I can build skyscrapers. It's even
like the ability to love or the
ability to truly to care. The ability
to. To like and dislike. Like, I
mean, I would say that those are
areas. Those are areas that I can
think from my finite mind. I can.

(26:02):
I can point out to say those
are some of the indicators that show
that we are made in God's image
and God's likeness. Now, of course, we
can go either way, but those are
just indicators. I can. That I can
think of. But I would say that
value is the primary focal point. And
because God said it like, we may
not be able to point out indications

(26:23):
to say, yes, this is why this
person's made in God's image. But if
he said, let us do it, then
some people go by, you know, because
we have a soul, a body, a
spirit, there's all type of avenues that
people go that's a whole different direction.

That's an interesting conversation too. Like the
Trinity within mankind. Mind, body, spirit.

Mind, body and spirit. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really interesting. It's funny, though,
your first argument reminded me. What's the
Will Smith robot movie?

IRobot.

IRobot. Where the robot's like. Or Will
Smith is like, can you write Mozart
and can you paint a Picasso or
whatever? He says, and the robot just
looks at me. He's like, can you.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm sorry. Yeah, my brain
is broken.

No, it's not broken. This is great.
I guess I was just wondering, like,
where is it in Scripture? Like, if
we wanted to give them biblical that.

That's the point.

That's the point. It says, let us
make man in our likeness.

So both of your.

So we're made in God's image, but
yet how. How it. You can say
this is what it means to be
made. Yeah, that's the opinion.

Yeah. There's no. There's no Bible verse
that explains what that means.

Okay.

Fully. So you have to take inferences
from different things. I think the bottom
line, though, is. And this is what
abolitionists fought for, is that because we're
made in the image of God, that
means we all have equal value. And
so I. I think that that's. That's
what we should walk away from it.
That all. All men are created in
the image of God.

I mentioned value.

Mankind being made in the image of
God means we have value. Yep.

Awesome. Next question. Any idea why there's
so much duplication on the Bible. And
what is the benefit of all the
references to numbers, the numbers of fighting
men, dimensions of the temple, intent, names
of sons. I make myself read it

(28:21):
anyway, but don't understand what the purpose
is or what it serves. I figure
it must have some significance since it's
put in the Bible.

Yeah. So some duplication is based off
of different accounts of things. So like
you've got first and Second Kings and
you also have first and Second Chronicles,
which both. And some of First, Second
Samuel, kind of all, all six of
those books kind of overlap in different
areas with first and Second Kings and
First and Second Chronicles basically being on

(28:50):
top of each other. And the reason
why there's that duplication is. And it
get. This gets really interesting if you,
if you spend the next three days
just researching these things. First and Second
Kings was written during exile in Babylon.
First two Chronicles was written after they
had been freed. So after the exile.

(29:12):
And so if you read first and
Second Kings, the emphasis and the details
is it's like on military and political
power and all of that. First and
Second Chronicles shifts and it's more of
an emphasis on like the, the priests
and the spiritual aspect of things. And
really what it comes down to is
First Kings almost gives like a understanding

(29:34):
to the people of Israel of why
they're in captivity. It's like, hey, this
is our history. We rebelled against God
and here's where we rebelled, here's where
we went wrong, and here's the judgment
that was prophesied over us and here's
the judgment we're experiencing right now in
Babylon. So like it fits within that
context. First and Second Chronicles is written

(29:55):
after that moment. And so it's more
hope filled. Like the, it, it doesn't
go into some of the negative details.
Instead it focuses on God's mercy and
on God's deliverance. And so it's, it's
actually, it's designed to give them hope
as they're rebuilding their nation. And so
it's really interesting where you could just
read it and be like, why I'm,
I already read this story, why am

(30:15):
I reading again? But there's a difference
in the details that really make an
impact. And you can say the same
thing with the four gospels that, you
know, the four Gospels, there are overlaps
in stories. There's some stories that are
present in multiple gospels, but even the
stories that are found in multiple gospels,
there's a different perspective, it's a different
viewpoint. And so it gives us Better
understanding. So that answers the so much

(30:37):
duplication question somewhat the numbers and all
those details. I think part of it
is that the Bible is also supposed,
is trying to teach some history to
the people. And so having those specific
numbers and the genealogies especially, it's helping
trace family lines. But then there is

(30:58):
actually theology that is being taught if
you pay attention to it. And this
is where you almost need like a
degree in Biblical studies or a degree
in Hebrew to catch some of these
things like Matthew, his genealogy in Matthew
skips some people intentionally because in. And
this is so nerdy and I'm not

(31:19):
even a scholar to know all the
validity of what I'm about to say.
So take it with a grain of
salt. So Matthew's genealogy, he does 14
generations to David and then 14 generations
from David to Jesus. And in those
sets of 14, what's significant is the
name David. So in Hebrew, numbers and

(31:41):
letters are the same characters. And so
Hebrew name has a number associated with
it. And David's name is the number
14.

Wow.

And so Matthew is actually doing this
like, elaborate thing to, to connect Jesus
to David in, in the lineage. And
because what Matthew is trying to do
all throughout the book of Matthew is
connect Jesus to the lineage of David,
to the prophetic word given to Israel.
He has the most Old Testament references
of all the Gospels. And so there's

(32:11):
interesting things that are taking place now
for us reading it today. I think
it's okay, and this is my controversial
statement of the day. I think it's
okay, especially if you're fairly new to
reading your Bible. I think it's okay
for you to skip over some of
the genealogies and things. I think that
you, you will not be ruining your

(32:32):
faith in doing so. I think God
put it there for a reason and
it's good that it's there. Is it
going to help you on Monday morning
to follow Jesus at your workplace when
the co worker is tempting you, when
your boss is tempting you to cuss
them out, when, when things are happening,
Is the genealogy going to help you
in that moment? Probably not. Okay, so

(32:55):
like if you're new, like, it's okay.
I'm giving you permission, which I know
that I don't take this too far,
but I'm giving you permission to skip
portions of scripture. But I think that
it's still there for a reason. There
is validity to it. And yeah, it's,
there's interesting things that take place in
the genealogies. Genealogies also give us this

(33:16):
highlight of certain women that weren't even
part of, like, the original promise, but
they're grafted in. Or there's women that
are prostitutes. And it, it's like, man,
why wouldn't if, if somebody was making
all this up, if somebody was writing
this story without God actually being involved,
you wouldn't include those details. You wouldn't
include those people. You wouldn't. You wouldn't

(33:38):
have them in the family. The greatest
king in the history of Israel. And
you're going to connect them to a
prostitute who's going to do that? Nobody's
gonna do that unless it's real. Unless
it's true.

Yeah.

And so there's. There's some interesting things
that take place. Yeah, but that's my,
that's my somewhat nerdy.

What's funny, I was looking at a
sermon the other day, and that individual
was teaching about. He was teaching on
geologies, genealogies, and he highlighted the fact
that in a genealogy, people would look
at them to see what, you know,
the history, the royalty, or the legacy
that was passed down and be impressed.

Yep.

It was supposed to be written out
in a way that's supposed to be
impressive. Oh, this person passed down. Oh,
that. That connected to. Oh, my goodness,
this is amazing. Look at this person.
They come from good stock. And then
they did bring up the fact that.
But look, this had to be something
that really happened because there are certain
individuals involved in genealogies, like certain women
who were placed there, and if you

(34:34):
wanted it to look like something that
was royal and pristine and like, wow,
you wouldn't have placed them there. But
it was God saying, no, this is
what happened. And I use these individuals,
I use these women mightily. Yes, they
have a past. Yes, they have some
issues. Yes, they have struggles. Yes, they
had downfalls, shortcomings. But I used them
perfectly and purposely to bring about Jesus

(34:55):
the Christ. And that was something that
was. That caused me to just, you
know, have a mindset of worship and
a mindset of gratitude for myself, to
be like, wow, God uses individuals, broken
crayons to make great pictures. Right. To.
To make a work of art. So
that is something that was. That was
something that was amazing to me.

We get that on a T shirt,
right?

I can't take, Can I take credit?
I heard it somewhere. Maybe this popped.
Maybe it was a rhema. But okay,
but I will say that, yeah, that's
the significant aspects of genealogy, but it
takes some digging and some studious work
to find that in that and find
the picture and find the message in
those. But yeah, that was, that was
a reason. That was one of the

(35:39):
reasons why genealogies exist. It's an amazing,
it's an amazing aspect to scripture.

So, yeah, I like those, I like
history, so I like both of those
responses. So I guess it's just, as
you go deeper that it's going to
come into play, the more. Next question.
Why does God not save and heal
children or disabled children when he is
Jehovah?

Rapha, That's a big statement. Assuming that
God don't heal at all.

No, I think he does. I think
it's, it's a genuine question because there
are too many sick kids that haven't
been healed, even with people praying, even
with people believing. And so it's, it's
just the reality of the world we
live in. So why doesn't he. I
don't know. I wish he did. I

(36:31):
wish that this is just super vulnerable.
I wish God was a genie where
as long as we just said the
right words, he did whatever it was
that we wanted him to do. But
at that point, he's no longer God.
I am, because he's just doing whatever
I want. And so I think as,
as hard of a reality as it

(36:51):
is. Yeah, God doesn't heal everyone, always.
Why not? He's sovereign. It's up to
him whether he chooses to or not.
And so there's a great deal of
faith and surrender that has to take
place to say, God, I really think

(37:12):
you should do this. I really want
you to do this, but even if
you don't, you're still God. So, yeah,
we talked on that a couple of
weeks ago with why pain and suffering
of God is good. And that message
may help. All I know is that
when you're, when you're standing with somebody
who has just lost a child, there
are no answers to that question.

Yep, agree. Next question. Why would God
want us to fear him? Fear is
a huge way to brainwash people to
conform. And it seems weird that God
would be preaching for us to fear
him.

I think it's only weird if you
come at it with that, oh, it's
a brainwashing tool. Like, if you come
at it with this kind of, this,
this negative bias, then, then sure, I
can see where you come to that
conclusion. However, fear in Scripture is tied
to reverence. And so it's a recognition
that God is supreme, that God is

(38:16):
all powerful, that God is bigger than
you are and you're not on the
same level. Like, and so, like, I
had a fear of my father growing
up that I Think was very healthy.
Right. Like, it's a reminder that, hey,
he's the boss in this house and
what he wants. That's what happens. And

(38:37):
if I fight against that system, it's
not going to go well for me.
And so I had a healthy fear
of my father. Now, was I terrified
that my dad was just going to
walk in the room and slap me
for no reason at all? No, because
I. I have a good father. Yeah,
right. I. I know that somebody listening
to this right now is like, oh,
no, I had that fear, like, because
legit. But our fear of God is

(39:00):
not that he's going to do something
random and reckless and without cause or
any of that. Our fear of God
is this reverence of saying he is
holy and I'm not. He's all powerful
and I'm not. He's the one in
control, not me. And so I want
to honor him and respect him and
show him the. The reverence that he

(39:20):
deserves. So I don't think that fear
in that context is a negative thing.
I think it's a positive thing. And
so if it helps swap the word
fear for reverence, because I think that's
what it's ultimately getting at.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the same. Yeah. It
means respect, reverence. This is why Proverbs
tells us the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge. So a healthy reverence and respect
for God and who he is sets
the stage and lays the foundation for,
I would say, a life, a life

(39:55):
of a prosperous and fruitful life. And
I don't mean financial necessarily. I mean
just a life that's going to be
led and blessed by God. Because the
main thing. You're keeping the main thing,
the main thing, which is to fear,
honor, respect and reverence him, which is
something that's lacking. And I can easily

(40:16):
point to culture. But ultimately it starts
in our hearts and in our own
lives. So just. I used to believe.
I didn't use. I've heard arguments that
were associated with that type of question.
Why fear? God? Fear just seems like
it's controlling. Fear just sounds like, you
know, I thought perfect love cast out

(40:37):
all fear. But that's another thing. That's
what context comes in and what the
fear actually means in that regard. But
even in that context, there's no fear
in the perfect love of Christ. Because
what Christ did for us takes away
fear. Because fear has to do with
torment. The scripture says, and torment was
referring to us being punished for sins
we've Committed and things like, we don't

(40:58):
have to have that fear, we don't
have to fear God's punishment, God's wrath
as believers in Christ, so that fear
is no longer applicable to us as
followers of Christ. Sometimes we can miss
the mark though, because since we don't
fear that, all of a sudden we
get lackadaisical and we start not representing
or not reverencing him and honoring and

(41:20):
respecting him as we should, that fear
should remain. The fear that consists of
respect and honor and recognizing who's God
and who's not, that should remain. But
the fear of punishment and condemnation and
hell and wrath, that doesn't have to
remain anymore for the life of the
believer. So whoever asked that question, if

(41:41):
they just had an understanding, we don't
have to fear his wrath, we don't
have to fear punishment, but we should
still respect and honor and revere him
as God. That's a, that's the proper
way. I think he should, he or
she should look at it, if that
makes sense.

Yeah, good. Next question. Who created God?

Nobody. So God is the uncaused first
cause is the, the way we articulate
that. So this, this argument is actually
a really, really fun kind of apologetic,
like how do we argue about the
existence of, of, of God or of
anything? And so like, we take it
to our understanding of who God is,

(42:20):
that he is this all powerful, all
knowing, omnipresent being that is outside of
time, space and matter, which means he
doesn't have to have a creator. Right?
And so a lot of times atheists
and others will try and have this
like, gotcha moment of like, yeah, well,
who created God? Well, the understanding of

(42:40):
God is that he's uncreated. If he
was created, he wouldn't be God. So
just, just purely by definition of this
all powerful supreme being, capital G God,
he cannot be created, right? If the
moment he's created, he's no longer God.
So sometimes people will throw that into
the, well, why can't we just have
that same view of the universe, that

(43:02):
the universe is just eternally existent. And
the problem is Einstein disproved that with
this amazing scientific discovery that has been
rediscovered in a lot of different places
in a lot of different ways. But
it's the expanding universe. And so here's
the thing that some Christians are going
to have a hard time hearing. But

(43:22):
the Big Bang happened, like scientifically. It's
been proven in so many different ways
and so many different avenues. There was
a Big Bang. Christianity just explains who
banged it. So the, the Shouldn't. We
shouldn't say it that way. Is that
bad phrasing? Is that who caused your

(43:43):
mind?

Who caused it?

Who caused it? Sure. Your mind.

All right, just keep going. Let's just
keep going.

So. So the, the issue is that
we have proven scientifically and mathematically that
the universe had a beginning. That their
space, time and matter came into existence,
which means whatever created it cannot be
made of time, space, or matter, because
you can't use time, space and matter
to create time, space and matter.

Right.

So you need something outside of all
of that to initiate the process. The
process, Yep. And what is that? That's
God.

I like it.

So uncaused first cause.

Great.

When he spoke.

So this should be. So this next
question should be a fun question to
answer.

Sure.

Why is there anything at all?

Because God decided. Because God decided. Let
us make. And so, yeah, I think.

I don't know what that means. You
know how to interpret that question.

Why is there anything?

It's a philosophical question. Why is there
something rather than nothing? That's. That's the
philosophical question. Why is there. Why is
there something rather than nothing? And Christianity
actually answers that with because God. And
it's. It's kind of a simplistic answer,
but it's a better answer than atheists
would have. So an atheist can't answer

(45:11):
the question, why do we have something
rather than nothing? So they can, they
can posit, like the, the multiple universe
theory. The problem is you still will
end up at the first universe. And
where did that come from? And so,
like, the, the question why is there
something rather than nothing? Can't be answered
outside of a theistic worldview. So our

(45:34):
world, our theistic worldview is God. And
so God decided to create because he's
a creative God. And so why is
there something rather than nothing? Because God
wanted something.

Awesome.

Super simplistic answer to a very deep
philosophical.

My head hurt just thinking about this
answer.

I'm like, yeah, there's lots of books
have been written on this subject.

Really?

It's a. It's a very big. Why
is there something rather than nothing? That's
a big philosophy.

Yes. It falls into the lane of
why do we exist? Or what's the
purpose and meaning? It goes deeper. It
goes from that to. Then if that's
the case, what's the purpose and meaning
of life? Yeah.

Wow.

But God created it all for a
purpose, for a reason.

I'm glad I'm not the one answering
these questions. I would be like, I
don't know what you Mean the next
question, if any. If one walks away,
I'm assuming from faith, it says, if
one walks away, can one return? Hebrews
six causes concerns.

Yeah. So how much time do we
have?

I was gonna say, do we need
to read that passage?

I mean, we could. Hebrews 6 is
probably the most argued passage of the
New Testament. So the reason why I
asked how much time do we have
is.

You should put that last.

I don't know that. I don't know
that we can fully answer a question
that is debated hotly by a lot
of people. But yeah. David's pulling up.

What's a quick summary of Hebrew 6
to help. Everyone knows.

So just. They're talking about Hebrews six
chapter or verses four through six is.
I think. I think it's four through
six.

You want me to read it?

Sure.

For it is impossible in the case
of those who have once been enlightened,
who have tasted the heavenly gift and
have shared in the Holy Spirit and
have tasted the goodness of the word
of God and the powers of the
age to come and then have fallen
away to restore them again to repentance
as they are crucified. They are crucifying
once again the Son of God to

(47:38):
their own harm and holding him up
to contempt.

Yeah. So, yeah, I. I got it
right.

Four.

Four through six. You did. But it's
just because everybody argues these verses especially,
and this is. This ties into Sunday.
So Sunday, the question was, is one
saved? Always saved, True. And all that.
And this is one of the main
verses that Calvinists and Armenians will argue
to death. The funny thing is, my.
My dad, who preached the message on

(48:08):
Sunday, we were talking about, he's like,
I'm not even going to touch Hebrews
6. And he's talking about this verse.
He's like, I just. It's just too
much to try and dive into and
all that. And so that's where I'm
kind of laughing that he got to
dodge that bullet. But I don't. That's
that founding pastor privilege.
I want some of that. Yeah. So

(48:29):
I. I think the first most important
thing that we need to recognize is
context. So Hebrews, all of Hebrews is
written by an unknown author, possibly Paul,
probably not. I don't know who wrote
it. We don't know who wrote it.
It's the one book of the New
Testament where we're like, we don't know.
So he. But Hebrews is written. We

(48:49):
do know who is written to. And
it's written to the Hebrews. Isn't that
fancy? No, so it's, it's written to
Jewish followers of Christ. So, so Messianic
Jews, so they've, they've made Jesus or
they've recognized Jesus as a Messiah, they're
following him. Hebrews is written to them
at a time. It's a very interesting

(49:10):
time in history where, when, when the
conversion was first happening, where people were
beginning to follow Christ, they were still
meeting in synagogues.
So they were still in the Jewish
world, protected by the Jewish world, in
a sense. And they were able to
have preaching and teaching and services within

(49:30):
the synagogue because it was still very
Jewish surroundings, which insulated them from Rome
and the authority of Rome in some
ways because Rome had given the Jews
permission to worship as Jews. When Hebrews
is written, this divide has now taken
place where the Christians have been kicked

(49:51):
out of the synagogue. So the Jews
have basically said, no, we're Jewish, you're
not, we're following God, you're following some
man named Jesus. And so, like, they
kick them out. In the process of
kicking them out, now they're getting persecuted
by Jews. But now the persecution from
the Romans kicks in at a very

(50:13):
heightened level. And from, from that point
for, for the next several hundred years,
it's really bad. And so that insulation
that they had is no longer there.
So you've got Jewish opposition, you've got
Roman opposition. And now these messianic followers
of Jesus, these, these Jewish men who
have converted to Christianity are now starting

(50:33):
to regret their decision.
They're starting to, out of fear, say,
we need to go back to our
Jewish culture, our Jewish ways. We need
to go back to the sacrificial system.
We need, we need to go back
because we're dying out here. And so
the Book of Hebrews is written to
encourage and to challenge them. Throughout Hebrews,

(50:55):
what you're going to find, especially in
the first, like 10, 10 chapters, I
think it is six chapters, somewhere in
there is.
You're going to find tons of emphasis
on Jesus is better. It's like, Jesus
is better than Moses. Jesus is better
than the old covenant, Jesus is better
than the sacrificial system. Jesus is better.
Like just over and over and over
again, Jesus is better. And so this

(51:16):
verse, when we get to chapter six,
chapter six, when you get to chapter
six, I almost said chapter four, but
it's chapter six, verse four.
When you get to the section, this
is that warning to Jews who are
trying to go back to a sacrificial
system that their sins are no longer
washed by the blood of Jesus. Now
they have to go sacrifice a goat

(51:37):
or a sheep. And so they're going
back into their old ways. And so
Hebrews is written as a warning to
them that that sacrificial system can't save
them, that as long as they're trying
to slaughter animals for their salvation, they
will remain unsaved. They will, they will
remain in their sin. And there is

(51:59):
no justification any longer within that sacrificial
system because Jesus changed the sacrificial system.
He became the ultimate final sacrifice. He
is the lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world.
And so basically what the author of
Hebrews is warning is, guys, you can't
go back to that system and think
you're still saved. You can't trust in

(52:20):
that system to get you to heaven.
It's not enough anymore. And now you
know the revelation of Jesus, and now
you're trying to, to disconnect from, from
him, like, what are you doing? And
so this is, this is not so
much a.
Can believers lose their salvation and come

(52:40):
back or not? This is about Jews
who know Jesus, know the sacrifice that
he made and are now choosing to
reject that in order to go back
into the safety of their Jewish heritage.
So I. First, we have to look
at this from that lens, that context.
And so when it, when it talks

(53:01):
about, you know, it's impossible to return,
I think. And this is, this is
my interpretation. And I'm, I'm. I disagree
with myself all the time. Just give
it a few days.
And so my current interpretation of Hebrews
6, which is again, one of the
most complex and argumentative verses in the
Bible in the New Testament, I think

(53:24):
that it is specifically talking about people
who have fully apostatized, who have fully
rejected. And so I would put this
in the category of blaspheme against the
Holy Spirit. Like, this is the unforgivable
sin because of the sin that nobody
repents from. And so if you're worried
and if you're repentant, you're good. Like,

(53:47):
the person that is fully apostatized is
not worrying about this question, is not
losing sleep at night over whether or
not they've made a wrong choice or
if they can return. Like they've fully
abandoned Christ. And I think at that
point, yeah, they're dead in their sins.
But I think that this is also
where we have to recognize that one

(54:08):
confusing or unclear verse in the Bible
versus dozens of very clear verses about
God's forgiveness for those who repent, I
mean, over and over and over and
over again.
So don't Take the one verse that
could be interpreted multiple different ways, that
has very confusing context, very, very historical

(54:30):
moment that needs to be considered in
all this. Don't take that and erase
the dozens of scriptures that are very
clear on this subject. Can you fall
away and return 100,000%? Yes, absolutely, you
can return. The Bible is very clear.
Repent, return to Christ.

You're right. That was, that was a
lot. That was a whole Bible study.

Because you don't want individuals to walk
away thinking, well, I'm not going to
try to reach out to my, my
best friend who was walking strong for
the Lord with me. With me. Yeah,
a couple years ago and now he
didn't stray. I guess there's no hope
for him.

Yep. And, and that's not how it
works. There are actually people that believe
that and, and the reason why I'm,
I'm, I'm passionate about this understanding is
my grandfather fell into that of kind
camp. My grandfather had a pastor one
time who, who read him Hebrews 6
and said, if you fail, you can't
come back. Like it. It. You're. You're
done, you're cut off and you can

(55:30):
never return or Jesus would have to
be crucified again. And that's not happening.
And so my grandfather had an affair
in the army and after that was
reconciled with his wife, was, was an
alcoholic, got sober, like, became a great.
Like, I loved my grandpa. He's deceased
now, but I love my grandfather. He
was an amazing guy. But he lived

(55:50):
most of his adult life rejecting church
because he believed what the pastor had
told him. He believed that it was
already too late for him. So why
bother going to church? Why bother doing
any of these things? Why bother trying
to repent? Because it's too late for
me. So he lived the majority of
his life saying it's too late for
me until of all people, he was
watching Joel Osteen. So on tv. And

(56:14):
I ain't trying to throw no shame.

I was gonna say, I'm not gonna
ask you to elaborate on, for on
of all people.

Let's just say I, yeah, I ain't
gonna.

Don't do it. Just.

God works in mysterious ways.

God works in mysterious ways.

Praise the Lord.

And Joel Osteen got through to my
grandfather and, and he, he gave his
life back to Christ as a result.
And so, hey, sometimes you just need
that upbeat, happy smile message, you know,
I think you also need some solid
Bible. But you said what you said.

No, I'm just playing because there's so.

Many scriptures that Highlight the fact that
we should restore our brothers and sisters.
I mean, I was looking at Galatians,
chapter one. Brothers and sisters, if someone
is caught in a sin, you who
live by the Spirit should restore that
person gently, but watch yourselves, or you
also may be tempted. So it's letting
us know. And then there's another scripture.
I can't remember the address, but it
says if you restore. Restore somebody back

(57:08):
to the fold, you. You help cover
a multitude of sins. So the fact
of the matter is we are supposed
to go. I've leave the 99 to
get the 1, the prodigal son. So
many. So many biblical references to going
and getting them back, rescuing them out
of the fire and bringing them back
into the fold. So that. That it
has to be a specific. Like Pastor
Brent eloquently broke down. There is a.

(57:30):
There's a specific context to that passage
that we need to highlight. So.

Yeah, beautiful. There's just so many clear
verses. Don't get thrown off by the
unclear.

Yeah, that's good. I felt like that
was a book. No, that title.

I ain't writing it.

There's a book for me.

That's.

Man, that's another conversation. There's a book
in you somewhere.

You need like three PhDs.

You need your yes. That's all you
need is a yes. Come on, somebody.

That's all we need is your yes.

You're just coming because you used to
be like a book marketing person.

Yes.

Trying to get me to write a
book.

Absolutely.

That's clearly a book in you.

You have a book publisher on staff.
Utilize. No, don't use another season.

You know what I need? No, I
need a book publisher and a ghost
writer.

I am both.

She did both. But be careful. Another
thing, you add more to your list.

Another.

Chat. GPT. Right.

Pastor Brent's book.

No, we will not do that. Anyway,
if you do write your book with
chat, you have to. You have to
say that on Amazon there's a button
that said, did you?

Yeah. So you don't get away with
it.

Write your book.

Integrity.

Amazing.

That is. I think that's great. Because.
Yeah, Come on. All right, let's keep
moving. Acts 2, 29, 34. Peter. Speaking
of David brothers, I can tell you
confidently that the patriarch David died and
was buried, and his tomb is here
to this day. For David did not
escape. Sinned into heaven, into the heavens.

(59:04):
This is a strong verse supporting the
idea that even great saints like David
are not yet in heaven. Is there
anyone in heaven right now?

Depends on your interpretation of A bunch
of verses and Paul's almost contradictory teaching.
And so you, you basically, you have
to try and reconcile one of two
directions. And it's basically this idea of
soul sleep versus to be absent. The

(59:35):
body is to be present with, with
Christ. And honestly, I'm at a stage
in my life where I don't know,
I don't know, I don't know which
one I would put my money on.
And I, I put this in that
category of. Remember how I said Brent's
not super solid on the beginning and
the end? That's part of the end
stuff. That's, that's that part where I'm

(59:57):
like, I don't know how that's gonna
work out. I'm just trusting God that
he's gonna work it out.

Ti’heasha Beasley (01:00:01):
Yeah.

Pastor Brent McQuay (01:00:01):
So like I, I could, I could
100 get on board with the arguments
that. No, you know, it says in
the last days he's gonna raise up
those who are dead in Christ first.
Well, if he's raising us up first,
that means we're, we're not up there
yet because we're here, we're dead, we're
buried, we're being raised up. But Paul
also says, you know, that I look

(01:00:23):
forward to not being here because I'll
be with him and it's going to
be better for me there. And so
like, Paul almost seems to teach both
things. And so who am I to
be like, nah, this is absolutely right.
So I, I have a little bit
of a hard time with, with pastors
that come in and they're like, absolutely
this. And it's like, man, there's. Have
you wrestled with all these scriptures enough?

(01:00:44):
Yeah, and maybe you have. Maybe they're
just smarter than me and they got
further down the road than me. And
man, I, I guess I'm at a
stage in my life where I'm just
like, I don't know, man. There's good
arguments on both sides of it. I
think ultimately for me, part of why
I don't worry about it is that
from my perspective, it won't be different.

(01:01:06):
What I mean by that is like
last night I fell asleep and then
I woke up in the morning. I
have no idea what took place. Like,
basically from, from like a Brent's mind
standpoint, I, I teleported from 11 o'
clock at night to 5am like, that's
just my, my brain just so sci

(01:01:28):
fi move from 11pm to 5am I
got no idea what took place in
those six hours in between. So if
soul sleep is a thing that Means
I'm gonna die. And the next thing
I know, I'm with Jesus. And if
that means that a moment has passed
or a thousand years has passed, does

(01:01:49):
it really matter to me? Because I'm
with Jesus.

Yeah. So yeah, either way, that's good.
I was gonna come for you and
watching too many sci fi movies, but.

I can see my teleporting brain.

Yeah, I like that you look like.
Okay, I don't know.

David Beasley (01:02:06):
I would say I have a slightly
different perspective.

I was gonna say you like you
got too much to say.

I think the scriptures are pretty clear.
Absent from the body is present with
the Lord. I think that literally means
it's appointed for each man to die.
Then after that, the judgment. And when
we pass, I think scripture clearly teaches
us that we will stand before the
Lord and give an account. And he'll
either say, well done, my good and

(01:02:31):
faithful servant. Enter in or depart from
me, you worker of iniquity, I never
knew you. Then I look at Jesus
and the parable of Lazarus, poor man.
Lazarus is the song I remember hearing
growing up. And the rich man. And
Lazarus passed away. He's in Abraham's bosom.

(01:02:52):
He's all good in paradise. And the
rich man died and he's in Hades.
He sees Lazarus and he's like Lazarus.
He's still trying to command. Lazarus was
interesting from Hades. And he's telling him
like, hey, Abraham, tell him to come
put water on my tongue because I'm
in anguish. I mean, I think that.
And then Abraham tells him, you can't.
There's a chasm. He can't come to

(01:03:13):
you. You can't come to come. Come
here. Go tell my brothers, because I
would hate for them to come here.
And Abraham says they have the prophets,
they have everything. If they. But they'll
believe if somebody comes back from the
dead. And he says they won't. Even
if someone comes back from the dead,
they won't believe. They have what they
need to believe. I think that gives
us a picture from Jesus himself that

(01:03:34):
when we pass we are consciously somewhere
in one place or another. And even
this text that was being read when
it said, and David did not ascend
into the heavens. I'm trying to. I
can't give no thorough hermeneutical study in
two seconds. But from what I'm observing,

(01:03:55):
does that mean ascended into the heavens?
Is this necessarily referring to him when
he died or went to heaven or.
It says, it says, for David did
not ascend into the heavens, but he
himself says the Lord said to my
Lord, sit in my right hand until
I make your enemies your footstool. It
kind of looks like it's saying, like
I said, I didn't dive into this.
It kind of looks like it's saying
that he didn't ascend into the heavens

(01:04:17):
to get this vision to see. But
the Lord told him, The Lord said
to him, the Lord said to my
Lord, sit at my right hand until
I make your enemies your footstool. It
seems like that, that, that he didn't
ascend to heaven when he got that
revelation is what it's looking like. But

(01:04:37):
I can, I haven't dived into it,
of course, to necessarily make that assumption.
And so it's possible. So there, there
are different ways to.

And it's possible that it's like, you
know, the Enoch idea, like, no, David
actually died. Like he didn't just go
up to heaven. So like there's ways
to interpret that. The pushback that I
have, because you started off with the
Bible's clear on this. And that's what
I'm like. Because Abraham's bosom is not
equivalent to heaven. It's not a one

(01:05:07):
to one translation. Abraham.

Correct.

It was a hope, something different. Parables,
we have to be cautious with parables
to read too much into them. Parables
are meant to tell a specific principle
that Jesus is trying to communicate in
that moment. So to take extra theology
from a parable can sometimes be dangerous.
Then you also do have other scriptures

(01:05:30):
that talk about when the dead will
rise. So why, why are we waiting
for them to rise if they're already
with God in heaven? So like there,
there are. You've got to navigate the
almost seemingly contradictory verses to the idea
of being immediately in the presence. And

(01:05:52):
we also have to be cautious. So
I forget what verse you were reading
to start, but it was. Or not
reading, but referencing the. And then. So
that. And then the way you phrased
it was an immediate time frame. And
then linguistically it doesn't have to be.
And then. So I'm going to do

(01:06:13):
the podcast and I'm gonna go home.
I'm actually gonna do a bunch of
stuff in between recording the podcast and
going home. But you could still say,
I'm gonna do the podcast and I'm
gonna go home, because I am eventually.
Right. So like there, there are ways
to read and interpret these passages that

(01:06:34):
I don't know that I could stand.

When I say action from the body
is present with the Lord.

No, it was. And then, so death
and then judgment. So that doesn't mean
That I know.

Some can allude that to the final
judgment, like in Revelation.

Right. So, so, so what I was
getting at is the way you phrase
it. It was I'm going to die
now and the very next, very next
moment is going to be my judgment.
And linguistically that doesn't have to be
true. Yes, there's judgment. Does it mean
instantaneous? The moment I die, then there's
judgment. Or could it be a thousand

(01:07:08):
year waiting period in a soul sleep?
Both could be true according to scripture.

I don't see a reference to soul
sleep for the most part. I see
people could, could come up and call
it soul sleep.

Soul sleep is. But it. Paul definitely
talks about being asleep, so we call
it soul sleep. But yeah, he doesn't
necessarily.

I gotta read it because sleep can
also mean Jesus. When he resurrected five,
he appeared to 500. Some are still
alive, though some have fallen asleep. Asleep
meant death. So it's interesting. That could
be something.

Yeah. Like that. And this is, this
is why I don't have a. This
is my stance.

Yeah. Because I get it.

There's argument. There's great argumentation on both
sides. I'm just waiting for a. Tyce
is hungry probably. This is one of
those where I have no problem being.
I. I don't even know that I
could say I could be wrong on
this because I haven't stated what. What
my stance.

Yeah, you said from the top.

Like I've got no problem with either
view being true because at the end
of the day it doesn't change anything
for me.

Yeah. I was gonna say, what's the.
Why is it relevant?

I think for some people, it gives
them comfort when a loved one passes
away, that they can say right now,
in this moment, while I'm still alive
and while I'm still struggling, they're not
just asleep, they're with Jesus. That's comforting.

Kind of.

I think that. I think that's where
this whole argumentation really boils down to
is people are looking for that comfort.
Like it's not as comforting to think,
well, my loved one is just not
ex. Not existing. Technically.

Yeah.

In this moment. I mean, they exist,
they're just not.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

I don't know. It's all kinds of
fun stuff.

Yeah.

And then we get to the whole,
you know, heaven is not our final
destination.

And which I agree. Because he's going
to make a new new earth and
new.

Have a new Earth. It's actually going
to. To be the, the combination of
heaven and new Earth.

Yeah. I Agree with that. So it's
the absence from the body. You're present
with the Lord, it seems like to
me.

Sure.

But Paul says when body.

In. In this concept of soul sleep,
would you be absent from the body.

Absent from the body. Simply when Paul
says it, he's referring to when you
die, your soul or spirit is going.

Is he, though?

I would believe so. I believe, like,
yeah, see, we went.

From certainty to belief.

Now, if I'm quite sure. I'm quite
sure he's talking about death. But, yeah,
that's another we can go on for.

Can I ask really quick, did you
get a lot of this? Your. You
know, we recently lost our mom. Your
mom. Did you get a lot of.
Did some of this come from your
study during that or.

No.

Okay.

I didn't study that. I just know
that's a whole nother conversation. Let's proceed.

All right, well, the next question is
kind of going with the, you know,
the same voice and tone. When Christians
pass away before the second coming of
Christ, will those same Christians enter a
deep sleep here? Gosh, should we just
skip this? No, no, go through the
wrong question.

The answer is probably going to be,
listen to the previous.

Will those same Christians enter a deep
sleep until he comes again? And when
he does come, will he ride? Will
he raise those Christians from the dead
along with the living Christians? Or do
we go straight to heaven.

According to David, you go straight to
heaven according to Brent. I don't know.

And the rising from the dead part,
I just think the bodies. This is
my assumption. I. I look at it.
I look at as a. I look
at as a renovation. It's new heaven,
new earth.

We are gonna have.

So our bodies are glorified bodies. And.
Yeah. Glorified body restored, put back together.
You know, it's a whole different.

But yeah, I don't fully know what
a glorified Brent body looks like, but
it's gotta be better than this one.

I have a lot of questions.

It would be like Jesus.

Questions next year. This made me realize
I didn't submit any questions. Okay, next
question. When believers make it into heaven,
will we have specific jobs? I. E.
Praising, worshiping, teaching, serving, etc.

So jobs. I don't know if we
can articulate it as jobs. There is
work like the new heaven, new earth.
I think the Bible kind of alludes
to this idea of work. It's also
part of the nature of God, like
the. The first impact or the first

(01:11:56):
revelation of God that we have is
him working. He's creating something that's work.
It says that he rested on the
seventh day from his work. So, like,
there. There was work taking place. Now,
I know some people will argue that,
like, the seventh day rest is eternity.
That's like, you're gonna rest from your
work in heaven. I just don't know

(01:12:16):
if. If I fully get on board
with that. I think that the nature
of God, he works. He never stops
working. We sing about it, we talk
about it. Right.

I have heard work before. I will
say I haven't took a deep dive
into that worship, I think. Yeah. I
mean, we're gonna be worshiping for eternity.
Teaching. I don't know. I just.

What we teaching in a glorified body
do you need to be taught?

The teaching gift, the preaching, teaching prophecy,
all those things are shadows and mirrors
that point to the reality. What are
we going to be teaching? I'm just
going to be listening to Jesus.

At one point I was thinking, you
know, so would. Is there eating in
heaven? Does that mean we need to
manufacture food? Do we need to. I've
heard about create stuff, but then part
of the punishment for the fall of
man was to work the ground.

Yeah. That's what I was.

This was so, like. So maybe you
don't, like. Maybe it's manna. I don't.
I don't know, man. The beginning and
the end. I don't know.

I'm with you. The more we talk
about it, the more I'm probably, like.

I've probably created a lot of people
listening to this podcast going, man, does
our pastor know anything? Like.

No.

He is the wrong person to come
to questions with.

No, I just think that you're being
honest in those heaven. Who knows? Like,
seriously, you can draw conclusions, but, like,
who really knows?

And it's something I would love to
study more deeply. My. My hesitation to
study it more deeply is There are
so many things that I want to
study that have a. A profound effect
on my life right now.

Yeah.

On the lives of. Of members of
our church right now.

Yeah.

In the discipleship process. And so I
wanna. I wanna be solid on those
things and I want to have good
answers for those things. Like, the heaven
questions is like, I'm just. I'm trusting
God for my salvation. I'm trusting him.
That heaven's gonna be awesome.

Yeah. Well, we have one more heaven
question. Okay, don't hang up yet. Well,
two more. No, three more.

Okay.

All the heaven questions. Perfect.

Louie.

It's my favorite subject. As you can
tell, I'm super knowledgeable on heaven.

When we Go to heaven. How will
we be? Will we recognize our loved
ones and friends? Or will everyone just
naturally know each other?

Yeah, so I think we have to
make guesses at that kind of question.
I think that we do have knowledge
in heaven. I do think that the
parable of. Of Lazarus and the. The.
The rich rant, rich man, I think
alludes to this idea that there is
understanding in heaven. We would have to

(01:14:59):
have some knowledge because we're excited to
see Jesus in heaven. Or if you
have no knowledge of anything, that would
be hard to pull off. So, yeah,
I would guess.

Yeah, I would say that there are
also some indicators physically of how we
will look even in our glorified state.
I would say because of revelation, they
saw people from every nation, tongue and
tribe. It was what, John? How would
you know? Yeah, you. The language. That
was a language aspect. That was a
visual distinction. Language distinction, physical distinctions. Though

(01:15:33):
I believe everybody was in their glorified
body. However, that looks.

So you're saying my glorified body is
not going to be black?

Sorry, no.

Is that what you. I have questions.
Is that what you want?

That was a bad joke. I'm just
trying to have some fun.

Hey, team, let's edit that part out
over there. No edits.

All right? Okay. All right, next question.

But yeah, glorified body will be black.

We are getting through these questions. Okay,
next question.

What kind of body are you gonna
have have when it's glorified?

Long hair.

Oh, yeah, punk rock.

You could have abs and muscles and
long hair right now.

You can.

You know what? I enjoy eating my
sweetness.

Hey, man, hallelu to that. I'm drinking
my water.

I get my steps in, but I
ain't hitting the gym like that 24
7.

He's like confessing for account up accountability.
He's like, I'm not getting drinking my
water.

My body is alive and well.

Amen.

There you go. Hallelujah. Alive and well.
It'll be glorified. I don't know what
that looks like.

Yeah, that's interesting. What will our relationships
look like in heaven? Because I've heard
I'm not gonna be married in heaven,
and that sucks.

According to Jesus, you will not be
married in heaven. Outside of that relationships,
we. We got nothing. I don't know.

That's just. I mean, especially if I
got to work, like, I need a
spouse.

We are the bride. We'll be the
bride of Christ.

Right? Like, you're not. You're not working
to try and make sure your boss
is happy. You're Just working for the
joy of work, like the joy of
creation in the field.

So, yeah, with our glorified bodies, why.

You gotta be in the field?

Next. Next question. I was thinking of
wrote next question. Will we have.

That's what happens when a podcast reaches
over an hour and some.

Oh, okay.

101 episodes, people hungry? It's lunchtime.

No, no, no.

It's just the heaven questions, man. It's
like, I like having answers for people,
but I don't know, the Bible doesn't.
There's no, like, you know, Revelation 29:13
in heaven. This is the work that
you're going to do, and here's the
relationships you're going to have.

And yeah, I agree. Like, you. We
want to know so bad, like, how
the world's going to end and how
this is going to be. And it's
like, I think God left it a
mystery for a reason. I think.

I think we just didn't need to
know.

I was gonna say, like, yeah, like,
it's like we don't. That's not for
us.

Are we trusting him?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, here we go. Will
we have memories of our life on
earth, in heaven?

I don't know. Maybe. I will say
the only. The only thing that we
can know definitively is that the. If
we do have memories, the bad memories
will not create bad emotion because it
says that he'll wipe away every tear.
There's no more sickness, there's no more
dying, there's no more pain, there's no
more suffering. And so, like, if you

(01:18:52):
have a memory of a loved one
that you've lost that isn't in heaven
or. Or something along those nature. I
think from scripture we can just understand
that there's not going to be a
pain attached to that memory. How that
works.

I know, because could you imagine, like,
your spouse passed away, you know, they're
going to heaven, and then when you
get to heaven, like, could you imagine
the pain that that would cause? If
you could feel pain, man, that would
be.

I should ask Saul that. Because if
one of us ain't making it, it's
probably not.

But yeah, I think we will have
memories. I mean, how will we understand
and appreciate heaven in light of who
are. The fact that we don't deserve
it, in light of the fact that,
you know, we were sinners and Christ
died to save us, and this is
what we were living and striving and

(01:19:48):
remaining steadfast and hoping for. Of course,
that wouldn't matter if the memory of
where we came from wasn't there to
a certain extent.

Yeah.

That will cause us to appreciate everything
we have in general.

I like that response.

All right, we're at. Nope, this is
the last heaven. They snuck it in
here somehow. If sin is supposed to
exist because God gave us free will,
then does this mean we won't have
free will in heaven since heaven is
a place with no sin? And this
is the official last heaven.

Question with that one. I, I so
once again, we don't know, but I
think that we can't have a more
logic based response to that, that yes,
God created us with free will. The
free will doesn't go away in heaven.
That wouldn't make a lot of sense
to me. What I would argue though

(01:20:44):
is it is free will with temptation
to sin that causes sin. And so
I think in our glorified state and
in heaven, free will exists, but temptation
does not. And I think that's where
the, the difference between heaven and earth
is gonna fall. So if you remember

(01:21:06):
first sin in the garden, eating a
piece of fruit you're not supposed to
eat, did that take place just because
Eve was like, oh, that looks good,
I want some? No, it took place
because Satan came up to her and
said, did God really tell you you
couldn't have that? Right. There was a
temptation that was given to her. There

(01:21:28):
was something that was trying to contradict
God and to give, I don't know,
I guess a drawing to towards sin,
an appetite towards it. And so I
think if you remove that element, then
you still have free will, but you

(01:21:48):
don't have sin.

Right.

So that, that's kind of where I'd
argue for that. And then added to
that is I don't know what our
glorified bodies are like, but I know
that that is what takes place once
the, what's the word that I'm looking
for? Our sanctification has reached its fullness,

(01:22:11):
so we are fully like Christ in
that moment. So Christ had free will
and he didn't sin by his own
choice. So.

Yeah, all right. Asking for a friend.
Why is it so hard to commit
to coming to church? Like every Sunday
that I want to go, somehow or
another something comes up and I end
up missing church.

Not trying to throw any shade at
you, whoever asked this question, but my,
my answer is the flesh is weak,
right? So like, there's a lot of
things that we know we're supposed to
do and a lot of things that
we know we're not supposed to do,
but our flesh wants to fight against
that. And so when you let the
flesh win, it wins. And so I

(01:23:06):
think that the, the emphasis that we
have to have is on discipline. And
so if I know that there's something
that I need to do, I need
to be disciplined to actually make it
happen, right? So I go see the
dentist and the dentist is like, hey,
you need to be flossing more. Okay,
I know what I'm supposed to do
now. I need the discipline to actually
do it. And so you've already recognized

(01:23:28):
that going to church is a good
thing in your life. It's something you
need to be doing. So now you
need the discipline to actually do it.
Which could mean you got to change
what you do on Saturdays. Because what
I've, I've seen a lot of people
is Saturday is the, is the party
night. And so they're getting back home
at 3 o' clock in the morning
and they're like, man, I'm just too
tired for church the next day. Or

(01:23:50):
they let sports and programs and family
and things kind of crowd out where
they, they make choices for other things
on Sunday instead of God. And so
I think it's a discipline to say,
this day I'm reserving for God. And
so we're not doing it. My wife,
when she was growing up, like, her
friends would be like, hey, we're going
to go do this thing on Sunday.

(01:24:11):
And she would ask her parents if
she'd go and her parents would always
say yes after church. Like, it was
like, if your friends want to meet
at Great America at 10 o' clock
in the morning, it ain't happening because
you're gonna be at church. If they
want to meet there at 2 o'
clock in the afternoon, you can go,
no problem. You want to go to
the movies on Sunday? Sure. Sunday afternoon,
no problem. But it was just, there

(01:24:32):
was a rule in their house. It
was like, you're going to church and
so your friends have to work around
that schedule. And I think as adults,
we need to do the same thing
for ourselves and for our kids.

Yeah.

To say, hey, no, Sunday morning we
go to church at this time. And
I'm not going to be late because
I'm going to set an alarm. And
if I'm one of those people that
needs a second alarm, I'm going to
set a second alarm to make sure
that I'm leaving my house on time,
that I'm leaving my house so that
I show up to church before it
begins, not after it has already started.

(01:25:02):
And I'm just going to, I'm going
to discipline my life. I'M going to
say set parameters where it says, hey,
I'm not allowing these things to crowd
in. Somebody says, hey, can we get
breakfast on Sunday? No, but we can
do lunch after church. Hey, you know,
I want you to come over Sunday
morning at 10 o' clock. I can't
be there Sunday morning, but I can
be there Sunday afternoon. Right. You just
have rules that I'm not going to.

(01:25:23):
I'm not going to break this.

Yeah, yeah, that's good discipline.

David knows all about discipline. That's why
David looks like him. I look like
me.

Next question. Cuz I can't wait. You.

Thank you, pastor.

You worked hard for that.

I'm just gonna keep going.

Work hard.

Does iPhone mean salvation?

Absolutely. 100% Android people. I don't know
what's wrong.

I don't even understand Jesus. Who wrote
that one?

Green bubbles need Jesus.

Ruben, did you write this question? Okay,
green.

Green bubbles are weird.

Carlton probably did. Carlton's got a green
bubble.

I used to be a green bubble.
I can't believe what was wrong with
me all those years.

Yeah.

Ty switched over to the. To the
blue bubbles and I was. I was
resistant.

Yeah.

Until I said I can't go back.

Yeah, you can't.

I got the 16 too. I was
like, man, this is nice. This is
really nice. Flex. Nice.

Disciples do not have androids. Oh, yes,
they do.

That's why.

Let's just say when I. When I
send a group chat to our staff,
there's like three green bubbles in like
30 blue bubbles. So. I don't know,
man. No. So all joking aside. Yeah,
we. We joke about the whole iPhone
versus. Yeah, we just. We just try

(01:26:51):
to make some fun out of it.
We give Carlton a hard time, so
then he responds by going the opposite
direction.

Yeah.

Just as hard, but yeah. Jesus doesn't
care which phone you have.

He does not.

He probably cares how much time you
spend on it, though.

That part. That part.

Taisha is so ready for this one
to be over.

No, no, no, no, no. Keep going.

And iPhone gives you a wonderful feature
to show you exactly how many hours
you've been on accountability. It pops up
right there.

Accountability.

All right, in this room, we've got
1, 2, 3, 4 iPhones and 1
Android.

You guys are fading away. You're the
chosen.

The remnant.

The remnant. All right. Why do we
always have sermon series? Do you ever
have a sermon that the Holy Spirit
just gives you that isn't on the
agenda?

If I ever preach a sermon that
the Holy Spirit didn't give me, I
Give permission to our overseers to fire
me. Me.

Yikes.

So, yeah. I should never be preaching
something the Holy Spirit didn't give me.
Yeah. Does that mean the Holy Spirit
can't work through series? That's a really
silly thing to think. It's funny some.
Sometimes we run into this argument with,
like, song selection. Like, our worship team
actually chooses the songs in advance.

Yeah.

And then practices those songs on Thursday.
Does that mean the Holy Spirit didn't
show up? Because we actually, like, had
a Sunday where we did all the
songs that we planned on doing. Like,
that's such a silly thing to think.
Like. No. The Holy Spirit only moves
in the moment. What about the moment
when we're planning. What about the moment

(01:28:47):
back in October when we mapped out
the year and what series we're gonna
do and how things were gonna structure?
Was the Holy Spirit not in that
moment? He's only in this moment. That's
silly.

Yeah.

So. Yeah. So, yeah. No, we use
series because it helps keep our focus.
It gives us a chance to emphasize
things. When you are preaching a totally
unique message, like, it's not part of
a series every single week. That can
become very chaotic. From what I've been
told. My father, when he first discovered

(01:29:18):
the idea of a sermon series, it
was like the. The greatest gift God
had ever given him. Because at that
point, I think he was, like, preparing,
like, four different messages a week. Because
it was like the old school days.
The Sunday morning.

Yeah.

The Sunday. The Sunday night. The Wednesday
night. And he was just exhausted from.
From doing that over and over again
for years. And then I forget where
he was. I think he was at,
like, a pastor's conference, and they talked
about series, and he was like, this
is brilliant. I can talk about the
same thing for several years.

Right. Man, that's so good. On why
you should just continue to. To the
company you keep, the community. You could
just learn so much from just being
around other people.

Yeah. It's good stuff.

Game changing. All right. Why don't we
talk about current cultural issues and how
the church can practically stand on the
word of God for those.

So I would argue that we do
probably just. My guess would be because
somebody's posing the question, probably not to
the level that they're wanting.

Yeah.

And that's just. Our focus is on
Christ, not culture. Culture is almost always
in opposition to Christ. And it. I
could probably use that analogy of, like,
the. The counterfeiters. Like, what do you
have to do to recognize counterfeit? You
study the original. Right. So, like, do
we have to spend a lot of
time talking about what culture's doing if

(01:30:40):
we're talking about what Christ wants. Because
you'll be able to recognize, you'll be
able to navigate culture when you're focused
on Christ. And so yeah, so we're
just, just that that's our emphasis. That's
our focal point. It doesn't mean that
we don't ever reference something that's happened
culturally. We will when it's appropriate. But
yeah, just our, our emphasis at Disciples

(01:31:00):
Church is Christ, God, His Word. So
we're going to focus on those things
and when it plays into culture, we
address it for sure.

Love it. We are getting ready guys,
to land a plane. We have four
more questions. All right, so here we
go. Why don't small groups last all
year?

That is a great question and actually
one we've been wrestling with lately. Actually
we were just in Texas, me and
a few of our pastors, including the
person over groups, Pastor Jason. And that
was one of the big conversations that
we had that our vehicle for making
disciples is small groups. So the seasonal

(01:31:44):
model of small groups no longer functions
for our church because discipleship can't be
seasonal. So currently we actually this, this
once we switched to Disciples Church, we
actually added another bracket of small group
types called discipleship groups that are year
round. We also have a few other
groups that are all have always been

(01:32:05):
year round. But the majority of our
groups were free market and they're based
on seasons. And the reasoning for doing
that was to reduce burnout and to
increase buy in from leaders. So when
you tell a leader, hey, I need
you to lead this group for the
next 12 months, that's terrifying. And it's
like, well, I don't even know, you
know, what's going to happen with my
kids in 12 months. Like, I mean,

(01:32:26):
what's going to, how am I going
to do this thing? When you tell
a leader, hey, I need you to
lead this group for 10 weeks, they're
like, oh yeah, I can do that.
I can, I can focus in on
10 weeks. And so we originally our
model of small groups was season based
and it, it matches up with a
lot of churches that we follow and
we are in relationship with. That works

(01:32:46):
really well in their context. For me
though, when we made this switch to
really emphasize discipleship groups have to be
available at all times. So my personal
discipleship group, we meet year round. So
we're still meeting every week. Several other
of our discipleship groups, the challenge for
us right now is we don't have

(01:33:07):
enough of those groups for everybody. And
if we start opening up those groups
to anybody and everybody, then those are
no longer small groups. If, if 30
people are showing up to your small
group, you're not really discipling anybody. And
so we have to keep those groups
small in order for discipleship to really
take place. And really our goal is

(01:33:28):
to get everybody into one to one
discipleship relationship. Because even discipling a group
of 12 people all at the same
time in the same room doesn't really
function very well. So we are in
process, I guess the. My short version
of this long answer. We are in
process of adding more and more groups
that will be year round. Our seasonal
emphasis is going to start being a,

(01:33:51):
a couple times a year. We'll make
a big push to get people into
groups. But that doesn't mean that those
groups start and stop at certain times.
It'll just be a couple times a
year. We'll have these big launch moments.
But the launch moment is not a
we're launching for a 10 week season
or a 12 week season. It's hey,
we're launching to get you into, to
get you into a group that hopefully

(01:34:12):
you will stay in for a good
amount of time. Yeah, we're in the
works.

Awesome. Why isn't Christmas a greater deal
here? There is one service and hardly
any songs. How come Avid isn't celebrated?

Oh, you want more Christmas?

Oh, sing us a Christmas song right
now to make up.

Hark the Heralds. Let's get it.

Go ahead.

Not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen.
Yeah, no, that's. That's a, a valid
question. It's funny. So with talking with
some of my like my pastor friends
in like Southern U.S. they're their Christmas
is the biggest like it's, it's bigger
than Easter. Yeah, it's like Christmas is

(01:34:57):
like everybody goes to church for Christmas,
man. We've tried to do really big
Christmas services in the past here and
it's. I don't know if it's a
culture thing. Is it a culture thing?
I don't know. Like people are like,
man, I just want to be with
family on Christmas. I don't want to
go to church on Christmas.

Yeah, I can. Yeah.

And then New Year's. So like our
New Year's Eve service that we typically
do, we've missed it a couple times.
But like, like our New Year's Eve
service is usually it's a packed house,
it's a big night. I've talked to
some of my Southern pastor friends. They're
like you do a service for New
Year's Eve. Like, why that seems so
dumb. So, like, I think that there
is somewhat of a culture thing.

Yeah.

But yeah, so wanting to do more
carols and Christmasy songs. Like, we've, we've,
we've done that before. We've done whole
productions in the past. We've had. We
did like a God at the movies
type series, but with like Christmas songs
where like we actually like walk through

(01:35:54):
like, hey, this really popular Christmas song.
It actually comes from this scripture and
kind of mapped out. So like, we've,
we've done things in the past. I
don't know what we'll do in the
future.

Yeah.

But yeah, I like Christmas. Christmas special.

We decorate the lobby really nice.

The church is very Christmas. Christmasy.

It is.

But yeah. And then it was. Why
don't we participate in Advent? It's more
of a Catholic thing than, than a
non denominational Christian thing. So just not
part of our church history. Church culture.
Not opposed to Advent. I think there's
some good in it. I think one
year we actually did do a whole
Advent thing and it was, it was

(01:36:34):
fun, but it was, it was somewhat
weird too.

Okay.

Part of our norm.

Yeah. Awesome. So these are some heavier
questions, but let's dive into it. Will
communication for the congregation improve when one
has a death in a family, a
sickness or some other thing? How do
we communicate that? How do we find
out when other members have something? I

(01:36:59):
don't see anything on a website about
benevolence. How are we reaching one another?
This seems to be an open secret.
Do we have congregational care? That was
like 12 questions in one.

Okay, you're gonna have to like, help
me make sure.

Okay.

Okay. So it started off with will
communication improve? Taisha, as the person over
communication.

I think we do a really good
job up at communicating. We.

Of course you would say that.

I do. I mean, since I've been
in the row, I try to put
things in the newsletter. If you are
not subscribed, go ahead and subscribe. You
can go to our website on the
homepage and sign up for our newsletter.
And also we put it in the
announcements and some things make it to
the stage. We have people in the
lobby. So I really feel like sometimes
it's easy to disconnect from an announcement

(01:37:53):
when you don't feel like it's. It
is appropriate for you. But really when
you hear those announcements, tune in, lock
in and see what's going on. Or
even in a newsletter, like, just check
it out.

Yeah, we we communicate in a lot
of different ways. So the newsletter is
a major communication point for the church.
So if you're not getting the newsletter,
you definitely want to get that.

Yeah.

Because that goes out what, every Wednesday?

Every Thursday, Thursday morning.

So every Thursday morning there's an email
that goes out with all the upcoming
events and, and all the things that
you need to know about. We try
and do a really good job with
social media as well, posting about things
that are important and special. Part of
the way we function as a church,
we try not to do a lot
of events. And so it may be
that you feel like you're missing out

(01:38:36):
on things that we're actually not even
doing. And so I think, yeah. From
a communication standpoint, is there room for
improvement? Probably. I mean, even just, even
just the fact that we don't necessarily
talk about the fact that there's a
newsletter all the time could be a
part of it. I think some people
probably also just tune out at the

(01:38:56):
end of the announcement video where it
says, hey, and for more details, go
on, follow us on Facebook or visit
the website.

Right.

I think by that point people kind
of checked out.

Yeah.

Even just the, the chairs have the
little tap thing now. Like that's another
way to.

Another communicate. Yeah.

To work. There's a lot of methods
out there for it. And then how
do we. Something about like notifying when
somebody in the church passes away.

Yeah. When one has a death in
a family or sickness or anything, how
is that communicated?

So to the church and from the
church are two different things. Let me
address the. From the church first. From
the church is not going to happen,
and that's because it's not our place
to make that happen. So like, if
you're trying to figure out, oh, man,
you know, somebody, somebody in our church,
they passed away and I want to
go to the funeral. That is up

(01:39:48):
to the family to invite and to
spread word of. Of who passed away
and all that. It's not our place
to start just inviting the church to
show up to a personal family moment.
Right. And so like some, some families,
they want to be able to grieve
in private. They want to grieve with.
With just their close friends and family.
And if you weren't invited to that.

(01:40:09):
Yeah, I'm sorry, but that's like, that.
That would be inappropriate, I think, for
the church to just mass inform on.
On moments like that. So we take
that very cautiously as far as from
the person, the family communicating to the
church. That happens in any way you
want it to happen. There's a lot

(01:40:31):
of avenues for that. You can call
the church, you can email the church,
you can stop the pastor in the
lobby, you can come in during the
weekday and talk to somebody. You can
tell your small group leader, you know,
I think that some people, because they're
not connected in a group, they don't

(01:40:52):
realize that that's actually where a lot
of care takes place is within the
context of group or in a team.
Like, hey, let your team leader know
what's happened in your life and, and
they'll pass it on to who needs
to know and. And that's how things
should be communicated. Yeah, there was more
in that question.

I think you answered it, except for.

I could speak to the benevolence.

I was going to say that. And
do we have congregation congregational?

I'll do the congregation care, you do
the benevolence. So yes, we do have
both benevolence and congregational care. Benevolence is
for members of the church and so
that's probably why you don't see a
big thing on the website for it.
We do get lots of requests outside
of members of the church and we
try and help in whatever way we
can. But we resources are limited for

(01:41:42):
our area and so we're trying to
use the resources, we're trying to be
good stewards. So it is a members
thing. As far as congregational care, yes,
we have an entire team for congregational
care. It's made up of several of
our elders and a few other volunteers.
There's staff oversight for it, there's pastoral
oversight for it. But that congregational care
team is there when we. So when

(01:42:04):
somebody will email me and this is
usually what happens is actually text because
most people text me and it usually
goes through a small group leader. So
a small group leader finds out about
something that has taken place, they'll text
me that information and I'll pass it
on to the congregational care team or
the head of that so that then
they can begin their part of the.

(01:42:24):
The follow up process. Our pastors will
do something separate, but the congregational care
team has a set like here's how
we're going to pray, here's how we're
going to connect, here's the questions we're
going to ask, here's the answers we're
going to give, here's the support we
can offer in different ways. They even
have it mapped out where several months

(01:42:44):
after whatever the tragedy was, they're coming
back around to follow up because what
ends up happening in a lot of
people's tragedies is in the moment. Everybody
swarms in, but then a week goes
by, a month goes by, and that,
that swarm has now dissipated. And so
we, we try and, and come back
around a few months later just to,

(01:43:05):
to check in on people and so
is that an area where we could
do better? Absolutely. It's, you know, just
like with everything else, we're trying to
get better and better. But our congregational
care team, I think is amazing. They're
an amazing group of people. And yeah,
that's one of the things why we
do have so many pastors on our
staff is to help make it more

(01:43:26):
accessible, more available for people to offer
that care and support.

So, yeah, that's awesome.

And then benevolence.

Oh, for benevolence. Yes. So we do,
like Pastor Brent already said, we do
offer benevolence, of course, to two members
primarily. But also like he said, if
there are individuals who may not be.
We look into each case. It's a
case by case scenario. If you want
to inquire, you can email helloc1 and

(01:43:56):
somebody can get back to you in
regards to information and things that you
may need to know and pass on
actually that request to the proper, through
the proper channels so that somebody else
can reach out to you in regards
to that benevolence. But we do offer
it, but of course, it's a case
by case scenario and we want to
make sure that we're providing sufficient and

(01:44:17):
adequate assistance to anybody who needs it.
And of course we have to have
a conversation with you and know exactly
what's going on in order to do
that. But we do have it available.
It may not be advertised, but it
is available and you can email us
and receive more information about that.

Yeah. One of the challenges with benevolence
is also, and I've just run into
this as a pastor, and this may
not be part of the person's question,
but sometimes people are looking for benevolence
to alleviate the consequences of their sin.
And that's always a tricky place for
us to church. So because of that,
we actually have guidelines for how much

(01:44:55):
we can do when we can do
it for what people we can do
it for. And all that, and all
of that is regulated so that we
don't have to make emotional decisions in
the moment.

That's good.

And so, yeah, there have been times
when it's, it's the best benevolence we
could actually give somebody is financial coaching,
because it's, it's not like I could,
I could give you a thousand Dollars
to cover your rent for this month.
But who's gonna give you a thousand
dollars next month? Who's gonna give you
a thousand dollars the month after that?
At some point, you're getting evicted because
you haven't learned how to budget and

(01:45:30):
how to live within your means. And
so we try and come in when
there is, like, extenuating circumstances, like, hey,
usually I'm good. However, I was injured
at work and I couldn't do this
thing, or. Or a medical bill I
wasn't expecting came in. But there's been
a lot of conversations that we've had
to have with people where it's like,
okay, you're paying a thousand dollars for

(01:45:52):
a car. Like, your car note is
a thousand dollars. You've got a $300
phone payment. You got a $200 Internet
payment. It's like, okay, at what point
do you say, okay, I need to
scale back on how I'm living? Because
I clearly am trying to live beyond
my means. And so it would be
bad stewardship for us to use the

(01:46:13):
money that congregant, congregate members of the
church have given to the church to
be used for these purposes. If we
were to throw that away in an
empty hole like it just. So that's
kind of the. Maybe that was too
harsh. But, no, I mean, I think
we want to help.

Right.

Sometimes the best help we can give
you is, hey, we need to fix
some things.

Yeah. Yeah. You're thinking further along.

Yeah.

You're pastoring them through that moment.

Trying to.

Yeah. So I found another question I
forgot about the Beyonce question. So it's
really too. So we're going to get
through these really fast. We're going to
end with that. When a member passes
or a significant relative of theirs, mother,
father, son, daughter, sister, brother, passes, how
will the congregation be made aware of

(01:47:04):
it, as well as plan services for
the deceased? So it's kind of.

Yeah, yeah. We. So we don't. We.
We don't notify the entire congregation. We
leave that to family to spread word
however they feel appropriate, just because some.
Some people just don't want the whole
church showing up at that moment. So,
yeah, it was. Read the question again.

(01:47:27):
There was something that sparked.

How will the congregation be made aware
of it, as well as any planned
services for the deceased. So it's. We've
answered this.

Yeah, Yeah, I. Oh, I was gonna
say. So the one. The one group
of people that we do notify is.
We have a. A prayer team that.
It's an email list of our Intercessors
that have requested to be notified so

(01:47:57):
they can be praying for people. And
so one of the things that we'll
do when we become aware of a
situation, we ask for permission from the
family to notify the intercessors. And so
I don't even know who's in charge
of adding people. I think it might
be Melanie who oversees who gets on
that list. And she has criteria for

(01:48:18):
who. And, you know, because. Just because
you're like, I want the gossip.

Right. Add me to the list.

Yeah. It doesn't mean you get on
that list. No. So it's people that
are going to be praying for the
family.

Yeah.

It's part of that congregational care component.
It.

That's good.

So. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think we have to
realize we have a pretty large church,
so having processes and. And systems in
places. Beneficial.

Yeah.

All right, guys, last question. And we're
not gonna stay on this long, because
the truth is the truth. We gonna
set it free. Why do people say
Beyonce is the devil?

I don't know. I don't know that
I've ever called her the devil.

Not the devil. I just saw a
post last night, and it made me
cringe. She was here in Chicago recently,
and she had, like, these ladies standing
in line, and they did like this.
These hands. And it was like the
goddess. I can't remember which goddess. She
was, like, imitating, but it just made
me feel weird. And so I'm not

(01:49:17):
saying she's the devil. I don't know
what she's into.

Yeah, she ain't holy.

She ain't holy.

That's our criteria.

Right.

I will say. Well, first of all,
I don't want to call any person
the devil. Like we said earlier on
in the beginning, Beyonce, just like a
lot of individuals are made in God's
image and God's likeness. God loves her,
created her, and Jesus died for her.

(01:49:46):
With that being said. And we should
love her and pray for her. With
that being said, there are, you know,
there are aspects to her artistry, just
like a lot of artists, movies, TV
shows, whatever the case may be, where
there are aspects of it that are
very spiritual and that doesn't necessarily coincide

(01:50:09):
with what we would believe as followers
of Christ. Anything other than the Holy
Spirit, Anything. Any attachment other than you
can be.

Spiritual without being godly.

Right? Yeah. Anything attached to anything that's
attached to that's not attached to the
Holy Spirit. We. We don't necessarily want
to. Not even necessarily. We don't want
anything to do with. So she does
operate in a different place spiritually, which
is not in accordance to what we
would believe as godly and holy. Biblically.

(01:50:40):
Just like a lot of artists, she
needs grace. She needs. She needs prayer.
She needs. She needs. She needs. She
needs freedom. She needs. She needs deliverance.

She needs grace.

She needs the grace of God to
save her. That's what I mean. She
needs. She needs salvation.

Yeah.

Just like everybody else before they know
Jesus, before they met Christ. And I
think she would say herself. She had
an interview a while ago, like, I
would never jeopardize my Christianity. I'm not
God. I remember that interview because she
grew up in church and all that
good stuff, like a lot of artists.
But I will say she needs Jesus
and some of the things that she

(01:51:19):
depicts, some of the art that she
puts forth, the spiritual components, which are
not biblical, spiritual, not spiritually, from a
biblical perspective. And her just like plenty
of other artists when it comes to
sensual aspects, sexual aspects, and the way
she performs and things like that, those

(01:51:41):
aren't things that I would say are
conducive to those of us who would
want to grow and actually develop a
true relationship with Christ. So with her,
I would say she needs. She needs
freedom. She needs deliverance. She needs the
power of the gospel to transform her
like it transformed every single one of
us. Sounds like I don't partake in
Beyonce's artistry.

You know, it sounds like she needs
to be discipled.

Yeah.

After she gets Jesus.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, it sounds
like she grew up knowing Jesus, knowing.
Knowing the faith. I don't know anything
about Beyonce.

Yeah, that's a good idea here. Interview.
She said, I would never jeopardize and
compromise with Christianity. That's fine. I'm not
Beyonce's judge. But I will say there,
I think.

You can judge in that. That statement.
Yeah, I wouldn't do anything, jeopardize my
Christianity and then continue to do things
that Christ would not approve of. Like,
so if so. So the Bible is
really clear that we're supposed to judge
those in the faith. So if she's
claiming to be in the faith, that's.

(01:52:44):
I mean, right. Like, that's a. That
would be an open door for Paul
to write her a letter. Right.

Disciples church to write her a letter.
Just playing.

Yeah, I. I'm not trying to throw
shade at anybody, but yeah, there's. Walk
in a manner worthy of the calling.
That's. That's Paul's instructions to us after
laying out the gospel, laying out what
Christ has done for us. And. And
how amazing this gift of salvation is.
How amazing God's redemption is, his grace,
his love for us, the sacrifice that

(01:53:18):
Jesus made for us. Our response to
that is to walk in a manner
worthy of it. And so if Beyonce's
not walking the walk, somebody should tell
her. But I don't have a relationship
with her, so it ain't gonna be
me.

Well, I think that's an excellent place
to close one.

So closing with Beyonce.

Closing with Beyonce, we pray.

All right, I got 24 more questions
to go this week.

Well, you have fun with that. And
you guys continue to tune in and
let us know if you enjoyed these
questions. Whoa. I can't believe we got
through four weeks of almost 300 questions.

It's been a lot.

It's been a lot over there, but
we're there. We tired, y' all. Thank
you for tuning in. We love you.
Let us know if these questions, the
answers to the questions have impacted you
in any way. And let me know
again if you want to continue a
segment where we do some questions from
every sermon series. I think that would
be fun.

30 in an episode.

Not 30. We're gonna choose, like, maybe
the top three and answer. But, yeah,
this was. This was great.

You're ready to move on, and it's.

Time to move back on the productive.
The production team was like, yes. So
we love you guys, and we'll see
you next time.

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