June 3, 2025 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I make a list of the most popular things
we do on this show over the years. Having done
this for twenty years now, playing a Paul Harvey clip,
we up there, playing a Rush Limbaugh clip. Will be
up there, having doctor ed young On. We'll be up there.
Those are those are things, And and then I will
(00:21):
discover in my meanderings. Usually somebody will send it to me,
someone talking about a book of the Bible, a character
in the by person in the Bible, or a parable
or something of the sort, or what a verse means
to them. And I'll find, you know, some some Bible
teacher who explains that in a way that is compelling,
(00:47):
and so we'll we'll share those. And it's amazing how
many people will say, where did that come from? Where
do I find that? Because they want to they want
to listen again, or they want to share it with
someone else. And so it's something that we enjoyed doing,
and I intend to probably do much more of it
going forward because I enjoy it, and it seems to
(01:09):
be something that you enjoy as well. So someone sent
me an email and said, hey, you were at UH
when David Klingler was there. He was the superstar quarterback
went to the Cincinnati Bengals first round draft pick, and
I said, yes, we weren't buddies, but I knew who
he was. Obviously we all did. He was a big
man on campus. And I'm always interested in where are
(01:29):
they now? VH one did one? And this may be
my favorite where are they now? For somebody who I
didn't know what he was up to. He's teaching the Bible,
and from what I understand, he's done good at it.
I have gone on to his podcast, which is called
Teach Me the Bible. He has a website, teach Me
the Bible lives out in Brenham. But I got to say,
(01:52):
this guy is doing literally doing the Lord's work. And
I was so delighted to see what he used his
celebrity and his skill set for. And so we reached
out through mutual friends to ask him to come on
and talk about his ministry. And I am honored to
say he's with us now. David Klingler, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Michael, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So take me from in in ninety two, you're drafted
by the Bengals. We'll talk football in a moment. Raiders
ninety six ninety seven. Then you were on the practice
squad for the Packers. Football is over. Take me to
the next phase of your life. Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, well, that's a great, great question. So so football
was over pretty much after my second year in Cincinnati.
I had had elbow damage, went to surgery and they
said it was care ending. And you know, one of
the things that I realized was that football is not
a career. Unless you're a coach, then it's not particularly
(02:55):
a good career. You're just waiting to get fired at
seeing them me. But but then the question was what
do you do next? And uh, you know, what does
life look like after you know you're you You've done
everything that you thought you wanted to do and and
and so that was kind of how football came to
(03:16):
an end. And and I remember it was actually, uh,
this the first off season I had come back to Houston.
You know, we still had a home in Katie and
and the Oilers. That was back when the Oilers were
in Houston. And came back to the off season and
was invited by the fc A director of the Houston
area to go to the Oilers Bible study. And I
(03:37):
went to the Oilers Bible study. And a guy named
Body Bachham was teaching the Bible study and many of
you may know that name, and and uh, and we
got to talk and after the study, and he said,
you know, you need to quit football and go to seminary.
And I'm thinking, who in the world goes to seminary?
You know even know what that means. But that's kind
(03:57):
of how it started, you know. And uh, and just
an interest in the in the Bible, and and so
over the next maybe eight years he kept after me.
And and finally I had had a ranch out in
the Burton area Brenda Mary and uh, some some you
know person pulled in wanted to buy the ranch, and
(04:18):
so I sold it. And he said, well what do
I do now? I said, well, I'm going to go
to seminary. And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you had I think a thousand acres or more, No,
it was it was about five hundred little video. Yeah,
well rail chat, that's a massive amount of Burton, in Burton,
in Washington County.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well today, back then, you know, gosh, so I wish
I had a bought you know, you know, everything the
light touches back. If I hadn't known then what I
know now. But but yeah, we you know, my plan
was to go retire, shut the gate and uh, you
know and and know and just train some horses and
(05:02):
and my wife's plan was to raise our boys and
uh somewhere bigger than than Burton. And so we moved
back to the Kady area. Boys went to Sinco Ranch
High School and and really enjoyed it there. But but
you know how it is living in the town and
property taxes and traffic and people and all that, and uh,
and it was just time to get back out into
(05:23):
a little more space. And so we moved back out here.
We live in the Brenna Mary Now, okay, so that's
what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You complete seminary, and then what's the next step at
that point? What happened?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, the reason I went to sim I didn't want
to be a pastor. I didn't want to be a professor.
I didn't even that wasn't even on the radar. I
just wanted to know the Bible. And and I remember hearing,
you know, I used to listen to the morning Christian
radio and Tony Evans was on, Chuck Swindall was on,
(05:57):
and they had two radio stations, right radio shows back
to back, and I listened to them, and then I
just happened to go to church on Sunday, and all
three of them preached the same passage, but none of
them said the same thing. And I kept thinking, you know,
who are you supposed to listen to? Here? You know,
you got the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Baptists,
(06:18):
and everybody's saying something different, and they're all saying in
some ways mutually exclusive things, and so who are you
supposed to listen to? And how do you know what's right?
And so I just went to seminary to learn the Bible.
I walked into my first seminary class, and this professor
(06:39):
just made the Bible so simple and so understandable. You know,
it wasn't versus an idolation, but these actually made sense.
You know, one sentence went with the next sentence, you know,
one verse went with the next verson and the book
started to make sense, and so it really captivated my curiosity.
I came home after the first night and and I said,
(07:02):
I want to get a PhD. And my wife's looked
at me, like, who are you?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You've been there one day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
One day, Yeah, one day, and that meant, you know,
one hundred and twenty hour degree, and about half about
half of that degree was in was in the Dallas area,
so I couldn't take it in Houston. And we had boys,
and so I said, well, she said, how are you
going to do this? So I said, I'll get up
at three in the morning, I'll drive and I'll be
home you know, in the afternoon or evening. And and
(07:30):
it required learning Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and you know,
and then for the PhD, French and German and you know,
I don't know, you start piling up the languages and
you start to lose track. But it was just a
passion to understand what, you know, what did the Bible mean?
And then and then once I started to take theology
(07:50):
classes and church history, then it really be right there. Sure. Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
David Klingler is our guest. The site is Teach Me
the Bible dot com over This's the Michael Berry Show,
Locked and loaded, Loaded. David Klingler is our guest. He
was he wrote too many as a college quarterback at
the University of Houston, first round draft pick with Cincinnati Bingals.
(08:17):
But what he does now is far more interesting. The
website is Teach Me Thebible dot com. There is a
podcast that effect. We're talking about a fellow who arrives
at seminary. I mean, look, you don't get to be
a star quarterback and throw for almost ten thousand yards
in college without being a little cocky, right, So he
shows up the first day in seminary to catch you
(08:37):
folks up and decides after that, yeah, I'll go ahead
and get a PhD. Were you a good student growing up?
Were academics something? Because most athletes obviously weren't. Were you?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know? I went to so at University of Houston.
I was in the business program, and it was a
great school. But thinks I would pick up things pretty quickly,
and so I didn't have to spend a lot of
time at it. Now, if I was interested in it, boy,
it became a passion. And so, yeah, I could be
a good student. But I was interested in things I
(09:11):
was interested in. You know how boys are in the
things I wasn't interested in. I just had no interest in,
you know.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And so on a personal level, you were going to
seminary and driving back and forth and being a dad,
and I'm assuming you know, the sale of your property
out in Burton kind of you know, helped cover the
bills and hopefully you saved some of what you made
as an athlete. Were you were you, were you working,
were you earning a paycheck anywhere during this time or
(09:38):
just going to seminary, just going to seminary.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I just had totally devoted myself to learning the Bible,
not for any other really agenda or reason. I just
wanted to know the truth, so to speak. And I
was it is my second year of school, and the
the dean then of the College of Biblical Studies sar
(10:02):
in Houston, as some of the students was that, you
know that he was looking for some professors and people
to teach the Bible. And so he's asking the professors
at the seminary do you have any good students? And
my name kept coming up, and so he asked me
to teach, and so I just went in and taught,
you know, told others what I had learned that was
taught by my professors. A couple of years later that
(10:25):
Dallas Seminary asked me to teach start teaching biblical languages,
and then I started teaching Greek and Hebrew and Bible.
I was teaching actually at three schools before I had
finished my PhD. And which you know, they typically require
a PhD to teach, but they had made an exception
(10:46):
for me. So I was teaching at College of Biblical Studies,
at Dallas Theological Seminary, and then at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
And again, my passion was just to learn the Bible.
And I realized that it wasn't that complicated. Boy, we
sure make it hard, but it wasn't. It wasn't that
complicated to understand. And and maybe out of frustration, you know,
(11:12):
it's you know, I wanted to teach others so that
they could understand it, so you didn't have to listen
to what somebody says. The Bible says that you can
actually open it up and read.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
It and make sense of it well. And that was always, uh,
you know, as a Southern Baptist, I am a believer
that I don't need a pope or anyone else to
translate for me. You know, it's in my language, and
it's it's my personal journey and it applies to me,
and no one needs to translate it for me. How
(11:45):
did you arrive at the concept of teach me the Bible?
Were people asking you that question because it's so simple
and so direct, And I think that that was part
of what I found to be the appeal when I
went to the website and then started on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, it's a funny story. So we live out here
in Brenham, and so I met a pastor out here
and just wanted to help him, you know, succeed in
the pastor it. It's such a bad job. It's a
hard job unless you're called to it. And and so
we would sit on the porch and we would just
talk about the Bible, and he'd ask, you know, hey,
(12:20):
what about this, and so we talk about it. Well,
we hired a worship pastor and he came in and
you know, he had made the statement to him. He says,
you know, we teach the Bible and we sing heresy,
how can I learn the Bible? Because so many of
our Christian songs are such bad theology. I said, well,
why don't you just come sit on the porch with
us and talk the Bible? And he said, you know,
(12:42):
we need to make a podcast of that. And that's
how it started. So I said well, I don't even
know what that means podcasts, you know. He said, well,
don't worry about that. Well, I'll bring the microphones. We'll
set it up. And so he's our technology guy. So
that's what we do. We come in and and the
microphones are set up and they just ask questions and
(13:03):
I talk, you know, tell us about this book, and
so we walk through the book and it really is
a simple concept, but it's really had a great response.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
When when folks who grew up in the church but
maybe have have drifted away, or or folks who go
to a church and as you know, this is very
common where the Bible is not first and foremost, and
they say, I really want to get I want to
go deeper, ine, I want to engage in personal study,
not church going personal study. Do you have an approach
(13:33):
as to a place to begin or what what is
how do you handle that?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, well, well it's really interesting that we so much
of so many people today come to seminary for just
that they've been involved in church, but they want to
learn the Bible, and so they come in thinking they
know a whole bunch of stuff that usually they come
up come in with their theology with their you know,
(14:00):
with their life verses or whatever it is. And and
when you ask them to explain what that verse is
doing with the sentence right before the sentence right after it,
they have they have they can't answer. And you hear
so often, you know, you start in the Gospel of
John or something like that. But if I handed you
any book, any any book, and said here, read this book,
(14:21):
well you would just start at the beginning. And and
that's where you ought to start. In the Bible, you
start at the beginning. You start in Genesis, and and
it's really a simple story. It's the Bible is the
revelation of God's redemptive history through you know, through through
(14:42):
human history. I mean, it's just in the beginning, uh,
creation fall and off the Lord goes to bring about
his promised deliverer. And you get to walk down that
trail with the authors as they tell the story of
god redemptive acts throughout human history, culminating in the person
(15:05):
of his son Jesus Christ. And so it makes perfect sense.
It's really simple to understand. But if we start in
the middle, or start with some verse, or you start
with some theological grid or concept or defense it becomes
really convoluted very quickly.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Although full disclaim, full disclosure and disclaimer on your part,
your expertise is your PhD is actually an Old Testament studies.
So I would I would argue that in terms of accessibility,
most folks can start in the New Testament with a
lot greater ease to at least get to develop comfort
(15:43):
in who we're dealing with here, whereas the Old Testament
can be, in my opinion, can be a little tough
or not to crack.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well. Yeah, so what happens is, let me start with
the Gospel of John. So John tell the reader why
he wrote his story that many other signs Jesus did
in the presence of his disciples which were not written
in this book.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Hold right there, we're up against the break. David Klingler
is our guest. The website is teach Me the Bible
dot Com and that is also the name of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
More than I have almost went the Lawless.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
The Michael Arry Show. David Kleanler is our guest, football
star turned PhD in theology. Now Teach Me the Bible
dot Com. There's a podcast, Teach Me the Bible dot Com.
I noticed, let's talk about your team. I notice you've
got some folks. See if I can pull the page
(16:43):
back up here, You've got some folks that are associated
with churches who are part of I guess this podcast team.
Tell me what this entity looks like that you are
a part of. It looks like you run.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's it's actually just a very small group of very
committed people. We our budget is next to nothing. And
and you know, you don't need a lot of money
to do ministry. Uh, you need just some passion and
care for people. And and so there's still Porter phil
Is Uh, he's our worship pastor at Champion Fellowship, Tim Webb.
(17:20):
Tim's the lead pastor at the church, and just a
wonderful guy. We've become just steadfast friends and and just
such a faithful guy. Alex Wolfe is actually one of
our PhD students and also a pastor at the church.
And uh. And then there's several men who I've trained
(17:41):
through the PhD program who are pastoring at other churches.
And and we all just have a passion to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. And
that's what brought us together and uh, and so that's
what we're what we're doing will teach me the Bible.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And when people engage in this and they want to
understand the word of God, how do you think that
changes them? How? What is their reaction after this? What
do you hear back?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Mostly just you know, thank you. It makes sense now.
And and I don't want any of the focus. I
always tell our students. I tell our you know, with
the seminay, we're training pastors, we're training professors, and say,
if anyone ever comes up to you after you've taught
or preached and say, boy, you're such a gifted speaker,
(18:31):
such a gifted communication or or you know, communicat or whatever,
you're doing something that's bringing attention to you. And our
job is to bring attention to the Lord and to
his word. And and so that's really it when they
come up and they say, man, I really thought that
I knew Jesus, but this this just is is just
(18:56):
so eye opening. It's you know, thank you. That that's
that makes it worth everything we're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You have a Bible conference coming up March fourteenth and fifteenth,
and I'm reading about it, and it's to teach me.
The Bible Conference twenty twenty five, and it says this
was an interesting line. I thought. Our mission is to
help the people of God understand the Word of God,
and when you leave this conference, you will be able
to open your Bible and understand all the epistles. Is
(19:25):
there a particular focus on the epistles? Why do you
mention that?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Well, last year we did the story of the scriptures,
and so what we're doing, we're always just taking a
section of scripture and say, let's understand what this section
of scripture is doing. And we're going to dive into
six specific epistles, three Pauline epistles, three what we call
general epistles. And so we'll be doing Ephesians and Philippians,
(19:53):
James first, John first, Peter missing one of them. I
don't remember which ones. They're all running together. I think Philippians,
Upheesians of Philippians, and one Morgagell. We'll teach six of them.
But helping people understand, Oh this makes sense. I know
(20:17):
what he's saying now, and it kind of demystifies in
some in some way what Paul's saying. Paul just writing
to a historic group of people to address a historic situation.
Uh and uh and they go, wait a second, this
makes sense. I understand this now, and that's our goal.
That that is simply our goal, uh, in everything that
(20:39):
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What does your personal Bible study look like? Do you
have a time of day, do you have a place
where you go? Do you have and I know you do,
to teach me the Bible in a year, which I
know a lot of people have done. If not, your
course of courses and programs like that. You know, the
consistency seems to help folks, But what is your personal
Bible still your personal nourishment?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I'm you know, I tell people all the time, I
can't believe that I get to do what I do. Basically,
my day involves waking up or reflecting on what I
was thinking about all night. You know how it is
things wake you up in the middle of the night. Recently,
I was trying to think through first Thessalonians five ten
(21:27):
in the middle of the night, trying to figure out
what's going on there. And so I get to wake
up and interest reflect on the Bible all day, I do,
you know. So I use the Greek Hebrew Aramaic text.
There's a few sections of Aramaic in the Bible and
just try to understand it better so that it changes
(21:49):
my life and hopefully changes the lives of those around us.
And boy, we need more people who handle the Word
of God will to lead the church. Were in desperate need.
We are losing pastors. Not many folks are going into
(22:10):
the ministry. Why is that, Well, it's a great question.
I think that there's not a lot of glitz to it.
It's a hard job. People are hard to deal with sometimes.
I think one statistic I heard was that about ten
percent of our students, of our graduates that go into
(22:30):
the full time ministry, are still in ministry within five
to seven years.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And well, you know as well as I do, that
pastoring a church, tending a flock is a very different
undertaking and a more difficult undertaking than what might be
more considerate, you know, in the for a Joel ostein preaching,
whether that be on TV or in a megachurch or
whatever else. The concept of preaching is only one aspect
(22:56):
of pastoring. But the pastoring is is is tough because
you are really as tending a flock. And that's that's
where the heavy lifting comes in in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh sure, yeah, And you can't. You can't pastor the multitudes.
Doctor Swindle Chuck Swindall, famous Bible teacher. I remember one
day I was talking with him and and there's so
many I've just benefited from, so many profoundly wise people.
But one day I was talking to him and I
just thanked him for his giant impact that he's had
(23:29):
in ministry. And I was thinking about, you know, his
insight for living ministry and radio ministry. And he stopped
me and he said, let me explain something to you.
You know, kind of like when you you you take
the little kid in your on your arms. You let
me explain something to you very clearly so you don't
misunderstand this. He said, you can impress from afar, but
you can only impact up cloth. And I think about
(23:52):
that a lot. That uh that that we've we live
in this world and you know, podcasts do it and
radio does it, and you can influence a lot of people.
But the amount of time that you can actually spend
to get to know someone and to to to get
deep into their life, and it's not many. And and
(24:13):
that's the that's the hard part of pastoring. We were
so driven by this megachurch model where we all want
to have the giant, biggest churches and the biggest ministries
and you know, the podcast that reaches millions and all
that stuff. But you know, but in doing that, you
pass over the people that are right in front of you, uh,
that that you should be caring for, and you're not.
(24:34):
And and so pastoring is hard work and and and
it's not often met with the all the praises of
the world, and even the praises within the church. Often
it's met with criticism. And so it's it's hard work,
but but it's very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
One more segment with David Klingler, the King of Dan
and this other guy, Michael Barry. This is a kind
of guy you'd like to smack an ass. I found
out recently that David Klingler in a Where Are They Now?
Episode VH one style, who was the star quarterback when
(25:16):
I was at the University of Houston for the Cougars.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He was.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Nationally celebrated, a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, beloved following
Andrea Ware and numbers even more impressive than Andrea and
Andre to be the first dat Heyday of UH football.
And I found out that he went to theological seminary,
got his PhD. And now he's teaching in many different
(25:43):
roles and one of them is sort of a to
the general public, and it's called teach Me Thebible dot com.
You can find them online and a podcast, so if
you would like to do that, they do learn the
Bible in a year. They have a conference coming up.
I noticed, let's talk about the dollars and cents. I
know people are uncomfortable with that sometimes, but it is
a part of everything we do. It doesn't appear to
(26:05):
me that you're trying to make much, if any money
off of this thing, because I noticed that the conference schedule,
a two day conference bee is a whopping twenty nine
dollars and you have to defray the costs of all
sorts of things to even put that on. Is that
a conscious decision of you know this this isn't a
business enterprise.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yes, yes it is. And h and again I think
that you know, I want to criticize churches. You know,
we do need somewhere to meet and all that, but
for the most part, ministry takes no money. It takes time.
And so you know, when we said, well we need
to do a podcast. Well, how much does that does
(26:51):
that take? It takes some people who are committed in
some time, It takes a computer, it takes a couple
of microphones, and and folks sit in front of them.
And so really, you know, we can do this, this
whole ministry for a very very small amount. And I've
covered that expense, and and I love what Paul says.
(27:11):
It seems like we keep going back to the Corinthians,
but you know that Paul works in their midst and
and wasn't a burden to any of them. And the
reason why he does this is so that none of
them could say that his motivation was financial. His motivation
was for money. Everything that he was doing was for
(27:31):
the building up of the Body of Christ and to
benefit the church. And so our mission, so often mission
statements of an organization are are stated mission, but they're
not the real mission. Our real mission is to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. And
that's it, and and we want to do it. It
is a labor of love, and we want to do
(27:52):
it for as cheaply as we can to benefit the church.
So we don't you know, if you want to give,
great but you know, we don't need your gifts.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Let's talk about your life and how you arrived where
you are. And I'm not building you up as perfect.
I know you would not be comfortable with that. It's
inconsistent with your teachings. But let's talk about decision making
in your life. Obviously, you've made some decisions that I
would consider to be very good decisions. To put yourself
(28:29):
the ledger of your decision making would be better than bad.
To put yourself in a position where you're proud of
your kids, you're happy in your marriage, your skills and
talents are being put to good use toward your faith
through your ministry. When you talk to young athletes, and
you've done that over the years, and you talk to
young people, what advice Looking back now where you are
(28:50):
in your fifties, do you say, I wish I'd learned this,
wish somebody told me this, or these are some things
that really seem to resonate with young people.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I was so thankful Jack Party, you know, back at
our time at u of Ah. He was a man
of such unbelievable character. So many great men poured into
my life, and I really took what they said to
hart and it troubles me today that we've kind of
turned our whole culture, specifically sports culture into free agency.
(29:27):
You know, everybody is is a free agent. They're all
working for themselves. We're seeing this in college football certainly,
it's been around the NFL for you even in the
youth sports. You know, you got you got six year
olds play on select teams and you know they act
as a free agent. And in somewhere in our culture,
(29:48):
we need to learn the concept of individual sacrifice for
mutual benefit. That there is a mission and nothing worth
achieving is going to be achieved by yourself. It's going
to take a bunch of people, uh, single minded in
the mission to try to achieve something greater than yourself.
(30:09):
And and frankly, I think that's that's why Nick Saban
I think has left college football. I think that that
you know, increasingly it's become difficult in our culture to
find uh these in these places, and so we're not
interested in personal sacrifice. We're not interested in suffering, We're
(30:29):
not interested in doing anything that's hard, and so we
suffer because of it. That everything that's great that you
want to achieve in life is going to cause you
to suffer. It's going to be hard, and it's going
to take the help of others to do it. And
and so I'm so proud of my two boys, you know, coaching.
You know, I'm not so sure that pastoring is the
(30:52):
most influential thing in our culture anymore. Maybe at one
time it was sports. I think is probably right at
the top of the list now And at least in
my life, my coaches had the biggest influence on me.
And so I'm so proud of what they're doing there.
They have devoted their their lives not to teaching football
(31:14):
x's and o's or bun and shoot or you know,
some offense or something, but teaching character. They're They're in
the character education business, absolutely, and I'm really proud of
them to that.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
You know, in my life, I think of the people
who have had the biggest influence and I still have
people like this. You know, it was obviously my parents,
but it was coaches and teachers and administrators and youth
pastors and pastors and and and more of those were
outside the church than in. And I think if everybody
(31:48):
understands the role you have in raising young people, and
we see the results when we don't do our job.
And maybe that's an avuncular role because you know, our
brother or sister's kid needs somebody to talk to the occasion,
or maybe it's a grandparent who steps in on occasion.
And I think a lot of people have been afraid
to do that, and we could spend a lot of
time on why that is. I'm going to ask you
(32:10):
as we part, to give me one quick memory of
play and ball at the University of Houston. That is
one you will always fondly remember a moment, a game something.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
There was a play and I've talked to Andre about this.
It's his favorite play as well. You know, when we
were there together, we were there at the same time.
We were both fierce competitors, but through that became great friends,
lifelong friends. And so we were playing the University of Texas.
(32:43):
They played Manda Man almost every play, and so John Jenkins,
the offensive coordinator, he put in this play where Andre
was going to you know, as we were always at
the line calling the plays, and so he would kind
of wander out to the right and call the play
to the right, and then he would go to the
left and he would yell out to the receivers at
the left, and as he went out to the left,
(33:05):
we'd snap the ball and I would My job was
to sneak in with the crowd and replace Chuck Witherspoon,
who was the running back. And so I'm back there
in the shotgun and I catched this snap. And you know,
we were pretty aware that Andre had a pretty good
chance to win the Heisman that year, and he was
thrown for all kinds of of yards and touchdowns and
(33:26):
if he could catch a touchdown pass that would just
be great. And well, I was as nervous as I
could be, because you know, I had to throw this thing.
And so off he goes down the sideline and sure
enough he's wide open and thankfully through a decent ball.
If it'd been a little better, he to score it.
But but but he caught that thing going down the
(33:46):
sideline AND's just a you know, just a great memory
that I that I had.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And thank you for sharing that, David Klingler. Thank you
for sharing a few hours of your time with us,
and thank you for your ministry
When I make a list of the most popular things
we do on this show over the years. Having done
this for twenty years now, playing a Paul Harvey clip,
we up there, playing a Rush Limbaugh clip. Will be
up there, having doctor ed young On. We'll be up there.
Those are those are things, And and then I will
(00:21):
discover in my meanderings. Usually somebody will send it to me,
someone talking about a book of the Bible, a character
in the by person in the Bible, or a parable
or something of the sort, or what a verse means
to them. And I'll find, you know, some some Bible
teacher who explains that in a way that is compelling,
(00:47):
and so we'll we'll share those. And it's amazing how
many people will say, where did that come from? Where
do I find that? Because they want to they want
to listen again, or they want to share it with
someone else. And so it's something that we enjoyed doing,
and I intend to probably do much more of it
going forward because I enjoy it, and it seems to
(01:09):
be something that you enjoy as well. So someone sent
me an email and said, hey, you were at UH
when David Klingler was there. He was the superstar quarterback
went to the Cincinnati Bengals first round draft pick, and
I said, yes, we weren't buddies, but I knew who
he was. Obviously we all did. He was a big
man on campus. And I'm always interested in where are
(01:29):
they now? VH one did one? And this may be
my favorite where are they now? For somebody who I
didn't know what he was up to. He's teaching the Bible,
and from what I understand, he's done good at it.
I have gone on to his podcast, which is called
Teach Me the Bible. He has a website, teach Me
the Bible lives out in Brenham. But I got to say,
(01:52):
this guy is doing literally doing the Lord's work. And
I was so delighted to see what he used his
celebrity and his skill set for. And so we reached
out through mutual friends to ask him to come on
and talk about his ministry. And I am honored to
say he's with us now. David Klingler, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Michael, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So take me from in in ninety two, you're drafted
by the Bengals. We'll talk football in a moment. Raiders
ninety six ninety seven. Then you were on the practice
squad for the Packers. Football is over. Take me to
the next phase of your life. Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, well, that's a great, great question. So so football
was over pretty much after my second year in Cincinnati.
I had had elbow damage, went to surgery and they
said it was care ending. And you know, one of
the things that I realized was that football is not
a career. Unless you're a coach, then it's not particularly
(02:55):
a good career. You're just waiting to get fired at
seeing them me. But but then the question was what
do you do next? And uh, you know, what does
life look like after you know you're you You've done
everything that you thought you wanted to do and and
and so that was kind of how football came to
(03:16):
an end. And and I remember it was actually, uh,
this the first off season I had come back to Houston.
You know, we still had a home in Katie and
and the Oilers. That was back when the Oilers were
in Houston. And came back to the off season and
was invited by the fc A director of the Houston
area to go to the Oilers Bible study. And I
(03:37):
went to the Oilers Bible study. And a guy named
Body Bachham was teaching the Bible study and many of
you may know that name, and and uh, and we
got to talk and after the study, and he said,
you know, you need to quit football and go to seminary.
And I'm thinking, who in the world goes to seminary?
You know even know what that means. But that's kind
(03:57):
of how it started, you know. And uh, and just
an interest in the in the Bible, and and so
over the next maybe eight years he kept after me.
And and finally I had had a ranch out in
the Burton area Brenda Mary and uh, some some you
know person pulled in wanted to buy the ranch, and
(04:18):
so I sold it. And he said, well what do
I do now? I said, well, I'm going to go
to seminary. And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you had I think a thousand acres or more, No,
it was it was about five hundred little video. Yeah,
well rail chat, that's a massive amount of Burton, in Burton,
in Washington County.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well today, back then, you know, gosh, so I wish
I had a bought you know, you know, everything the
light touches back. If I hadn't known then what I
know now. But but yeah, we you know, my plan
was to go retire, shut the gate and uh, you
know and and know and just train some horses and
(05:02):
and my wife's plan was to raise our boys and
uh somewhere bigger than than Burton. And so we moved
back to the Kady area. Boys went to Sinco Ranch
High School and and really enjoyed it there. But but
you know how it is living in the town and
property taxes and traffic and people and all that, and uh,
and it was just time to get back out into
(05:23):
a little more space. And so we moved back out here.
We live in the Brenna Mary Now, okay, so that's
what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You complete seminary, and then what's the next step at
that point? What happened?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, the reason I went to sim I didn't want
to be a pastor. I didn't want to be a professor.
I didn't even that wasn't even on the radar. I
just wanted to know the Bible. And and I remember hearing,
you know, I used to listen to the morning Christian
radio and Tony Evans was on, Chuck Swindall was on,
(05:57):
and they had two radio stations, right radio shows back
to back, and I listened to them, and then I
just happened to go to church on Sunday, and all
three of them preached the same passage, but none of
them said the same thing. And I kept thinking, you know,
who are you supposed to listen to? Here? You know,
you got the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Baptists,
(06:18):
and everybody's saying something different, and they're all saying in
some ways mutually exclusive things, and so who are you
supposed to listen to? And how do you know what's right?
And so I just went to seminary to learn the Bible.
I walked into my first seminary class, and this professor
(06:39):
just made the Bible so simple and so understandable. You know,
it wasn't versus an idolation, but these actually made sense.
You know, one sentence went with the next sentence, you know,
one verse went with the next verson and the book
started to make sense, and so it really captivated my curiosity.
I came home after the first night and and I said,
(07:02):
I want to get a PhD. And my wife's looked
at me, like, who are you?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You've been there one day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
One day, Yeah, one day, and that meant, you know,
one hundred and twenty hour degree, and about half about
half of that degree was in was in the Dallas area,
so I couldn't take it in Houston. And we had boys,
and so I said, well, she said, how are you
going to do this? So I said, I'll get up
at three in the morning, I'll drive and I'll be
home you know, in the afternoon or evening. And and
(07:30):
it required learning Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and you know,
and then for the PhD, French and German and you know,
I don't know, you start piling up the languages and
you start to lose track. But it was just a
passion to understand what, you know, what did the Bible mean?
And then and then once I started to take theology
(07:50):
classes and church history, then it really be right there. Sure. Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
David Klingler is our guest. The site is Teach Me
the Bible dot com over This's the Michael Berry Show,
Locked and loaded, Loaded. David Klingler is our guest. He
was he wrote too many as a college quarterback at
the University of Houston, first round draft pick with Cincinnati Bingals.
(08:17):
But what he does now is far more interesting. The
website is Teach Me Thebible dot com. There is a
podcast that effect. We're talking about a fellow who arrives
at seminary. I mean, look, you don't get to be
a star quarterback and throw for almost ten thousand yards
in college without being a little cocky, right, So he
shows up the first day in seminary to catch you
(08:37):
folks up and decides after that, yeah, I'll go ahead
and get a PhD. Were you a good student growing up?
Were academics something? Because most athletes obviously weren't. Were you?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know? I went to so at University of Houston.
I was in the business program, and it was a
great school. But thinks I would pick up things pretty quickly,
and so I didn't have to spend a lot of
time at it. Now, if I was interested in it, boy,
it became a passion. And so, yeah, I could be
a good student. But I was interested in things I
(09:11):
was interested in. You know how boys are in the
things I wasn't interested in. I just had no interest in,
you know.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And so on a personal level, you were going to
seminary and driving back and forth and being a dad,
and I'm assuming you know, the sale of your property
out in Burton kind of you know, helped cover the
bills and hopefully you saved some of what you made
as an athlete. Were you were you, were you working,
were you earning a paycheck anywhere during this time or
(09:38):
just going to seminary, just going to seminary.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I just had totally devoted myself to learning the Bible,
not for any other really agenda or reason. I just
wanted to know the truth, so to speak. And I
was it is my second year of school, and the
the dean then of the College of Biblical Studies sar
(10:02):
in Houston, as some of the students was that, you
know that he was looking for some professors and people
to teach the Bible. And so he's asking the professors
at the seminary do you have any good students? And
my name kept coming up, and so he asked me
to teach, and so I just went in and taught,
you know, told others what I had learned that was
taught by my professors. A couple of years later that
(10:25):
Dallas Seminary asked me to teach start teaching biblical languages,
and then I started teaching Greek and Hebrew and Bible.
I was teaching actually at three schools before I had
finished my PhD. And which you know, they typically require
a PhD to teach, but they had made an exception
(10:46):
for me. So I was teaching at College of Biblical Studies,
at Dallas Theological Seminary, and then at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
And again, my passion was just to learn the Bible.
And I realized that it wasn't that complicated. Boy, we
sure make it hard, but it wasn't. It wasn't that
complicated to understand. And and maybe out of frustration, you know,
(11:12):
it's you know, I wanted to teach others so that
they could understand it, so you didn't have to listen
to what somebody says. The Bible says that you can
actually open it up and read.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
It and make sense of it well. And that was always, uh,
you know, as a Southern Baptist, I am a believer
that I don't need a pope or anyone else to
translate for me. You know, it's in my language, and
it's it's my personal journey and it applies to me,
and no one needs to translate it for me. How
(11:45):
did you arrive at the concept of teach me the Bible?
Were people asking you that question because it's so simple
and so direct, And I think that that was part
of what I found to be the appeal when I
went to the website and then started on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, it's a funny story. So we live out here
in Brenham, and so I met a pastor out here
and just wanted to help him, you know, succeed in
the pastor it. It's such a bad job. It's a
hard job unless you're called to it. And and so
we would sit on the porch and we would just
talk about the Bible, and he'd ask, you know, hey,
(12:20):
what about this, and so we talk about it. Well,
we hired a worship pastor and he came in and
you know, he had made the statement to him. He says,
you know, we teach the Bible and we sing heresy,
how can I learn the Bible? Because so many of
our Christian songs are such bad theology. I said, well,
why don't you just come sit on the porch with
us and talk the Bible? And he said, you know,
(12:42):
we need to make a podcast of that. And that's
how it started. So I said well, I don't even
know what that means podcasts, you know. He said, well,
don't worry about that. Well, I'll bring the microphones. We'll
set it up. And so he's our technology guy. So
that's what we do. We come in and and the
microphones are set up and they just ask questions and
(13:03):
I talk, you know, tell us about this book, and
so we walk through the book and it really is
a simple concept, but it's really had a great response.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
When when folks who grew up in the church but
maybe have have drifted away, or or folks who go
to a church and as you know, this is very
common where the Bible is not first and foremost, and
they say, I really want to get I want to
go deeper, ine, I want to engage in personal study,
not church going personal study. Do you have an approach
(13:33):
as to a place to begin or what what is
how do you handle that?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, well, well it's really interesting that we so much
of so many people today come to seminary for just
that they've been involved in church, but they want to
learn the Bible, and so they come in thinking they
know a whole bunch of stuff that usually they come
up come in with their theology with their you know,
(14:00):
with their life verses or whatever it is. And and
when you ask them to explain what that verse is
doing with the sentence right before the sentence right after it,
they have they have they can't answer. And you hear
so often, you know, you start in the Gospel of
John or something like that. But if I handed you
any book, any any book, and said here, read this book,
(14:21):
well you would just start at the beginning. And and
that's where you ought to start. In the Bible, you
start at the beginning. You start in Genesis, and and
it's really a simple story. It's the Bible is the
revelation of God's redemptive history through you know, through through
(14:42):
human history. I mean, it's just in the beginning, uh,
creation fall and off the Lord goes to bring about
his promised deliverer. And you get to walk down that
trail with the authors as they tell the story of
god redemptive acts throughout human history, culminating in the person
(15:05):
of his son Jesus Christ. And so it makes perfect sense.
It's really simple to understand. But if we start in
the middle, or start with some verse, or you start
with some theological grid or concept or defense it becomes
really convoluted very quickly.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Although full disclaim, full disclosure and disclaimer on your part,
your expertise is your PhD is actually an Old Testament studies.
So I would I would argue that in terms of accessibility,
most folks can start in the New Testament with a
lot greater ease to at least get to develop comfort
(15:43):
in who we're dealing with here, whereas the Old Testament
can be, in my opinion, can be a little tough
or not to crack.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well. Yeah, so what happens is, let me start with
the Gospel of John. So John tell the reader why
he wrote his story that many other signs Jesus did
in the presence of his disciples which were not written
in this book.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Hold right there, we're up against the break. David Klingler
is our guest. The website is teach Me the Bible
dot Com and that is also the name of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
More than I have almost went the Lawless.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
The Michael Arry Show. David Kleanler is our guest, football
star turned PhD in theology. Now Teach Me the Bible
dot Com. There's a podcast, Teach Me the Bible dot Com.
I noticed, let's talk about your team. I notice you've
got some folks. See if I can pull the page
(16:43):
back up here, You've got some folks that are associated
with churches who are part of I guess this podcast team.
Tell me what this entity looks like that you are
a part of. It looks like you run.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's it's actually just a very small group of very
committed people. We our budget is next to nothing. And
and you know, you don't need a lot of money
to do ministry. Uh, you need just some passion and
care for people. And and so there's still Porter phil
Is Uh, he's our worship pastor at Champion Fellowship, Tim Webb.
(17:20):
Tim's the lead pastor at the church, and just a
wonderful guy. We've become just steadfast friends and and just
such a faithful guy. Alex Wolfe is actually one of
our PhD students and also a pastor at the church.
And uh. And then there's several men who I've trained
(17:41):
through the PhD program who are pastoring at other churches.
And and we all just have a passion to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. And
that's what brought us together and uh, and so that's
what we're what we're doing will teach me the Bible.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And when people engage in this and they want to
understand the word of God, how do you think that
changes them? How? What is their reaction after this? What
do you hear back?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Mostly just you know, thank you. It makes sense now.
And and I don't want any of the focus. I
always tell our students. I tell our you know, with
the seminay, we're training pastors, we're training professors, and say,
if anyone ever comes up to you after you've taught
or preached and say, boy, you're such a gifted speaker,
(18:31):
such a gifted communication or or you know, communicat or whatever,
you're doing something that's bringing attention to you. And our
job is to bring attention to the Lord and to
his word. And and so that's really it when they
come up and they say, man, I really thought that
I knew Jesus, but this this just is is just
(18:56):
so eye opening. It's you know, thank you. That that's
that makes it worth everything we're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You have a Bible conference coming up March fourteenth and fifteenth,
and I'm reading about it, and it's to teach me.
The Bible Conference twenty twenty five, and it says this
was an interesting line. I thought. Our mission is to
help the people of God understand the Word of God,
and when you leave this conference, you will be able
to open your Bible and understand all the epistles. Is
(19:25):
there a particular focus on the epistles? Why do you
mention that?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Well, last year we did the story of the scriptures,
and so what we're doing, we're always just taking a
section of scripture and say, let's understand what this section
of scripture is doing. And we're going to dive into
six specific epistles, three Pauline epistles, three what we call
general epistles. And so we'll be doing Ephesians and Philippians,
(19:53):
James first, John first, Peter missing one of them. I
don't remember which ones. They're all running together. I think Philippians,
Upheesians of Philippians, and one Morgagell. We'll teach six of them.
But helping people understand, Oh this makes sense. I know
(20:17):
what he's saying now, and it kind of demystifies in
some in some way what Paul's saying. Paul just writing
to a historic group of people to address a historic situation.
Uh and uh and they go, wait a second, this
makes sense. I understand this now, and that's our goal.
That that is simply our goal, uh, in everything that
(20:39):
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What does your personal Bible study look like? Do you
have a time of day, do you have a place
where you go? Do you have and I know you do,
to teach me the Bible in a year, which I
know a lot of people have done. If not, your
course of courses and programs like that. You know, the
consistency seems to help folks, But what is your personal
Bible still your personal nourishment?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I'm you know, I tell people all the time, I
can't believe that I get to do what I do. Basically,
my day involves waking up or reflecting on what I
was thinking about all night. You know how it is
things wake you up in the middle of the night. Recently,
I was trying to think through first Thessalonians five ten
(21:27):
in the middle of the night, trying to figure out
what's going on there. And so I get to wake
up and interest reflect on the Bible all day, I do,
you know. So I use the Greek Hebrew Aramaic text.
There's a few sections of Aramaic in the Bible and
just try to understand it better so that it changes
(21:49):
my life and hopefully changes the lives of those around us.
And boy, we need more people who handle the Word
of God will to lead the church. Were in desperate need.
We are losing pastors. Not many folks are going into
(22:10):
the ministry. Why is that, Well, it's a great question.
I think that there's not a lot of glitz to it.
It's a hard job. People are hard to deal with sometimes.
I think one statistic I heard was that about ten
percent of our students, of our graduates that go into
(22:30):
the full time ministry, are still in ministry within five
to seven years.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And well, you know as well as I do, that
pastoring a church, tending a flock is a very different
undertaking and a more difficult undertaking than what might be
more considerate, you know, in the for a Joel ostein preaching,
whether that be on TV or in a megachurch or
whatever else. The concept of preaching is only one aspect
(22:56):
of pastoring. But the pastoring is is is tough because
you are really as tending a flock. And that's that's
where the heavy lifting comes in in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh sure, yeah, And you can't. You can't pastor the multitudes.
Doctor Swindle Chuck Swindall, famous Bible teacher. I remember one
day I was talking with him and and there's so
many I've just benefited from, so many profoundly wise people.
But one day I was talking to him and I
just thanked him for his giant impact that he's had
(23:29):
in ministry. And I was thinking about, you know, his
insight for living ministry and radio ministry. And he stopped
me and he said, let me explain something to you.
You know, kind of like when you you you take
the little kid in your on your arms. You let
me explain something to you very clearly so you don't
misunderstand this. He said, you can impress from afar, but
you can only impact up cloth. And I think about
(23:52):
that a lot. That uh that that we've we live
in this world and you know, podcasts do it and
radio does it, and you can influence a lot of people.
But the amount of time that you can actually spend
to get to know someone and to to to get
deep into their life, and it's not many. And and
(24:13):
that's the that's the hard part of pastoring. We were
so driven by this megachurch model where we all want
to have the giant, biggest churches and the biggest ministries
and you know, the podcast that reaches millions and all
that stuff. But you know, but in doing that, you
pass over the people that are right in front of you, uh,
that that you should be caring for, and you're not.
(24:34):
And and so pastoring is hard work and and and
it's not often met with the all the praises of
the world, and even the praises within the church. Often
it's met with criticism. And so it's it's hard work,
but but it's very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
One more segment with David Klingler, the King of Dan
and this other guy, Michael Barry. This is a kind
of guy you'd like to smack an ass. I found
out recently that David Klingler in a Where Are They Now?
Episode VH one style, who was the star quarterback when
(25:16):
I was at the University of Houston for the Cougars.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He was.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Nationally celebrated, a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, beloved following
Andrea Ware and numbers even more impressive than Andrea and
Andre to be the first dat Heyday of UH football.
And I found out that he went to theological seminary,
got his PhD. And now he's teaching in many different
(25:43):
roles and one of them is sort of a to
the general public, and it's called teach Me Thebible dot com.
You can find them online and a podcast, so if
you would like to do that, they do learn the
Bible in a year. They have a conference coming up.
I noticed, let's talk about the dollars and cents. I
know people are uncomfortable with that sometimes, but it is
a part of everything we do. It doesn't appear to
(26:05):
me that you're trying to make much, if any money
off of this thing, because I noticed that the conference schedule,
a two day conference bee is a whopping twenty nine
dollars and you have to defray the costs of all
sorts of things to even put that on. Is that
a conscious decision of you know this this isn't a
business enterprise.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yes, yes it is. And h and again I think
that you know, I want to criticize churches. You know,
we do need somewhere to meet and all that, but
for the most part, ministry takes no money. It takes time.
And so you know, when we said, well we need
to do a podcast. Well, how much does that does
(26:51):
that take? It takes some people who are committed in
some time, It takes a computer, it takes a couple
of microphones, and and folks sit in front of them.
And so really, you know, we can do this, this
whole ministry for a very very small amount. And I've
covered that expense, and and I love what Paul says.
(27:11):
It seems like we keep going back to the Corinthians,
but you know that Paul works in their midst and
and wasn't a burden to any of them. And the
reason why he does this is so that none of
them could say that his motivation was financial. His motivation
was for money. Everything that he was doing was for
(27:31):
the building up of the Body of Christ and to
benefit the church. And so our mission, so often mission
statements of an organization are are stated mission, but they're
not the real mission. Our real mission is to help
the people of God understand the Word of God. And
that's it, and and we want to do it. It
is a labor of love, and we want to do
(27:52):
it for as cheaply as we can to benefit the church.
So we don't you know, if you want to give,
great but you know, we don't need your gifts.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Let's talk about your life and how you arrived where
you are. And I'm not building you up as perfect.
I know you would not be comfortable with that. It's
inconsistent with your teachings. But let's talk about decision making
in your life. Obviously, you've made some decisions that I
would consider to be very good decisions. To put yourself
(28:29):
the ledger of your decision making would be better than bad.
To put yourself in a position where you're proud of
your kids, you're happy in your marriage, your skills and
talents are being put to good use toward your faith
through your ministry. When you talk to young athletes, and
you've done that over the years, and you talk to
young people, what advice Looking back now where you are
(28:50):
in your fifties, do you say, I wish I'd learned this,
wish somebody told me this, or these are some things
that really seem to resonate with young people.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I was so thankful Jack Party, you know, back at
our time at u of Ah. He was a man
of such unbelievable character. So many great men poured into
my life, and I really took what they said to
hart and it troubles me today that we've kind of
turned our whole culture, specifically sports culture into free agency.
(29:27):
You know, everybody is is a free agent. They're all
working for themselves. We're seeing this in college football certainly,
it's been around the NFL for you even in the
youth sports. You know, you got you got six year
olds play on select teams and you know they act
as a free agent. And in somewhere in our culture,
(29:48):
we need to learn the concept of individual sacrifice for
mutual benefit. That there is a mission and nothing worth
achieving is going to be achieved by yourself. It's going
to take a bunch of people, uh, single minded in
the mission to try to achieve something greater than yourself.
(30:09):
And and frankly, I think that's that's why Nick Saban
I think has left college football. I think that that
you know, increasingly it's become difficult in our culture to
find uh these in these places, and so we're not
interested in personal sacrifice. We're not interested in suffering, We're
(30:29):
not interested in doing anything that's hard, and so we
suffer because of it. That everything that's great that you
want to achieve in life is going to cause you
to suffer. It's going to be hard, and it's going
to take the help of others to do it. And
and so I'm so proud of my two boys, you know, coaching.
You know, I'm not so sure that pastoring is the
(30:52):
most influential thing in our culture anymore. Maybe at one
time it was sports. I think is probably right at
the top of the list now And at least in
my life, my coaches had the biggest influence on me.
And so I'm so proud of what they're doing there.
They have devoted their their lives not to teaching football
(31:14):
x's and o's or bun and shoot or you know,
some offense or something, but teaching character. They're They're in
the character education business, absolutely, and I'm really proud of
them to that.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
You know, in my life, I think of the people
who have had the biggest influence and I still have
people like this. You know, it was obviously my parents,
but it was coaches and teachers and administrators and youth
pastors and pastors and and and more of those were
outside the church than in. And I think if everybody
(31:48):
understands the role you have in raising young people, and
we see the results when we don't do our job.
And maybe that's an avuncular role because you know, our
brother or sister's kid needs somebody to talk to the occasion,
or maybe it's a grandparent who steps in on occasion.
And I think a lot of people have been afraid
to do that, and we could spend a lot of
time on why that is. I'm going to ask you
(32:10):
as we part, to give me one quick memory of
play and ball at the University of Houston. That is
one you will always fondly remember a moment, a game something.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
There was a play and I've talked to Andre about this.
It's his favorite play as well. You know, when we
were there together, we were there at the same time.
We were both fierce competitors, but through that became great friends,
lifelong friends. And so we were playing the University of Texas.
(32:43):
They played Manda Man almost every play, and so John Jenkins,
the offensive coordinator, he put in this play where Andre
was going to you know, as we were always at
the line calling the plays, and so he would kind
of wander out to the right and call the play
to the right, and then he would go to the
left and he would yell out to the receivers at
the left, and as he went out to the left,
(33:05):
we'd snap the ball and I would My job was
to sneak in with the crowd and replace Chuck Witherspoon,
who was the running back. And so I'm back there
in the shotgun and I catched this snap. And you know,
we were pretty aware that Andre had a pretty good
chance to win the Heisman that year, and he was
thrown for all kinds of of yards and touchdowns and
(33:26):
if he could catch a touchdown pass that would just
be great. And well, I was as nervous as I
could be, because you know, I had to throw this thing.
And so off he goes down the sideline and sure
enough he's wide open and thankfully through a decent ball.
If it'd been a little better, he to score it.
But but but he caught that thing going down the
(33:46):
sideline AND's just a you know, just a great memory
that I that I had.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And thank you for sharing that, David Klingler. Thank you
for sharing a few hours of your time with us,
and thank you for your ministry
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