The Gospel According to Bethel: A Conversation With Jesse Westwood

In this episode, we’re joined by Jesse Westwood—a former Betel insider who spent three years at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Jesse walks us through exactly what he was taught about the gospel at Bethel. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of “good news” is being preached in Redding, this conversation will open your eyes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Long for Truth podcast. I'm Robin Long.
Join my husband Dan and I as we explore the
roots of the early Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, and we
shine a light on false doctrines and false teachers in
the modern church. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
In Matthew twenty eight, we have what we referred to
as the Great Commission. Starts in verse eighteen. Jesus came
and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given
to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching

(00:39):
them to observe all things that I have commanded you.
And I remind you he commanded them, heal the sick,
raised the dead, cast all devils. It was never supposed
to end, is this, mike On. It was never supposed
to end. You're never supposed to end. As a part

(01:02):
of the Gospel, he said, this gospel will be preached
all nations, not two hundred nations, but the Ethnos, the
people groups. And when the Gospel of the Kingdom is
preached in the gospels is followed with miracle signs and wonders.
So the prophecy that this gospel will be preached in

(01:22):
all the world and then the end show come. Is
a gospel that is demonstrated with power. It's a gospel
that illustrates the resurrection of Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Jesse Westwood, it is such an honor and a privilege
to have you on my show. It has been a
long time comment.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
Let me tell you. Yes, yes, I was so happy
to get the text from you. I was like, wait,
I know this guy.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, it is such a privilege to have you on,
and I want to start out before you you know,
I do want you to tell your story, you know,
at least you know, you don't have to give you know,
the entire thing, but just you know enough because I'm
sure I'm sure that people that watch this channel know
who you are. But just in case, well before we

(02:18):
do that. You have a YouTube channel called Faith Reframed
and you do some really good stuff over there.

Speaker 5 (02:25):
You have.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
You know, your Bethel Back to Bethel series and you know,
bringing on guests former BSSM students. Talk about your channel
a little bit and why you do what you do.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, it It started off with, uh, you know,
getting invited to add my kind of commentary to some
of the American gospel clips, which was a huge shock
when when they asked me to do that. And then
from there it turned into you know, through that, I
got connected to people like Steve Cozark, Chris Roseborow, Amy Spreeman,

(03:04):
and they were really encouraging me, like, hey, you should
just you know, share some of your stuff on YouTube.
So I started doing that and it started off just
as a testimony of just like hey, here's my experience
at Bethel, and it quickly started turning to From there,
I just had some people ask me questions about, you know,
well what about this or how do you deal with
you know, how do you process you know, going back

(03:27):
to church after leaving the Charismaic movement and realizing that
there's a bit of a void of people talking about
the process of staying in the faith while leaving the
charismatic movement, because that is it seems to be like
the binary is after the charismatic movement and like you
leave it, leave the faith entirely, or you just kind

(03:50):
of you know, hang out in there and you're I
don't know, you have bad theologies on It's kind of
weird middle ground, and because I actually end up leaving
the faith entirely, and so I decided I want I
kind of did a bit of a rebrand, and I
really wanted to focus on conversations about reframing faith, which

(04:11):
was more of like, hey, like if if you have
bad theology, or if you've discovered that maybe what you've
believed was wrong the entire time, it's a very humbling experience.
First of all, you're like, wow, I was wrong, which
is just a hard thing to admit. But then also
it's a lot of work. I always can compare it
to like hiking, where like keeping your theology is like

(04:33):
going on a walk in the park and you see
the same things all the time and it's just comfortable.
But changing your theology is very much a hike where
there's something to work towards, but it's a lot of
work to get up there. But the view is much
better than just sitting in the park. And so yeah,
I try to encourage people in that walk of like, hey,
it's worth reframing, it's worth keeping, and it's okay to

(04:57):
admit you're wrong. And I still like, there's still so
many things in my faith in my theology I'm working through.
But I think that's one of the best things as
believers we can do is just be humbled, to be
corrected or to reconsider a position, or just you know,
go back to scripture. It's okay, where was I wrong here?
And so that's what's kind of turning the channel into
where it is now.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
So yeah, yeah, now you you have I've watched several
of your of your videos. You have four questions that
you usually ask each guest, but there's one question at
the end that I love to It's really fascinating, really
fascinating to hear that final question. Give us a quick

(05:39):
overview of the you know, just the four questions, how
you conduct an interview, and then then finish it off
with the final question, because that is that's like I said,
that is just I'm listening to this and I'm like,
wait a minute, but really talk about that.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So when I when I first started doing
the Back to Bethel series of talking to b SSM
alumnus alumni, I found that a lot of them were
didn't want to talk because they were worried I was
going to be like debating them on theology, which I
get because I can be a bit of gressive sometimes

(06:21):
and I can have a very I can be very
psycho direct. So I had to really make sure people
understood like, no, I'm not here to debate. I actually
want to hear your process, Like that's what people want
to hear. So the four main question I ask is like,
you know, how would you describe your faith before Bethel?
What what kind of drew to Bethel? Or you know

(06:41):
what what was the reason you ended up going there?
How did your faith change after Bethel? And then the
last one is how would you describe the gospel? Which
just present the gospel to me? Yeah, And I find
that that last question really it kind of answers the
other three in a way where they'll they'll say like, oh,

(07:04):
I believe this is and this, and then they'll they'll
describe themselves as the Christian at the end, I'm still
a believer. That's great, Okay, cool, so you're a believer,
you say you're a believer, Okay, give me the gospel.
And then it's like, you know, sometimes it's really refreshing.
Sometimes you're like, wow, that's not the gospel.

Speaker 5 (07:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and that's that's that's what is just
so fascinating, And I say fat I use that term
because you know we're going to be talking about Bethel's
version of the Gospel.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
I think as we as we move forward, and I
think people will be able to see that. But I've
watched several of the interviews, and every single one that
I've watched, except for I think there was one you
had your friend on a really.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
Good I think I think that was Jacob. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
So, but but just about every one of them did
not give a very clear presentation of the gospel at all.
And these are former BSSM students like yourself. So we'll
talk about the gospel in a minute.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
But.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Before we do that, talk about your, uh, your early life,
because I know that you grew up in the charismatic church, correct, Yeah,
and and and but you had no like, you didn't
know anything about Bethel. It was that, you know, before
you went to b SSM, you had no context. You

(08:34):
didn't know anything about Bill Johnson, you don't know anything
about Chris Vallentin. So talk about your early life a
little bit, and then and then your your time at BSSM.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, I always tell people I grew
up like purebred charismatic, Like I had other denominational influence
here and there, but mainly just that's just you know,
my parents didn't read a church hop Like, once we
land at the church we were at, it's still the
same church. That's like literally too, it's down the road
from my house I live in now, so it's like,
you know, and I still love a lot of those

(09:05):
people there, but yeah, we were at that same church
for years, and it's you know, it was for the
most part, for the first bit of the time, it
was very just non the nominational, you know, nothing too crazy.
But by the time I hit like late middle school,
like eighth grade, it started creeping into that really charismatic
like I guess people would call it like hyper charismatic,

(09:26):
where I started realizing that our church was a little
bit different than a lot of other churches, with the prophecy,
the words of knowledge right, the way we did worship,
Like our worship services would go for like an hour
and a half and I was part of the worship team,
so I became very normal to me, So all that
was just normal, Like it wasn't weird for me to

(09:49):
think about, you know, the Bible and that in those
terms and that in that the theological view. And so
when I graduated high school, it was time for me
to figure out I'm doing. Uh likely just happened to
Lakeland out pouring, and my pastor and my mom went
down there and they came back saying, Hey, we ran
to some of these students at this school. It's Mischool

(10:10):
in California, and they were saying, like, this is what
they do, like they do like the whole school folks
around that. So they looked it up and they mentioned
it to me. And I was in a position where like,
I didn't want to go to college yet because I
didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't
just want to gain debt just for the sake of
going to college, because that's why we did. So my

(10:31):
you know, Bethel the time was only three grand or
something like that. So I'm like, that's fairly doable. And
so I just decided to go to reading. Like I applied,
I interviewed, and I made it, and so I went,
and you know, I did all three years and once
I got in, I was all in it. Just it
was very much just what my church was doing, but

(10:51):
more professional and more cool. Young people so I'm like
this is great, Like it was awesome, and I fell
in love with it pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
So yeah, all right, So now you also talk about
how when you went through all three years, but when
you left, you didn't lose your faith right away, right.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
No, No, And when I left just just be croo left.
There's like two phases of leaving, like I left geographically,
like I left writing, and I still love at that time.
I'm still very pro Bethel. It was like another almost
like eight or ten years after that that then I
ended up leaving, So I didn't just like leave reading
and be done with Bethel. There was still much like

(11:33):
I left writing just to keep moving all my life.
But I was still very like very much a you know,
advocate for Bethel that time.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
So so what was it then that began to where
your faith began to you know, become unraveled. What what
what's circumstances.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Prophecy that caught? Was it prophecy? I mean it started
started with prophecy, started with you know, just you see
so many prophetic words happen, and you see some people
give words, and you know a lot of it's really
easily get enamored with the prophetic when you're only there
for like a week, because it's like, wow, this is

(12:12):
all amazing, it's everyone's getting encouraged. But when you're there
for almost two decades and you've heard all these prophetic
words and you're not seeing them come to pass, like
it's not like it was like it's just a week ago.
It's like, no, it's been like ten years, you know,
sometimes fifteen years. Uh. And then also you're seeing the
ramifications of people acting on words. So you see someone

(12:34):
who you know actually packed up their family and left,
or they actually moved to another state and then that
family fell apart, and then they got divorce and now
the kids are in this crazy circumstance. It's like, okay
that they did that because of a prophetic word. So
that started it. But then it was it was kind
of like a myriad of things that kind of punctuated it,
but that that's what started it.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
So yeah, okay, all right, And so what talk about
how you you just I know, you you became. Were
you a full blown atheist? I mean, or did you
still have some kind of like hope that maybe God
did exist and you were wrong? Or was it like
did you start watching uh, you know, or reading you know,

(13:18):
other atheists that talked about, you know, how they don't
believe in God and why there can't be a God
and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
I mean, how did that, how did that? How did
that all evolve? I mean, it's not hard to find
an atheist talking about that. Get on YouTube, you can
find out, buddy.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
I can tell you that Google your Google auto phil
will fill it very But.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
No, I mean I like apologist for atheism. I mean no, no, no,
it was. I was like a militant atheist. Like my
my thing is like I never do anything like halfway,
Like I'm just have a very addictive personality. Like even
like right now, I'm like, but it's chess, Like I'm
just trying to get better at chess. Like I don't

(14:05):
know what it is. But one day, I like, it
was a week ago, I played we have a game night.
We started playing chess, and we used to play games
like Sailors of Katan or some card games or stuff,
which I love. But I just got my bucket to chess.
I'm like, I thought it was pretty good at chess,
and so I went online and I'm like, I'm terrible.
So now I have like a joke. I cried. My

(14:27):
friends were like, why are you so obsessed? I'm like, well,
you know why why Alexander wept, It's because there was
no more land to conquer. I was like, I just
found to conquer. Like I'm like, yeah, and now I'm
getting my buck kicked over and over in chest. So like,
even like when it came to my worldview with atheism,
I didn't want to just like say I was an
atheist because I didn't believe in God. I wanted to

(14:49):
say I was an atheist and actually defend the worldview.
Like I wanted to be able to justify my worldview
and everything. So it was but it wasn't like to
be snarky or militant or to debunk other people's faith.
It was because I wanted it to work. So I'm like,
how do I justify morality as an atheist? How do
I justify you know, purpose as an atheist? How do

(15:13):
I just like actually the actual hard questions, not just
like you're a stupid Christian that believes in the sky daddy, Yeah,
you can do that all along, but like, how can
I actually have a cohesive worldview? And ultimately it was
just my daughter asking me. You know why that ruined

(15:33):
me because I was like, I was telling her not
to hit her sister, and she's like, well, why shouldn't I?
And I'm like that's a good answer. That's a good question. Like,
you know, I can't answer. I don't want to. I
can't give her an answer based on the Bible. I
can't give it an answer based on Scripture. I can't
appeal to an outside ultimate authority. So how do I
how do I answer this? And then I started going

(15:55):
down the rabbit trail of okay, like how do I
answer this? Let's say it's like, you know, fifteen years,
ten years down the road and I'm telling her, hey,
you shouldn't be doing drugs and she's like, well why,
I'm like that's a good question. Like if I'm like
ultimately a nihilist, and like when it comes down to things,
how do I give good, good fatherly advice with without

(16:17):
being fake? And so that's yes, that's that. But you
know I was all in. I was definitely like yeah,
it wasn't wasn't just you know, saying it because I
didn't believe in God. It's like I wanted to be
a a cohesive rational like full package with good answers atheist.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
So yeah, you were still leading worship while you were
struggling with this. So you were you were at a
church and I think it was correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it was in Washington State, Am I right?

(16:54):
So you were in a church and you were leading worship.
Talk about that struggle with up there leading leading worship,
that struggle I do, do I believe what I'm singing?
I mean, what do I believe? I mean, you know,
on my so were you like faking it?

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Were pe?

Speaker 3 (17:13):
So people were coming and talking to you, and I
mean talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
I mean, like it wasn't it wasn't really hard. I
mean it wasn't like there wasn't like an exidential crisis
or like I don't know there was like an in
a struggle or anything. It was just you know, because
once you detach yourself from all of it, and it's
just a job, you know, I mean I I And
that's the funny thing is like when I was, you know,
working at other churches, we'd often hire out musicians all
the time, like and lots because you're in Seattle, Tacoma, area,

(17:40):
and like there's you know, good musicians. It's not hard
to find. So like if there was a Sunday where
we were shorter drummer or short of guitarist, my pastor
would just give me a budget to hire out a musician,
and I'm like, okay, cool. And oftentimes they weren't believers
at all, but they were great musicians, and I would
often I would often think like how could they do this?
Like how could they up to a church? But it

(18:02):
was just there was just a hired gun, like I
get it. And I just kind of quickly realized how
easy that was to do, Like it wasn't you know,
the only thing that was more. And again I wasn't
like a militant atheist. I wasn't embittered or like wanting
to shipwreck other people's faith. I was very much just
you know, like I don't believe this anymore. I'm fine

(18:23):
if you do. I wasn't on an evendetta of like
you guys are ruining you know, the world. It's like no,
I could see a lot of the benefits to religion
and to belief and stuff. But I also had a
formula in a way to lead worship that I knew
it was good. And so when you know the system
and you know how to do it, you know you

(18:43):
can skate by without really anyone knowing. And I did.
I just I kept leading worship and I kept you know,
spurring all those holy moments, and you know, trying to
get people to like, you know, have an accounter with
the Lord. And I'd get people like, wow, that was
a thank you so much for that, Like I felt
the Lord all over that, and I'm like, cool, so

(19:04):
happy for you. But I was in the meantime, like
I didn't you know, for me, I wasn't feeling a thing.
So let me ask you this.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
All of this time, so so you grow up in
the church, you start to you start to lose your faith.
You finally do lose your faith. Did you ever experience
like any so as far as death goes, what were
your thoughts? And there's no questions about I mean, were
you scared to die? Were you thinking about hell? Was

(19:37):
there anything like that going on? Or did you just
kind of turn all of that off?

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yeah, well that's the thing that's like I would say, yes,
there would have been that if I had a theology
prior that gave me a reason to think that. Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah, that's that makes so much sense.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, yeah, And so, like I mean, with with with
with the gospel that you hear a lot in those circles,
they it really just focuses on the love of God,
which is a act, it's a total justifiable trait, and
truth of God and the mercy of God and the
goodness of God. And it's like, uh, my wife brought

(20:24):
it up when that song Goodness of God came out,
and I remember saying, hey, it's actually not that bad
of a song, Like theologically, it's actually pretty pretty air tight.
And then she said to me, well, yeah, but when
they say goodness, it means something different. And I'm like,
and I had to take a minute think about it,
what do you mean? And she's like, when they say goodness,

(20:45):
they're assuming it's because God's always going to heal. That's
what their goodness means, and like, is goodness? Is God
still good even outside of that? I'm like, that's a
really good point. And so when you think about the
way you understand God and the way you understand you know,
just even eternity, if you think about God always being

(21:06):
good and you have no concept of wrath, out of mercy,
outside of wrath, it really turns into just like, well,
as an atheist, you're like, well, even if even if
they are right, you know, it's kind of like almost universalism.
You're like, I'm gonna be okay, Like God's good. So
you know, I said the prayer, I said the parent
at some point, so it's I'm surely I'm gonna be

(21:27):
okay if that's the case. So yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
You in one of your interviews, you talked about a
guy that had deconstructed. He was a I don't know
if he was a worship leader. I know he was
the singer of Cadman's Call.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Derek Webb, Yeah, Derek Webb and you. This was in
this was in the Kozar the interview you did with
Steve Kozar, my first one that did the lyrics of
that song. Really brought tears in my eyes because I I, well,

(22:08):
you Steve had when when Steve had you on he
played clips from that song and it when he said
when he said what he was actually talking about, I
mean I get choked up thinking about it.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
Now.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Can you do me a favor, Can you just uh
maybe read some of the lyrics talk about that song
a little bit and yeah, the lyrics of that.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
Song, i'd be happy.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
It means, Yeah, it sounded so Christian until worse.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
I'm like, it's a gun? What is this?

Speaker 3 (22:45):
And it just like it breaks your heart when you
look you hear this. It sounds like something you would
hear from a Hill song song or Bethel's song or
any kind of worship song. You're you know that you
were here in church, and then it just the course
and then when the chorus, you're just like, what.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
The brilliant Yeah, dude, that talk talk about that so
so yeah, so like it's I still love that album.
Like as a musician, I think it's it's a brilliant album.
Musically it's called the album's called Fingers Crossed, and it
is a very much is his deconstruction album, Like I
have a breakup album. It's kind of his breakup album

(23:28):
with religion. And so when I was going through that,
that album just came out and so it was a
really the timing was quite serendipitous, so I was I
was all in on it, listened to it and I
like to listen through albums from top to bottom, and
I don't know it because I'm just like, you know,
I think of the music I grew up on, singles

(23:49):
weren't like singles were singles, but when you listen to
the whole album, it really gave singles context. And so
I was listening through his whole album and that song
came up, and at that part of the album, the
previous song almost made you think that there was some hope,
and this song all of a sudden puts you in
a position like, oh maybe, Like as someone who's also deconstructing,
you're like, oh, maybe there is some hope because the

(24:11):
lyrics of the verse and it's played in like a
one to four progression, so it's like very He was
a worship leader, so the way he wrote the song
was as a worship song. Like it's in the same
chord structure, same tempo, same production. It sounds like a
worship song. And so the verses, the first verse is like,
help me to forget all of my regret. I know

(24:32):
you're strong enough to do the job. You go by
many names, you forever stay the same, your promises. I
claim you're all I've got. And so I'm in this
position where I'm like, wow, Okay, maybe there is some
hope here, this guy who's deconstructing, but he's in a
place where maybe he still believes. And then the pre choruses,
we gather here because we know there's no one else nowhere,

(24:55):
else that we can go where we can really be free.
And then he gets to the chorus, which is, so
we raise our voice, we raise an offering, would you
come near and quench our thirst? Oh, lift our hearts
as the spirit bears the curse. And I'm like, I'm
just sitting here like the cow there's hope, Like I'm

(25:15):
actually I'm in my car after work listen to this
song like tearing up because I'm like, wait a minute,
maybe there's hope here. Maybe there's a place where I
can return to the faith. And he goes on and on.
He uses all these comparis, like he's using all his language,
like you can you can bear our guilt, you can
bear a grief, You help with our uncertainty, you restore
our sanity, And he goes on and on, and then

(25:37):
he gets to this kind of a free bridge and
he says, now my knees are weak, my speech is slurred.
Oh the things you shake, Oh the things you stir,
I'm calling out to the only name that delivers me
from all my guilt and shame. And I'm like in
my car, like this is awesome, Like I'm starting to
feel like I'm worshiping again. And then he punches you.

(26:02):
And after he says I'm calling out the only name
that delivers me to all my guilt and shame. If
you just imagine like a Hallelujah chorus that he goes into.
He drops all the instruments, multiple vocals, beautiful like major chord,
but he's singing alcohol. He's like, alcohol, we raise our
voice too, ourcohol. And then I'm just like and then

(26:25):
I start I start bawling because I'm realizing he didn't
find help from the Lord, and this is part of
his story. He became alcoholic. And I was like, oh,
never mind, there is no hope here. And it just
like it just it tore me apart. It was but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
So but hope did come because you somehow got a
copy of the American Gospel film and so talk about
how that film changed everything for you.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, so it was it was like that was kind
of the way the way that song was like kind
of like a like a punctuation, like a cherry on
top of like my deconstruction where I'm like, yeah, there's
no hope. American Gospel was like that for me coming
back to the faith. So by the time we watched

(27:27):
American Gospel, my foot was already back in the door
as far as belief goes. I was already like, Okay,
I'm pretty sure I'm a Christians again. But at that time,
I'm really trying to just rework my theology, like reframe
my theology, because I'm like, I'm gonna try to be
a Christian again, but it can't be that kind of
Christian because you know, and that's and that's like that

(27:50):
was a huge struggle because I didn't really know much
theology outside of charismatic theology, so I was trying to
do some homework. I was really into Jeff Durban at
the time because it was a lot of his videos
that helped me just even consider coming back to the faith,
watching him talk to Mormons, because when he talked to Mormons,
and I was I always thought Mormons were crazy and

(28:12):
no shame, no no shade to Mormons here. But your
book's a little got a little holes in it. But uh,
but I watched him talk to a Mormon guy, and
he was asking this Mormon questions about how he justifies
the truth and how he justifies his belief, and the
answers the Mormon was giving was the same answers I

(28:34):
would give. And then when Durbin called him out on it,
and then Durban was basically telling him he's not a believer,
I'm like, I I thought I was on durban side. Luck,
wait a minute, was I something something's wrong here? Like
why am I agreeing with the Mormon? And it's a

(28:54):
video idea I've even had about working through of like
all the parallels between Mormonism and hyper charismatic. So I
was in this place of like, I'm trying to reframe
my faith and figure it out, but I really just
theologically was just all milk, Like I didn't even know
where to go. And so American Gospel really helped with
like really framing up and giving me context for like here,

(29:16):
it put words to my struggles of why I didn't
believe or why I didn't like or why I had
so much hurt and like why things didn't pan out
for that theology, And it introduced me to a lot
of great teachers and theologians and preachers that I could
lean on for that time of like figuring outkay, what
do I believe now? And I just remember at the

(29:38):
end of it, like Kaylee and I watched it at
the time, we just been back to my parents' house
because of COVID. We're in the basement. A friend of
mine back in Washington, Texas to me, since you really
you should really watch this. I watched the free version
about thirty minutes into it and I said, forget it.
I'm just going to buy the full version. Again, my
addictive personality of like having to go all in. I

(30:00):
just like I'm gonna go on works. I do it.
And Kelly and I watched it, and after we watched it,
we were just I remember just sitting in the basement
in tears, like she was bawling. I was bawling. But
it was it wasn't just like a sad It was
like a very angry cry of like what a cheap
bill of goods we were sold? And you probably see
me in the trailer saying all that stuff. But yeah,
it was like it was a really big moment for

(30:21):
us and there and for there, it was kind of like, Okay,
let's that's when we really dug our heels in the
sand of like, let's figure this out. Let's let's actually
really start reading our bibles, let's really start hiring this
stuff out. And yeah, it really kind of kicked off
a put a fire in us in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, so let's move. Let's transition. It's a good place
to transition to the theology of Bethel because you said
that one of the big things that kind of moved
you towards atheism was prophecy, Right, But I want to
ask you this.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
I think I know the answer to this question, but
I'm gonna ask you when you were at BSSM, how
often did you hear the biblical gospel Christ crucified for
your sins? How often did that come up? And did
they talk much about sin? Did they talk much about
the wrath of God? Did they talk much about your

(31:18):
need for a savior, salvation from Hell?

Speaker 4 (31:22):
All that kind of stuff? Yeah, I mean, and this
is where it's like, I try to, like a lot
of people, if you watch my channel, I often use
the phrase steel manning, like I really want to make
sure whenever I talk about anyone's position or theology, but
I do it from a place of actually knowing it.

(31:43):
I think doctor Michael Horton was once quoted for saying that,
you know, if you're ever going to critique someone's theology,
you have to actually be able to defend it first,
which I think is a really good practice. Especially in
the like YouTube discernment world, it's often just always just
it can get really toxic really quick. So with Bethel,

(32:04):
if you ask anyone at Bethel to give you the gospel,
most of them would give you some assemblance of it,
like a need for a savior. Jesus came and died
for our sins, and because of that, only through him
we have access to you know, to the to the Father,
like they would give you that. But where the emphasis
would lie is very much on God's goodness, the perks,

(32:31):
I would say, maybe the benefits of it. And the
best way I can describe it is the Gospel was
a stepping stone, not a cornerstone. So you would hear
the you would maybe hear it in some ways, but
it was more of like, Okay, now that we've done that,
let's go on to the bigger stuff. And so often

(32:52):
I thought the Gospel that way of like that's just
when you start. You need to hear that the more
bigger stuff is like what we're doing now, which is
why I hear about a yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
When you were talking on it was either American Gospel.
It was one of the interviews that I saw I
saw you on you mentioned how when you saw the
American Gospel film you said you were sold to Bill
of Goods. Of course you know, you just sait here,
but you said, this is the gospel I need. That
gospel is the gospel that I need because the stuff

(33:27):
that you were getting at Bethel wasn't. It wasn't it
didn't satisfy you. It didn't, it didn't save you.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Know, I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
It was just something that that was, you know, not
not biblical.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
And you were.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Talking about how you you know you you you needed
that gospel the first time you heard and you know
that presented on American Gospel. I want to I want
to show you a clip really quickly if I can
get you to get you to comment on it, because
while you know they they claim to say that they

(34:09):
share the gospel, I've got other clips that show that,
like Bill Johnson saying things like you know, without miracles,
the gospel's umberless, you.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
Know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
So, but before we get to that, I want to
show you a clip of Bill and Dan Fairley, you know,
and they're in their Bethel series.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
That they you know, the Rediscovered Bethel. Yeah, the Rediscovered.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Bethel series, And this is actually them talking about the gospel.
It's an episode about the Cross. So and it sounds
pretty good, I mean, at least part of it anyway.
But uh, I'm gonna play it and then I'm gonna
get your take on it, okay, yea.

Speaker 6 (34:50):
So, our our saying of the Cross and how people
become Christians is I think very evangelical. We believe that
a personal salvation Jesus, you know, is our personal savior.
We invite people to be you know, forgive there be
forgiven of their sins, to believe Jesus is who he
says he was and accomplished what he said would accomplish
in the cross, and then to follow him for the

(35:11):
rest of their.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Lives of Lord and Savior. Like right, that's what that's
what I do. That's what you do.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, yeah, you know who it is. It's there is
no other way to the Father. But through Jesus. I
mean it's it is the sacrifice of Jesus of his
own life, his own shedding of blood, so that it
washes away sin, but also destroys the power of sin,
and in his resurrection, makes it possible for us to

(35:38):
be born again. There is no other way. I tell
our folks, I said, listen, if there's another way to God,
then he was cruel in requiring Jesus to suffer on
the cross. If there's dozens of wit, no, there is not.
It's it's the only way. It's the only reason he
would have required his son to do what he did
is because it was the only solution.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Okay, So that sounds pretty good, you know, And I
want to correct myself. I said that, you know, not
everything you know, not everything Bethel says is unbiblical.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
I mean, we just we just know that.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
They're going to say some things that are biblical. But
I remember you saying in an interview, and I think
again it was American Gospel. You said, I why didn't
I ever hear that? Why didn't I ever Oh, it
was watching the American Gospel film. Why didn't I ever
hear that?

Speaker 5 (36:28):
What you know?

Speaker 3 (36:29):
So I'm assuming I mean do they talk about that, Like,
so I know you when you were at BSSM, you
had to you had to be in services all the
time there, in the preaching services and the teachings time
that you were there, did you hear a clear presentation
of the gospel?

Speaker 4 (36:48):
So the part I didn't hear so like like it's
it's the emphasis right, like like everything Bill said is true.
Like everything he just said was like it's a like
I said, like you'll get an assemblance of the gospel,
but it's and and you'll hear it from people like
Todd White. Oh gosh, not Dan fairly Fair, Dan Moehler,

(37:15):
Dan Moehler, Dan Mueller. So like Dan Moeller for instance,
a great example, So like Dan Moehler. Actually the church
I grew up two months down the road from here
before Dan Mueller was like huge because he's from Pennsylvania.
He would come to our church like two or three
times a year, Like I heard Dan three or four
times like in person, probably about six times before I
went to Bethel, Like that was the gospel I'm used to.

(37:38):
And Dan we hear Dan preach and sometimes Dan can
like deliver a great sermon like he gave a sermon
on like healing and how bad the charismatic church is
messing appealing. I'm like, man, that was awesome, but he
talks about things like you're too sin focused, you're too
sin conscious, you need to be more Christ focused. And

(37:59):
you hear that, and like that is good in a way, right,
Like we should be aware of the new nature that
Christ has given us, like how we have died with
Him and will be raised with him. All these things
are good. But the part that I was never when
I said, like why didn't I hear that? Was this.
It's it's the humility needed as a believer, like it

(38:21):
is the it is the penitent heart needed as a believer.
Like the thing I was missing was my daily bread
to actually like take in the morning or in the
evening realize, like I need that daily bread of forgiveness
because I am still a sinner, Like I still sin
and it's not okay that I sin, but I do

(38:44):
have a way to make it okay, Like I have
something that provides a forgiveness for it, Like I need that.
And that's why I say, like the Gospel was like
a stepping stone, not a cornerstone, because once you received Christ,
and once you've you know, accepted him as your lord
and savior, recognize them as your lord and savor. Have
you want to word it? Remember your show ter aalogy
is once you got to that point, you moved on

(39:07):
to the bigger things. Like they always talk like the
way they take something like you go from glory to glory.
So like the first glory would be like you know,
being saved. The second glory is like operating the gifts.
The third glories now teach people like you know, I'm
not saying directly that's what is best. The idea like
glory to glory is like you have to grow in
something and do more. When so the Gospel for me

(39:28):
was just it wasn't It wasn't I want to say
it wasn't essential, but it was. It wasn't essential. It
was like once once you got past that, we didn't
really talk about it much like you didn't go to
Bethel to learn about the gospel. You go into Bethel
to learn how do miracles, and so that's what they
taught you. And so that that was missing was like
that that penitent heart, I guess.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
So yeah, so there's really that you know when you
when you present the gospel. If if there's not, if
the law isn't front and center, how does the gospel
become good news? You know, if you're constantly hearing you
know how much God values you and how awesome you are, and.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
All that went bankrupt, you don't what's that Heaven went
bankrupt to get you? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, and you don't. You don't hear.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
That you have offended God?

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah you know you not only yeah, and that not
only have you offended God personally, right, but Adam's sin
in the garden is credited to your account. So it
even goes deeper than that, the fact that you're charged
with adam sin. So you don't hear this, this hardcore

(40:49):
law message. The gospel doesn't really sound good really, I mean,
a gospel just it's just like yeah, okay, just for me, okay.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
But you know.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
When when the only time I would say, and this
is just what I do, the only time I would
say I would not give the law to a person
when sharing the gospel is if they were I, you know,
in a conversation, I was, I already saw they were
broken by the old They already they were already broken,
they were all they already knew they were they were

(41:25):
a sinner. They already knew that they were messed up.
They were already in fear of judgment. And so you
don't hammer them with more law. You would, you would
give them just complete gospel. You know it has been
taken care of. Christ did this for you. So I'm
going to go on to the next clip, if that's okay,
because one of the gospel, and this is Chris Valentin,

(41:46):
and I want you to listen to what he says
and tell me how often you heard this kind of
message there at Bethel? Uh, go watch how many you
understand that God was crucified on the cross. That tells
you how valuable we are.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
The price He paid on the cross determined the value
of the people he purchased. And so I began to realize,
like I must be valuable. Look at how much it
cost Heaven to have me.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
And so I began to realize like having a poverty
mentality was actually telling.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
God, you you are not you are not good enough
for me.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Now let me get let me get your thoughts on
that clip.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
Yeah, And that's like that's a great example of it.
Like it's it takes this idea of like that really
sums it up, Like I, like I one hundred percent
had that understanding of like, oh, I'm so valuable because
of that, right, And I think what American Gospel did
when I heard it was the first time I heard
like you actually aren't like but that, But that chasm

(42:55):
between how good you are, how bad you are, and
how good God is is something to rejoice over of
of in spite of that is what is like he
died for you, like while we were yet still enemies.
Like that that understanding. So because when you when the
emphasis is like, well, I'm worth so much and I'm

(43:16):
so valuable, That's why God died for me. The I
guess you could say the truth in that is that yes,
you are, you are, we are precious to God like
he he did create us and say like he looked
at that and he said very good. Like there is
there is a moniker of truth in that, in the
sense of that when God created man, he said it
was very good. And he obviously saw some value in

(43:38):
man in that way. But in man's current state, as sinful,
we the thing that has to be paid for is
the debt, not our value. Like that that's kind of
where it gets flipped around. Is like it's almost like
when you if someone financially is like saying, oh, like

(43:58):
I you know, I just I just invested, you know,
two hundred thousand dollars in real estate. That's amazing, Like
it's a real like the really good value you just
put two hundred thousand dollars in real estate. You know,
if it's a good purchase, it's good investment. Your money
went somewhere. It's really good. But the other option is
someone could say, oh, I just I just paid two
hundred thousand dollars worth of debt and it's like, oh,

(44:21):
that's good, Like it's a good thing to pay off,
but you're just back to zero, right, Yeah, And Bethel
makes it look like we were the house that was purchased,
when really it was like, in a way, yes we are,
but we actually are a debt that was paid, Like
there's a debt that had to be paid and that
that's where it's like that that's where that's what's missing.

(44:43):
I gues that makes sense, Like that's that's where it's
like there's no emphasis on like no, we have we're
carrying a debt that we are so smothered by that
we can't pay and it yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
So yeah, and Christ actually came as the second atom.
I mean, we have adams sin credited to our account.
Every human being born has his sin credited to their account.
And Christ was a second atom. And so he comes

(45:12):
and what he did his life, everything about everything about
what he did was credited to our account. Everything that
Christ did, he kept the entire law force. Where Adam
disobeyed one command and plunged the entire world into darkness,

(45:33):
Christ comes keeps every single command you know in the
Old Testament scriptures for us as our representative goes to
the cross, bleeds and dies, observes God's wrath for everything
we've ever done, raises from the dead and conquers death
for us so we don't have to die. So Adam

(45:55):
causes death, Christ gives life. That's something that we need
to hear all the time. The first time I ever
heard that Christians really needed the Gospel was it was
years ago Jerry Bridges. You ever heard of Jerry Bridges,
the author Jerry Bridges. He wrote a book called The
Gospel for Everyday Life. And I read that book and

(46:19):
it really struck me, how wow, the Gospel is like
a drink of cold water, and of course running into
Chris Rosebros. Podcast and then Jordan Cooper's stuff, and then
just just hearing how much I desperately need the Gospel
every day because, like you said earlier, man, we sin
every day. You know, it's not like it's a one

(46:39):
and done thing.

Speaker 4 (46:40):
You know where where you know where.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
We're just we get in Okay, now let's let's go
to work.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
You know.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah, there's a Stephen Ferdick clip floating around.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
It's an old, old clip.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Where's he's talking about how your soldiers. Now you're in
the army. Now you were saved.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
That's yesterday. Now you're in the army. It's not like
that at all.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
We struggled daily with sin every day, and to to
to need to have the Gospel in the forefront of
our minds is that's how we that gives us the
power to live the Christian life.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
What I'm realizing, too, is that I think a lot
of a lot of it comes down to is that
some people what I'm saying, oh, yes, I have my daughter,
she just she just woke up. If if you want
to go, you want to go, I'll be done here.
See a little bit, but you can go get yourself
some breakfast if you want some. I'm not work.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Can wait?

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Okay? I love you?

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Sorry, Hey, hey, you know I'm not going to cut
that out right. That's too cute. I've got to keep
that in, you know.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
I love it. The thing the thing I'm realizing, I think,
and because when I talk about like trying to learn
people's theology and steal me in people's theology, Dan Dan
kind of circling back to him. He's one of those
guys that, like, I'll hear some of his messages and
I'm like, Wow, they're actually not that bad. But then
he'll say something I'm like, oh, that's really bad, and

(48:08):
it's like trying to figure out, okay, where where is
that I disagree? And in the past year, I've been
studying a lot on like the two Atonement theories of
you know, there's obviously more than two, but the main
two that seem to get paid against each other is
Creast's Victor and penal Substitutionary. And I think, and I
don't think Bethel would straight up say it, but I

(48:30):
based on what I'm reading and what I've seen and
what I've known of them, I think they have more
of a Creases victor centric atonement theory versus a penal
substitutionary atone theory. And I think that's a really big
part of what puts you in that position. And I'm
learning more and more that oftentimes when I find people

(48:52):
in these positions that I disagree with, it's the creased
is victor atonement theory. Now I'm also learning aspects to
Creasu's Victor that I would agree with. But I also
go ahead.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
No, I was gonna say, just for just for the audience,
explain the Cristus victor theory. I'm gonna try it, or
just give just give a thumbnail sketch of it.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
That's all that's like. Yeah, yeah, I guess it's easier
to describe it by what it is, by what it
isn't so like penal substanciary. Tone of theory is very
much like we Christ died in our stead, in our place.
He was the substitutionary punishment on our behalf. That's how
we are. That's the atonement. Christ's victor is that he

(49:39):
he Christ is, I mean, the name is Christ victorious.
Christ is victorious over sin, not that he was paid
in our stead for our sin, like he is he
he put gave us victory over sin. And I know
there's probably some crisis. Victor guys are like, you're butchering it.
I know, I am, I'm so sorry. But the core
thing is that, like it doesn't agree with this idea

(50:00):
of substitutionary atonement. And I've been reading a lot of
the Patristic fathers of like what they believed, what understood,
from like Irenaeus Toism. He's hard ones say, and and

(50:21):
it's come to find a lot of them are kind
of both, Like they say things that are very Criasus Victor,
but then they also say things that are clearly p
s a like like, so it's like there's truth in
both of them. Of like how Christ is like amen,
Christ is victorious over sin, Like no, I think no
one's going to discree with that. But you also can't
get rid of the part of there was a substitutionary

(50:42):
atonement for our sin. Like there's so many verses that
are so clearly clearly state death for our sin. And
it's that judicial understanding, that court room kind of setting
that many creases fictor theologians will push against, which I
think is what I found. I like, kind of retrospect,

(51:04):
looking back on I think that's a lot of what
I push backed against, is this idea of like wrath
that was waiting for me. And then yeah, I got
saved from that wrath. Like I didn't like to think
of God that way. So yeah, yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Moving on just a little bit to talk We're still
on the theme of the gospel, but I want to
I want to move on really quickly to evangelism and
talk about how BSSM students because we talked about here
just a few minutes ago that you really need a
proper understanding of the law. You need you need to hear.

(51:42):
You know that that law has to prick your heart.
I mean, even in Peter's sermon in next chapter two,
you know, he tells these Jews who have been waiting
for their Messiah for you know, you know, forever, that
they actually crucified him. They crucified their Messiah and they
were it said, they were cut to the heart. He said, brothers,

(52:04):
what will we do? What shall we do? So even
in Peter's first sermon, he is hammering them with the law,
and then he gives them the Gospel repit and be
baptized every one of you for the giveness of your sins,
and you will receive the Holy Spirit. So he gives
them the law and he gives them the Gospel. But
I know you you've talked about going out on evangelism

(52:24):
trips with the students that at BESSM. He talked about
this thing called treasure hunting. Yes, was that part of
it was that evangelism. Let me just ask you straight up,
was that evangelism? Is that their idea of what evangelism was.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Absolutely blame it, okay, yeah, absolutely, Like it comes off
from Kevin Deadman's book Finding Something, Finding God's Treasure or
the Ultimate Treasure Hunt for the end of the book.
But Kevin Deadmon was for a long time kind of
like one standing evangelist along with Chris over Street and
his wife Teresa Deadman. I think still heads up the
person like art ministry there. But yeah, it was their
version of evangelism, which essentially is you just take a

(53:05):
piece of paper. There's about five or six categories, about
ten options on each category, and you get together and
you huddle or circle and you pray, put on sportial
music usually, and you just put down whatever Holy Spirit's
telling you. It could be something like, uh, you know,

(53:26):
one sections like appearance, how do they look? One section
could be ailment, so what's wrong with them? One section
could be location, one section is random thing. And I
jump in really quickly just should clarify something.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
So you're you're preparing to go out and evangelize, and
you're you're you're basically listening to what the Holy Spirit
is saying. You're writing this down and then you're going
to go out and try to find people that match
that description.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
Is that?

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Is that what that basically is charis? Because yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's a charismatic mad lib. You're just like you're just
just feel hold it out and then the idea is
then you look at it and you all look at
it and you're like, Okay, well, out of five of us,
four of us got Starbucks. Okay, so we should go
to Starbucks. Okay. So out of four of us are

(54:12):
five of us, All five of us got the name Dave. Okay,
so we're probably going to find someone their named Dave.
Out of five of us, three of us got them.
So you see what matches up, and then you go
from there, wow, wow.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
And so and So what would happen when you get
to Starbucks and you run into some guy named Dave?
What exactly do you tell him?

Speaker 4 (54:36):
How?

Speaker 3 (54:36):
How do you give them the gospel? How do you
present the gospel to them? So walk us through that.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
Yeah, well first of all, sorry Dave. Yeah, yeah, so
the conversation, So just so we all know, like I'm
not saying this as like a byastad. I took people
at test runts and I taught people how to do them.
So like that was my second year led treasure hunts.
This is I'm, like, you know, pretty clear on how
it works. So they may have changed it since then,

(55:06):
but my time there is what they did. So you
find they say, you find a guy named David Starbucks.
Well the next thing is now that you found Dave
on Starbucks. So the script would be like this, Hey,
your name wouldn't happen to be Dave? Yeah it is Dave.
It's gonna sound really crazy because it kind of is.

(55:27):
We got together and we prayed and we asked for
God to give us a person that he considered one
of his treasures, someone that he thought was so valuable
and so important and needed to hear from him today
and when we prayed, we asked for an appearance of
what you would look like, a name where we find you,
and you're supposed to show him the treasure map. Like

(55:48):
the treasure map it's called like look like all of
us wrote down, Dave, this is before we've talked to you.
All of us wrote down that you'd be wearing you know,
his black shirt. All of us wrote down, you'd have
red shoes. All of us wrote down, you know that
your you know, X, Y Z and be Now the
question is what is it you need prayer for? And
then sometimes you get aware of knowledge like I from

(56:08):
my you know praying, I feel like a heat in
my knee? Is is that?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
You know?

Speaker 4 (56:12):
Is your you know? Did you get a car accident
and hurt your knee? You know when when you're younger,
even recently, like do you have residual knee pain? If
day's like yeah, yeah, actually I do. Okay, Dave, Well,
God didn't just bring us here just to you know,
I have a cool experience. He wants to heal you
right now. That's why I'm feeling this heat. That's why

(56:33):
he died on the cross. You know, he was bruised
like his by his stripes. We are healed, is what
it says in Isaiah. So because of that, because we're here,
we're called to pray for you and see that. Do
you want your knee to be healed? Right now? Dave?
And you pray for Dave and you know, and then
and then from there it's like, well, Dave, you know
before I pray for you. On a scale of one

(56:55):
to ten, ten being the worst, how would you describe
your pain? Well, it's like a like a okay, if
you walk around, is it worse? Yeah? If I walk around,
it's like a seven, right Okay, So let's say it's
like a seven right now. Yeah, it's like a seven. Okay.
So I want you to we're gonna pray for this
and we're gonna see if it gets healed. But I
know it's gonna get healed, and so we pray for it. Okay,
how's it feel? You know? And they always say quick,
short prayers, don't make it a big, grandiose prayer, quick declarative.

(57:19):
Thank you Holy Spirit for being here, Thank you Holy
Spirit for your presence right now. Thank you that you've
already paid for this healing. Thank you for this healing
has already done, it's already paid for. This healing is complete.
We just declare right now that as it is on earth,
as it is in heaven, so it will be on
earth and he'll be healed right now, Dave, how's your
knee feel? Feel it? Move it around? Oh, it feels
a little bit better. Okay, from one to ten? Where

(57:40):
is it at? Oh, it's like a five. Okay, Dave.
When I first started talking to you, this was a seven.
It's a five. Now God is healing your knee.

Speaker 5 (57:48):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
So, and God does not do anything halfway. He finishes
the work. So the good work he started in you,
he's gonna complete. So we're gonna pray for this get finished.
Can we pray for you one more time? And then
you just keep doing this over and over again until
you know typically it's like sometimes like two three times
and they get healed. And uh wow, Yeah, that's that's
the interaction. That is just that is that is amazing.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
And while you're talking, you mentioned decree and declares that
what you guys did for prayer, you kind of read
it declared. So I remember I was talking. I was
having a conversation with Don Hill and one of the
things that struck me was when she came out of
you know, the movement, the hardest thing or I don't

(58:31):
want to say that was the hardest thing, but one
of the one of the difficult things for her was
prayer because she didn't know how to pray. She'd always
be cleared. You know, did you struggle with with prayer
when you came out? When you when especially and I'm
not talking about when you I'm talking about when you
watch the American Gospel film you said, Okay, I'm I'm

(58:52):
full into this, I'm back in I'm gonna be doing
my thing. Did you was that an issue for you?
Struggle with prayer? Did you have a hard time with that?

Speaker 4 (59:03):
Oh? Yeah, absolutely, like prayer, reading the Bible like all
that stuff. But yeah, prayer absolutely. Like it was actually
a Sunday School lesson because we were first getting back
to the faith. It was like during COVID we were
really trying to get like really, go, okay, we're going
to be Christians again, Like we're actually going to do this.

(59:25):
Kaylee was want me to lead, you know, as a husband,
as a father, lead lead our family, and I'm like,
I don't know what to do. I don't know how
to lead and even praying, I'm like, I don't know
how to pray for the meal because all my prayer
was very entitled. We did a Sunday School lesson and
I actually came across as acronym and one of the

(59:46):
we bought like a Sunday School curriculum to go through,
and the lesson was on how to pray. And I
still use this to this day. You may have heard it.
Just take the word pray go ahead.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
Oh yeah, no, I was going to say acts act s,
but go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Yeah, it's an acronym. Okay, yeah, yeah. The pray one
is praise, repent, ask, and yield oka and Okay. For me,
that was really good, Like we can praise God, thank
him for what he's done, We repent for our sins,
and we recognize that we are in constant need of
our daily bread. We can ask for what we need,
we can humbly pray for it, but ultimately yield to

(01:00:26):
the sovereignty in the will of God. It's like this, yeah,
Like I still like it's one of those things. It
helps me so much. But yeah, like absolutely, prayer was
like how do you how do you do that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Yeah, yeah, I think one of the luther and his
large Catechism has a really good breakdown of the Lord's prayer.
He also he also wrote one of one of uh
I think it was a barber in his town, a
barber that was asking him how to pray, and he

(01:00:58):
wrote a letter to him became a tract called a
Simple Way to Pray, and it was just taking the
Lord's Prayer and just taking step by step going through
it and okay, you know our father, he addressing him
as our father, and just going right down the Lord's
Prayer and it's just just so helpful.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
But that that that would that would seem if if
you're so used to decreeing and declaring all the time,
that would really it would really seem like it would
be extremely difficult to unlearn, you know, and to learn
how to pray again, or to learn how to pray
at all, because if you've never been taught to pray,
it's like starting from scratch, you know, I mean, if

(01:01:41):
you if you were you know, you had a guest
on one time. I'm gonna use him as an example.
I can't remember his name, but he was he he
I think he started as his charismatic went became a Presbyterian,
then went to Beth Lee. I can't remember his name,
but if you had that then it might not be
as hard.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
H Yeah, I think you're talking about Bill, Bill vander Bush.
He's the guy who's the teacher at He actually teaches
at Bethel Austin. Now okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that
might be a little bit easier.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
But in a situation like you know, that's all you know,
My goodness, how in the world you just start from scratch.
It's like it really is like a brand new baby,
you know, learning how to walk.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
You know. We'll take that with every every aspect of
your faith too, like not just prayer, but like just
take that idea and then with everything, like yeah, it's
it's not just prayer, it's okay. How do I read
the Bible? Like okay? Like and it's weird because you
spend twenty years growing up on hearing the Bible stories
and you think what they all know, what they all mean, Like, oh,

(01:02:47):
I know the story David, Oh yeah, I know, sorry,
this is right' oh yeah, I know the story of walking.
All these things, you know, and then every time you
hear them, you have to go okay that I'm probably wrong,
like whatever, you just everything starts with I'm probably wrong.
Let me start over. It's a lot of work. It's
just like because you think like, oh, I got the

(01:03:09):
basics down, you're like, I got nothing down. I got nothing. Yeah,
so absolutely, absolutely, Jesse. We could go on and all.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
We've been at it for an hour, and I usually
don't like to like to go over an hour, but
I'd love to have you on again. I mean, I
cut it short, but yeah, man, I've got other clips
that I want you to see, and I just I
wanted to talk about Bill's Christology, and uh.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Yeah, if you want to squeeze that in for the end,
we can. I mean, I'm good either way. Like if
are you all right, let's do that. Let's land if
you will land on that, because I know you'll lock
you up. We can totally land on that and kind
of wrap wrap it up on there if you want to.
All right, so I do want to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Let me think, Actually, you know what, the christology, the
canotic stuff is such a heavy time topic that I'd
love for you to come on and just have that
as the main topic you and I to talk about that.
But so let's do this. As we continue on talking
about the gospel, Bill Johnson talks about the gospel just

(01:04:17):
being like powerless apart miracles. I want to play another
clip this. This isn't I found this clip so on
the internet on YouTube, and it's just a still of Bill.
You just see his face, but you'll hear his voice.
So let me let me just play this really quickly
for you and then I'll get your thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Okay, here we go, he says.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Now me, the God of Hope fill you with all joy,
not just partial joy and peace in believing that you
may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So now we've got a connection here. We've got something
starting in the scripture that comes into like a crescendo,
this explosive demonstration of hope that is only made possible

(01:05:01):
through the power of God. Power is essential to demonstrate
this message without power. It isn't good news. Without power,
it isn't good news. It is absolutely essential the power
is demonstrated. And there's a process here throughout all of

(01:05:21):
the scriptures for how and why the power of God
is demonstrated.

Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
It is never for our entertainment all right, before we.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Before I get your comment on that. What amazes me
about that clip is how you can take one verse
that has I mean literally one verse in Romans chapter fifteen,
and you can like just make an entire or use
that to as a foundation for your theology that the

(01:05:52):
gospel without miracles is really not a powerful gospel at all.
You know, it just drives me crazy. But anyway, I
want to I want to read that passage because if
that's okay with you, because absolutely that, and I want
to read it in its context so that people can
see exactly what Bill did there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
He took a.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
One little verse and he used that, you know, to
to say that, you know, the gospel is powerless withoutout miracles.
So let me let me do that really quickly. Let
me just look at this, uh read this here, let
you know, let me start.

Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
I could start in.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Verse one, but I want to start here in verse
eight because he's just talking here about well, let's go ahead.
Let you know what, man, I'm so indecisive, brother, sorry
about that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
All right, it's the word of God.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
Why don't we start from the beginning, Okay, I.

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):
Mean, there's a great pastor once said the three rules
the sound biblical Exte Jesus. This context kind of text context.
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
I remember, what is that guy's name? Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.
We who are strong, this is Chapter fifteen, verse one.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with
the failings of the week, and not to please ourselves.
Let us please his neighbor for his good, to build

(01:07:23):
him up. For Christ did not please himself. But as
it is written, the reproach of those who reproached you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
Fell on me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
For whatever was written in former days was written for
our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of
the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of
endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony
with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together
you may with one voice glorify the God and Father
of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as

(01:07:51):
Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. And
keeping in mind, we're coming to the end of Romans here. Okay,
so it's almost like fifteen is the last and now
I got more to say, and he goes.

Speaker 4 (01:08:01):
In the sixteen.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
But we'll keep going here, for I tell you that
Christ became a servant to the circumcise to show God's truthfulness,
in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs,
and in order that the gentiles might glorify God for
his mercy. As it is written, therefore, I will praise
you among the gentiles and sing to your name. And

(01:08:22):
again it has said, rejoice, o gentiles with his people.
And again praise the Lord, you gentiles, and let the
peoples extol him. And again the root of jesse will come,
even he who rules or arises to rule the gentiles.
In him, the gentiles will hope. And this is the
verse made a God of hope. Fill you with all

(01:08:45):
joy and peace and believing, so that by the power
of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Nothing
to do with the power of miracles in the Gospel,
There nothing at all to do with that. And you
take that verse and you apply that to your theology. That,
apart from signs and wonders miracles, the Gospel is powerless.

(01:09:09):
When Romans won. I believe it's seventeen. For I'm not
ashamed of the gospel, for it the Gospel itself is
the power of God or salvation for all who believes.
And how is it the power. It's like when we
were talking before, you know, we were talking about presenting
the law to someone, hitting them with the law, getting

(01:09:30):
the Law and the Gospel, and someone realizing the Holy
Spirit pricking their hearts, them realizing that they're under the
wrath of God. They're sinners and they need, desperately need
to be saved or they're going to spend eternity apart from.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
God in hell.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
And it's that realization and then bringing in that beautiful,
those beautiful words. Christ bled and died and rose again
for you. He was your representative. He did all of
this for you. It's yours reach out with the hands
of faith, and believe, there's no works involved here. There's

(01:10:08):
nothing you have to do. It's already been done for you.
Everything from your from the time you were born to
the time you die, everything has been covered. Christ has
done it all. Now repent and believe that good news.
And you know, it's like that is powerful especially, I mean,
there's comfort in those words. That's the power. That is

(01:10:31):
what saves. And Bill Johnson takes and the other teachers
at Bethel, because they follow they follow it, you know,
his teaching. They take that, they take the beautiful message
of the gospel about the forgiveness of sins, and they
make it about well, you know, it's just not nobody's

(01:10:53):
gonna believe that gospel unless you do some signs and wonders.
And really they're not even doing signs and wonders at all.
They're not real signs and wonders, not according to what
you see in the Book of Acts. So yeah, let
me just get your thoughts on all of this.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
Yeah, So, I mean, first of all things, for just
going through that scripture, I appreciate that. I mean it's
always I love. I love when you take a verse
and it's you know, you hear one person take that
one verse and you're like, oh, that sounds really good,
but then when you read the whole context, it's like
WHOA way off face. So I appreciate you doing that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
So, like.

Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
When you think about a little bit, it comes down
to the way they understand the point of Jesus and
what he did. It will frame up. So if at
of if you've seen in the episodes I've been done
of Bethel's Advocate, where I try to I try to
steal man Bethel's position with someone else.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Yeah, yeah, you know what you did one with Chris
Rosebro that's I think that's the only one that I watched,
the on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So I
haven't seen how many others are done.

Speaker 4 (01:11:56):
I've done one other one with Richard and I got
I got some cue up, that's right, Rickey.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Yes, I haven't clicked on it yet, so that is
That's all right, It'll be my next watch anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
But what I really enjoyed about those has been fun
to kind of help people understand and flesh out what
Bethel believes and give context and so like when they
talk of when Bill says the gospel doesn't you know,
it's not effective or not doesn't have the punch or
whatever he puts it. Without the power, without power, demonstration
of power. You can kind of take There's two ways

(01:12:28):
you could take it. One you could just say strictly
talking about miracles. The other you could say, okay, well
he's not wrong if you think about the power of
Christ of like the forgiveness of sins, like there's a
power there that's demonstrated. But the way Bethel does understand
it and the way they preach it and the way
it's practiced is that we're going to bring a full
circle to treasure hunts. The point of the treasure hunt

(01:12:49):
is to find the person, pray for them, demonstrate power,
demonstrate the miracle, and then present the gospel. So it's
that that's the way came out in practice. So like
you can often say, like, well, maybe we say the
same thing, but maybe we we we the methodology, so

(01:13:09):
it's like the theology is saying, but the methodology is different.
Maybe with this that's not the case. The theology is
different and the methodology is different. So like they the
method is, let's demonstrate power and demonstrate healing, and then
because of that someone's going to want to come to Christ.
Rather than it being the power of the gospel, is

(01:13:30):
the power into man for him to be saved. Like
that is the power that is demonstrated. And the ministry
we have is the ministry of reconciliation, Like we get
to go around and sharing this and reconciling the world
to Christ, being his ambassadors in that way. But they
take that and it has to be that we have
to demonstrate a miracle, and then that miracle is going
to convince you to then come to Christ, which really

(01:13:53):
puts you in awkward positions when the miracle doesn't happen
and you're like, well, I want to have you on
again soon.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
Yeah really yeah, and talk about uh, talk about their
view of Christ, their Christology. And I think I was
going to talk about that in this one, like I said, yeah,
but that's.

Speaker 4 (01:14:11):
A big topic. There's and there's a lot and there's
a lot of new ones. Yeah, yeah, Like there's there's
a lot. There's a lot of nuance because it's it's
much like like with an other thing you could you
can go you could find them saying things that prove
you right, but then you can find things that they
say that prove you wrong. It's like there's a lot
of nuance and what they say. And that's something I've

(01:14:33):
I've gone like when I first got out of it,
I'm like, oh, yeah, they totally just believe this. But
then it's like a lot of it is like what
they believe, and then how do they practice? And there's
a whole world of like even Bill saying, oh no,
I do believe Jesus fully, god fully mellundred percent say that,
And then there's other things that they'll say like, wait
a minute, what about that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
And so it's there's a whole He does once he
does say that Jesus is fully gotten, fully man in
his book. Know, even though he says Jesus set aside
his divinity, he does say that Jesus is God. So
you know it. Yeah, that's why we if we're going
to do this, we have to we have to dedicate

(01:15:14):
an entire epido to this.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
Jesse.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
What a pleasure, man, What a pleasure. It's just been
such a good time talking to you, and I'm looking
forward to other conversations.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
To have with you as well.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
I really appreciate you taking your time out and coming
on today.

Speaker 4 (01:15:33):
Thanks man, Thanks for having me. It's been an honor.
I mean, I've killy and I watched a lot of
you and Robin, and it's always been fun hearing you
guys and hearing your takes and so it's it's an
honor to be a part of it. So thanks for
having me. Well, it's an honor to have you on.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
So anyway, I'm going to close out now and I'm
gonna say, folks, thanks so much for watching this episode.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
I know this is going to edify you.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
I is edifying you because you're watching it now, but
I know it's edifying to you. I pray that if
you know someone that might be a BSSM student, you
have someone in your family, or just someone who's thinking
about that, that you'll pass along. Jesse's YouTube channel, Faith Reframed.
I will put that in his channel or in the

(01:16:16):
YouTube description, pass his channel along, share his stuff. He
has got some great stuff over there. So folks, thanks
for watching.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
Lord Willing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
We'll see you next week