Before You Convert to Catholicism, Listen to This

Why are Catholic and Eastern Orthodox voices gaining so much attention online? In this episode, we talk with John Pawlik about the key differences between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, why these traditions are appealing to so many people today, and how internet debates can shape our understanding of faith. We also explore John 6, what Jesus meant by "eat My flesh and drink My blood," and why true faith in Christ remains at the center of the gospel. Join us for a thoughtful, Bible-centered conversation on church history, worship, and following Jesus with truth and discernment.

Why I Left the Catholic Faith

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Transcript

Why John Pollack Returns

SPEAKER_06 0:00

We've got uh John Pollack back, and I'm excited about this conversation. JB and I have been talking a lot about uh last year's conversation with John, and I'm I'm especially uh looking forward to this because we had a lot of questions come in after we uh posted that episode last year. Uh and so we've known for a while that John was gonna be back, and um and it was interesting to see the response and the reaction that we got uh in from both this episode that we did with John, but also the one that we did with Josh Haskell, which uh if you remember that, Josh, a former Mormon, grew up Mormon. Very similar story to John's, both grew up in in families that that were deeply involved in their uh their systems of worship and and and uh belief and orthodoxy um and doctrine. But uh one of the things that we've gotten a lot of uh questions about and feedback on is there seems to be a trend right now in especially on social media platforms, a lot of voice is being given to um almost like a contemporary movement within the Catholic Church and also like a contemporary movement within the Orthodox Church. And I've had a lot of people ask me what's the distinction between the two? Uh what is Orthodox like a midpoint between Catholicism and Protestantism? Obviously, the the overwhelming 99 plus percent percentage of our listeners are Protestant. Um but I I wanna I want to try to get some clarity on that question. So I'm excited to have John here. I've actually been looking forward to this for probably three or four months now, knowing that this is something we talk about. We're also gonna get into uh uh we're gonna have a conversation about um Jesus' words in John 6, which there's a recent really viral video from uh a Catholic uh content creator who's a priest, a younger guy who talks about how if you reject certain a certain viewpoint on John chapter six, which is the passage where Jesus says, You got to eat my flesh and drink my blood, that if you reject it, then you don't believe the Bible and you reject Jesus. That's his perspective. And so we're gonna dive into that a little bit. Looking forward to it. Um, excited to see where this conversation goes. So thanks for uh listening to this week's episode of No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_06 2:50

Man, thanks for coming back. Yeah, of course. It's uh it's it's a blessing to have you back. We had phenomenal feedback on your episode last year. I appreciate it. I think it's very insightful for people, you know, it's it's you don't know what you don't know. And I think a lot of us I know that before I talked with you last year, both on onset and offset prior to us recording, I learned a lot that I think I had a lot of presuppositions about Catholicism. And and uh one of the things that I appreciated about that episode is how charitable you were towards you still have a very I think a soft place in your heart because you have so many family and friends that that's still the where they worship and what they hold to. And so that was insightful for me and I think for a lot of our listeners is to not see Catholics in one of two extremes, either as like this opposing enemy or the opposition camp, sure, but also not being so warm to it that we say we're the same.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:54

I think there was a lot of clarity given in that.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

I re-listened to it actually last night. Sorry to be fresh. Nice. Um, but one thing I appreciated you said too was no, I was I fully believe I was saved while I was still in the Catholic Church, and like you emphasize like the word of God was still preached and that it was still used very much in my life. Yeah. So I appreciated that too. And like it does give me a lot of hope too, of like, okay, if the where the word of God preached, there will be salvation and stuff, you know. And so I think that was a good clarification.

SPEAKER_06 4:26

I don't remember if I said this in that episode. Do you you just listen to it last night? Did I talk about my fundamentalist grandfather pastor being led to faith by a Catholic man?

SPEAKER_03 4:38

No, uh, I don't think you did.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

So this is fascinating.

SPEAKER_06 4:43

So my like this is an interesting relationship in my life because so I had a granddad, he died about 12 years ago, 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Is this Virgil?

SPEAKER_06 4:53

This is Virgil. So here in Western North Carolina, Virgil Holloway was like very well known in Baptist circles. Yeah. And he was in in the the Southern Baptist world of the probably the 1950s through the 80s, there was a the Southern Baptist and the independent fundamental Baptist, there was a lot of similarities. I think the Southern Baptist now is who I would most identify with. They've come out of that, and I'll hear people misidentify and they'll say, Oh, he's very Southern Baptist. Right. But they'll independent fundamental Baptist. Um but so so my granddad, he came, he he was a prominent local pastor in the Western North Carolina area, and he was he was very uh strict on some things, you know, like King James only, uh women wear dresses, no secular music, don't go to the movies, um, things like that. Uh and but it's fascinating because I I I remembered I remember this last night. He was led to faith after his military service. This would have been like the late 40s, early 50s, by a Catholic dude. And he would always, to the end of his life, I didn't interact with him a lot, I didn't know him real well, but he would he was very defensive of the Catholic faith. And he would say, I he'd say, they get a lot of things wrong. You know, he's pretty he'd paint with a pretty broad brush, but he'd go. But but the Lord used a Catholic brother to bring me to faith. You know, yeah, interesting. Yeah, very pretty cool. Um, all

Catholic And Orthodox Basics

SPEAKER_06 6:27

right. I'd like to let this is gonna be a little bit more, I think, a form a formal sort of order of talking points. Okay. I know of three that we've identified, and then JB, I'm gonna have her kind of take it from there. And the first one is could you we we talked the other night about this, but could you you had some interesting insight on right now this uptick on social media in Catholic platforms and and a couple of Orthodox voices.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

Um, and we talked about the the move last year, the shift that seems to be happened with predominantly younger dudes who are going towards the Catholic Church. I'm cool getting back into that as well, but you had an interesting take on the Orthodox thing. Sure. Um so if you could speak to that, but also could you give us some definition? I know you you said, John said, I don't know a lot about the Orthodox Church, which I don't believe. Because I don't believe you don't know a lot about anything related to church history and theology. So I think in your mind, you don't know a lot. You're not an expert or you don't know a lot. But I know compared to most listeners, you're gonna you're gonna be able to inform us a little bit. So what's the difference in the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church? Um, could you just speak to that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Can I tell you one really brief funny story about that report? Absolutely. So uh at the church, uh I'm in a youth pastor at first Bible Church in uh Decatur and Huntsville and Madison, um we have a an ordination exam. So I've graduated from seminary, I'm hired on staff. You know, you kind of go through a period of the church and then uh you go to your ordination exam. And so, you know, in the Presbyterian church, it's super structured and formal. In Baptist circles, um, we're at Bible church, it can look all different kind of ways. But essentially it was just the pastors of the church and all the elders kind of sat me down in a room and sat around me and asked me a bunch of questions. And um, at the end, you know, we'd gotten through a lot of the main content they were hoping to cover. And so our lead pastor, Steve, just had like a rapid fire at the end. Like, I want to make sure you know this, this, this, and this. And the one question of the, I'm sure I had a lot of things that could have used improvement in the in the main section, but in the rapid fire questions, uh, the only one I just took totally didn't know was the the date he asked me of the Roman Catholic Eastern Orthodox split. And I think it was even now, I think it's like 1051 or something like that. He's like, What happened in 1051? I was like, I don't know. Yeah, I was like, he told me later. That's funny.

SPEAKER_06 8:46

But uh it was like Steve knows.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Yeah, he does. He's cued in. But um, so yes, the the Eastern Orthodox Church essentially what happened is in the history of the church, pretty early on, how the church began to distinguish itself is the Latin West and the Greek East. And so um, you know, originally the New Testament is written in Greek. Uh Latin is already around, like we just went through the Gospel of John in our youth group, and in Jesus' inscription, you know, there's uh there's Latin on there, there's Greek on there, there's Aramaic or Hebrew. And so Latin's around, but Greek is is dominant. But then you know, slowly over time that shifts towards Latin. And um, but in the Greek Orthodox area, it's still Greek. And so it's not just the language, there are theological differences that begin to spring up. And so you can read early church fathers, um uh Latin fathers and the Greek fathers, and um, there's some differences there. They don't have the same differences that the church has now, and so um, you know, pretty generally Catholics will read Greek and Latin fathers, East and West. Greek Orthodox do prefer their own Greek, you know, early church fathers when they're kind of trying to think through those things. Because remember, those kind of serve as some sort of, you know, we might read them for historical interest, we might read them to learn about the history of the development of theology in the church, but they're reading this as like a pseudo, um, a pseudo-authority, you know, maybe not at the level of scripture, but um, I mean, sometimes above the level of scripture, if I'm being honest. Um, but you know, they're reading it for authority. It really matters uh to them what the early church fathers say. But so over time, though, this growth of theological development continues to happen. And so, for instance, one of the things that really has to get fleshed out in the early church is, you know, the doctrine of the Trinity. I think it's really common for people to say that the doctrine of the Trinity was developed over time. I think while that's true, it's also really important to say that the Trinity is super clear in Scripture. You know, um I think I was just in John 14 recently, and there's so many verses in the Bible where you can see all three persons of the Trinity mentioned in one verse, clearly acting in operation uh in unity with each other. But um over time, one of the big issues they begin to kind of develop some controversy over is when they get through some of the Trinitarian doctrine, it's still developing, but they kind of really start to shift towards some Christology conversations that come a little bit later. And you know, there's the filioque debate, which we don't really have to get into because it's really complicated.

SPEAKER_06 11:07

And um I would like for you to define that.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Yes, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_06 11:10

So um basically the the Because that's that's a big point of contingent within the Eastern Orthodox.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Yep, yep. Um the the Catholics. Have you ever heard of this? No. We're trinitarian debate. Okay. We uh along with Roman Catholics, believe that the Son, Jesus, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father. Um and we also believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. So the Son proceeds from the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, for them it's more that the Son proceeds from the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but the Spirit doesn't proceed from the Son. And so um one other little funny story about that, I was prepping for some uh a John sermon recently, and and uh I Googled, you know, sometimes I'll use the ESV online if I don't have my my Bible on hand next to me or if I want to use their language resources. So I Googled, you know, John 20 ESV. And almost every time you Google that, the first thing that pops up is gonna be the esv.org or, you know, like Biblehub.com or whatever it is, just to give you the translation. But uh this one time I Googled, you know, John 20 ESV and it pulled up a Reddit post and it was a Greek Orthodox person saying, like, um, how do we justify you know the position that we have if Jesus seems to breathe out the spirit on the disciples at the end of John? And I was like, he's asking a great question. It's funny because he was saying, like, how do I look at this passage and then continue to be Greek or you know, Greek Orthodox? Oh, yeah. And it's funny because I was like, Yeah, you shouldn't. But uh, so anyway, it was just kind of like a funny thing that popped up the other week. And um, but yeah, that's the main difference. I mean, there's all kinds of differences that have developed now, like the way they think through, um, they don't really have uh a pope, so that's kind of more of a Western thing. And so they still have kind of archbishops that sit over regions, and um, and then even today, there's like so many different um regional differences. So there's like the Greek Orthodox, uh, there's the Russian Orthodox, and they all I think they share fellowship with each other. Again, these are we're getting into watershed that I'm not as familiar with, which is how they relate within their own church culture. Um, but I do know that um with Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Great Split And Filioque

SPEAKER_04 13:22

Can I mention the thing we talked about the other day with the kind of popularity it's found in the United States? So um please. Yeah, I think the impression you would get right now as a human being that just walked around and talked to people is that um you probably don't know any Greek Orthodox people. You know, you might have met one or two before, uh, maybe growing a so today, you might have met one. But if you were online, if you're on YouTube or if you're on like Instagram or anything like that, where there's these theological debates happening online, they occupy a pretty decent chunk of the internet theological space without in reality actually making up that much of the church in America. Yeah. So, like, even it's funny because we compare Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic today, there are so many more Roman Catholics than there are Eastern Orthodox. There's like as many Roman Catholics in the United States as there are Protestants, probably. I mean, it's not, it's not the same number, but it's like you're getting up into that high percentage, you know, of United States Christians are are um are Roman Catholic. Like way, way, way, way, way less than 1%, you know, are Eastern Orthodox. And so it kind of seems at the moment like it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

Because the internet can do that really quickly. Um, and I think it is something that we should, you know, contend with maybe. Um, but I I again I don't, it's kind of funny. I think in some people's minds, it's like everyone's Eastern Orthodox now. Right.

SPEAKER_06 14:41

Yeah, Chris was saying, uh, Chris, who's behind the camera right now, was saying before we started, apparently there's a prominent uh Bryce Crawford type personality. I don't know who the guy is, but he's on uh but he's he's made the shift.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Wait, who? I don't think I've heard of him. What's his name? David David Lotting. I I don't think I've heard of him.

SPEAKER_06 15:03

But apparently, you you know, this guy has shifted, and so there's energy or momentum in his following crowd. But I mean it's a dude. I mean, if you're on YouTube or Instagram and you've got a million followers, that seems gargantuan and it's substantial.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:18

But when you consider there's between eight and nine billion people on the planet, yeah, yeah. Uh he's probably not moving the needle.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

No.

SPEAKER_06 15:25

But uh would it, would it be, if I was gonna, if I was gonna summarize, if I'm talking to JB, and I'm gonna try to explain to JB, or I'm talking to a student at Snowbird, and I'm trying to say, let me give you a really fast 60-second overview of what the Orthodox Church is. It was in that Middle Age, Middle Ages period, as the Roman Empire was fragmenting, yeah, uh, and and sort of dividing, and there's this new empire that sort of sprung up called the Byzantine Empire. And it was an Eastern Empire that that that occupied part of the old Roman Empire territory that the the church that sort of became associated with and represented by that Byzantine movement and empire, as the Roman Empire fragmented became the Orthodox Church. That's kind of where its roots were. Is that right?

SPEAKER_04 16:14

Yeah, those are like the political roots of it.

SPEAKER_06 16:15

And so and it be so it was a very political thing where, like, if I remember, the the Pope in 1051 excommunicates the leader of the Orthodox movement, and the Orthodox movement excommunicates the Pope, and they're you know, they're kind of like lobbing bombs at each other, and that's from then on. So doctrinally is there's so much similarity though, other than that Trinitarian theology. Um, is there a lot of similarity in the doctrine and theology of the two churches? Where would Yeah, there is would would an Orthodox Christian line up doctrinally closer to a Protestant, particularly a Reformed Protestant, which is what most of us are gonna most of our crowd is gonna be, or closer to the Catholic doctrine?

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Uh 100% Roman Catholic. Okay. Like we are, they're gonna be pretty close to each other. I obviously, if you talk to one of them, they're gonna say, no, there's you know a million differences. And and there really are like a lot of things they kind of um, you know, kind of quarrel over and stuff like that. But uh, we have a totally different framework than them on so many different issues. The way we think about authority, really what we talked about last episode a lot is that for Protestants um and the Catholic debate between Protestants, really one of the big issues is where does our authority come from?

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:28

And we are saying, you know, scripture alone, and they're saying, you know, scripture and the authority of the church. And there's a real like sense in which they really mean that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Okay.

Why Orthodoxy Looks Bigger Online

SPEAKER_03 17:37

So speaking of, we could cut this if you don't know who this person is. But do you know who Niza Powers is? Okay, so yes. So this guy who used to live he was a transgender. I don't know if he like actually got any surgeries or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 17:54

He became a woman.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Yeah, he became a woman, and then uh I want to say maybe a year ago, started posting on social media and is like, I really feel like the urge to religion of some sort. So then he's documenting his journey through Instagram, and he gained a really big following of people like um, man, you gotta try like this church or like go to a Baptist church, or like so he would go to different churches and then meet with the pastor and talk, and like he seemed to be going on a really good path, you know, like leaving his old self behind, stuff like that. Well, I guess I kind of like wasn't as involved. Like, I would follow him for a little bit, and then I just recently saw that now he's goes to a Catholic church and he's back being gay, trans. Oh really? Yeah, he's back and he's basically saying, like, the Pope told me like it's okay, like I can do it. But I didn't I didn't know if you knew who that was, but yeah, and that it's up to you guys.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

That's a it's a complicated discussion because I think the Pope is is I think has been decently clear that he's against um same-sex marriage or this pope, but American Pope. The previous Pope Francis was ambiguous, yeah. Okay, um, definitely.

SPEAKER_06 19:10

Let me say something about this is this is interesting. Yeah, and you should look that guy up. He's pretty it's a pretty fascinating story.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yes, but yeah, um he's a powers.

SPEAKER_06 19:17

You probably know um what's the apology of guy? Um uh he's a post-mill guy. He used to be uh he was one of the ninja turtles. Oh um, and he goes on the street and like street preaches and debates people. This guy's name is uh hold on, hold on. Um Jeff Durbin. Okay, have you heard that name? I've heard the name, yeah. Okay, Jeff Durbin, I like the guy, but he's kind of like a Doug Wilson character, he's polarizing.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:44

So you like him, and then all of a sudden you go, oh, ooh.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yeah, oh, whoa, take it easy, you know.

SPEAKER_06 19:49

Like, and uh, but but he's super bold. Yeah, and he came out of Hollywood as he was like a teen star kind of guy. He was into martial arts and he was one of the original, he did something with the original Ninja Turtles movies. Okay, yeah. Okay, so this guy's a pastor in I think Arizona. Okay, and I mean he's a dog, like he's he's fun to watch, but yeah, there's times where he'll make me uncomfortable. Sure. So he put I listened to a video, um, it's a just a short pop video where he's uh he reached out to Niza Powers, said, Will you come on? And and Jeff Durbin's got a massive footprint and influence. Like he's he's got a big following. He's doing he's doing the Lord's work. And he read the statement from Niza Powers' agent who said, uh, yeah, he gets he gets $4,500 for an hour for a 45-minute episode. No way. Basically uh $100 a minute.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

The fact that Niza Powers has an agent tells me a lot.

SPEAKER_06 20:46

So then Jeff Durbin makes the point, he's like, okay, this stinks because this dude seemed to have really been saved by the power of the gospel. And now he's already it's become immediately where which is where you see that people on both sides of these social debates are trying to find people that they can pull to their side. And so for this guy, he's a young Christian, and it stinks because I think he probably had an enormous amount of pressure and people putting the microphone in his face. Yeah. Because it started, he's just he just had was kind of doing his own thing, yeah, had his own social media presence and was posting videos, right? And people start interviewing him, and now that's interesting to hear that because I just heard Jeff Durbin talking about that.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

And one thing that's so interesting is that, and I I I don't know if I'm alone here in this. Um I'm sure different people think it, but one of the reasons why, to be honest, I just don't go on the internet to like follow a lot of these guys or the things that are going on, is because I think the format of YouTube, of the internet, of all these things, is just a bad way to learn about probably anything, but specifically theology. Yeah. Anything that's geared towards nuanced critical thinking that has to take Multiple perspectives into account is just not well suited for the internet. And the storylines and like the I think that there's so much um polarization online. We know that, we talk about it, but it really is like it makes it difficult to have productive conversations. I think it tends towards distraction more than it does towards edification, building people up. And so um I I just know so few people who have like been I know I'm sure a lot of people have grown, but so many people I've met are like not necessarily always theologically or or um spiritually better off for their time of like intense debate and study online, you know. Um so it's tough because it's like that's the main format we have access to today to do this kind of learning. And I think if a person was just sitting there, it's like, oh, I find this really interesting and I want to learn more about it, and this is like the easiest way to do it. I don't have great um alternatives for that person, obviously, but I am worried about what an internet-only theological education would do to a person for their spiritual health.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

You see that a lot. We've been kind of toying with the idea of doing a full podcast episode of like literally internet theologians, you know. And like I think it's also hard because you listen to a podcast and that person has done all the work, yeah, has done all the studying and read all of it, and then just gives you like a summarized version, which is good, but then you're lacking like that growth and that knowledge, you know.

SPEAKER_06 23:22

And they could have done all the work in a very biased suppositional, like they they they're coming in and they're presenting what they've worked to figure out or study or learn.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 23:35

And you're you're you feel like I'm listening to this objectively. They're not objective, yeah. Yeah, they're very subjective. Um, I was this morning, I was uh in in my reading this morning. I ended up in the Olivet Discourse. I'm just fascinated by it. I don't have I have we did a like a two or three part series on eschatology earlier this year, just like trying to lay out multiple viewpoints, and I'm like, depending on what day of the week you talk to me or who I just talked to, I'll tell you where I what I believe. You know, yeah. Tomorrow that will probably change. But it's been so good reading William Hendrickson and GK Bill and digging into their omillennial view, because that's where I'm leaning. And I'm like, oh man, it's so good to read a book that has been deeply researched, that is cited. You can go read those books. Those are sighted, you know, this work is cited. But we're in the we're in the uh YouTube short and Instagram hit and TikTok boom culture where people are really developing a theological framework from listening to a 22-year-old street preacher who has no formal theological education. Yeah. And they're building a frame. And then that guy, the that the Crawford kid got to go interview Kenneth Copeland, who has not done an interview in 15 years, I read. Wow. And I haven't watched it. I have no idea. Hopefully, dude, yeah get in between the eyes, you know. But like, yeah, you're right. That's so to our to our people, what I want to say is I think most of our listeners, they come to Snowbird because they trust that we're we're we do hold a high view of the authority of scripture. We're not gonna say anything that that we don't that we're not willing to die for when it comes to doctrinal truth. Um, and people trust us. But I would also say be careful floating around in in the internet space trying to build a theological framework.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Yeah. One of the lies, I think, of doing theology on the internet, or the the promises that I think the kind of perception of content offers is I can be a subject matter in like in anything. Um, and I can learn and be knowledgeable about all these things. And I feel like even the people who are online, even if they're well-intentioned Christians, probably feel a lot of pressure to feel like they know everything. Yep. Because people expect them to. Um, but it's really okay as a Christian just to, you know, admit, like, you know, as someone who like, I'm super young, uh I'm 26 years old, turn 27 soon. I love to read books. One of the things you just have to come to terms with as a person who likes to learn and read the Bible is like there's a lot of books I would be like, oh, I'd love to read that. And I just can't. Like you can only learn so many things. And so I think reading books and learning more slowly also kind of gets you to it forces you to come to terms with your human limitations. And it's like, I can only consume this much stuff. I can only so I need to choose these things, you know. I I need to pick the areas where I just need to be well-rounded in order to better serve people in the Lord. I need to also pick these things that might be of particular interest, you know, and things like that. And and just realize that's gonna be really limited.

SPEAKER_06 26:37

Um That's very helpful.

Internet Theology And Better Alternatives

SPEAKER_06 26:40

I think that's very helpful. That's a helpful word, especially for because you're speaking to y'all's generation. Sure. Um, my generation, it it tends to be more really cheesy, corny Facebook posts with a picture and a funny meme or where you know, word sentence and where the younger crowd is watching video content. Um yeah, that's important to just get if nothing else, listen, listen to me if you're listening to this. Get yourself a good study Bible. If you're young in the faith, you're just trying to go, okay, how do I start? I can remember as a 28-year-old man, Snowbird was three years into two and a half years into our existence. And I was like, okay, I'm reading my Bible every day. I had no formal theological training, I had no formal discipleship. I just loved to read the scripture, and I love to listen to John MacArthur on the radio at 12 o'clock every day. I would stop to eat lunch and listen to John MacArthur for 30 minutes, and then here we go, Ravi Zacharias for 30 minutes. Who obviously that story didn't end well, but I'm very grateful for the way the Lord used those two radio programs this before the internet. And so I'm I was hungering for more of for more. And I'd heard preachers say, Well, I looked in this commentary, and I was like, What the heck is that? I don't know. All I knew is that on the six o'clock news when I was a kid, they would have a three-minute political commentary every night, and my dad would watch it, and I was like, that's the most boring thing I've ever seen in my life. And now I'm in my 20s. I'm like, what is a commentary? I had no clue. Yeah, I'm not interested. And so I was hungering. One of the things that'll happen is if you begin to read the scripture, commit to read the scripture, and you and you'll hear this at like a broken record at Snowbird. The answer our answer to everything starts with, let's go to the word of God. And if you read the scripture, you will develop a like a spiritual metabolism that makes you crave and hunger for more of the scripture. Sure. If you come to the word of God and you recognize when I open the word of God, the word of God is actually opening me. When I come to the scripture and I recognize that I'm coming under the authority of the scripture, I'm not coming in over it to open it and then do my thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

I'm submitting to it. It'll develop a hunger in you. And I remember as a young dude, 28-year-old guy, I'm at a Christian bookstore. You ever been to one of those?

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Lifeway, come on.

SPEAKER_06 29:22

Yeah. Okay. So I didn't know if y'all are familiar with these because most of them have shut down business. So there was one, there was one not far from here, it was over towards Asheville. It was called the Carpenter Shop. And it was like, they had this massive, now I think it's probably small, but this massive theological library of resources you could buy, commentaries, things like that. And the MacArthur Study Bible came out. First that I never even heard of a study Bible. And I'm like, John MacArthur, I listened to the guy on the radio. So I'll get his study Bible. And if you don't know what a study Bible is, it's like you open the Bible up, it'll be the scripture, and at the bottom of the pages, it'll be commentary, which just means comments and explanation of the text. There's a lot of good study Bibles, Life Application Study Bible. We we mostly recommend the ESV study Bible here. I think it's the most exhaustive work in a one-volume study Bible.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:18

My favorite study Bible became the Zodiac's Greek Hebrew uh keyword study Bible. It's one on the shelf up there. Basically takes Strong's Concordance, overlays it into the text. Oh, fun. You got a Strong's in the back. And so, but anyway, a study Bible is like taking the scripture, and now daily you're studying the scripture, and like with the ESV study Bible or the MacArthur Study Bible, you know the notes you're reading. There's there's a trust and a confidence in those, the scholarship of those commentators. Just take the time that you would spend doom-scrolling theological YouTube channels and devote that time to studying the scripture. Yeah. And your mind will be blown at what the Lord will do.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

It's also like now you look up, I could look up what does John 3.16 mean? And immediately Google Gemini is taking resources from everything. So not just MacArthur or not just Piper or like people that you genuinely trust. And then it's formatting an answer. So you might get something that is correct. But like once again, it's just one, taking the work out of it. And like that's part of the growth. Like you said, like you're gonna grow that metabolism and hunger for the word. And I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:35

I will say when you're looking at um, and it this would be a fun conversation. I don't know this where we'll go, but when you're when you're talking about Bible translations, one thing to keep in mind is when you're looking at different Bible translations, those translations tend to, when there is the least bit of ambiguity over a doctrinal message or verse or point, they're gonna lean, their interpretation is gonna lean towards their theological framework. So, like the ESV is the Bible that's put out by Crossway. Um, the translation team at Crossway in 2001, they brought this Bible to the market. So it's gonna have, when you look at the editors, it's gonna have a reformed, a strongly reformed leaning. If you go to the Christian Standard Bible, it's put out by the people from the Southern Baptist, I think it's Holman Foundation. That's the Southern Baptist translation. So when you get to certain passages and text, it's gonna lean towards like the Southern Baptist interpretation of something. Um, and so when you're looking at Bible translations, um I think it's helpful to understand kind of where that translation comes from. One of the reasons I love the New Living Translation, it's it's more of a, it's it's a little bit more of a thought-for-thought translation. It's a whole lot more of a thought-for-thought translation. But our people know that I use it a lot. It's because um it's a little bit more objective and um and and it leaves room for those types of interpretations. Um, but then it's also easier to read. So I'll just say as you as you think about studying the scripture, the the I think the word here would be study the Bible, read the Bible, saturate your brain and and mind in the scripture, and then learn to read books and commentators and commentaries and sort resources that are gonna help you deepen your understanding of the scripture. Yeah. And we're glad to reach out to us, we're glad to direct you towards things that we find trustworthy. And and um anyway, um that was a little bit of a side trail, but I think it's helpful because all of back to all of these divisions and debates, whether it's the the the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church or the Protestant Reformation, all this surrounds the authority

Scripture Authority And Cultural Uncertainty

SPEAKER_06 33:48

of Scripture. Yeah. Which goes back to what you were saying, which you know, in the in the Catholic world, they hold to the authority of scripture and the authority of the church, which is why the Pope wields so much authority. Right. Uh his voice is so authoritative. And so the it sounds like the Orthodox Church leans in that direction as well.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Yeah, definitely. Um, and I think that again, we were talking about how so much of like internet culture has kind of led towards um this kind of apparent um revival or religious movement um, you know, towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Um, and again, we kind of talked about how the Eastern Orthodox trend is a little bit blown up. The Roman Catholic one is not so much. Like there really are a lot of people um becoming Roman Catholic, and there always have been. Um, there's always been a lot of converts passing this way and passing that way, you know. Again, I think the internet makes everything seem more immediate than it is. But a lot of it's also, um I think we talked about this last time, if you get into a place culturally where there's a lot more um uncertainty, then people are gonna run to the sure foundation they can find. And the surest foundation you can find is someone who can just tell you what truth is, you know, uh kind of point blank in the way that the Catholic Church can. It's like, hey, um, the Bible is ambiguous. You don't have to live in that ambiguity forever. It's like the church is dogmatically, authoritatively spoken about what it means. Um, and there's obviously a lot of problems with that, but um, I think there's a there's a distinct appeal in a time of of cultural ambiguity. Yeah. Um, I'm gonna use a big word and then define it. We're in something people would call an epistemological crisis, which means that we have a hard time distinguishing um what source of truth, you know, to kind of place our trust in. Um and that's kind of playing itself out in culture in all different kinds of ways. But I think one of the risks, and even talking back to the um the guy that you mentioned who kind of went on this whole religious journey, is um that when people feel unsure about things, they're gonna sprint towards that sure um assurance that hey, I'm on the right path, and all that kind of stuff. This is a little bit of a side tangent, but we also talked about it last time. So I'd love to get, I don't know if we if we cut or something like that, but we get and get back to the other thing. I was just gonna say the thing about like um when you are so much of the movement towards Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy from evangelicals is when evangelicals push political conservatism and a kind of uh cultural conservatism harder than they're pushing the scripture, yeah. You can't get more culturally conservative than an Eastern Orthodox person. Like, you're not gonna like, I mean, maybe fundamental Baptists can can throw their hat in the ring, but like, you know, um, it's hard to outdo them on some of those positions. And if your goal is to just constantly be out like I know a lot of people who are constantly trying to outdo one another and being more conservative, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Um and I feel like that's where I've seen a lot of like some people I went to high school with, a lot of like post-grad, especially guys, yeah, are like, like you said, exactly what you're describing, like kind of unsure what to do, and then just run to that, run to like that conservative conservatism. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then yeah, just like kind of fall into that orthodox or like Catholic.

SPEAKER_06 37:05

Yeah, because that group of guys you're talking about, I think y'all's generation right now uh is experiencing something that that I've watched and it's been painful to watch, and that is if you are a conservative Christian man, you are the scum of the earth in most of the the cultural movement of the last eight to ten years. You know, it's kind of like whether you're talking about intersectionality, woke ideology, progressive politics, like the the guy, the human being in America that is most ostracized is if you're a young dude who's conservative and Christian, and I think they're finding they're like, well, we'll go here because we're welcome here, and there seems to be strength in numbers here. And I think that's why the young dudes I'm talking to, they're like, I'm tired of, man, I'm tired of being. I talked to one guy, he's like, literally, I got to where I just keep my mouth shut. And he's a young black dude, he's a black conservative Christian. He's like, I just keep my mouth shut. He goes to, I think UC Berkeley, and he's like, I just don't open my mouth. I just sit still, I don't say anything. Because as soon as I open my mouth, and he's in like a he's in one of the sociology majors, so he's really immersed in that. And he's like, I just, I just keep my mouth shut. Yeah. And as dudes are tired, you can't silence dudes. There, I think Jordan Peterson talked about in his book, uh, 12 rules for life. There's a there's a chapter in there where he talks about if you oppress that demographic of people, at some point, it's gonna explode. And it's either gonna be through some cultural revolution or through violence.

SPEAKER_04 38:49

Well, you know what's interesting is we have Christian history to our benefit sometimes, you know, kind of on the counterpoint of like, you know, we're gonna talk about all the stuff where the Catholic Church can lean unhelpfully on Christian history. One of the great things we can do in this moment is look back at Christians who have faced cultural oppression and different things like that and say, what have they done to honor the Lord in that? I think that if I'm being honest, um, you you mentioned that your friend was a black conservative. If you look back at the civil rights movement, you've seen examples of Christians who have been disenfranchised and have lost their cultural power and have really honored the Lord. I think more so than we're seeing now with young white Christian men who have lost their power, a lot of lashing out, a lot of, you know, turning in on themselves, a lot of turning to other things. And you see the black church was a backbone that allowed people to have healthy biblical expressions for lament, um, but also at the same time, you know, like um peaceful protest, finding new inventive ways to try and figure out what does it mean to be loving and combative at the same time. And so it's like, hey, when we're when we're kind of wading through these waters, we're not alone in it. Um, and we're not without example in it. And so, you know, kind of in the same way Paul says in 1 Corinthians about the Old Testament, these things were written down for your instruction. Yeah. Again, I think that's more true of the Bible, but it can also be true of looking at um saints who have walked before us and saying, you know, like what have they done in these situations? Yeah. So the thing is, we are in a spot now where people are like, okay, we don't know what's next. It's like, okay, we need to look back to faithful examples of loving protest to see like what does it mean to be a godly young man who is maybe marginalized to some extent, maybe experiencing um, you know, I think it feels particularly power, uh it feels particularly bad and negative to experience a perceived loss of social and cultural power. It might even be more painful, I mean, who's to say, than just being born already at that spot, you know? Um, so anyway, that's a whole thing. But we have examples in that. And that's one of the amazing things about church history that can be so helpful, is even our most, you know, even recent church history can be a benefit to us as we kind of look back. And so one of the things that's really blessed me as a Christian is is studying um actually, Zach here on staff. He and I have a mutual friend, and he's an old testament scholar named Will Kines, but he had this kind of side hobby, which was um he used to study the role of the Old Testament in African spirituals, uh, essentially from kind of early United States period. And so because I was his research assistant, he would make me go read all these spirituals and look for certain Old Testament themes, ways they had appropriated the Old Testament to their own cultural experience. And man, I learned a ton. I was so edified because they had such a resilience about them. Like, you know, think of this as like these are kind of like the hymns behind the hymns. So you'll read a certain line and you'd be like, oh, that line's actually kind of survived in some of the, you know, even our hymns. Um, and there's just, you know, this theme of Jordan being this river you cross over into new life and stuff like that. And they're like, hey, you know, um, this person has died, or um, this person has left us to be with the Lord, but like we're gonna cross the Jordan, you know, and like God's gonna keep us the whole way. And it's just such a joyful, and I'm not pretending that like all black Christians who experienced suffering were always biblical in their response or joyful or anything like that. But like the the Christian, the things that we can read from them are such a wonderful example of what it means to be a resilient, joyful, and bold Christian who can lament the evil and injustice being done to them while holding up the scripture and saying, God's my only hope in this situation. Um, and so that's something I've been really edified by.

SPEAKER_06 42:22

Yeah, that's good. I like it. I appreciate that.

Setting Up John 6 Context

SPEAKER_06 42:26

Um the question I asked you the other night, the the question I asked you the other night is um when let me set the stage for this and we'll get your comments on it. So everybody's familiar with the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:46

Can I pull up my Bible? I'm so sorry I heard you. I'm gonna keep talking.

SPEAKER_06 42:48

Go ahead and grab it. Um so what happens, JB, I want to set the context. And I'm gonna talk to you because it's easier to talk to you than a camera. You may already know this, but we make a good team. Okay, so um Jesus feeds the 5,000, which you know, there's a discrepancy. There's a debate over was it 5,000 or was it 20,000? It says 5,000 men, whatever it was, it's a bunch of people. And uh, you know, one guy explains this miracle. This is a miracle. We believe it's a miracle, but it's been, you know, like all supernatural things, that there's always some moderate Christians that professing Christians that try to find a way to sort of tone this down. And so one of the arguments that people make, or not an argument, like an explanation, is well, what happened was this little boy comes with his food, and um when people see his expression of generosity, those others who have food are moved, and they uh everybody starts sharing, right? Well, I'll tell you where that's you know where that's rooted, you know where that comes from? No, where does it come from? You've heard that argument. I have never no. Okay. I believe that people say it. Yeah, I have. Okay. 1930s. There's a book called The Robe. Okay. I've read I read the book. It's a really good, it's a really enjoyable book. The robe is a historical fictional account of what happened to the robe that they ripped off of Jesus when they clothed him and he and it was matted to his body. And and it ends up in the hands. If I remember I read this book 20 years ago, but it ends up in the hands of like a Rome one of the ones that's you know, the cast of life. Yeah. So he ends up with it. And then it's the story of this guy's life after that. It kind of follows, it really impacts his life. He becomes a Christ follower. It's a very fun and enjoyable story. But whoever the guy was that wrote it, and I don't I don't remember now uh the guy's name, but he explains that what happened at the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 or the feeding of the multitude is that this boy brings us a little lunch, everyone's moved by this young boy's generosity. So then a lot more people there had food and they all just start to share.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:03

Which is crazy because they end up with 12 baskets left over, whatever of leftovers after everyone's eaten. So if if nothing else, the 12 baskets blow that theory out of the water. But the context is Jesus performs a miracle. He feeds a bunch of people and then he sends them all home with extra food. So people have extra food and they've got more than they need. So Jesus then leaves that area, crosses the sea, an incredible event happens that night where they're out on the sea and it's a miraculous event goes on, and Jesus with the disciples, they end up on the other side of the sea. The next day, the crowd is like, uh, where'd he go? So they make their way around the point of the sea, and they come over to where he's at and they walk up on him. And I don't know how many of them there are there, but it's a bunch. I mean, it's a big crowd. And he's like, here comes the crowd. And he's like, All right, guys, here's the deal. I know y'all are here because you just want food. You're here because I fed you. I was an awesome, I know it was an awesome miracle, and it it met a physical need because you were legitimately hungry. And we've all been there where you're so hungry and you finally get some food, and it's like really impactful. But you're just you're here for the wrong reasons and motivations. So here's here's what I'm gonna say to you the food that you need to eat is the food of my flesh, and the drink that you need to drink is the drink of my blood. So, unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you're not really following me. Well, when he says that, people are like, Oh, okay, pump the brakes. Yeah, what are you talking about? Freaks them out, and they just leave. They're like, Where and they leave. There's this mass exodus. And it tends to, the text, if I remember it, tends to almost insinuate that that he's turning, they're behind him, and then he looks and he's like, Where'd they all go? It's just he's make he'll make these statements sometimes that are for listener effect, I think. Because he knows where they all went, right? Sure. And then the disciples are like, We're still here, yeah. And so I one of the big points of contention with within Catholic doctrine is they go to John 6. And John is the only gospel that doesn't record the Last Supper, where Jesus washes the disciples' feet, gives them bread and wine, and says, This is my body. John doesn't record that, but John records, but then John's the only person that records this conversation in John 6, where Jesus says, Eat my body, my flesh, drink my blood. So I'd like to talk about that and from the Catholic perspective. There's this last thing I'll say, and then I'm gonna let you run with this. There's a really prominent Catholic social media guy, YouTuber, I think his name's Mike Schmidt.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

I think so.

SPEAKER_06 47:59

I think that's it. Father, Father Mike Schmidt. And uh guy's getting a lot of traction in the world that you were talking about with young dudes and people are really, and that guy really does have a massive following. And he recently had a video that got a, I mean, it made a lot of um, it got a lot of views or whatever, where he says, if you take John 6 and you reject that win, because one of the one of the beliefs that the Catholics hold is that belief of transubstantiation, which is when you take the Lord's Supper, the bread and the wine, the bread and the drink, that that literally in that moment becomes the actual physical body of Jesus and the blood of Jesus that you're taking. And he said, uh, if you reject transubstantiation or the Catholic doctrine surrounding the Lord's Supper, um, that you reject Jesus in John 6, and you're like the crowd that walks away. Wow. Wow. So I'd like to speak to that.

John 6 And The Real Presence

SPEAKER_04 48:54

It's true. Um, there's something called the doctrine of the real presence in the Catholic Church, which is that they really want to emphasize this is really Jesus' body. Um, this is really Jesus' blood, and we take the Lord's Supper. And there's been debates about this for um as long as Christians have been have been around, um, they've been arguing about this. And um the debates have changed a lot throughout the years. Protestants still, you know, argue amongst themselves about it, you know, Lutherans and um Reformed Christians and you know, different camps within the Baptist Church. And so it's not that like, you know, this is a super black and white issue. I think it's a really complicated issue. Um and I say that because John 6 is a complicated chapter, like a lot goes on in it. And Jesus, you're right, he's he's speaking uh in the context of this great miracle he's performed, and he uses that, like he does so often in John's gospel, as a kind of segue or as a sign or as a visible picture of what he wants to talk about next. And so, would you mind if I read the end of uh the part that people are concerned with? Jesus kind of gets, he goes from being more vague to more explicit. You know, the kind of further he goes, he keeps giving the same analogy over again, and until he finally says, around verse 54, it says, um So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds in my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds in my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. And so it seems really explicit. This is very explicit. Yeah. And so the Catholics gonna want to say to the Protestant, hey, you guys push reading the Bible literally all the time. Why would you not read that literally? Why would you try and make it a metaphor and try and get away from the meaning of it? And I think what that's doing is it's misunderstanding. I mean, there's a lot of problems with that. And so we can jump into it. This is for Catholics, this is the big issue. This is the thing. It's like they're slammed up. They're like, they're gotcha, you know, it's over. And I think that it's worth diving into a little bit because of that, um, because John 6 is so complicated and so much rests for them on this passage. Um, and Bertie, you've already said a few things that are really important here. One of the most important things about this passage is that John doesn't mention the Lord's Supper in the Gospel of John and all other gospels, all three synoptic gospels, which means Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all mention it. And if you're like, oh, maybe John just like didn't get around to it or he didn't have the opportunity to, John spends more time describing the night that that happened than in the upper room, uh, than John uh 13 through 17. It's four chapters. Yeah. And it would have been really appropriate in in the mind of the reader who who's read the the other three Gospels that in John 13, there should have been the Lord's Supper right there. And John omits it. Um we don't know why. Uh you know, you can speculate about it. There's all kinds of different you know theories and stuff. Um, but the reality is he just didn't feel the need to include it. And so a lot of Catholics will say, well, yes, he didn't do that, but he put John 6 here. He didn't cover it in 13 because he'd already covered it in John 6. And I think you have to ask this question, and this is gonna sound crazy to the listener, especially if they've just heard that that um those verses read. It's not actually super clear immediately that Jesus is talking about the Lord's Supper when he makes that point. You actually have to get there theologically. You can't just assume, well, obviously, he said flesh, he said blood. Those are the two components of the Lord's Supper. It's not universally held that it's super obvious he's even talking about that. I think one of the key reasons you can know that is because the Lord's Supper hasn't happened yet. Even though it never uh is included in John, it's in the three other synoptics, but that comes later, and it comes later in his ministry. And so he's not um he's not kind of like looking back at a Christian tradition of the Lord's Supper and saying, Hey, remember um communion you take every Sunday? Uh I'm talking about that right now. But one of the things that makes it so difficult is any Christian reader who looks back at John 6 is going to see a connection to the Lord's Supper. Yeah. And so I want to kind of make my main point up front. I think that John 6 is not about the Lord's Supper, but I think the Lord's Supper is about the contents of what Jesus is pointing to in John 6, if that makes any sense. So kind of say that another way. Um, the Lord's Supper is a picture of what Jesus did for us on the cross. John 6 is Jesus giving us a picture of what he did on the cross in giving his body for us, in giving his blood. And there's so many issues within saying, well, Jesus is talking about the Lord's Supper. It's like, no, you're confusing the sign that he's given us for the thing the sign points to. And that's actually a really common problem in a lot of Catholic doctrine is missing the gift for the giver, essentially. It's something we talk about really often. You know, Jesus gave us the Lord's Supper as a gift. It's one of the um, you know, the ordinances or the sacraments that he's given us to be a picture of what he's done for us in his death and resurrection. And baptism is the same way, and you could talk about that as well. Um, they want the grace, the physical blessing that comes from taking the Lord's Supper, the forgiveness of sins, the spiritual blessing. And that becomes more important, getting the sacramental grace than actually seeing the thing that Jesus was pointing to, which is a free gift of infinite grace in his death. And so to even think I need to be collecting, you know, this I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. So, really, um, why do I think that? Why do I think that John 6 is not pointing to the Lord's Supper and saying, literally, you need to eat my flesh in communion and drink my blood in communion in order to have eternal life in me, which is what Catholics say. You know, if you reject the real presence, um, you are rejecting Christ.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

Do Catholics take the Lord's Supper like every meeting, or is it just like special?

SPEAKER_04 54:42

This is actually, yeah, it's interesting uh that you say that because this might sound foreign to some people. You know, maybe your church practices communion every Sunday, maybe it doesn't. Um, I actually I really like taking communion every Sunday. Um, our church does it once a month, and I think that's also great. Uh you don't have to, the Bible never prescribes well, it's debated because he says as often as you meet, you know.

SPEAKER_06 54:59

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

People get into those debates, it's fine.

SPEAKER_06 55:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:01

But what people don't realize in the Protestant church while we're having all those debates is that Catholics take communion not just every Sunday they gather, but anytime they gather for Mass. And I think there's an exception to that, which might be Good Friday, kind of to symbolize that, you know, um, or maybe Saturday. One of the two. Yeah. Um, there's one exception to it, I believe. But um, a lot of Catholics, if you're like really serious about your Catholic faith, this is what my dad does, who's like super hardcore Catholic. He actually goes to Mass every single day, takes communion.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 55:28

Um, it's so important to him. And um, he hasn't done that for his whole life. He didn't do that was growing up when I was growing up, but now he has, you know, more time and he's retired, so he's he's there every day. But um what a lot of people don't realize is that communion is not something that comes after the sermon that kind of like then points to Jesus as a result of the preached word. Communion is the center of the Catholic worship service. It is the thing that everything is pointing to, it's the thing that everything's kind of flowing back out of at the end. Um the mass, the culmination of the mass, the high point of the mass is the Lord's Supper. And um, that could be true of your Protestant church. I think if you go to like a um a high church Protestant church, it might feel that way because they take a lot of their roots from um the Catholic worship service structure. But it's it's to answer your question, JB, it's super, super important to Catholics that they take communion. And um, you know, you have to have received confession. We have all those debates, but uh it's super important to them.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 56:23

And so John 6 is a really important passage for them. But I think one of the main reasons why Jesus cannot be saying it's through taking communion that you get this grace. And that's what I'm trying to communicate here by eat my flesh, drink my blood. Throughout John's gospel, consistently, time and time again, the thing that leads to eternal life is belief in Christ. He says it in John 3, he's gonna say it again here in John 6 a bunch of times in this passage. He's gonna consistently refer back to it. Belief leads to salvation in John. So for him to weirdly turn all at one moment and say, Well, actually, yeah, it's eating my flesh and drinking my blood in communion.

SPEAKER_06 57:04

Which you don't know what that is right now, as I'm telling you this, but it'll make sense later.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

Yeah, you don't know what it means. That's actually super important. Jesus will often say cryptic things in the gospel. All of them become clear in light of his death and resurrection. If what Jesus is talking about here is that he is saying, eat my flesh, drink my blood, means trust in my saving, atoning, death on your behalf, the reader after he rises up from the dead would understand that. They go back and read John 6 and say, Oh my gosh, it all makes sense. If John 6 is talking about communion, it's gonna take several hundred years of church history for John 6 to make any sense to any reader. Yeah. Um, and now the Catholic would say, well, no, they immediately saw the connection to the Lord's Supper. And I think that's actually true. I think that when John wrote this gospel, he probably knows that any Christian listening to this is gonna see a reference to the Lord's Supper. But again, I think that's because they're both pointing back to the same thing. But every other sign that Jesus does is made sense of by his death and resurrection later. He says, Destroy this temple and I'll build it up again in three days. That doesn't make any sense to his hearers. That's totally cryptic. Yep. If you looked back though, you'd be like, oh, and even, you know, John might even say he was talking about yeah. Um, or you know, and so this would be a total divergence from that, both on the point of the point of John's gospel, he makes clear that you would believe and that he constantly refers back to that. But then also, um, I think Jesus himself clarifies what he means in those terms. And back in verse 35, we didn't read this, but it says, Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. So he doesn't say whoever eats me will not hunger, whoever drinks me will not thirst. He equates here the eating with coming and the drinking with belief. So it's approaching Jesus in faith and trusting in him. And you know what's funny? One of the most important Catholic theologians, probably I would say Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo are the two most important Catholic theologians to have ever existed. And Augustine, when he's reading this, says, um, it's very clear to him that Jesus is talking about belief here and not a sacramental grace received through the Lord's Supper, because Augustine has this quote where he says, Um, whoever believes has already eaten. Whoever believes has already eaten. And what he means by that is everything that the Lord's Supper is pointing to is accomplished in belief and then depicted or pointed to through the ordinance that Jesus gives us, through the sacrament that Jesus gives us. Sacraments, Jesus knows, the God knows that we are um we are people who are benefited and blessed by stories and pictures, and we need more than words to see sometimes the full picture of what God's doing. And so all throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, He's giving us pictures of his grace. And again, you cannot confuse the picture for the thing that the picture is trying to point you to. Um, because Jesus is attempting to paint for us when he gives us the Lord's Supper, that's a visible reminder. Um, I used to uh a pastor I trained under would say that the promises that God has made to us is as real as the bread in your hand, and it's as real as the juice to the wine in this cup. Um, and so it's a visible picture of what Jesus has done for us in breaking his body on the cross and in spilling his blood on the cross. A few other key points here, and then I want to hear what y'all think about that, get any kind of other additional questions, kind of on the differences between the Lord's Supper, or maybe one of the key points in favor of he's not pointing directly to what he does in the Lord's Supper, is that even like you said, Brady, a minute ago, in the institution of the Lord's Supper in the Gospels, and when Paul cites it in 1 Corinthians, um, you get this language of my body broken for you. But here, Jesus actually doesn't refer to his body at any point, he refers to his flesh. And so again, it's it doesn't necessarily, you know, you can't uh go home just with that one argument, you know. But at the same time, it is a picture of like, hey, this isn't just a direct reference that Jesus is making. This is a separate, like new thought almost, that then later becomes kind of uh codified, which means systematized in the the full Christian ordinance of the Lord's Supper. And so, um, but this is happening before all those events take place. It doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't know them or have them in mind already, sure. Um, and that the early Christian readers of this wouldn't have had it in mind, but it's to show you it's not like a one-for-one, just like everything he says here is true of the Lord's Supper. You know, you kind of have to make that um connection yourself as the reader.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

Yeah, I think that's good. I've never like thought about communion literally wasn't a thing when he said this. Like that's a really good point right there.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:35

Yeah, that's helpful. I um it's funny. We we take the Lord's Supper once a month at our church, and we take it the first Sunday of the month, and I always preach the first Sunday of the month. Oh yeah. So every time I preach at Red Oak, we're taking the Lord's Supper. I've always thought, man, I got that's kind of a a good deal for me. Oh, yeah. Like I it I didn't set it up that way, nobody did it intentionally. It's just the way it all lined up, and I'm like, this is awesome. Now, the trade-off is that service is always a little longer. Sure. So I gotta be a little more mindful of sermon length, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:04

But uh but having the table at the book end, so like having communion at the book end of your sermon, I think one thing that's so helpful about that is that um having the Lord's Supper as a part of our Christian worship service is that it's constantly, so this is maybe like a point in favor of doing it consistently at least, is um a sermon that doesn't introduce grace as clearly as it needed to is gonna fall flat in front of the Lord's table. Like, how could you go up and break the body and drink the cup together if grace wasn't preached in the sermon? It doesn't make any sense. And so for the preacher, even to have that kind of like that back end of like, we're gonna be painting a visible picture of what I needed to be talking about, you know. Um, and as much as like, you know, the Lord wants to instruct us through uh, you know, he instructs us in his word. He doesn't just um kind of talk about grace in every individual instance, he has a lot of just real good practical um things he wants us to do and holiness to to live into, but um the Lord's Supper is a picture of yes, you failed in what we've talked about today, but Jesus didn't, kind of like you talked about in your sermon. Um, and so it's just a wonderful picture of going back to that. Yeah. So I never want to downplay the Lord's Supper. It's a wonderful gift from Christ to us, uh, a picture of what he's done for us.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:14

Yeah, and I I think a lot of churches, you know, they'll do it like Christmas and Easter. Maybe maybe once a quarter, and I think, man, you're missing out on a huge blessing. Um I would vote for doing it every week. Um, but when we discussed it within our church leadership, everybody's like once a month kind of landed on once a month. And I think trying to find that balance of appreciating it, yeah, it not becoming mundane. Right, right, right. I get it. Yeah, but I'd like to do it every week. Sure.

Communion Practices And Reverence

SPEAKER_06 1:03:44

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

This is just me being curious, but what does communion look like in the Catholic Church? Like, I'm used to like you know, the little plastic cups and the little saltine cracker. Yeah. Is it different?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:54

It is, and it's it's actually um high church Protestants, which just means fancy Protestants, essentially, you know, like if you go to an Anglican church uh or a high church Anglican or maybe like a really traditional Presbyterian church, big PCA churches, it might look more like the Catholic version does, but there's a shared cup, a literal shared cup. Again, I'm about to say some things that are like you might be like, hey, that's pretty cool. And I don't think they're bad, you know. Um and so again, there are a lot of Protestants and Catholics who do this, but there's definitely uh a lot of reference around it. There's a shared cup. So I used to be a communion server when I was in the Catholic Church. Um I think I was you can start doing it around like 10 or 11. So it's pretty young sometimes. And um, you have the shared cup, everyone drinks from it. So you go and you get the the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, which is their word for the body, the um, the piece of bread. I think they ship them in, but they're little wafers and they have a little cross on them, and you eat it. It tastes like paper, tastes like nothing. Um and then you go and you walk and you get the wine. It's always wine in the Catholic Church. Uh, we know it's different. Some people do wine, some people do juice, some Protestants. And one thing that's so funny is I think people freak out when they say, like, oh, you all drink from one cup. And uh, it's funny because when you when you do it, I think it's just to make people feel a little bit more comfortable. But what you're trying to do is you turn the cup one quarter and then you wipe and you turn, but it's like, okay, hundreds of people are coming through here. You can only turn four times before you're back at the same spot again. But um and you're wiping with a little cloth that's just smearing the germs into the but I had a um I had a uh uh a church history professor who was, I think he was Methodist, but like you know, high church Methodist probably would have done some things really similar to the Catholic Church. And I was kind of asking him, it was around COVID time, so people were really you know fearful of uh all this kind of stuff. And I'm gonna be honest, he was kind of a germaphobe, but even he was like, Oh, the wine will kill it. So he was just he was he was dead set. Like, we're keeping this, you know. Um this is just kind of funny, but uh that he is yeah, yeah. He was he was he was dead set on that.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:52

That's not something they were gonna negotiate. Nope. It's crazy. I did it uh, I've taken it at the church before. World where uh they break off a piece of bread. It was a it was a Presbyterian church. Uh my grandmother went to a Presbyterian a PCA church. Break off a piece of bread, take that bread, when you get to the cup, you dip it up. Intinction is the word for it. Intinction. Intinction. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:17

Um, can I make one comment about this? Yeah. It actually connects to being at camp this week and what I've been talking to a lot of our students about. One of the awesome things about coming to camp here is that so many different churches are here who look so different, like culturally. We're from different places. And a lot of my students are getting exposed to different um, yeah, just like different ways that Christianity looks culturally. You know, some people are more of like that deep Southern Baptist, and some people, you know, we're coming from like a kind of like a reformed non-denom context. And I've just told them being exposed to other Christians who don't go to the same church as you is so helpful because you get just to see that there's so many different pictures of what Christianity looks like. And um, one thing with communion, a lot of people get really caught up. People who want to convert to Catholicism, they're just like, it seems so much more reverent. What they do seems so much more honoring to God in the way they're so like excessive, honestly, with their reverence. Like every time you get into a pew, which I don't know why, now that I think about it, but every time you get into a pew in the Catholic Church, you turn, every Catholic turns to wherever the communion bread is. So even if it's before church, it's off to the side in like a golden tabernacle-looking thing. Um, I can't remember what they're called, but you turn to the pew and you, it's called genuflex. So essentially you would curtsy or bow if you're a man to it, and then you would get into the pew and you'd sit down.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

And every time you leave, every time you sit down. And so it's like that hyper level of reverence is really powerful. It's religiously powerful to people. But I this gets into a conversation that I'm super, I just get super excited about because it's so obvious to people that that's something that's like really positive. But I had a friend who got back from um Jerusalem, he was there, and he saw a lot of um Muslim expressions of worship, and then he saw a lot of Jewish expressions of worship, you know, at the Wailing Wall and all these different things. And he grew up in Texas as a Baptist, and he was like, John, he was one of my roommates in college. He said, I'm kind of blown away. Yeah. Um, that was an undeniably powerful religious experience I had watching those people. I don't identify with their faith, I'm a Christian. And I told him, I was like, man, those are objectively powerful religious symbols. A symbol can be objectively powerful without being true, frankly, though, is another thing that's really important to know. Um one thing that's cool in the Old Testament thinking about this is that God, at one point, when He commands them to build an altar, at so many points in Genesis and in the Pentateuch, it's the first five books, he commands them, you will build this altar of uncut stones because of the way that cut stones, beautiful images, can be such a distraction to us. Um, one funny story from the Catholic Church about this is that in Augustine's time, uh, you know, people are singing and there's instruments and stuff like that in worship, and people had become so nitpicky and they were always complaining about worship and things like that. Like, oh, this guy was playing his instrument wrong and it was distracting to me. And eventually Augustine, as kind of a um the head of the church, was just like, in that area at least, uh, he's like, enough. We're chanting from now on. We're just doing voice, we're a cappella. You guys keep complaining. Within I don't know how many decades, now a cappella is like, that's the revered, like, no instruments, just chanting. So now you get all this Gregorian chanting and stuff like that. It sounds so cool. The only reason why they did that is because like they were just choosing it over another. You know, the origin of that was not we're gonna be referring to God, but we're gonna try and do whatever's most helpful and least distracting. Yeah. Because in the Old Testament, you have these two contrasting images. Sometimes God tells them to build an altar of uncut stone, and then other times he gives them the paradigm for the tabernacle, the temple. That's this beautiful image that reveres God.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:47

And it's so funny. Um, you know, they have to destroy the bronze serpent later in the Old Testament because it had become an idol and a distraction. And so you see that thing from Calvin, you know, the human heart is a factory of idols. We're able to idolize anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:59

Yeah, and even uh this is fascinating. Yeah. In the New Testament, uh Paul takes Titus and he takes Timothy. Sure, sure. Yeah, he prayed again. Timothy circumcised. Right. He does not allow Titus to be circumcised. And he says, Timothy's gonna be circumcised, because it's Paul who would say, I'll be all things to all people. That by any means, I might I may save some. So in Timothy's context of where he's gonna lead and worship and minister, Paul sees that it would be beneficial for him to identify with the Jewish uh tradition of circumcision. Titus, it's the opposite. He sends Titus to Crete, the island of Crete, to establish churches and appoint elders in every town, and he doesn't allow him to be circumcised. So you see this, it's I think this is so important throughout scripture where people will take one thing that God says or does and they'll fixate on it, but then they've missed the fact that in another passage he does it differently.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:57

And is the it's it's more what is the meaning and message of grace in this? And how does this apply to the advancing work of the gospel?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:04

That's so good. Yeah. Because Paul says in Galatians, he says circumcision and uncircumcision are nothing but keeping the commandments of God. How offensive that would have been to a Jewish person who's like, circumcision is the commandment of God. You can't say that, Paul. It's so crazy. But Paul's like, no, you don't understand where we are now. It's like um the true freedom we have in Christ. But I say all that to say that, like when, you know, a lot of church plants, you know, that you know, say they're in like a not a shopping mall, but a uh, what do you call it when there's like Walmart and there's like a bunch of other stories? A strip mall. Yeah, they're churches that meet in strip malls, yeah. They're not, you know, there's an objectively powerful image to that. You know, it's like we're just we're in the dirt, like we're just doing the Lord's work. There's nothing glorious about this, we're just putting it all together and tearing it all down and stuff like that. Like there's power in both images, but when Baptists historically, at least, you know, um speaking from like a Baptist context, when Baptists historically have avoided some of the things that are more um ornate, you know, or some of those images, they're not doing it because the religious image um isn't powerful. They're avoiding some of those things because the religious images are so powerful that they want to kind of rightly regulate the use of some of these things and our worship because they can be so distracting. And so, again, these are things that God has left up to our freedom as Christians. Um, we can choose to honor him in all different kinds of ways, but to then demand those forms of honor or to say that other forms of Christianity are not honoring to God because of it. Paul has explicit words for us about that. Yeah, constantly he's warning us not to do things like that. And that's what Catholics are are very prone to do. And I think a lot of people who converted just like they kind of make it a personal preference thing, the way that so many conversations go today, you know, where they're just like, I just feel like it's more honoring to God to do it this way. There's a certain level of freedom you have in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

But it can be a dangerous trap on the one side. Um, and I think a lot of people, you talked about this last time. There's a lot of danger sometimes in the ways that certain Protestant worship practices can be cheap or corny or cheesy that really at some point might not honor God. In the same way that the kind of whitewashed tomb, empty performance cannot honor God in the Catholic or the higher church traditions. You know, um, we have to really be careful in everything we do that we're doing it to the honor of God and that we're doing it in love and in freedom towards our other brothers and sisters.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:20

Um last thought on that that I want to share.

Ceremony, Worship, And Empty Symbolism

SPEAKER_06 1:13:25

Yesterday I went to a funeral of a local man. Uh he was 90 years old, lived a good long life. His wife died one year ago this week. He died one year later, and so he was a Navy veteran. He was in the Navy from 1954 to 1958, and he was like worked in the mail room. Okay. They're not making action movies about that guy. No, he worked in the post office on the ship in a non-wartime Navy, okay? From the time he was 18 to 22. He dies at 90. You do your history. We were not we were in the Cold War, it was ramping up in 1954, but we weren't at war, right? Korea was over, World War II was over, Vietnam was a decade away. He's just cruising around probably Florida on a ship delivering mail. Yeah. Okay. They buried him with full naval honors, and I cried, I wept yesterday because the the the ceremony starts. Um, and I knew this man well, and and he never talked about his naval service. And he had a flag on a pole in his yard, but everybody does, you know. So but the service starts, and I'm sitting there on the back row because I'm dressed in camp, I'm dressed in a t-shirt, I'm run from camp, run over there, just jump in. It's a it's a pretty traditional church. It's a Methodist church, real traditional. I sit down in the back and the door opens, and I see this guy come walking in, and he's in full. The Navy wears the white, these white uniforms. Yeah. It's like this white uniform with his metal stuff, and he comes walking in and he makes this like pronouncement about this guy. And then they open the door. You can hear the front doors of the church open. It's a beautiful day yesterday, and you hear they do the 21-gun salute right outside the church. Ready, aim, ready, boom, boom. And it's I mean, the people in front of me, there was a couple old ladies in front of me. I mean, they about had a heart attack. And so um, as soon as it's over, they play taps on this trumpet right outside, okay? And I'm just like, and and it's it's stirring me. Like this is a powerful moment. And then these two naval officers walk down the aisle, one of them's in the suit, but the other dude's about your age. He's mid-20s. Yeah, he's super fit. I'm like, if they want to put a dude on the poster for Navy recruitment, put this put this kid on there. Because he's like, boom, boom, boom. He's got shoulder. That's awesome. You know, just the collar, the little round, that little round hat that would look so goofy if you saw anybody wearing it in any other context. But it was powerful. And they comes down there. This man had two brothers, both friends of mine. They take they take a flag. There's no coffin because he was cremated. I wondered how they're going to do the flag because typically it would they would drape the coffin, then fold the flag. The flags are in a triangle then the triangle fold like that one. And they're uh sitting on the on the table down front, the communion table, I guess. The the one naval guy, and they got white gloves on, he picks the flag up, he holds the flag like this. The other guy goes, boom, does a triangle, he's checking the flag, right? It's folded properly. He then, and it's all real, uh it's it's like very artistic and poetic and fluid, and he and he's and he turns it flat and sticks it out, and the guy goes and he's examining the flag, right? Then he flips the triangle upside down, so now the flag's upside down folded, and the guy looks at it, and this guy looks at it, runs his hand along the top, and goes like this, and it's just real formal. They then unfold the flag. It's super like it's like a dance, it's like choreographed poetry. When they get the flag unfolded, they turn it where everyone can see it this way, they turn it this way, they refold it. Every time the dude folds it, he takes his hand and he does this, right? Holds it all the way up. When he's done folding it, he goes back through the holds it here. This guy looks at it, examines it, holds it twisted to then he and he hands it to this guy, this guy holds it this way, holds it this way, and the other guy now examines it. Then the officer turns and takes a knee and goes like this. He holds it out to oh one other thing.

unknown 1:18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:09

Each one of them, when they're examining it from the other guy, after he examines it, he stands at full attention, does a slow salute. He then takes a knee, extends it to the first son, and says, Um, sir, on behalf of the president of the United States, the citizens of a grateful nation, and the Department of Navy, we regret the loss of your loved one, but we thank you for his service, his sacrificial service. And then he gives the flag to this dude. They do the exact same thing all the way through again for the other brother with the flag. I sat there and I sat there and cried, and I'm like, why am I crying? This dude was a mailman in the Navy who served in 1954.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:48

And I just know him is Don, the guy that lived up on the hill. Sure. The ceremony of all the like the ceremonious moment of all that, and the two sons are just weeping. Yeah. And I talked to him afterwards, and I was like, dude, the only time you got emotional was with the flag thing. He's like, I've never been so proud in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:05

And I'm like, there's something, God has woven something into our hearts to desire that. And it it makes sense to me, especially that young men are being drawn to the ceremonial facet and aspect of Catholicism and the Orthodox Church or high church. And there's something, I will say this, for me, there's something that falls short in a super contemporary worship service. Sure. And I wrestled with that for years because I was like, is it just because I'm I grew up in this fundamental world, or is it just because I'm an old man? I'm like, no, there's something sacred that I think sometimes is missed.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:41

Yeah. But I think there's something so I'm so sorry to cut you off.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:45

Go ahead. Well, the last thought, and then I'll hear what you guys say is I think where what you were describing a while ago, um, it's looked at as sort of this sacred, reverent moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:59

This is a moment of worship. I think what the younger generation tends to do is look at it rather than that, they would say, Well, I'm in a relationship with Jesus. And these are relational expressions. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm raising my hands, or I'm you know and and there's not again, there's nothing wrong with that. I think either can be helpful, but either can also be distracting or can take you away from the heart of worship. There needs to be the sacred and the reverent.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:27

There also needs to be expressions of love. Um, and so I think that's what we're striving to find. I don't I don't want to pick a side or criticize either side, but I think it's worth noting both ditches are dangerous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:39

Those are both, I would say they they should be tools in some sense. Yeah. Because on the other side, I mean, there's something so bad. When you're in a worship service, and this I know a lot of us need to repent of just overly critical hearts towards worship services. So I'm not trying to espouse that or to encourage people to be like super demeaning or critical or always nitpicking their church service. Do not do that. But when we just notice there's an objective cheapness to this and unthought-throwness to it, that's a bad feeling. But then there's also something very insidious and evil about pomp and circumstance that's devoid of the truth. And that's, you know, like the whitewash tomb thing. Jesus gets so consistently angry about that. Yeah. You know, Mark 13, one sticks at me all the time. The disciples are walking around looking at the beautiful buildings in Jerusalem. Jesus has just been watching a woman give her last pennies and watch religious leaders watch her. And in in the Old Testament, there's a there's a system in place where, yes, there's a commentary in that passage on give your last two cents and you can honor God and giving a little, and they can, you know, she honored him because she gave out of her lack. Yes, and in the old testament, she's not supposed to be in that situation in the Jewish law. And so Jesus has just watched that. The disciples are walking around Jerusalem looking at all these beautiful, uh uh, this beautiful city, these beautiful buildings, and he says, I'm gonna tear every stone down of this city. And it's so it's like you can't trust the institution. It's intense, it's intense.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:11

That's intense in that context.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:14

Yeah. He's just watched this. He's about to curse the fig tree. He's about to the only it's not senseless anger. I don't think Jesus ever acted out of senseless anger. He's gonna curse the fig tree like that. He's gonna curse the fig tree in second. He's gonna, yeah, he's gonna he does all of that in the context of this woman who really should have been cared for by them and wasn't. It shouldn't have been down to two pennies. And it's God's people who let it happen. And it just makes him so angry. And so it's like we can never just run to an empty symbol. And so it's like, I'm not saying that Catholicism is purely devoid of meaning. I think there's a lot of, again, beauty and and meaning, and wherever the word is preached, there really is true heartwork being done. I really did come to faith there, and there was so much empty symbolism when I did, and so much of my faith was pure performance. Is that true for so many Protestants? Of course it's true for so many Protestants. Like God wants us to think critically about his word and to really ask ourselves what is the heart of why I'm doing this. One thing that's so important there is that so many younger Christians, and I could put myself in that boat too, you know, in some sense, and so many of us don't know yet what is true and what isn't true. We're just looking at symbols. Is this a powerful symbol or not a powerful symbol? You have to train yourself in God's word to be able to discern good from evil, right from wrong. Having your consciences trained to be able to discern these things, scripture says. Um, we want to be able to see these things rightly. They're so important. I don't think there's anything more important we could give ourselves to than studying God's word so we can see how we're to worship him. Um, you know, I think something that's so obvious about the Old Testament is that God cares about how his people worship him. So, yes, sometimes the empty symbolism of the the the Protestant church sometimes, I think it can be an offense to God. And the empty symbolism of um, you know, kind of high church pomp is an offense to God. We want to be honoring God in the way that we worship him. And so, yeah, it's just um That's good. They're both, yeah, they're both so real.

Final Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_06 1:24:06

Uh that's a great place to stop. Yeah, unless you've got something else you want to ask. I that that picture of Jesus saying that in the context of the the the widow lady with the two coins. Yeah, um, yeah, that's a good that's a good word and a challenging word.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:22

For sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:23

Anything else you want to add? Oh, thank you guys so much. Yeah, man. Thanks for coming and um it it it's very helpful. I think I think people are gonna really enjoy this episode. I've really enjoyed this conversation. So thanks, guys. Um yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:37

Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.