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All right, we should be live. This is about whether pastors should get paid. Actually, it's about how much pastors should get paid. But I have a couple things I got to say, like as a, as a disclaimer about myself and my own history of being paid. Hold on a second. First cat cam. There she is. Here's Mika. Decided to join us. She's hanging out. That's her. She's right there. All right, there's the cat cam. You guys are often asking for more cats, but I don't force them to hang out. If they wander in the room, then they do, and if not, sometimes she likes to chill on her little spot here. Anyways, I was paid. Let's talk about this question is how much should pastors get paid? And I don't say should they get paid. I say how much should they get paid? Because whether pastors should be paid or not is not really debatable. Biblically speaking. Yeah, they should be paid. The question is going to be how much? What is an appropriate amount? And I think for pastors also, like, if they're not paid, how should they respond to that? Or if a pastor feels that they're underpaid. I want to talk about that too. Towards the end, you know, pastors who are watching who what? I sure may stir up a feeling of difficult feelings because you look at the retirement you don't have, you look at the stuff you want for your family and to provide for and care for your kids, and you're lacking there. Or some pastors may be watching this right now. You live in a parsonage that's owned by the church. They pay you fairly little. Whether this is by design or just because the church has no funds and you see your retirement coming and you think, I don't know what I'm going to do. That's actually a lot more common. We have more pastors in poverty or at least in very low income situations than we do rich pastors. Because I think most pastors are probably underpaid. And that's okay. I mean, I mean, they can be content with that. Even if you're underpaid. You can be content whether you're a pastor or someone else. You can be content when you have less. That's okay. But let's talk about it. So I do not mean this kind of thing right here, hold on, let me show you. This is TD Jakes Hillsong paid TG Jakes close to almost $150,000 for one day. Speaking. That's obscene. That's ridiculous. That's wrong for a number of reasons and I'm not getting into that. We're talking about local church pastors, pastors who are serving in their local church fellowships. How much are they going to get paid? What does scripture say about it? It does actually talk about it. A lit. A lit. A lot. A lot. It talks about it a lot. I think I need more coffee. I apologize. Who knows what I'm going to say next. Okay, Mormons. Speaking of whatever I'm going to say next, Mormons often take pride in the idea that they don't pay their bishops. Now, there are people who make money in the Mormon church, but not the bishops like the closest equivalent they have to, like a Christian pastor. And they'll often take pride in this. It's a tremendous point of pride and Mormon superiority. They'll all the time put it in comments and stuff and talk about Christians as though they're all hirelings, Christian pastors, that sort of thing. That's very unbiblical. Right. This is just a false pride thing. It'd be almost like the Catholic Church bragging about all of their priests being celibate, not having kids or being married. This is not something to brag about. This is just something that is you forced upon people through tradition and traditional rules and rituals turn into policies for the church that are not actually biblical or healthy for individuals. Okay. Paul did have, however, have a ministry habit where he didn't receive money. So let's talk briefly about that. This is. By the way, I'm Mike Winger. If this is your first time, I just talk like, you know who I am. I'm Mike Winger. I create content helping people learn to think biblically about everything. I try to walk through actual specific verses to help you not just know what my conclusions are, but to come to your own conclusions because you see it in the text yourself. I tackle hard questions. I tackle stuff your church probably won't handle on Sunday mornings. Not that they're wrong for it, but not every topic fits on a Sunday morning. I can't see too many pastors doing a teaching on how much they're supposed to get paid. So Here we go. Second Thessalonians 3, 8. But before I'll take you there, I did mention I want to tell you a little bit about my history there. So I've been in ministry since I was 18, doing ministry since I was 18. Now, does that mean I've been on staff? No. I was initially brought in as the youth intern for my church when I was I was 19 when I actually got a position where I was like official and I was getting, I think it was $200 a month. That was the paid position I got. That's all the church could afford, I think. I don't know. I don't know what their budget was really. And it was just. I was under minimum wage for the number of hours I was putting in to do youth ministry for sure. But they were doing that and I was happy to do that. I did that for like seven months until they finally hired someone else to be like the full time guy after that. And then I just did a lot of volunteer stuff. I did years where I was never on staff. I wasn't getting paid, but I would, I could put in 20, 30 hours or more, many times more of ministry in a week. I would work part time jobs. Like I had a job at in and out for years and I worked part time there. I didn't actually work that many hours because I was volunteering for ministry for many hours a week, 30 or more hours a week. So I was scraping by. Okay, I was not getting paid for any of this. Just years go by. I was leading young adults at our church. Years go by. Then I got hired as a youth pastor in 2006 and I stepped in at my old church at Hosanna, where I'm not there anymore, but wonderful place, but I get hired in and for the first year I was being paid very, very low. I don't remember the amount. I would probably share it with you for the sake of disclosure here, but I don't remember. Um, I, I actually, it's, it's not even. It's weird because I'm sharing this with the whole world. Everybody gets into your business and it is kind of awkward, but I was being paid some really small amount and I, I couldn't even pay my, my car insurance, my registration, my gas and my food and live for free at my mom's house and still in my room. I wasn't able to even make it then. Even then my, my savings was dwindling and so I, after a year I had to go get a job. So I got a job working outside the church and, and then it was, I was volunteering. So I still was youth pastor. I was still officially on staffish. I wasn't really on staff, I was not paid, but I was still the youth pastor. So I still did all the youth pastor stuff. I still taught multiple times a week and all the stuff that came with that. But it was just in addition to my full time job. So I wasn't as available for ministry. I did that for a year, a little over a year. And then one of our pastors left to plant a church and that opened up a staff position for me and they brought me in. Still kind of scraping by. All right, around that time we got married. We're living in Southgate, which is not a great neighborhood. For those who know we lived in Southgate because we couldn't afford to live in a better place. And we still scraping by. We're Googling like what's the cheapest possible dinner you can make? You guys have experienced this in your life where you're googling cheaper foods that you can make. Split pea soup turned out to be a delicious and incredibly inexpensive meal. You just get a ham hock and then carrots and onions and the bag of split peas and whatever else. Garlic of course. So that was the season we were in there for a while. And there was times where I worked other jobs during this time. I would teach guitar lessons on the side. So I would have like 1, 2, 3 guitar lessons a week that I would do where every week I would meet with someone and teach them how to play guitar and other stuff. I've worked for a bunch of other different small job companies. There was a time where I drove for Uber and then my salary slowly started coming up, but wasn't able to even begin saving for retirement as a pastor. I never began saving for retirement until in recent years. In recent years. And I'm not a pastor anymore, at least not technically. I'm still ordained. Legally I'm a pastor, but I'm not doing the role of a pastor in the local church. I serve here and there, but. But my primary role is online ministry. And I consider this, I'm a minister. I just don't consider that eldership in the local church because it has a special definition. Okay, so that's kind of like the quick rundown. Most pastors I've known through the years, and I've known quite a few, if anything, they tend to be underpaid. And sometimes someone's paid well, and usually that's the senior pastor. But many churches have more than one pastor, not just the senior. They tend to be underpaid, not overpaid. Now, Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3, 8, he talks about how he didn't get paid. And he's boasting about it. He's talking about in a positive way. And he says, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with toil and labor, we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. This is his policy. When he would do missions, Paul was not just a guy who, who is stationed in an existing body of Christ. The way I have been in all the churches I've served in the way that most pastors are, this was missions and outreach that Paul was doing. Now, when churches send out missionaries, they often don't want them to be a burden to the communities. And so they'll support them, they'll pay them. Those missionaries will also often get jobs if the government allows them to, because some governments won't allow someone to work if they don't have certain immigration status. And, and so they will work and they will get money from others in order to avoid being a drain on the community, but also to be a witness. You don't want to walk out and say, I have the gospel for you. Can I have 20 bucks? I'm hungry. It's a bad witness. Paul had that same philosophy. He says, we didn't eat anyone's bread without paying. With toil and labor, we worked night and day. That we might not be a burden to any of you. But he clarifies this is not because pastors don't have, or ministers, even evangelists don't have a right to make money off the work that they do. It was not because we don't have that right, but to give you and ourselves an example to imitate. He has a right to say, I'm working, I should be paid for my labors. Everybody knows this. But sometimes when it comes to pastors, we act like there's some sort of alternate version of human hey, Pastor, I want you to work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And there was plenty of times I've done 70 hour weeks for ministry and you should just do it for free for the love of God. And yet at the same time, we'll say that if that man doesn't provide, according to First Timothy, if a man doesn't provide for his own household, for his own family, he's worse than an unbeliever. So, hey, Pastor, you're responsible for being an incredible available example, but you also have to provide for your family, but we shouldn't pay you for the work you're doing. This is a very ungodly reaction to people in ministry. Now, it's true that guys like TD Jakes make me want to throw open my mouth and they should, because this is clearly an overstep, clearly an immoral and wrong thing. But pastors should be paid. There is a right to be paid there. And Paul, he says, I have that right. But they didn't do it. They didn't do it, Paul. Instead, what he did was he worked as a tentmaker, but he didn't always work as a tent maker. He didn't get all his money from tent making. Some people think he did, but that's actually not the case. Okay, so 2 Corinthians 11, 8, 9. I say tent making because Paul literally made tents. That's what he did as a side job, but he didn't get all of his money through side work. Second Corinthians 11, 8. He says, I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. We know that Paul would work, but he also took mission support from other churches, which means he was being financially supported to do work for ministry, not even by people he was currently ministering to. That's what missions is. This is what missionaries do. They come to a home church and they go maybe on stage and they give an update. Hey, we've been doing missionary work in this country. Here's how it's going. Here's where our needs are. And that church will sometimes bring them support. And Bible Thinker supports a lot of missions. When we have a surplus of funds, it doesn't just increase my wage at the end of the year. We give significant amounts of money over to missionary work because thinking biblically is preaching the gospel and bringing the truth of Jesus, who is the center of Scripture, bringing that to people so they can be saved. We want to see people come to Christ. So we often. Bible Thinker, my ministry will support a lot of missions work in this way as well. And I think that that's good. So pastors, they have a right because every worker has a right to be paid. That's what scripture says about work in general. But then we get to the question of how much, how much should they be paid Now, I'll talk about that in a second. Let me show you this verse about not withholding money from people who labor. This is what's true of pastors, is what I'm saying. What's true of pastors is the same thing that's true of your plumber or anybody else who is expending their energy and their skill and their time in order to serve you is that they should be paid for that in general, okay? People can do things for free. They're certainly welcome to do that. We don't want to have this exchange Relationship. That's weird. Every time someone does something for you, you feel like you owe them. But. But we're talking about people who are in a position of this guy's not just volunteering to help out with a church for a weekend or something, but rather this is his job. Like he can't get another career. For many pastors, that is their whole career, they don't get the work experience and the training needed to do other types of careers because they've decided to do ministry as a full time thing. And them especially, they need to be paid. So Malachi 3, 5, it says, God speaking of judgment to Israel, says, then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against. And he lists things, sorcerers against adulterers, against those who swear falsely against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages. There's others here as well. But holding back what you should pay people who are working for you is a specific thing that's called out as sin that God judges in Scripture. And I understand that churches sometimes don't have the funds to pay their leadership. And there's all sorts of varieties of ways to do this. Some pastors are part time, some are full time, some are extreme part time, some are so part time that you would never even think to offer them some pay. Or maybe they're just so well taken care of because they have a job that's paying very well that they say, I don't want it, I don't want it, there's no need. And that's fine, right? Because that's them, as Paul did, giving up a right that they have for reasons they have. That's a just and good thing to do. But if the church has the funds and the church is withholding them from paying their leadership decent wages, this has taken me years to come to this. Okay, I wouldn't have said this 10 years ago, 15 years ago, certainly not 20 years ago, I wouldn't have said this. I realize now because now with Bible Thinker, I'm not just an employee, I'm an employer. That's the way this whole ministry is effectively. Like it's small, there's like three employees. But I started to have to make decisions as an employer. And so I start thinking when I'm choosing health insurance that this is going to affect Sarah, my assistant, and the things that she needs, when she needs support for her health, when I'm thinking about how we're going to handle pay raises, and I'm thinking about like inflation and cost of Living increases and things like this. And I don't, I don't make those decisions for myself. I can't make them for me because that's conflict of interest. So the board has to make those kinds of decisions for me and I stay out of that. But I can make decisions for others. And I started to realize that this is what the church has always been to its pastors. The church has always been the employer of the pastor when they're full time or part time, if they're in some sense on staff. And the church is making decisions about the health and well being and the ability of him to take, to send his kids to school or to take care of his extended family as they get older, to move into an area that is hopefully a little bit better than that area over there or something like that. These are decisions that they make and changes the way you process stuff. So don't oppress that worker or his wages is the idea. But scripture actually gets more specific. And probably the most important verse to talk about paying leaders, I think, and it's sensitive, but keep in mind, this isn't even about my wage because I'm not a pastor on staff at a church. This isn't affecting. It allows me to have a little bit of distance there. Okay, I'm not on staff at a church. At least I'm not here pitching. And never once in my many years of being in church ministry did I ever sit down and say, you guys need to pay me more. I didn't do that. I know of a guy who would do this, like every couple years. He would sit down and have a meeting and he would bring a spreadsheet and he would show why he thought he deserved a pay raise and he got them. And he ended up getting paid a lot more than pay anyways. I just didn't. I didn't. That's not the way I do things, right or wrong. I'm uncomfortable with that stuff. So I would just be like, oh, Lord, I hope you provide. And I would just get a side job if I felt like I needed more, which we often did. So, excuse me. 1 Timothy 5:17. This is the verse that weighs in most heavily on the question of how much to pay a pastor, an elder, a person who's serving in ministry in a way that makes it obvious, yeah, they should be compensated for that. Look how much time and energy they're putting in. It says here, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. And I think that every word in that phrase is really important. Including the caveat at the end, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. Why think this is about money? Why is double honor considered something about money? Well, verse 18 is the thing that makes it the most clear. It says, for the Scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. I got to tell you something, as a side note, Paul here says Scripture and quotes two different sources. And the first one is the Old Testament. Okay, he's quoting the Old Testament as scripture. It's not like it became Scripture later on. It was already. And he is quoting the Gospel of Luke as scripture now. He's not just quoting Jesus. You might think Paul just knows Jesus says the laborer deserves his wages. No, Paul is quoting Luke when he says Scripture. That word means writings. Paul is quoting Luke and calling it scripture. In the first century, people have been saying, and we'll continue saying it forever, that we didn't have the New Testament, didn't really exist. They didn't really have a Bible till like 400 years, 300 years later. Then they had a Bible. That's not what Paul thought. See, they didn't have Revelation yet. They didn't have certain things. But they did already have a reception of at least the Gospels and the writings of Paul and Peter and stuff as scripture. That came very early into the awareness of the church. In fact, Paul takes knows that what Luke wrote is scripture. His contemporary, his traveling buddy Luke, he knows that guy wrote Scripture. That just blows my mind, okay? But this is clearly about money. Verses 17 and 18, clearly about money. To make it even more clear, if you go back up to the earlier part of the chapter, we can see that Paul uses the word honor to talk about not only dignity, but about money. In this very chapter, he says honor widows, honor widows who are truly widows. What does he mean by honor? He means. And you read the whole section. Read all of First Timothy 5. He means give them some money to support them. And what makes them truly widows is they don't have not only a husband, but they don't have children that are old enough to take care of them. They don't have extended family, aunts, uncles, whoever else, parents who can take them in and care for them. If they have nobody, then give them some financial support. In the Book of Acts, we know they did this. They helped the widows out. There was a daily distribution for widows because the church was taking care of its own. So first Timothy 5, 17 is about money. But why does it say double honor? There's debate on this. Let them be counted worthy of double honor. I think the simplistic, obvious meaning is more money. That's got to be the meaning. I don't believe that's reasonable. To think it's just talking about giving them respect in the generic sense. Okay. And you should honor your elders. That's a good thing. Your pastors. It's not talking about old men. Some people say that. Okay. There's a whole debate. None of those points are worth the time, to be honest. Saying here, elders who are ruling, well, that is their pastors. Right? That's what that means. They're especially. We want to honor those. Or give good wages to those especially who labor. That's work. You work and you get paid in preaching and teaching. There's so much stuff here. Can I say there's plenty of people. I remember a Francis. Do you guys remember this? There was a Francis Chan video a while ago where he was talking about how in the early church, there wasn't really a pulpit so much as there was a table. And we've emphasized teaching too much and we should emphasize the communion. Having communion more. And I would agree that a lot of evangelical churches should emphasize communion more. 100% agreement there. That's not really what was so much controversial about it. It was the idea that teaching wasn't that important in the early church. In the Book of Acts, it certainly is. In fact, Paul talks about those pastors who deserve even more compensation as being those who are especially important for the body of Christ because they labor in preaching and teaching. Now. They're not just repeating the same messages every week. They're laboring in preaching and teaching. This is a special benefit to the body of Christ and they're considered worthy of double honor. Does double mean double here? Like whatever you would pay somebody for job in the church, you pay the pastor double. I don't think it probably means that double honor. Just. It's kind of vague. It's hard to figure out the exact meaning of it. I think it means merely pay them well is the idea. Pay them well now, Paying people well back then, they're not thinking filthy riches. They're not $150,000 for TD Jakes to show up and be at your church. This is on an article on. I think it was the Christian Post. Christianity Post. Christian Post. Maybe I should. I should have wrote it down. Christianity Today. There's an article there, and there was a. There was a guy who released. He released these hillsong, like, records, and it went into, like, the parliament In Australia. And it was made public because of it. And that was one of the things that came out of it, was seeing that. I don't mean that. And I don't think Paul. I think Paul would have been offended had someone tried to do that for him. But paying them well seems to be a biblical concept. And this kind of conflicts with my intuitions because, to be honest, my intuitions are I want to be paid less because there's some part of me that feels like that's more holy, like maybe because I'm making more of a sacrifice in my ministry. And I feel like if I'm not, because there's times where I did ministry and didn't get paid at all. And I felt good about that. I felt better about that than when I got paid. And that's just a human thing, I guess I prefer to not be paid at all. But I'll tell you what Paul says they're to be counted worthy, considered worthy. They should be thought of as being worthy. You gotta look at the text again. Considered worthy. Do you think that your leaders who are ruling well, right. They're good pastors, which implies different wages for different pastors. Maybe some are just better at the job and they get paid better. And that's okay. As weird as that may seem to the American equity kind of stuff that we've got in our minds, that's appropriate. It also implies a primary place for teaching in the early church, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. And it suggests they're not scraping by. But it also says they're considered worthy. Doesn't mean that the church even has the money to do it. Your church may well be like, man, we would give our pastor so much more if we had the funds. We just don't. Most churches do not. So they should at least consider this would be how they could fulfill the scripture. Just consider, hey, pastor, you are worth more. This is what we got. That's okay. That's part of real life. But to consider him worthy is a good thing, is a biblical thing. There is a cruelty of withholding wages that we talked about. Jesus talks about this as well. In fact, he talks about it in relation to those who serve in ministry. This is. I don't know how we missed this. I even kind of missed this for years because I just felt like it was. You know why I missed it? Because as a new Christian, I cut my teeth on, like, I didn't even go to Sunday mornings as a teenager. I came to Christ like, I was like 12 when I first believed in Jesus, right? And then in my teen years, I'm learning a little bit. I'm not even going on Sunday mornings to church. I just go Thursday night to youth group. And then I find tbn and I flip on the channel and there's TBN and there's these disgusting money grubbing charlatans. Men who will burn in hell. Like, that's these men on tbn. They're the worst. And I'm watching them and I had such a nasty reaction to them. I remember praying as a teenage boy, praying that this guy, Robert Tilton, who was pretending to speak tongues and pretending to give prophecies and telling people, he's like, oh, there's an old woman, there's an older lady and you need to give a thousand dollar vow of faith. Today you have to give a thousand dollar vow of faith. And he liked to say vow of f, vow of faith a lot in a big voice. And he tells her, you know, he sees this lady, he's got, she's got like some money tucked away that she's saving for an emergency and she should take that and give it to his ministry right now. And I remember praying at that moment because I was so mad. And hearing the verses, they would, they'd quote the Bible. Then I would go try to find the verse and go, that's not what it means. And I get so upset. And just me sitting alone in the living room, none of my family were following. So the prayer I gave was, lord, please let the lighting in his studio fall on his head just to silence this evil man. I don't know why God didn't answer that prayer. It was an imprecatory prayer for sure. Not that I knew what that word was at the time. But yeah, I was praying for something bad to happen to stop the man very angry. And then I step into church from an outside church perspective. So I know that I have family members that think churches are scams. Pastors are scammers, they're grifters. Religion is a grift. It's just a scam people use to make money. And then I step into actual ministry with that mentality. And I want to do it as cheap and as low as possible. And many other pastors, you feel the same way. It's okay for you to say, hey, it's appropriate for me to be paid for my work. It's good. And the church should actually be the one saying it, saying, pastor, we want to help you. We want to provide for you. We want. Because you're ministering to us. We want to Bless you. Luke 10 talks about that as well. After this, The Lord appointed 72 others and sent them out, sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town and place where he himself was about to go. These are effectively they're like traveling missionaries. They're not pastors, but they're doing ministry and they're devoting their lives to ministry. Okay, there's a lot of interesting stuff in this passage. They're not going to get rich here. They're not. The only time I see where they pay well is 1 Timothy 5:17. That's the only one. But there's other stuff going on here, too. Luke 10:2 says, and he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way. Behold, I'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money, bag no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house, and if a Son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you and remain in the same house, eating and drinking. What they provide for the laborer deserves his wages. This is what Paul was quoting in First Timothy. Jesus sends them out and it's not going to be ideal. They're going to be potentially persecuted and hey, who will you preach to? There's a sense in which they're going to preach to the people who will also feed them. Now they're just getting fed. They're not getting a whole bunch of money here. They're not teaching and then taking an offering every time they teach and then putting it in their pocket. This isn't what they're doing here. I'm not saying churches can't take offerings, but honorariums can feel a little bit weird. You guest teach at a church, and the whole church puts money in a little basket to hand to the guest teacher. I think that's a little strange the way they do it. And Paul didn't like it either. He told the Corinthians that they should gather money every week before he arrives so that when he arrives, there won't be any offering. He didn't want to be associated with that. And I think that that's fair. I think that was wise of him. Obviously, it was. So, yeah, the laborer deserves his wages. That was a lesson that they were taught. Later. They were told to take Money with them and because there was times of more persecution, times of less persecution, all that kind of stuff. But you get the idea here that Jesus, that Paul, that, that. The idea is if you work, you're supposed to be paid. That's a rule in scripture and it applies to church workers too. And if you're putting in tons and tons of work into your local church, they should be thinking about how they might be able to bless you in return. This comes with a lot of baggage when I say this because I know that local churches often don't have money. Right. When I was my first year as youth pastor, I was paid dismally low amounts of money where I couldn't survive just to pay for food, gas and like car related expenses like that alone. Forget rent, that alone couldn't afford it. But the church couldn't have paid me better. I don't believe this wasn't the church hurting me. This wasn't the church saying you're not worthy of your work or something. This was just the reality of life. Okay? You don't have a very expensive situation in the church. So some churches can, some churches can't. And we should accept that. This also could apply to full time or part time pastors. If you're a part time pastor, hopefully the church can at least count you worthy of being paid for the part time work you do and consider what's a fair payment and then the full time pastor, same thing. This could apply either way. Some churches have a number of. We have like at my church now, Grace, Ev Free and La Mirada. Wonderful, wonderful church. I don't think there's anybody who's full time that's in a teaching pastoral role. Maybe there is and I just don't remember which one. But for the most part at least everybody's like they're part time and they have a job and then they also do ministry and then they should be paid for what they're doing there as well. Should be. What about Copeland and Creflo Dollar and those guys? Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, T.D. jakes, those guys. First Timothy six, five. Okay, we're still in first Timothy. This is in the same book where Paul says count them worthy of double honor. He also talks about these kinds of people, people of constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain, that there's a wickedness in thinking that your godliness is meant to get you money. Pastors who are thinking, I'm going to do ministry for the money. That is sin. It's one thing. See, these are very different things. The man who works deserves wages. That's a principle. That's true. And the church should be the one prompting, hey, we want to bless the leaders, the pastor. The pastor who's like, ministry. That'd be a good way to make money, to make a buck. That is going to be all kinds of problems in that guy's ministry. You don't do ministry to get paid. You get paid so you can do ministry. There's a huge difference between those two things. Godliness is not your means of gain. Instead, Paul says, godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. And then he tells you what he's content with. And this is what an apostle is content with. If we have food and clothing with these, we shall be content. If you have food and clothes, that's enough. I think pastors, as I say all this stuff and I think the biblical answer is that pastors should be paid and should try to be paid. Well, not obscenely, but hey, oh, good. You know, he's making okay, he's safe. Okay, that should be. You look at the wage of the pastor and you go, oh, no, they'll be okay. They'll be okay. That's what you want to be able to say about your leaders. I think if you have the funds and all that, that contentment is super important. And a pastor who is not getting paid enough. Can you at least learn the biblical principle of being content with food and clothing and saying, that's good enough for me. Maybe I should be payable, but it's not going to work out. The church is not willing to do it or not able to do it, either one. I'm going to live unto the Lord and I'll be content with food and clothing. That is a beautiful and golden thing to live with and be content with. So I'm not trying to say this to stir up in a pastor's heart who's watching that you should be paid more. And you're getting discontent and bitter and upset at your church. That's the work of the enemy in your life. I want to teach the whole counsel of God here, including saying, you need to be content. And I was content. When I was watching my savings dwindle, I was still content. And I was just like, I guess I'll drive for Uber now. Could you imagine me picking you up for Uber? Where are you going? Late night? Uber. Not that Great, by the way. Bunch of punks out there late at night. Then he goes on in verse 9:1 Timothy 6:9. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. This warning is so important. Pastor, church minister, do you desire to be rich? Do you feel that desire to be rich that will lead you into all kinds of suffering and pain and anguish? It's great for the church to think we want to take care of our leadership. Well, it is bad for the leadership to think I want the church to take care of me. Well, this is where you divide the things. It is great for me to think I want to love my wife as Christ loved the church. But if she obsesses over my role, he needs to love me more. This is going to be bad for her. She needs to focus on her role, her role of respecting and even submitting to my leadership as her husband. And I need to focus on my role, not her role. If I focus on her role, why don't she submit? Why would she respect more? It's going to be bad for me. It's going to undercut my marriage and lead us into all kinds of senseless and harmful things. We have to focus on our own things. That's a great biblical principle. Pastor, don't focus on what you want your church to do for you more. Be content. Be content. Because that desire, the love of money, the desire to be rich. People have heard this phrase, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, like, almost too many times. So I kind of like emphasizing verse 9. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. There's a great principle to remind yourself of. Typically, pastors don't make enough and they need to focus on this contentment stuff and honor the Lord and what they're doing. Mega church pastors, they make probably too much most of the time. And different communities have different costs of living. Okay, so if, if you let. Like, I could take, say, $250,000 and I can go into another state, another area outside of where I live, and I could buy, like a pretty nice home, a home that's a lot nicer than the one I live in now in a nicer neighborhood. But if you took 250k and tried to buy a home out here, you'd be buying, like, A like you live in a trailer park or something, you're not going to. It's not going to happen, or you get a home where it's condemned or something. Costs of living are very different. If you live in Hawaii, your pastor better make a lot more money. And if you live in, like, Podunk, Kentucky, I don't know, is there a city in Kentucky called Podunk? Then that changes the needs and the cost of living. But I hope that that answers the question, how much should pastors be paid? I don't think people talk about this. Most pastors probably are uncomfortable talking about it. But seeing as how I'm not talking about my own wages or trying to affect any change in my own scenario in life, maybe they'll give me a little bit of liberty there to do that. All right, let's go to the question that comes from the live chat. The first one up for today from the live chat. Trent says, when the gift of speaking in tongues is in operation, do the same requirements and standards exist for private or smaller ministry gatherings as they do the corporate gatherings of a church service? For example, if someone in the background is praying in tongues while you are praying for someone at a hospital, does that still demand an interpretation? That's a challenging question, because I can answer sort of generally like, hey, generally speaking, do we apply these? But life is full of, like, so much variety, and you can think of all kinds of different scenarios. And so I could think like, let's say that you have someone who regularly speaks in tongues as they pray, and they're like, this is part of my prayer life and I speak in tongues, and it's your spouse and the two of you pray together, and you're just super comfortable with them doing that. There's no issue of you being uninformed or questioning what's going on there. There's no theological problem between the two of you on the issue, then I don't see a problem with that. But the biblical principles relate to two kinds of people that you're worried about. I guess there's two kinds of people and there's an issue. So everything be done decently in an order. That's one issue. Also. There is. I'm trying to catalog them all in my mind. There's the decently in order issue. There's the do what's edifying, what is loving and edifying to those around you issue. And then there's the two issues of two kinds of people that you could be causing problems to if you speak in tongues in an inappropriate scenario. So one is the unbeliever and the other one is the uninformed. These are the two different words that the New Testament uses, unbelievers and uninformed. Now I take these to mean the unbeliever is you're in the hospital and the nurse walks in and someone's quietly speaking in tongues. They're maybe an unbeliever. They don't know Christ and they think you're crazy. And that's actually the warning in Scripture is that they will literally think you are crazy. Here, let's read through a passage. This may take a while. We're going to read through a passage and maybe we can get this in your guys minds. Here we go. I'll Start in verse 4, 1st Corinthians 14. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Okay? The nature of edification is you tend to build up or help yourself. If you're speaking in a tongue without interpretation, you're communicating with God. Nobody else is in on that. Now some people don't believe that. They think, no, no, it builds me up because I'm encouraged by watching them speak in tongues. That's a particular cultural thing you've got going on. That is not a rule in scripture. But the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues. Unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up. That's that rule I mentioned. Like four things. Edifying people. I think that was the second one. Edifying people is the rule. Am I edifying people with this? If you're not, then why are you doing it in front of others? Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves. If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? Paul is laboring to point out the obvious. When you have uninterpreted foreign sounds coming out of your mouth, you don't help anybody. Like, this is really obvious stuff. Unless you're in a culture where you don't notice the obvious anymore. Because in your church culture, you have really violated this. This happens a lot. I apologize. Guys, there's the. The lawnmowers are here, and they're not supposed to come on Fridays. I have no control over this moment right now. I'm sure you hear it blasting through. They're leaf blowing. Maybe they'll be done soon. So if you utter with your tongue, you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There will. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning. Catch that? So tongues is always with meaning. Tongues always has some kind of meaning. That's what the word tongues means. It has meaning. It's a language. It's not just noises. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. That's that principle. Edify. Edify, edify. I'm quietly in the back of the hospital. I start speaking in tongues. Everybody can hear me going. They hear, like, little noises and stuff. Am I edifying them? Answer, no, not really. Probably edifying them. Unless everybody in this circle is so comfortable with tongues and with me doing this that I know it's not a distraction. But chances are, you speak in tongues around people, and those of you who do this commonly, you probably don't realize the effect it has on others. When I go to pray with somebody and they start speaking in tongues, I am always distracted. It doesn't happen very often, but if they do, in this group prayer meetings, maybe there's just four of us and they start. It is every ounce of my ability to focus is brought to bear on just continuing to pray and be thoughtful. I also think that if they're speaking in tongues, they're not joining me in prayer. They're doing their own prayer. Okay? We're just praying at the same time. We're not praying together. Now you could say, well, maybe God gives them exactly the right thing to pray so they can agree with you. And I'm like, well, there's a shortcut to that, to that miraculous work of God, which is just listening to the person that's talking and agreeing with them like, it's not that hard. They're right there anyway. Verse 13. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. Okay? That's why interpreting is important, is because it will bless people. For if I pray in a tongue My spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in that position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? Effectively, tongues is like walking up to somebody and just going. It's gibberish to them unless there's interpretation, unless there's understanding. And so the benefit is not present. For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. You have to be edified. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Paul is not a cessationist here. I don't believe now, you could make an argument that cessationism became a thing afterwards. But certainly throughout his ministry, we don't see that. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to Instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. He'd rather say to people, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you people. That would be more beneficial than 10,000 words in a tongue that remains uninterpreted. You know, it feels like Paul is overdoing it, but I've learned because I've been in churches, I've been in a variety of churches where there's tongues is overemphasized and under regulated because there are two different things. It's overemphasized, meaning it's too central, it's too important, it's too much. Everybody has to do this. Whether we say that out loud or not. Everybody does know that there's a lot of pressure. You should all speak in tongues. And then it's also under regulated. We don't have these regulations of Scripture on those things. That's pretty common in those churches which, if they're really Spirit led in their tongues, then they will follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in regulating those tongues. In Scripture, brothers, do not be children, in your thinking be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. In the law. It is written by people of estranged tongues and by the lips of foreigners. I will speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Now, I'm going to read through a big check, a big section here. It's going to sound a little confusing. I. I'm not going to do a whole teaching on First Corinthians 14. I've done that Elsewhere. But I want to get at the heart of what are the rules? What are the rules that Paul gives and how do they apply outside of a church building? Thus, tongues are a sign not for believers, but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for believers, but for. Not for unbelievers, but for believers. If therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and here's the two categories I mentioned. Outsiders, that would be the uninformed is another translation of that verse. I think it'll be new. King James does that right, verse 23, those who are uninformed, they're outsiders. They're not part of the clique. They don't get what you're doing in your particular church culture. With tongues, they're outsiders or unbelievers, that is that they're simply, they're not Christians. If either of these two categories come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds? That is, even believers, even Christians might show up and be like, y' all are crazy. This looks insane. And yet. Yet we have countless videos online of people doing exactly the opposite of what Paul says. In the comment section of people saying, you all are crazy, exactly like Paul said would happen under the inspiration of the Spirit 2000 years ago. But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all. He's called to account by all the secrets of his heart are disclosed. And so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. Your tongues will not convince people that God is among you. You want to give them a prophecy where you look at the person who walks in, you're Lord, just show me this about your life. And they go, how did you know that? And it has to be the Lord. You can't fake that stuff. But then, yeah, that'll be impressive. Now let's talk about order. What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. This seems to be his statement of what's inappropriate. How come everybody's got all this stuff? And he goes, instead of everybody trying to do everything, everyone's, I'm going to have a tongue, I'm going to have an interpretation. I need to have a revelation. Instead of doing all this, started thinking about building people up. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn and let someone interpret. But if there's no one to interpret Let each of them keep silent in the church and speak to himself and to God. The idea of being silent in the church is not. I don't have a microphone. I'm actually not making noises that the person next to me hears as I speak in tongues. That's what. I'm not doing that. Why? Because that person could be an unbeliever. They could be uninformed, or they could just be someone who's being not edified by my behavior in this corporate gathering. Does that apply outside the church? There's no reason why it wouldn't apply outside the church, he says. Then when you come together, does that mean that I can violate all of these principles? No, because the principles are like, edify people, be a good witness. Do that which builds others up instead of that which gives you a spiritual experience where you feel like you got to check off the list of all the spiritual things you wanted to do that day. So I think it applies to the hospital. I think it seems like it applies to any scenario where a Christian finds themselves. If they're going to be speaking in tongues, they evaluate. Is this a time for interpretation? Is there an unbeliever, uninformed person here? Should I just keep this to myself? It's not that those policies of unbeliever, uninformed edify others. And the other thing I mentioned that I forget now, those things are still in play. There's no one to interpret. Keeps silent. Then it talks about prophecy as well and talks about order in the church. God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace trying to bring order into the church. That was the other one. Bringing order, proper order. I would apply my things all the same here. When is it okay to speak in tongues? Most of the time it's not. If you do it without interpretation, most of the time it's not between you and God. That's how it works between you and God. That's the description given there. Yeah, that's at least how I would apply it. I'm not the authority, but those are my thoughts, and you guys can work on your own. Question number three. Andy Q. Says author J.I. packer states that the second commandment forbids using images of God for worship, such as paintings or statues, icons of God, and that images cannot capture his power and only serve as a crutch when worshiping him. Thoughts? This can be a little complicated and there's plenty of argument in the church on this. I think what's clear, what's abundantly clear, is having a statue, an icon, an image, even just a cross, even just a bare little Protestant looking cross. And that you hold this when you pray, or you have it up on the wall and you pray at that image, at that thing, because you see it as like a conduit, as participating. Maybe I can put it this way. You see this thing as participating in your devotion in a way that it amplifies or assists or helps spiritually create that moment. I think that that is a major problem. But here's where it gets complicated. Look at the commandment, don't make any graven images. And you're like, all right, just don't make any. Period, end of story. Yet Scripture doesn't seem to mean it in the strictest possible sense because we have, in the Old Testament, we have the temple itself. And the temple itself had images both of things on earth and things in heaven. So there'd be like a pomegranate over here as part of the temple structure. There'd be woven images of angelic things into the actual tapestry on the inside of the tabernacle, as well as the Ark of the Covenant that had these two cherubim with outstretched wings that were joining together in the middle and an empty space representing, like where the presence of God is. Now, these angels, they were representing actual angelic beings. To try to. It was all a way of saying that the tabernacle is like heaven on the inside. This is like where heaven is, where God's presence is. And so it was made to look and feel that way as you. As you went in, or you never went in, I never went in. As the priests went in, as the high priest would only go into the holy of holies once a year, briefly. So not a lot of traveling going in there. The Ark of the covenant, the thing which was touched, and then the man who touched it tried, as the cart was toppling. In David's story, in his history, that man who died, the ark he touched had angels on it, had two cherubs on it. So think about that for a second. These are graven images that do represent things in heaven, and they're close to the activities of worship as well. So this, to me is the strongest case you can offer for involving some of those elements in Christian worship is the actual tabernacle itself. But then, yet God commands not to have a graven image and not to bow down and worship them and not to have any other God before him. And in that very temple we have this really striking thing where there's no image to represent God. So you have the cherub. But you don't worship the angels. If you turn and worship. If the high priest walked into the holy of holies in the tabernacle or the temple later on, when it became a solid structure, a permanent structure, if he walked in and he turned his attention to the one on the right and he says, oh, holy cherub, I honor you. That would be death penalty stuff in the Old Testament, like that little tiny move, that little move, having it there, God told him to do it turning and going, oh, I acknowledge you. I honor you. I think that moment right there turns it into pagan, forbidden worship. You can obviously keep from making that little move by simply having no images of any kind in any relation to any of your worship that would save you from that move. But it's difficult to say that you can't have any of those images at all. Like, as a rule. So if I walk into the church and it has, like, these beautiful stained glass windows, and on the stained glass windows, you've got this mural that it represents the missionary journeys of Paul. So it's like three different images of Paul at different times. You know, maybe one he's overseeing Stephen being stoned, and later on he's getting stoned, you know, and left for dead as he's doing missionary work. And you're showing these things as a teaching tool. As a teaching tool. Now, what if in worship, though, your worshipers in the church, they just casually turn over and they go, paul, I honor you. And they try to use the image as like a conduit in an act of what looks a lot like worship in Scripture, what looks an awful lot like what the Bible calls worship. That, to me is a problem. Now, let's say that you actually not only have images, but you create altars in front of those images and in front of this image of this saint and this image of this deceased person, or maybe even of Jesus himself or of Mary, you go and you start offering things and you start putting things down there, and you want to touch it and you want to feel it, and then you pray there as a way of trying to access the person represented by the image. This to me, and not just to me, to a large swath of early Christians initially, before it became a trend in later years and tradition took over and changed things. Man made traditions. This was always seen as wrong. Always seen as wrong. And so the way you describe J.I. packer, he says, the second commandment forbids using images of God for worship. I guess your question now, as I read it again, it isn't just about images in general. It's images of God. Yeah, There was never an image of God in the Old Testament in any way, shape or form. Then there's a debate in the Christian church that says, okay, the reason why you can't have an image of God is because God is unlike anything in creation. There's nothing like him. It's inherently immoral to make something. It's like a blasphemous thing. Let's say you take a calf and you go, oh, this calf is God. And you're like, well, that's so creature, not creator. And it's insulting to God. But then Jesus comes, and he comes in human form. And so God, he is the image, the ultimate image of God. And so now you have something God is like in a sense, right? Because his deity, it goes beyond his humanity. He's not just human, but he is human. He's truly human. And so then there's a debate on whether or not you can use an image of Jesus or have an actor represent Jesus, that sort of thing. I don't. Let me just summarize my answer this way. Finally, at the end here, I don't feel that I can confidently tell people you cannot have an image that represents the Son of God, Jesus, who is God with us. I don't think that I can say that because the logic doesn't track for the reasons why you can't have an image of God in the Old Testament. The logic is he isn't like anything, but Jesus is God. And so I can perhaps have a representation of Jesus in his humanity that is not trying to capture all of his deity, because you cannot capture the deity of God with any kind of representation. He is beyond and above all things. Does that make sense? The logic seems like it's different there. And so I'm at least not dogmatic about that, and I'm open to that, and I'm personally okay with it. But you cannot help but see that humans love idolatry. We're just drawn to idolatry. The Israelites, they just get sucked into idolatry. God gives them the bronze serpent, Moses, that saves them from this plague of serpents that's affecting the people. And a little while later, generation later, they're worshiping the thing. And Joshua, he destroys this bronze serpent. Now God told him to make this grave an image that was of a physical, animal object that was representative of something. But when they started turning towards it in worship, then it was judgment on the people and he destroys it and stuff. We are in constant danger of becoming idolaters. You know, scripture in the New Testament even says, little children keep yourself from idols. One John, last thing he says in one John, little children keep yourselves from idols. It's a continual danger, a continual concern, and we should be continually aware of it. So lots of caution, abundance of concern for not turning our worship and our prayer towards images of any kind. Hope that helped a little bit. All right, let's go to question number four, Sarah Carraway. And we have all 10 questions for today. I'm sure you guys probably figured that out. As a former atheist, Sarah says the verse in Hebrews 4:15 comforts and confuses me. How could the Son of Man be tempted with unbelief in himself? Let's look at it. Hebrews 4:15. So this passage talking about Jesus and how he was tempted, it says he was tempted in every respect. In every respect, he was tempted as we are. So does that mean that he. That he experienced every. Every single temptation we've ever been tempted with? So let me reread the verse. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Does every respect mean every sin? Every particular sin? Because if it does, then you could say Jesus was tempted to not believe in his own existence. That's a sin, right? Jesus is like, I think I'm a myth. I think that. I think I'm a myth. I'm a myth based off of a bunch of Greek mythology stuff and Osiris and stuff like that. Was he tempted with every single temptation? I think the answer to that is going to be a no. But I'll let us know how hard it would be, because you can think of temptations that are abnormal, that are very, very rare even among humans, temptations that do things that are just like what. What you wanted to do. What stuff that I won't even say out loud. Do I think Jesus was tempted to do those things in some sense? No. I think he was tempted in every respect. In every respect. Could be things like fear, hunger, and you could even say, I don't know about unbelief in the sense of he always knew God's will, He always knew his mission, his plan. Even at 12 years old in the Gospel of Luke, he's like, don't you think I'd be about my father's business? At least even from the age of 12, he's, like, aware of those things. But there's Another kind of unbelief, which is an unbelief of action where you don't trust in the Lord, you don't follow his plan because you want some other way out that's easier. And that that could actually be related to unbelief. And Jesus was sort of tempted like that. This is kind of adjacent to unbelief. I don't know. Wouldn't necessarily use that term for it. But trying to help in the temptation in the wilderness with Satan, Jesus is tempted, bow down to me and I'll give you all these kingdoms. He's tempted for ways out other than having to go through suffering. And there's some part of me that thinks that, spiritually speaking, my desire to avoid suffering and discomfort and seek pleasure is connected to unbelief somehow. And they do go together. You will sometimes talk to people and say, they'll go, I'm really struggling with my faith in Christ and this intellectual issue, this challenge here, this problem here. And if you can have a real private. I wouldn't do this in a comment section of video. I wouldn't just accuse people, I don't know of things like this. But in counseling, when you have someone who knows you care about them and they're listening to you and they really care, and you can ask, like, say, hey, I want to talk about your intellectual questions and your intellectual doubts, and those are important issues, and we're not going to sweep those under the rug. But I also want to touch on this, because you're a whole person. You're not just a brain, you're a whole person. Is there significant, unrepentant sin in your life? And sometimes the answer will be, yes, there is. And you can say, and did these doubts come up in your heart and in your mind? Did they come up at the same time as this sin was taking over? And oftentimes the answer is yes. Somehow unbelief and sin are just connected. And I'm not really sure if that helps answer your question, but it seems to be a truth that's there. So Jesus was tempted in every respect, but not with every single temptation that we've experienced. But underneath your temptation for being lazy, was Jesus tempted to be lazy? Well, he was tempted to avoid the cross. Is that not an avoidance of discomfort and desire for pleasure? I think so. So there's a sense in which what undergirds our temptations? Our unbelief? All those things, all of those things that kind of come underneath that Christ faced and overcame. Number five. This is from Nathaniel Brill, it looks like Isaiah 7:14 is fulfilled in Isaiah 8:4, Isaiah 7:14 being the virgin prophecy. The prophecy seems to describe something immediate and not messianic. What do we do with Matthew seemingly saying it's a messianic prophecy? I have a whole video on this for you. So I'm going to offer you cursory thoughts and I'll hopefully give you a little sampler taste that'll make you want to watch this other video. Because it's I think very important video. And I think it's the kind of thing where I make the video thinking people aren't going to watch this. But it's so important for those who do. It'll bless them. I have lots of videos like that. The idea is this. When Matthew in particular uses the word fulfilled, the word fulfilled, right in the Greek, I think it was pleroma is the word. This plur. I forget right now. I did a whole video on it. I forget the word. But the term fulfilled that he uses, he uses it in a variety of ways. And we often use the word fulfilled to mean here's an Old Testament prophecy. The Messiah is going to have this many disciples. Okay, there's no prophecy, but let's say it says the Messiah will have 12 disciples. That's like very specific. It's just clearly it's about the Messiah and it's a fact based statement about what he'll do or what he'll have. Sometimes there's prophecies like that. There's also other kinds of prophecy. And that prophecy comes in the form of typology. And I have a whole series of videos on typology called how to Find Jesus in the Old Testament. And then it also. Prophecy is also called prophecy because it was God's word revealed about what he would do. Not necessarily just predictions, but it's all considered prophecy. Those prophecies can also be partially and then totally fulfilled. And this is where you take the idea of typology. Hey, this thing isn't Jesus. But it's made to look like an analogy, a metaphor, a representation of what Jesus will do. So like Israel comes out of Egypt and Jesus comes out of Egypt. Israel is called God's firstborn. Jesus is God's ultimate firstborn. Israel. They're like a type or an image of Christ. Israel is to be a light to the Gentiles. Well, they'll never do the job, but Jesus, he'll come and do the job. He'll be the light to the Gentiles, one from among Israel. Then Isaiah. This whole string of prophecies in Isaiah about the servant, initially the servant, early in Isaiah is. Is Israel, and then Israel. As you read these poems, these servant songs of Isaiah, as you read the different songs, you get to the point where Israel's failing and Israel is faltering. And then there's nobody. There's no. There's no one in Israel doing the job. And then finally there's one single servant who will represent all of Israel, Isaiah 53, who will die and suffer to redeem Israel, to restore them, and then that will be. He will be the light, and then Israel can be restored. It's this cool mixture of typology and prophecy. What I'm saying is it's more poetic than it is robotic when it comes to this kind of thing. And studying the Old Testament and New as literary works now, they're true, okay? They're true things. I'm not at all trying to talk about errors or something in the Bible, but studying it as God weaving Jesus into the tapestry of the lives of people throughout the Old Testament, including Isaiah and Isaiah's wife. And this statement about this baby that'll be born and how he will also be called Mighty God. And all these different things that you get in Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 8. You need to let it be about Isaiah's kid and let it be about the ultimate Messiah. The same way that David is going to have a son, Solomon, who's going to reign and God's going to do all these great things through Solomon. He'll build the temple and all that. But that. That is not ultimately and fully fulfilled prophecy until Jesus shows up as the son of David. And even now, we're not Christians making this up after the fact. This is how Jews saw it, too. When Jesus shows up, what do they call him? Son of David. Because they know that there's a Messiah coming. And he is like Solomon, but better. He is like David, but better. He is like Moses, prophet, like unto him, but better. So like Isaiah 7, 14, like this, this young maiden will conceive, but better. It'll be the virgin who will conceive Mary, and it'll be ultimately fulfilled. So if you do a survey, this is a video I'll link below. I go through Matthew and I look at every time he uses the word fulfilled. And you'll see there's a variety of ways he uses it. And I think this is really helpful for people who are serious about being students of prophecy. So I'll put that video down below. How does Matthew use The word fulfilled sounds boring, but it's an awesome, awesome study. Very rewarding. All right, let's go to the next question. Number six. John B. Says, how do we answer those who think obeying the Gospel is physical? Obedience works. They cite verses, and you give 1, 2, 3, 4 passages of scripture here. Let me think of how I want to answer this question real quick. They think obeying the gospel is. Well, let's look at the first one. 1 Peter 1:22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. The Bible does use the term obeying as a reference to those who are simply responding to correctly to the gospel message. Your obedience to the truth, you might think of. Obeisance is another word you could put in there. Let's look at another verse. You've got. Second Thessalonians 7. Sorry, 1. 7. That would be impressive. Verse 7. And to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. I did get the right verse, didn't I? Make sure. 2nd Thessalonians 1:7 9. Inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God. Oh, yeah. And on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord of Jesus, they will suffer punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might. So there are those who do not obey the gospel. Obey the gospel. Let's look at the next verse he brought. So I'm just going to go through all of them. I think. Romans 10:16. The danger here is Israel has not all obeyed the gospel. Hmm. This verse is actually really helpful because it gives you more context immediately than some of the other ones. Let's look, in fact, at what it is that they didn't obey. When we say obey the Gospel, you might be thinking, in fact, some people are presenting this to you, John. They're suggesting that obey the gospel means do good works in order to be saved. So you hear the gospel, and that must include, like, be a good person, love people, be gentle, be giving and forgiving, and fill in the blank of all the things you can have integrity and character and good works. And that those good works are necessary for you to become saved. And if you're not, you will be punished. So the question we have here is, what exactly does obeying the gospel mean? Because the word obeying doesn't mean works, does it? No, it doesn't. Obeying means doing what you're told. I obeyed. I did what I was told. And what does the gospel tell me to do? Well, it tells me to believe. In fact, what is the work of God? Jesus says, this is the work that you believe on him whom he sent. Your work is belief. Now, this is how we get into trouble with the word work. Because the word work can mean different things. When I'm talking about getting saved by works, usually I mean meritorious works, as in works that earn something. Like a transactional work where I do work and I get paid for it. And so I'm getting saved by works means there's some element of I'm laboring to earn the forgiveness that I will receive. Now, they might add grace in there. So there's grace. And God does a bunch of stuff for me. And then I also do works, and then I earn the forgiveness. There's free forgiveness and earned forgiveness, but you have to have both. So you do have to have earned forgiveness as part of the game for salvation. And that's what obeying the gospel means. But that's actually not what Jesus seems to imply. He says, hey, this is the work of God that you believe on the one whom he sent. You want to obey the gospel, you want to do the gospel. The gospel is about belief. When you go out preaching the gospel, it's repent, but that's not. Repent is not doing works. Repent is an attitude change about your sin and about your mentality towards God and towards salvation. You change your mentality towards those things. Now, that plays out in fruit. You do end up doing good works, but they don't earn you salvation. They're just a result of it. So when Israel didn't obey the gospel, what did they not do? For Isaiah says, lord, who has believed what he's heard from us? This in Romans 10, is all about belief. The obedience to the gospel that they lacked was a lack of believing the gospel. That was the correct response to the gospel. Do what you're told. Well, it was believed. Let's back up and read more of Romans 10. I'll do all of 10 brothers. My heart's desire and prayer to God for them, Israel, is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Israel is trying to do good works, sure, but they're lacking some sort of knowledge. That is the gospel. Ultimately, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God. If they had obeyed the gospel, if they had believed the gospel, they would have not tried to present their works to God to earn them anything they would have realized, no, no, I'm not going to establish my own righteousness. I'm going to be getting the righteousness of God. He does the works. He gives me his righteousness. It's not my. When I stand before God, he's like, are you good enough for heaven? He doesn't look at my works to say yes. He looks at his own works. He looks at Jesus Christ and his righteousness. And he goes, because Jesus is good enough, you are you submitted to the righteousness of God for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Emphasis on belief. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does these commandments shall live by them. If you think it's about the works you do, that's that law based salvation which nobody gets. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down or who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead to deny the death and resurrection of Jesus. Don't do that. The righteousness that you get from faith is not from denying the death and resurrection of Jesus, but from affirming it. What does it say? The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That word of faith that we proclaimed, that's all you got to do is what? Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. This is the very passage that somebody's quoting to you to tell you that works are going to save you. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth confession, one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. What do they have to do with just faith? And specifically, he's contrasting it with works of the law as a category of your righteousness versus the righteousness that God gives you. These are the two options. You need the righteousness God gives you. And how do you get it? Faith. All right, let's read until we get to the verse that you quoted, verse 16. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard and how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. By which he means what belief, Lord, who has believed what he's heard from us? Faith is the thing that's needed, right? And faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. And they heard, but they didn't receive. And you can read on, gets into even more detail there. So obeying the gospel is believing the gospel. Does that make sense? Obeying it is believing it. Because what does the gospel tell you to do? Does it tell you work for your salvation? Then if it did, then obeying the gospel is working for your salvation. But if the message of the gospel is not your righteousness, God's righteousness given to you through Jesus, you just trust. You truly trust in Christ, his death, his resurrection. In your heart. You're turning from sin, but you're turning to the Lord. And now you are saved. That's obedience to the gospel. Next question. Hello, life says, I'm struggling with the apostles believing that Jesus's return was happening within their lifetime. How could we trust everything else they said to be inspired by God if they got this wrong? I guess I have a couple answers for you. One would be, I don't hold that view. I know that this is especially among more scholastic type guys. That's their view. They think that the apostles did think that Jesus was going to return in their lifetime. I don't hold that view. Okay. But some wonderful godly Christian men have held this view. I think this is R.C. sproul's view. I think I could be wrong there, if I remember correctly. So my first answer would be to just try to argue out of that, talk you out of it, and say that's not what Jesus thought. Hey, let's look at the passages together. Let's consider those things. And I have some teaching on that. I have a video called. I think it was called Was Jesus a Failed Apocalyptic Prophet? And this is answering the objection that Jesus said he was going to show up with his second coming within the lifetime of the apostles and that he didn't. And I answer that objection in that video. I'll link it down below. It's about was Jesus a failed apocalyptic Prophet? Now there are believers who take a different position. So let me talk a little bit about that. If I can't dissuade you, I'm just going to be really honest with you here. If I Couldn't dissuade you from thinking that the second coming. Well, that I wouldn't call it the second coming, but that some sort of coming of Jesus, a coming in judgment, a return of Jesus, but not the final second coming. Okay, there's still future second coming, even for people who hold this view. At least they should have it, unless they're into some serious problems. But if you thought Jesus had to have some sort of event to qualify the Son of Man showing up in a short period of time after his death, then there are those who have what's called the partial preterism. That would be the term you would look up. Partial preterism, P R E T pret E R I S M preterism. That view is to say that Christ did in fact in some sense come as judge in about 70 A.D. when the destruction of the temple happened. And you can connect this to some of the statements of Jesus in the Gospels where he's talking about not one stone will be left upon another. And when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee, these types of statements in the end times type commentary that Jesus gives in the Gospels, they do look similar to events that happen in 70 AD. Now, I don't take that perspective, but there are believers who do. And if you're saying that your faith is being threatened by this view, I would much rather you take an alternate perspective on ultimately not a major eschatological point, a minor one, and preserve your faith. To be honest, you say you're struggling with the apostles believing this. How could we trust everything else they said to be inspired by God if they got this wrong? I don't think they got it wrong. But if you think that it was supposed to happen in the first century, you should look to 70 AD and try to make connections there. I do think some of what Jesus said was fulfilled in 70 A.D. the destruction of the temple, some of those types of things, just that not as much of it was fulfilled as what people think. And we don't need to have that much fulfilled and we don't need to have a coming of Christ in any sense at that point in time. But if you hold that view, I'd encourage you to look into partial preterism because I'd rather you take an alternate view and still be a Christian and not be doubting the veracity and the trustworthiness of Scripture. On the contrary, I would say though, that Jesus, if you look at the parables of Jesus, he's like, oh, and then went on a long journey when the Son of man returns, will he even find faith on the earth? He talks about Peter being old and being carried away. It seems to be crucified, to be killed when he's like Peter, and when you're old, you'll be carried where you don't want to go. If the apostles are supposed to believe that Jesus is having some sort of return in their lifetimes, we why is it that Peter in the gospels in John is being told that he's going to die as an old man with the kingdom of God not present on the earth in a visible sense, in the invisible, like the church is the kingdom of God on earth, but not in that sort of like where Jesus is Lord in the eyes of all the governments. That really wouldn't make a lot of sense. Jesus tells these parables of these long journeys. He prepares people for a very long wait between the first and second coming. He just sends the apostles out with this mission to go out and preach the gospel. And when they're asked like, are you going to set up the kingdom in Acts chapter one, is it now? Are you going to set up the kingdom? And he's like, ah, it's none of your business when that time comes. He didn't say, expect it in your lifetime. He goes, it's not your business. Go preach the gospel. This is what you do. I think that when you start putting those things together, you realize that there was meant to be a significant delay, but a constant preparedness in the part of the believers. And that's a difficult balance to find. How do you get Christians if you're. This is weird to say, if you were writing the Bible yourself, how would you get Christians to have a ready expectation for the return of Christ throughout time, but to also have a plodding willingness to go through all, all the way until the day of their death with preparation for it to take as long as a thousand years, 2,000 years, 5,000 years, however long, how do you have them in the moment, serving Christ as though he could return at any moment, and also preparing for the future and planning well ahead. And I think that maybe scripture is trying to find that balance and that we pick one of those and we pull verses out that just pick one side of that or pick the other. And we don't realize it's kind of supposed to be both because the Scripture is going to be statically sitting there unchanged, both in the time of the apostles as well as 500 years later, as well as now, as well as five minutes before Jesus returns, someone's reading it you know, and if it, if it looks too much like it's always telling people it's a permanent delay, then nobody's ever going to be ready when Christ comes. So there's a balance that has to be struck. I hope that helps you out. I'll find the video and link it below about how Jesus was not a failed apocalyptic prophet, and I'll talk about a lot of those verses there. Raphael Alm says, why do we pray so little Collectively during the Sunday services, singing makes up 40% while praying roughly 1 to 2%. This does not seem to line up biblically nor historically. Acts 2:42 and 1 Timothy 2:1 8. Let's look at those two verses and ask what kind of expectations should we have for prayer? In the local church, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Now there's actually this translation leans this way. There's actually a question of the prayers. Was this like a liturgy? Like not just let's have time of prayer, but maybe like specific kinds of prayers, like more structured prayer? And we don't really know, although I'm sure plenty of churches today will say, well, they did exactly what we're doing right now, trust me. But it's difficult to say historically what they were doing. But yeah, so there's teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, which is probably communion, and meals together, both of those things, and prayer. And so now you could say, so 25% each. I don't know that we should assign percentages here, but they're all very important things that benefited and built up the church. And people were growing, the church was being blessed. Teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. They should all be regular parts of the church service. Or the church life doesn't have to be on the Sunday morning service, every single part, but of the church life. Churches should eat together more. Doesn't always have to be corporate, but at least people should. Acts 2:42 and then first Timothy 2, verses 1 through 8. And Paul's talking here about to men about prayer. And he says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings. Make a mental note of the variety of prayers that are here, because there are a variety. Supplication, prayer, intercession, thanksgiving, prayer is not just one thing. The variety here. Keep that in mind. It'll come come back later when I answer the first part of your question. Be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and Quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Our actual prayer for leaders is that they will make the lives of the people they lead better. We're not just praying for them to be saved, although you do want to pray for that. He'll talk about that too in a second. But you want to pray that leaders will lead well, rulers will rule well, so that the people can have peaceful, quiet, godly, dignified lives. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. I'll read on a little bit because I will talk about men specifically, for there's one God and there's one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. I love that. A cool way of talking about fulfilled prophecy. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I'm not lying. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire then that in every place, that in every place the men should pray. Lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling. Sorry, I have the new King James stuck in my brain. I'm trying to not revert to it. As I read, it's a bad habit of mine. So every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. This doesn't really tell us anything about how much prayer goes on in the church service though. Does just shows that it's an essential element. Prayer is an essential element. There were other essential elements as well. Teaching, fellowship, communion, and these things are all really important for the church to do on a regular basis. And it's easy to under emphasize any one of them. It really is. Evangelical churches tend to emphasize teaching, but we've in some cases at a pop level, this gets watered down. It's not really teaching. It's more like motivational speeches. Motivation is good, but there should be a teaching quality that's there, not just the motivation that's there. And it should be teaching scripture, not just teaching things, but prayer. All right, now your question. You say that the local church service has like 1 to 2% prayer. I think that that's incorrect. I think you've discounted a very significant amount of other times of prayer in the church service. It's true that most pastors may be open and then close with some prayer, but worship is prayer. When you are worshiping, that is an extended time of prayer. That's just what it is. Just like there's a variety of prayers I mentioned supplication. Thanksgiving is one of them. When you sing worship songs to God, that is absolutely sung prayer. 100% of the worship time is prayer time. Now, during that prayer time, I'm worshiping and I don't know about you, but probably for a lot of us, if you guys have this experience, I'll be worshiping and that's when I think to pray for so and so. And I'll be worshiping and I'll pray for them as I'm worshiping. I will often intercede and offer supplications, prayers for individuals and situations while I'm in the time of prayer. We also, at least a lot of churches, I know my church does this, usually has a time of confession every Sunday. There's some moment where you're able to bring confession. Not to a priest, not some weird priestly confession where you've got this like extra biblical concept there, but rather a time where you are confessing any issues you have before the Lord and acknowledging and appealing and crying out to his grace. We have those moments as a regular part of the church service in one way or another. It's usually very organically done. I think they do it really well. But that is. Yeah. So if you say 40% is according to your numbers you gave me, let's see, 40% is singing, then you're looking at 40% of prayer. That's not a lack of prayer, Raphael. That's prayer. Now, maybe you want to see more supplication type prayer where you're praying for other people's needs. And that's difficult to do in a corporate setting because in large corporate gatherings it's so many people that it becomes cumbersome and difficult. And so what happens is those types of prayers start getting regulated to small group gatherings. Most churches that are really big will actually take on small groups. Our church has groups that we go to and every time we gather in those meetings, we pray for one another. We have extended times of prayer for things, and so those things are healthy. I'm saying all this to say, Raphael, I don't think it's as gloomy as you think. And you may be right that we need more prayer in church services. But overall, there's more prayer going on than you've probably so far realized. All right, let's go to question number nine. Brandon. Brandon, I cannot pronounce your last name. Sorry, Brandon. Yeah, I'm not going to try. I feel like something bad is going to come out of my mouth. Hi, Mike. Is there an irreconcilable contradiction in the Gospels as to whether Jesus instructed the 12 to take a staff or not to take one? How should this affect our view on inerrancy? Man, I remember this specific one, and I looked into it years ago. I'm trying to remember. But you mentioned Matthew 10:10 and Mark 6. 8. So mark 1010. I may not. I'll try to answer. If I don't know, I don't know. Here. I'll just read the verses, then we'll come back and maybe we'll do context, too. Don't take any bag, he says, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals, or a staff for the laborer deserves his food. And then Mark six. Eight, There we go. It says he charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on a tunic. Man. I remember looking into this because it was a question that's come up with others as well. I think that the answer is in Matthew 10, as I recall, and as I'm looking at the passage. So let's read them again really carefully. Mark 10:10. Careful, close reading often answers these questions for us. And in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter. He's the wrong passage. In Mark6.8, it says he charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts. These are all things. That you don't have to have with you. Okay, but sandals. I'm trying to think how I'm gonna word this. Sandals. They were to take here, right? And not to put on two tunics. So don't have an extra tunic. Yeah, wear your sandals. You can take a staff, but you're not bringing anything extra. You have a belt, but you don't have any money in it. You don't have bread, and you don't have an extra bag to carry extra supplies. So you only have like, the bare minimum of what you walk around if you weren't planning on doing anything. So staff is one of those things. Now, when we go to Matthew 10:10, he tells them what to take. Let's back up. Acquire no gold, verse 9. Or silver or copper for your belts. No bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals, or a staff for the laborer deserves his food. I don't know if this is the case. It's possible that what Matthew's doing is saying, don't take two of those Things don't take an extra tunic, extra sandals or extra staff. We know that they had sandals. So when it says don't or two tunics or sandals, he doesn't mean for them to go barefoot. He means don't take an extra pair of sandals. So in the same context, in the same sentence, in the same phrase, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, it could be don't take two tunics, don't take two sets of sandals, don't take two stabs. That could be the meaning there for the laborer deserves his food. That's one possible resolution. And I'd have to look into it more. I don't remember off the top of my head what I found. I know when I dug into it, we dug into the Greek. Is it the same word for staff? Is one talking about like one that's a weapon of defense and the other one's talking about one that's just a walking stick. And maybe he's telling them not to bring the weapon of defense as he told them not to bring a sword. Also maybe that was connected there. I don't recall off the top of my head. Give you something to look into. So, yeah, don't quit on this though. Keep digging deeper, because that's usually where you find your answers and you go, oh, this thing bugged me for no reason. Number 10. Everyday Cinema says, can you be saved by choosing the Christian life at any moment and hoping it's real? Or do you have to be convinced what conditions do you need from God, God, place yourself, etc. Do you have to be feeling a certain way everyday cinema? I don't know fully how to answer this question, but I think I can help somewhat. And there's this beautiful, beautiful story in the Gospels that gives us some tremendous help. I mean, countless people, their lives have been changed by what I'm about to share with you. Let me just find the passage real quick. It's in Mark, chapter nine, and we'll start in verse 17. Then one of the crowd answered and said, teacher, I brought you to my son who has a mute spirit, and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down. And he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not pause here for a second. Imagine how it affected this man's faith. He brings his boy and those who've dealt with chronic illness, or especially a child with chronic illness, you understand the kind of desperation that this man has. Nobody else understands it, but you do. After however long this has gone on, there is an actual evil spirit. It's not just a physical ailment. This is a physical ailment caused by some sort of demonic thing. And this man brings his kid to Jesus and his disciples. Now, Jesus didn't do everything. His disciples did lots of stuff too. And the disciples try to cast out and there's a failure. So could you imagine them, I cast you out in the name of Jesus. I cast you out. I cast you out. I cast you out. And it doesn't work. Nothing happens. Where is this man's faith? The reason why I highlight those parts of the story is so we can go, where was this guy's faith? This man's faith is problematic. Okay? He comes and the way he says, he didn't say, I am bringing to you, my son. He says, I brought past tense to you, my son, who has a mute spirit. I brought him past tense. He has present tense, still got this spirit. I spoke past tense to your disciples that they should cast it out. But they could not. Jesus answered, and he says, not about the man, but he just says it. O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. Jesus expressing exasperation at the lack of faith it seems amongst the disciples. I mean, definitely a lack of faith is going on here. Verse 20. Then they brought him to him. They bring the boy to Jesus. And when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. Now, Jesus did not immediately just say, get out of him right away. This goes on for some period of time, could have been 10 seconds, but it didn't immediately get stopped. So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And now they're going to have a conversation as this kid's going through this foaming at the mouth. And he said, from childhood and often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us not. I'm confident you can. He's like, if you can, there's a lot of doubt going on here. I took him to the apostles. He's been dealing with this for years or however long. I took him to the apostles. They tried. I watched them try to cast him out using your tactics and your power, so to speak. At least that's how he would have perceived it. Nothing happened. And now I'm bringing him to you. He's convulsing. And now you're asking me about him, and I'm like, if you can. He's desperate. He's not a man of great faith. Maybe it is this man's faith that Jesus is referencing. Maybe it's the disciples too. Because I think. I think there's mentions there where Jesus talks about their lack of faith as relation to their not being able to cast things out at a different point. But if you can do anything. So Jesus says to him, if you can believe, remember, if you can do anything, Jesus goes, if you can believe. I don't think that parallel is unintentional. If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Now you're struck with a situation where you've got someone who understandably has doubts, has very real doubts. And they're not just, you're a dummy doubts. They're doubts that are like, I get it. I get why you're feeling that way. I understand. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't mean those doubts are justified, but they're certainly understandable. Jesus says, if you can believe, all things are possible. And the way that this man responds blows me away. This is the part that is my favorite part of the story. And I love that God gave us this story, gave us this historic event that was then recorded under the inspiration of the Spirit for us to be ministered to even today. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears. He is crying. He says, lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. This man believed and did not believe that at the same time. He was stuck between two different wavering opinions, and he felt both at the same moment. I believe and I do not believe at the same time. And he goes, but I choose my will. I exercise my will to believe even though my unbelief remains with me. This is the position that I think you're kind of describing. Can you be saved by choosing the Christian life at any moment, you said, and hoping it's real? Or do you have to be convinced? What conditions do you need from God or whatever situation you're in? Do you have to have a certain feeling in order to say that you have faith? This man, what he's feeling is fear, grief, terror, belief and unbelief at the same time. And the way Jesus responds to this guy, all he has is his willpower. I'm wavering between belief and unbelief, but I choose belief. But that unbelief is still with me, Lord. Will you meet me here? Will you meet me there? I'm wavering. I've got both. But I'm choosing belief. The unbelief is still there plaguing me. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more. Do you know what that means? That means that this is an acceptable person to God. The one who says, I believe, help. My unbelief is acceptable to God, not the one who pretends to believe. The one who chooses to trust, even though all of the fears and doubts and other things they're struggling with remain with them. But they're choosing trust. It is a will. It is a decision of the will I choose to trust. Now, there's plenty of people out there who will say, that's not how it works, Mike. You either are convinced or you're not. As if they are pure robots and they have no control over their own decisions and that they'll either become convinced or they won't be. As if they're not even making decisions in their life. They're just being impacted. Like meat machines, right? Input of data, output of reaction, and I have no control whatsoever. The scripture doesn't put it that way. For there are people who intellectually know that Christianity is true, but they don't really trust in Christ. And there are people who have doubts, but they choose to trust. You can do that and Jesus does receive you. That'd be my response. Bonus question. Bonus question from Seth Yoder. I haven't read this yet. I haven't read it. The only question I ever know when we go live is the first question because I prepared ahead of time. Everything else. So we have something to start the stream with. Everything else. Oh, and by the way, next week for the here, most of you probably don't care, but a few of you have been asking me to do this. So I'm going to do a review of the upside down Kingdom Bible. Let me see if I can get the camera to show it to you. There, you can kind of see it. Yeah, the upside down Kingdom Bible is a. It's kind of a study Bible. It's more like a commentary, topical commentary type Bible. It's not like, watch out, it's really bad. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm gonna do a review of it because I thought it was interesting. It caught my interest and several of you asked me about it. And I know one of the contributors to it. Personally, he's a great guy, but I also don't care for it that much. So it's not his contribution specifically. I just mean the overall thing. Anyway, I'll talk about it next week. That's a little preview for next Friday for the live stream. Okay, bonus question from Seth Yoder says, can we get a worship hymn on the guitar to close out the live stream? Oh, no, I don't want to do that. So Listen, Seth, on YouTube, if you play even 10 seconds of somebody else's music, it can cause you all kinds of problems with your video. Like music is really. Especially these big agencies that own all kinds of music copyrights, they just start sending out and causing problems. And so I don't want to do that. I'm also like super out of practice and I don't want to sing. Just being honest with you, it wouldn't be that good. Wouldn't be that good. I'm so out of practice and singing and stuff like that. I still play guitar here and there, but singing especially, I'm really subpar at this point because I never do it just in worship. Just on my own in worship. I never, I don't. I don't do. I used to be practices and singing and leading worship like at least once, twice a week. You should be at least twice a week long band practices and all that. But now I don't do that stuff. So I must say no. Sorry, Seth, Monkey won't dance. But I will close us in prayer. Father, we thank you for your holy and wonderful word. It answers so many of our heart's issues. Really the problem is that we just don't know what verse is going to speak to us on that issue. We don't know what story in the scripture, what teaching from your Word is going to address the problem that we're facing that day, the problem that our lives are going through. So we pray. Show us. Direct us to Bible studies. Direct us to opening the Word and reading the very things that we need to know about and help us to develop, even as it's January, habits of reading the scripture that will stockpile within us all those wonderful answers so that later when we're in crisis and we need it, we will just reach in and it will be right there and it will become fresh and new to us. We pray, Father, for those in California, even around me, who are suffering with all kinds of fire issues, even just the air is not even safe to breathe right now out and about, even in my own neighborhood. We pray for the firefighters that you would help them be able to stop these things and get control and contain the flames. We pray for the families that have been evacuated or have lost their homes that you would show yourself strong in their lives and show your care for them and your protection and provision for them. Lord, we pray that the crisis would cause many to come to Jesus Christ and that they would get serious about things. And we also ask, Lord, just that there be a stop to it. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. All right. Y' all hear it here? Alright. I feel guilty, but I'm not gonna sing for you because I don't feel. That's the chord progression for as the Deer. You can't copyright chord progressions. But I don't know. See, even that, even that I could get some kind of trouble. Anyway, that's all you got. It's not a music channel for a reason.