How we ACTUALLY got the Bible!? (NOT what most people think!) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How we ACTUALLY got the Bible!? (NOT what most people think!)"

Podcast: Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton
Host: Lakepointe Church
Episode Date: July 28, 2025
Guests: Pastor Josh Howerton, Paul Cunningham (Theologian), Carlos Araso

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode is a dynamic conversation aimed at dispelling common myths about how the Bible—particularly the New Testament—was formed, addressing misconceptions popularized in culture and media. The hosts also explore related themes of therapy, forgiveness, emotional health, and how Christian life is rooted in both biblical truth and real-world experience. The goal: to equip believers with confidence in the Bible’s reliability, encourage healthy approaches to emotional and spiritual wounds, and give practical advice on living out forgiving relationships.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Church Growth and News (03:00–06:00)

• Brief celebration of the church’s growth and the successful launch of Lakepointe’s Sunnyvale campus, highlighting stories of church mergers and the spiritual fruit (e.g., baptisms).
• Illustration: The merging of smaller churches leads to significant growth (average 900%), showing the power of unity in the body of Christ.

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2. Therapy, Culture, and the Christian Response

a. The Rise of a Therapeutic Culture (08:41–13:00)

• Discussion sparked by themes from "Saving Mr. Banks" (forgiveness, family wounds).
• Pastor Josh cautions: “For every one mile of road, there’s two miles of ditch.” The culture swings to extremes, such as blaming parents for all problems.
• Quote:
  “[T]here’s the Word and there’s the world. And you got to decide, does the world stand in authority over the word or does the word stand in authority over the world?”
  —Josh Howerton (09:40)

b. Avoiding the Danger of Blame-shifting (10:49)

• Referencing Ezekiel 18, God rebukes the proverb "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge", highlighting the biblical warning against totalizing blame on family of origin.

c. The Value of Therapy—When and How? (13:00–18:15)

• Paul Cunningham shares candidly about family dysfunction and counseling’s role in his healing.
• Both Paul and Josh clarify: Good therapy, anchored in godly wisdom, helps untangle the “ball of yarn” of inner pain, but therapy can also be unhelpful or even damaging.
• Christians should approach counseling with discernment—seeking counselors who share biblical grounding.
• Quote:
  “What you’re doing...is you’re asking them to disciple you at some level...So what we want to do as Christians is...make sure that we're getting wise and godly counsel…”
  —Josh Howerton (15:10)

d. Culture’s Obsession with Therapy & Its Limits (18:15–25:00)

• Addressing data: Despite the rise of therapy, anxiety and depression are higher than ever (referencing Abigail Shrier’s "Bad Therapy").
• Concerns include:
  • Therapy undermining parent-child relationships by encouraging children to mistrust parents
    – Over-pathologizing normal problems, concept creep (everything becoming “trauma” or “abuse”)
  • Therapists, in secular culture, replacing pastors and even parents as authority figures
  • Excessive navel-gazing hampering life skills (Centipede’s Dilemma: Over-reflection impedes healthy action)
• Quote:
  “In a secular culture, the therapists replace the pastors...people look to therapists as secular priests...”
  —Josh Howerton (19:32)

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3. Forgiveness: Biblical Mandate and Emotional Health

a. Emotions: Dashboard, Not Pilot (31:19)

• Emotions are valuable cues but poor guides—listen to them as data, but let faith and commitments steer your life.
• Quote:
  “Emotions make a great dashboard, they make a terrible pilot.”
  —Josh Howerton (31:22)

b. Forgiveness—What It Is and Is Not (33:42–44:51)

• Forgiveness is NOT:
  • Forgetting the offense
  • Waiting for an apology
  • Ceasing to feel pain
  • A one-time event
  • The same as trust (which must be rebuilt)
  • Always reconciliation (depends on both parties)
• Quotes:
  “You cannot carry a cross and a grudge at the same time.”
  —Josh Howerton (46:45)
  “Unforgiveness is deciding to push pause on something terrible that was done to you...and just live there.”
  —Paul Cunningham (34:55)

c. The Spiritual Dynamics of Unforgiveness (35:24–37:55)

• Deep biblical linkage between bitterness, unforgiveness, and demonic activity—“Hell is the place where nobody’s forgiven and heaven is the place where everybody’s forgiven.”

d. Practical Steps to Forgive (45:09–49:03)

• Step 1: Be brutally honest about what happened.
• Step 2: Take your pain to the cross—justice is either paid by Christ or will be paid by the wrongdoer; your role is to let go.
• Forgiveness sets you free—it is not weakness.

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4. "How Did We Get The Bible?": Responding to Cultural Myths

a. Viral Podcast Clip: Debunking Constantine Myths (57:54–82:55)

Common Myths Debunked:

• Myth 1: Constantine created Christianity and made Jesus its "mascot".
  • Fact: Christianity pre-dates Constantine by centuries; Jesus is the founder, not a mascot.
• Myth 2: Constantine made Christianity the official religion and decided Jesus was God.
  • Fact: He legalized Christianity (Edict of Milan, 313), didn’t make it official (that was Theodosius in 380), and belief in Jesus’ divinity is present in Scripture and early church history.
  • Evidence: The Megiddo mosaic (230 AD) refers to Jesus as God, predating Constantine.
• Myth 3: Constantine created Sunday worship.
  • Fact: Christians were gathering on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection long before Constantine (supported by Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10).
• Myth 4: Constantine compiled and ‘made up’ the Bible.
  • Fact: New Testament canon wasn’t ratified until council of Hippo (393 AD) & Carthage (397 AD), decades after Constantine’s death. The canon was recognized organically by the early church, not created arbitrarily.
  • Key criteria for New Testament inclusion:
    1. Apostolic authorship or close association
    2. Universal acceptance (catholicity)
    3. Alignment with established Christian teaching (orthodoxy)
  • Examples: Mark (from Peter), Luke/Acts (from Paul), Hebrews (possibly Apollos), Jude (Jesus’ brother)
  • Quote:
    “We didn’t create the Bible any more than Newton created gravity...the church recognized the word of God that was already authoritative.”
    —Paul Cunningham (82:14, 82:43)

b. The Apocrypha (71:01–79:26)

• Why Protestant and Catholic Bibles differ.
  • Protestants exclude certain intertestamental books (Apocrypha) due to lack of apostolic association, lack of widespread acceptance, and doctrinal variance (e.g., teachings like purgatory).
  • Even Jerome, who assembled the Latin Vulgate, doubted the Apocrypha’s authority.
  • The Apocrypha was not formally canonized by the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent (16th century), mainly in response to the Protestant Reformation.

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5. Finale & Takeaway

• The Bible is God’s revelation, not mere human speculation.
• The criteria for NT canon stand up to scrutiny.
• Christians can trust the reliability, authenticity, and authority of Scripture.

Memorable Conclusion:
“Hell is the place where nobody’s forgiven and heaven is the place where everybody’s forgiven. So when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives, but when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives.” —Josh Howerton (37:13)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment Description | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:00 | Lakepointe Church growth and merger testimony | | 08:41 | Introduction to therapy, trauma, and forgiveness from "Saving Mr. Banks" | | 13:00 | Paul Cunningham shares his story with family wounds and therapy | | 18:15 | Discussion of therapy’s limitations; cultural data on rising anxiety/depression | | 27:23 | Over-reflection and the “centipede’s dilemma” | | 31:19 | Emotions: dashboards vs. pilots | | 33:42 | Defining forgiveness: What it is and isn’t | | 45:09 | Practical steps for forgiving those who've wronged you | | 57:54 | Reacting to Andrew Schulz/Charlamagne/Young Turks on the origin of the Bible | | 63:59 | How the New Testament canon was recognized: criteria and process | | 71:01 | The Apocrypha: Protestant vs. Catholic scriptures | | 82:14 | Recognizing vs. creating the Bible | | 84:16 | Why “lost gospels” (e.g. Gospel of Thomas) aren’t biblical canon | | 85:04 | Closing application: Bible as God’s revelation; equipping to defend the faith |

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• “What you’re doing…is you’re asking them [a counselor] to disciple you at some level… So what we want to do as Christians is… make sure that we're getting wise and godly counsel…”
  —Josh Howerton (15:10)

• “Hell is the place where nobody’s forgiven and heaven is the place where everybody’s forgiven. So when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives, but when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives.”
  —Josh Howerton (37:13)

• “You cannot carry a cross and a grudge at the same time.”
  —Josh Howerton (46:45)

• “We didn’t create the Bible any more than Newton created gravity… the church recognized the word of God that was already authoritative.”
  —Paul Cunningham (82:14, 82:43)

• “So when people are standing around… and they start throwing out, Constantine created the Bible… now you’ve been equipped to go ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.’”
  —Josh Howerton (83:05)

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Flow, Tone, and Accessibility

The conversation is warm, approachable, and occasionally humorous, especially when debunking viral misinformation or discussing pop culture. Real and serious when addressing spiritual wounds, it never loses its pastoral heart, rooting complex history and spiritual advice solidly in the authority of Scripture and the experience of Christian community.

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For Further Learning

• Recommended Book: Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy (especially analysis on therapy and cultural shifts)
• Lakepointe’s Rooted Discipleship Experience: A 10-week journey for deeper spiritual formation and community

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Summary Prepared For:
Listeners who want to understand the true origins and reliability of the Bible, learn how to relate to modern therapy from a Christian worldview, and gain tools for authentic forgiveness and healing within a biblical framework. Whether you’re a skeptic, new believer, or seasoned Christian, this episode aims to inform, equip, and inspire.

Transcript

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now let's dive into today's episode.

[Carlos Araso]

Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Araso and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Paul Cunningham.

[Paul Cunningham]

What's up, guys? It's so good to be back.

[Carlos Araso]

Theologian man, I was going to say, you know, he's a real theologian when he comes in with like a thick.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Book, buttoned up shirt.

[Paul Cunningham]

I had to look the. I have to look the part. This actually might just be a prop. We're not going to show you the title of this, but it just. It makes me have a little bit more authority to have a really big book like this right beside me.

[Carlos Araso]

He's got his Greek books, his Hebrew books, Oxford Annotated Bible.

[Paul Cunningham]

The fact that it says Oxford on it immediately again.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh, my. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God.

[Carlos Araso]

It's amazing.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Hey, Paul's first episode on Israel End Times Revival. I'm looking at it right now. That's like one of our most viewed episodes.

[Carlos Araso]

The views literally like skyrocket.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

When Paul came in, it was Paul dude.

[Paul Cunningham]

No, no.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Whole reason. What's been wrong with the podcast is.

[Carlos Araso]

Paul, literally all the comments. Could you just bring Paul back? Bring Paul back? I mean, did you. Did you see that?

[Paul Cunningham]

I. I saw a little bit. I think it was the tinfoil hats, though. I think people want more. More of the tinfoil hats. I don't know that we want more of those cuz they were kind of hot after a while to wear them on our heads. But yeah, speaking of hats.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So this is a true story about this guy. I wore. And this is a Berlabo. I wore this burlebeau hoodie. Somebody from Berlabo watched our podcast.

[Carlos Araso]

Let's go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And sent me this hat for free, bro.

[Carlos Araso]

I love that. Would you let him know that there are other hosts as well?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Next time send three. Yeah, I got free hat, shout out. Burlebow size.

[Paul Cunningham]

Large would be a great thing to Send. You know, I'm not sure what your size would be, but, you know, I.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Just want to say this is not a paid promotion. We don't do. This is not a commercial.

[Carlos Araso]

If it was, it'd be a pretty subtle one.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, it would be subtle. It would be subtle.

[Carlos Araso]

Amen. We thanks so much for subscribing. Liking commenting. People are downloading the show notes as well. These are the. This is really. We. We love when people are taking the show notes. We got the Bible verses now that we have Paul. The. The. The quality of those show notes have gone up significantly. And they also have discussion questions for people to do use for their small groups.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Carlos Araso]

And so to download the show notes, go to Lakepoint Church Shownotes as well. We got a couple things we want to celebrate as well from the life of our church.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Big time, man. Obviously this is week three of the movies, like, enormous amount of salvation. It's. It blows me away every time. Blows me away. Absolutely. Every time. Packing 30,000 people plus into services. It's been awesome. But what we really want to celebrate for the very first. Drum roll please. For the very first time. Welcome to Sunnyvale campus, Lake Point, Sunnyvale.

[Carlos Araso]

Hey, we have a photo of it if you want to show Trinity. There you go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Look at that, man. Good job, Jamie. Trinity is. Trinity is to live free what Jamie is to Joe Rogan.

[Carlos Araso]

That's it, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But yeah, that's better. Better. Much better. Much better. Yeah. So that was. Right. That was pre campus open construction was going on and shout out to the Sunnyvale campus pastor.

[Carlos Araso]

That's it, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He. He sent that to us. He's real proud, man. Dude, can I. You guys want to give a. First of all, here's a cool story on that. We have that happen at an increasing frequency where a church that for whatever reason reaches out to Lake Pointe to consider merging, becoming a campus. And that has gone extremely well. Like extremely well. So pop quiz. Pop quiz. Carlos, I don't know if you know the answer to this. You're not allowed to answer. Pop quiz. When a church makes the decision. And by the way, this church voted. I think it was like it may have either unanimous or 97% were in. When a church makes a decision to merge with Lake Point, what percent growth do? So we. I actually went back and looked at this data. When a church merged with Lake Point. All right, let me say it like this. Of the churches that have merged with Lake Point to become campuses, what percentage growth on average do you think they've.

[Paul Cunningham]

Seen I'm going to let you go first.

[Carlos Araso]

I actually know the answer.

[Paul Cunningham]

I was going to guess 1 percentage point higher than whatever he says.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

If you didn't know the answer, what would you have guessed?

[Carlos Araso]

I mean, I would have guessed like 80%.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

80%, 90%. It's pretty good.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. I would have said around like 99 to 100. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The. The average church's Mercy Lake point has experienced 900% growth. That's average. Wow. That's average. So, dude, this one of those things, like, better together. I'll tell one quick story and then we'll move on. So we got some cool things to talk about today. We're debriefing the Bible teaching that we. By the way, we do not preach movies during. At the movies. We use movies to illustrate biblical truths. So we're going to talk about is the biblical truths around some of the themes that were explored there. So we're going to talk things like we're going to talk about therapy and what should Christians think about therapy and therapy culture. We're going to talk about forgiveness and how do you think about flawed parents. We're going to talk about. Oh, and then we're going to talk. We're going to react to Andrew Schultz sent uer talking about Constantine and how. Oh, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about how did Christians get the New Testament that we have. And that's why we have the theologian in residence with us all.

[Carlos Araso]

The theologian.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Wait, what was I getting ready to say? Oh, the story. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So our. It's our North Dallas campus. That's a thriving campus. Shout out. Antoine, campus pastor over there. Dude, this just the sweetest group of senior saints were there to vote for. And then they're still like the backbone of a lot of that campus. There's a sweet, precious lady up there that when we were at the meeting, me and Pastor Steve went up there to. And we always go up, spent a few hours answering any questions they got, praying with people, that kind of thing. And one of the ladies, you know, there's some emotion around it. And one of the ladies stood up and turned her back to us and faced the group that was there that had been in the church for many years. And she pointed back at the little baptismal and she said, I want to see those waters stir again. And that was like the moment that there was like a spirit led. Yep, we're in. And they have seen that. I mean, baptized. I. I would love to know how many? Lots of people get baptized up there.

[Carlos Araso]

So amazing, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's a cool thing.

[Carlos Araso]

Well, it's gonna be a great episode, and so let's dive in, man. We just do it, man. Saving Mr. Banks, week three.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Carlos, you. You've never seen Mary Poppins?

[Carlos Araso]

I've never seen it, no. So even as I was watching this movie, I know I thought it was like, I'm trying to figure out what. Okay, this. She's probably a.

[Paul Cunningham]

Do Mary Poppins in El Salvador in the middle.

[Carlos Araso]

What year did it come out? Like, what?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Like, super old. What year? Trinity or Arthur.

[Paul Cunningham]

What.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

What year ago? I'm curious. Can somebody Google it?

[Paul Cunningham]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So they. But they didn't do Mary 64. 64.

[Carlos Araso]

So, I mean, it's a little bit of an older movie.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah.

[Carlos Araso]

So I. I was. I've never seen it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I grew up watching all the time.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Araso]

Interesting.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So for anybody that doesn't know, this is a really good. It's a great movie. Tom Hanks. I don't know the lead actress's name. I don't know her name, but it's the story behind the story about Walt. How Walt Disney chased this. The author of the original Mary Poppins story down. And then she, like, resists. She was a very eccentric, stubborn person, to say it mildly. And she, like, resists and resist and resist. But. And then Walt Disney. Disney eventually, obviously, wins, and wins are over. But the story is really. It delves into. Man, she had a deep, deep wound from her family. There were some roots there. And it delves into those themes of that forgiveness, dealing with your past, that kind of thing. Great movie.

[Carlos Araso]

Which is interesting because, you know, when you encounter somebody that's kind of, you know, grumpy and just kind of very difficult to be with, usually the natural response is to be like, I don't want to mess with you. Like, I'm done with you. And yet Walt just pursues her with empathy, with grace. And so let's talk about some of these issues, some of these things. Her trauma past. Before we address forgiveness, man, let's talk about, like, what a. Where we are in our culture. There's a little bit of a strong obsession on therapy.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Carlos Araso]

So let's go there.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So. So let me just start. Let's get. So that most of the message this weekend was really about, like, hey, man, if you need to go back into your past and give some things to the Lord and experience some healing from the spirit and the truth, let's do that let me give a pastoral counterpoint. You know, it's one of those things like let me pastor in the other direction for a second. One of my favorite little quotes is for every one mile road, there's two miles a ditch. So let me just gently give a warning. So yes and amen, we're going to talk about that, man. A lot of people do they carry some serious wounds from family of origin or parents where it is. And we need to deal with that. Yes, amen. That's 100 a thing. Let me get, let me give the a bit of a warning in the other direction in our like hyper therapeutic culture. By the way, for people who, you know, might have never thought about this, you live in the most therapeutic culture in human history. It is not close like you are in a radical outlier. One negative thing that's done is, you know, what we like to say is there's the Word and there's the world. And you got to decide, does the world stand in authority over the word or does the word stand in authority over the world? This is one of those things where there's some tension because what the word of God says is, honor your parents, honor your parents, honor your parents. What the world tends to say, influenced by therapeutic culture is blame your parents, blame your parents, blame your parents. And so here's a, here's a little known Bible verse. A lot of people have never, maybe even the theologian is not a way, you know, we'll see here, Here's a little known Bible verse.

[Carlos Araso]

I doubt that, but go ahead.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He's gonna like, he's gonna like lift up his sleeve and had it tattooed. Oh, interesting. Right here. Yes. That's on my forearm.

[Paul Cunningham]

In Hebrew.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

In Hebrew, yes.

[Carlos Araso]

That's hilarious.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right, here's a little known Bible verse, verse that maybe gives a little warning to our culture. Ezekiel 18. God, speaking through Isaiah, says, what do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel? And then he quotes something that was apparently popular to say in ancient Israel. This is what they would say. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. So in other words, they were saying, man, the reason that things are wrong in my life is because my dad or my mom did, you know. So they were saying, the father's eating sour graves and the children's teeth are set an edge. Verse 3, As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. So he's literally rebuking this, maybe a totalizing tendency to like, just blame your parents for them.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And God's like, quit doing that. And so the warning is what therapeutic culture will sometimes do is, you know, and we'll talk about, hey, there's good therapy, bad therapy. Let's talk about that here in a second. What bad therapy will do and what therapeutic culture can sometimes disciple people into is, oh, man, you got things going wrong in your life. Okay, let's go back and figure out how your family of origin and your parents caused that. And it ends up with kind of this vibe of like, everything wrong in your life goes back to your parents. Blame your parents. Blame your parents. Blame your parents. Okay. Agree, disagree, additional thoughts here. What y' all think.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, is I. I'm just gonna say it's fortuitous, I think, in God's sovereignty that I'm here today in the sense of, I don't think we originally planned for me to be here today, and then we just scheduled last second. And for me, family wounds and dysfunction is rampant in my family. Like, I like to joke with people. If I drew my family tree, it looks more like a bush. And so to even like frame it for people. After my parents got married, my mom's dad had an affair with my dad's mom. So, like, yeah, I know right now you're trying to visualize in your head. That's why I talk about the bush. It's like a lot of, lot of damage, a lot of trauma, and then continued on into my parents and they got a divorce. So I've dealt with a lot in my family. And so for me, family issues and then forgiveness have been one of the key themes of my life and had to deal with a lot in my teenage years. But then about two, three years ago, I just hit a wall and just out of nowhere. And so I actually did go to counseling. And one of the things my counselor told me, because I was like, oh, I thought I dealt with this. He's like, you did. But just not as a middle aged guy, which I loved the insight. I hated the middle aged comment. But I did, I was like, really appreciate that. And so we dealt with it. On the one hand, we had to go back and I had to wrestle with some things that happened to me, maybe from a new layer, a new perspective. And what I love that he did is on the one hand, we did go back to the past, but we went there to get healing, not to dwell simply on what had happened to me. And then he gave me things to do, and if I didn't do Those things there was really no. So it wasn't about sitting and dwelling in the past or completely blaming my parents. It was, hey, what happened to me? But then also, hey, what does God want to do in me and through me because of that? And then how can we move forward? So I just love that we're here today, that I'm here today getting to talk about this, because I actually have experienced this, because I've seen what you're saying, which is sometimes it's, hey, blame on parents, don't take any responsibility. Or you just sit there and dwell there instead of saying, hey, the gospel frees me to revisit my past, but it doesn't want me to get stuck there. It has a better present and future for me.

[Carlos Araso]

And Paul, what you're saying is, obviously, in your case, men, therapy was extremely helpful.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Carlos Araso]

And Josh, what you are not saying is all therapy is bad.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Exactly.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So it's like when somebody, sometimes people in the lobby, they'll ask this question, they'll be like, hey, is therapy good or bad? And my response is, I say this. I have a little spiel. I say it every time I say, that's like asking, are pills good or bad? Well, that depends. Are you taking. Does the pill bottle have a skull and crossbones on the side of it, or is it a multivitamin? You know, it's like, hey, man, some pills are good, some pills are bad. You can't just ask, is there. So here's a few things. Let's just sketch this out a little bit, because this is like a big deal in our culture, and Christians have maybe not, and this is on me sometimes as a pastor, have maybe not been discipled to think biblically about man. What is therapy? And what would make therapy good and what would make therapy bad? And how should I think about that as a Christian? So I think a few things that, like, I think Christians need to know is, in general, one thing that's happening when you walk into, by the way, also let me caveat this. I have spent time in. I'd rather call it counseling and therapy. I've spent time in counseling twice in ways that were very helpful and a short time, one time that was not as helpful. So I'll just. So let me just say that. But what I think you understand as a Christian, when you walk into a counselor's office, what you're doing, whether you know it or not, is you're asking them to disciple you at some level. You're asking them to disciple you, and you're opening up the most vulnerable parts of your life. Your heart, your emotional pathways, decisions that you're going to end up making. So what we want to do as Christians is, man, we want to make sure that we're getting wise and godly counsel from a counselor. Okay, so that's number one. I think that that's really important. And actually, I'll. Let me stop there. Let's go. Other thoughts, Agree, Disagree. Additional comments that's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

On Even, like, the counselor that I saw was directed to me by my lead pastor that I was with at the time. I was at a different church, and he was a person who used to be in ministry. He was a godly man, knew the Word well, and would continually take me back to the Word. So it wasn't just, hey, go see somebody and see anybody. It was, hey, find the right counselor who's going to give you the right counseling. And it made a huge difference in my life.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah, because there's some people that are also kind of very skeptical completely of any sort of counseling or therapy because they're like, well, you just need to pray more. You just need to read the Bible more. But if I'm not mistaken, Paul, correct me if I'm wrong, seriously, the. The word therapy comes from the Greek healing there.

[Paul Cunningham]

I was gonna say it's therapeutic healing.

[Carlos Araso]

There you go. So again, it's like, I didn't know that all truth is God's truth.

[Paul Cunningham]

Right.

[Carlos Araso]

And so if somebody that's wise, that studied, you know, that can help you process and. And lead you towards a healing, like you said, Paul, to do something about it, not just to kind of ruminate on. On what happened in the past, man, that's. That's a good thing. Praise God.

[Paul Cunningham]

I like to think of it sometimes like a body. If I have a wound in my body, if I have scar tissue, the doctor's gonna have to open me up to address what had happened a long time ago. But they don't open me up and just sit there and stare at it. They actually do something about it. They go in and they do work on it. And again, not so that I can simply think about my past wound, but I can move on and have a more functioning, healthy body. It's the same thing with our emotional state and our mental state and spiritual state as well.

[Carlos Araso]

I have a thought for the younger generation, but I want to let you keep going, Josh.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Well, all right, so let's. This is really good because we're kind of getting both. You're kind of getting. Again, one One, one mile a road, two miles a ditch. Hey, man, there's good and there's bad. Let's give a gentle, let's give some gentle warnings maybe and then, and then talk about this. So first of all, can you guys toss up that tweet that this is really interesting. So like, and by the way, I don't know anything about this guy. Like, so don't, don't go visit his ex account. It could be horrible. I don't know. I just saw this. It went viral.

[Carlos Araso]

He's an old books guy.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It says at old books guy. So there you go. But this went viral. Hit my timeline and I screenshotted it. But this is, this is a legitimate, this is a real timeline. So he said, he goes, first, therapy is invented. Next, 120 years pass. Next, everyone is more anxious, neurotic and depressed than ever before. By the way, can we just say that's a fact?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So, like, people right now live in the most therapeutic cultures ever existed. Simultaneously, this is the most lonely, anxious, depressed and suicidal generation that's ever existed. Now, can I add that? Please do.

[Carlos Araso]

So, Dr. Abigail Shire, she wrote about.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You'Re going where I'm going, go.

[Carlos Araso]

But just to echo what you just said, this is what she wrote in her book. This is a great book, by the way. She said, in the US alone since 1986, nearly every decade there has been a doubling of expenditure on mental health over the one before. Ironically, as treatments for anxiety and depression have become more sophisticated and more readily available for basically everyone. Adolescent anxiety and depression. She's talking about a younger generation. Adolescent anxiety and depression have exploded. And so the more treatment, the more emphasis, she says, like more anxiety, People are freaking out. In other words, more treatment has not resulted in less depression.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's actually resulted seemingly in more, more. And I want to talk about some, some things she says in that book here in a second that Christians should be aware of. But I do want to say this. So as culture has secularized, it's like, here's what I think people gotta be aware of is in a secular culture, the therapists replace the pastors. So it's like, that's what you gotta watch out. Like, I'll just say it one more time. In a secular culture, the therapists replace the pastor. So a lot of people look to therapists as secular priests. I've read that before. And I do just want to point out that it, at an, at a net scale, as it nets out, it does not seem at a net scale like it's Doing what we may have hoped it would do.

[Carlos Araso]

And there's a movement that they want the therapist not just to replace the pastors, but they also want the therapist to replace the parents.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, let me, let me talk about a few things here because you're going where I'm going. So first of all, we'll put it in the show notes that Abigail Shrier book, Bad Therapy. I read it last year. It's legitimately very good. Here's essentially what she does is what she does in that book. By the way, she' a Christian. I think she's a, an agnostic. I think she's an agnostic Jew maybe, I can't remember. But she essentially, she just starts with that premise. She just goes like, hey, this, something seems to be wrong. It's the most therapeutic culture ever and our mental health is worse than ever. Let me figure out what's going on. Okay, so she, in this book identifies like, I'm going to say three or four things that are her theories based on her research about, hey, here's some watch outs. Here's some watch outs. So her, her thesis is that therapy is a little like chemotherapy. She's like, man, this is a very aggressive thing. It can have some really negative side effects. But when you have something that's like lethal going on inside of you, it's worth the damage that it was could cause to eliminate this thing that's much worse. So that's probably poorly stated, but she's like, there's some times where like, dude, you need to blast a tumor.

[Carlos Araso]

If you need it, you need it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

If you need it, you need it. Yeah, you need to go get that thing out of you and it's gonna. Is there a risk that has some bad side effects? Yes, but it's worth it.

[Paul Cunningham]

It's like for me, where I got to my life, I used a different analogy is I actually drew this for my wife when I was trying to explain to her what had happened. I just, you can imagine on a piece of paper, just a big ball of yarn just is all jumbled up and that' felt. And I got to the point where like I can't untangle myself. I had tried and I, I had read the word. I had like listened to sermons and worship. I couldn't untie myself. So I needed to go like I was at a point where I needed something radical done and some, and some help and I needed someone who could help me untangle. It's a little bit different analogy, but it's the same thing. It's like, hey, I got to the point where there's nothing like I tried was working. I need to go to somebody to help me get past it. And it did. So that's right. But it's not in every circumstance is what you're saying, that actually can do more harm if you go in and it's not something that big. Is that kind of what we're saying?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's kind of what Abigail. That's kind of where she goes. And I'll say same thing. We've talked about it on the pod before. I don't need to go there. But when I had the eight months of the anxiety attacks in 2019. Do you know Rich Plass? Have you ever heard of that? Do you know Rich?

[Paul Cunningham]

We are in similar circles. I know who Rich is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay. So I went to Rich over in Indiana. Rich and his precious wife Sally. Rich is a, an older.

[Paul Cunningham]

You know Jim Cofield.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, Jim was in one of my sessions.

[Paul Cunningham]

Okay. Jim's the man. That's probably.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I love those guys. We're having a little.

[Carlos Araso]

That's great. That's amazing.

[Paul Cunningham]

I just was wondering when you said it's like, okay, I think you may know.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So Rich is like. Rich is an older, godly, wise. Oh, he's wise, loving, Jesusy, Bible believing, theologically informed man. And he's a counselor. And so when I had that deal, I flew over there to I can't remember where in Indiana, somewhere in Indiana, wherever he lives and just spent three days with him and it was awesome. It helped me get unstuck now, so one mile road, two miles of ditch. Here's the watch outs. All right, so here's one thing she says about how it can negatively affect children's relationship with their parents. That's really what we're talking about in this pod. This is what she said. Number one, she says, never do the materials. I'm quoting her. Never do the materials seem to. To consider that undermining a child's relationship even with imperfect parents creates psychological damage all on its own. How is a child supposed to feel secure after you've undermined her faith that her parents know what's best or have her best interest at heart? What she's saying is, man, you, let's say you take an 11 year old child, you put them in, in children's counseling, they walk in and the counselor's like, let's get into how your parents have affected you. Hey, there may be some legitimacy there. And I don't know how to untangle this Whole knot right here. Let me just say that. But she's like, man, but watch out, because there's an unintended negative consequence. You're undermining an 11 year old's confidence in her parents. That's her entire life stability. So it's like, hey, you gotta watch out. All right. Number two, she says that sometimes therapeutic culture can pathologize normal family dynamics. So it'll slip into calling things that are, are really just normal parts of living with sinners. And they'll over label those things with words like trauma, emotional harm, emotional abuse. Other writing I've read recently talks about how. And I'll just. I get hammered for this sometimes. But one of the greatest forms of abuse in our culture is abusive. The word abuse is like, we call everything abuse now. It's like abuse is very real. Very real. But hey, somebody making you feel a negative emotion is probably not always abuse. Okay? And that's what they're talking about is, it's called concept creep. Where hey, this word, a word, for instance, like trauma, when it was invented in the 60s or 70s, whenever that word had a very specific definition of a narrow range of things. And their point is that over time that concept has crept to where it's like, like everything's trauma. It's like that's actually not always true or good for you to think. Number three. And you guys can give thoughts on any of these when we're done here. Number three. Carlos, you alluded to this. She points out that in a highly therapeutic culture, the therapists replace the parents as the trusted source of guidance. Let me just say that's not how God set it up. Ain't how God set it up. Up. And then last I'm gonna, I'm actually throw this up here. It's that centipedes dilemma thing. This is a screenshot. And this is something that as I look back and reflect on the one experience I had that was not a good godly experience in counseling, this is exactly what happened. So it's called the centipedes dilemma. Okay? It says centipedes dilemma. Ask a centipede which one of its hundred legs moves the fastest and it forgets how to move. Reflecting on what we normally do without thought ironically worsens performance. A culture of endless self reflection therapy and navel gazing is eroding important life skills. And what her point is, is, dude, if you start walking into every situation, you're in a classroom, you're on a sports team, and the only thing you're thinking is, how does this Affect my emotions, bro, Let me just tell you, that is a great way to completely cripple your life.

[Paul Cunningham]

And I think that's one reason why we have this paradox of where you have a huge amount of therapy, self medication, but you have people who are still having the same issues and who don't have joy. And that's because if you think about, I don't know if it was John Piper or someone who said, if you reflect on the moments where you have the most joy in life, it's usually when you're thinking least about yourself. People don't go to the Grand Canyon or a mountain or wherever you love to get out and enjoy and think, I'm awesome or I'm awful. They're actually not thinking of themselves that much. And so again, we're not saying that it is not occasionally good to have that self reflection to deal with those wounds and those things, but if you're not careful, that's what I loved is getting at. It's just that navel gazing. Look at myself if I stay there. I think that's one reason why people can't get on the other side of their issues and have joy. That's supposed to be on the other side of dealing with it.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah. And it's interesting because again, that's very counter to what the Bible says. Like, Josh, you spoke about the word and the world. So the word, the world right now is saying, hey, obsess over you, like your feelings. How do you feel? Are you feeling okay? But what about that feeling that you have over there? But then the word says, ultimately we were made for the glory of God. So not the glory of you, but the glory of God, which is literally, hey, stop focusing primarily on all about you and there's a greater God and you'll find freedom there. And again, Dr. Abigail Schreier in her book, she talks about how, you know now more and more in hospitals, doctors, there's a moment where now we're asking, even in schools, even we're asking kids, how are you feeling? Every day, all the time, because we want to make sure that you're feeling okay. And she points out that when you ask a kid or a young person, how are you feeling? And then they start asking, well, how am I feeling? And then they realize they don't feel happy, then they will naturally shift to, yeah, actually, man, this, my back kind of hurts. And actually that person spoke this to me and it makes me feel. And she says, actually happiness is actually a rare emotion.

[Paul Cunningham]

We just took a dark turn, like.

[Carlos Araso]

Statistically speaking, most people don't feel like euphoric and happy all the time. Like sometimes man, you just feel okay, like, how are you feeling?

[Paul Cunningham]

Good.

[Carlos Araso]

Like I'm all right. Like I'm not feeling super happy. But then this kind of disciples this new generation to focus on. Well, I, yeah, actually I'm not. I don't know if I'm feeling like super happy right now. Is there something wrong with me? There might be something wrong with me. And she says that doesn't help. Like this is her quote in her book, regularly promoting someone to reflect under their own current state of, of feelings. If they're honest, it will always elicit a raft of negative responses.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's an incredible observation. Like what I thought of when you were talking off of that was, it's like if I had filet mignon at every meal would no longer be filet mignon.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right. Law of diminishing returns.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. And it's almost like I love that observation of that we almost expect and condition kids and anybody to think, oh, if I'm not super happy all the time, there's something wrong with me. Where it's like, hey, there's gonna be ebbs and flows and all that. That was a great observation.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Welcome to life. Yeah, welcome to life, brother. Go.

[Paul Cunningham]

No, go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say. So let's, if we start taking this back and then let's start talking about. Because really what we're talking about both in the message this weekend and this is forgiveness, like and that is one of those things that is, you know, there's some things that I call them, they're simple, they're not complex. They're simple. Simple but hard. You know, it's not complex. It's actually the answer is really simple. It ain't easy though. And forgiveness is one of those things. I think somebody's ability to forgive at a deep level determines the trajectory of life more than almost anything else. And I'll talk about why here in a second. But if we take this all the way back, but we talked about in the message two things. One, what I would say is emotions make a great dashboard that make a terrible pilot. So I think that that's the big idea is like, hey man, some people just completely ignore their emotions when actually those are God given things that are supposed be signals to you. Almost like stimuli that, that are data inputs for your soul to make good and godly decisions.

[Carlos Araso]

That's really good.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Listen to them. Yes, absolutely. Really bad idea to put your Emotions, instead of being a dashboard, put them in the pilot's seat. And it's just like, I do whatever I feel like and I follow my feelings. And let me just tell you, like, that's a sign of maturity. Maturity. Children live by their feelings. Adults live by their commitments. So it's like we have to have the ability to go, man, I feel like doing this, but instead I'm going to follow Jesus and do this thing. The other thing I would say here, and this transitions to the forgiveness thing, is what you will hear sometimes is people who have had terrible relationships with their parents, especially fathers, they got that father wound thing. We talked about that in the message is they will begin to believe well, that, man, God is a father. And because I had a bad earthly father, I'm never going to be able to have a good relationship with my heavenly father. So let's transition, and I'll start with a statement, then. Let's talk about forgiveness. We don't want to live earthly father up. We want to live heavenly father down.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And here. This. Here's what that means. We don't look at our earthly fathers. I don't want Eliana and Hudson and Felicity to look at me and go, well, that's. That's what God's like. Now. I want to do my best to reflect him, but that's not what I want. I don't want that. That would be living earthly father up. God must be like my dad. We want to live heavenly father down. We want to start with a heavenly father and then go down and go. That's what a good dad would be like. Earthly father. We don't want to live earthly father up. One of heavenly father down. Now let's start talking about. Carlos, you want to talk about forgiveness?

[Carlos Araso]

Let's talk about forgiveness, man. I mean, obviously, I think the caveat that you gave was really good at the beginning, man. Somebody's probably listening, I'm sure, and they're saying, yeah, but what I actually went through was legitimate. Like, I actually have some. Some real wounds. And I'm. I'm really struggling, and I am aware intellectually that I need to forgive, like you said, but I just can't figure out what to do. So let me. Let me start here. I want to make sure that we help people understand, man, what forgiveness is not. Josh, could you. I've heard you say some things about this man. Help us clarify when we use the word forgiveness, what do we actually mean by that and what do we not mean by that?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, well, first of all, can I just. Let me give a. Let me give. And Paul, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, too. Let me help people with a diagnostic question that may help somebody. Go, man, I actually do need to do a deep dive into my past. Here's what I would say. If you are stuck in the past and you find yourself emotionally reacting to something that happened a long time ago and you can't stop doing that, that's when you probably need to go back and dig some stuff out. So what you'll find out is what if. If people do not have the ability to grieve, heal, forgive. What really ends up happening is it freezes you in a moment in time and you spend the rest of your life reacting to something that happened long ago. That is when you need to realize, like, all right, man, it's time for me to go back, deal with that thing that I didn't. With the gospel under the lordship of Jesus. Get free. That's our whole thing. Live free, so that now I can. Apostle Paul, forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward to what lies ahead. So that's a diagnostic I would give. That feel good?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. I mean, unforgiveness is basically deciding to push pause on something terrible that was done to you.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You.

[Paul Cunningham]

And just to live there. And even the word forgive in the original language, in the Greek is to let go or to release. And so, like, literally, people are holding on to things in the past, except by doing that, they don't realize that actually now it's holding on to them and they're like they're being held captive. Something past what you're saying. Yeah. If you find yourself replaying and staying there, you're not going to have freedom until you can let that thing go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

Which means forgiveness, dude.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's also. Honestly, it's demonic. It is a very strong demonic. Like, listen, I'm going to get a tinfoil hat again. But like, it's a very strong biblical theme that there is a relationship between satanic and demonic activity and bitterness and unforgiveness. Like, here's. So here's a theme a lot of people. Can I tease it out real quick? So, number one, you've got. I'm a pop quiz. Paul.

[Paul Cunningham]

Oh, goodness.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

One of the things the New Testament calls Satan is Beelzebub. Do you know what that means?

[Paul Cunningham]

Oh, why do you have to do this right now?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I won't do that.

[Carlos Araso]

He's faking it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He's just trying to make me feel good. It Means Lord of the flies. It means Lord of the flies. And the point is that it's like when a wound gets infected, flies get in, it's nasty. Flies get in there and they nest and do all their thing and it turns what otherwise would have been a normal wound that healed into something that gets infected and becomes fatal. And what the Bible's pointing out is that what Satan will do is he'll wait for you to incur a wound. He wants to get up and get in and infect and infest the wound. And then that becomes a portal to his control in your life. He controls you through bitterness, unforgiveness. I'll do some more people. A lot of people do not notice how strongly the New Testament connects demonic activity and unforgiveness. So in Second Corinthians 2, Paul says, We have forgiven anything so that we would not be outwitted by the devil's schemes. The Book of James, it says that bitter people are earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Points that out. Book of Ephesians, a lot of people, I could keep going. Book of Ephesians, do not let the sun go down on your anger so that you give no opportunity to the devil. So here's the big point. I heard this from Pastor Mark. Mark, he said, hell is the place where nobody's forgiven and heaven is the place where everybody's forgiven. So when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives, but when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives.

[Carlos Araso]

That's good, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So this is a big deal. Do you want me to talk about what forgiveness is not?

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah, let's.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You got comments here just to add to that.

[Carlos Araso]

I mean, again, lack of forgiveness is anti gospel at the center of Christianity. You have Jesus at the cross and he says, father, forgive them. There's a reason why at the sinner's prayer, Jesus says, hey, forgive us our trespasses. It says we forgive. It's a big deal for God to say, deal. You will not receive forgiveness if you don't forgive. So. So yes, let's. Let's talk about. So speaking of forgiveness, what is it not.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, some things that forgiveness is not. What do these real quick, common Christian myths. Forgiveness is not forgive forgetting. You hear that all the time. Forgive and forget. Some people get tripped up on that Jeremiah passage that says God remembers their sin no more. And I will just say, hey, man, what? What? The Bible, it doesn't mean like God literally stopped being omniscient. Oh, I. He's like, he's he's aware.

[Carlos Araso]

What are you talking about? What you do?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, I forgot. He's aware. He didn't stop being omniscient. It means he chooses not to relate to us on the basis of our sins. So forgiveness is not forgetting. All right, number two, forgiveness is not waiting for an apology. I'll just say, watch out for this. Some people say, I'll. I'll forgive them when they say they're sorry. And what I'll just say is, man, if that's you, some of you will die with your legs still in the trap of bitterness. You're gonna die. You're gonna die in bitterness. Okay, number three, forgiveness is not ceasing to feel pain. You really. Jana, this is something I've had to help Janet with at times and encourage Janet with a lot of people. And I've noticed, particularly women who have maybe more their conscience, honestly, they got better, more sensitive consciences than men. And sometimes there'll be people who are like, man, I'm trying as hard as I can to forgive somebody, but it still hurts. And then on top of their pain, they have this guilt that, man, because it still hurts, I probably just haven't forgiven. And no, man, that does not mean that Jesus, in Revelation 21, it says that the last thing Jesus does at the end of time is he will wipe away every tear from every eye. And here's what that means. You're going to be crying all the way to heaven.

[Carlos Araso]

Well, hey, guys. One of the reasons we are intentional in creating this kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the live free podcast is model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the word of God and honestly just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Christ.

[Carlos Araso]

And so for this reason, we love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined the group, whether in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. And so to do that, just text the word group to 20411 or go to Lakepoint Church group, because, listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away, one decision away, one book away, one sermon away. Listen, you are one relationship away to experience freedom in Christ in community. And now let's get back to the podcast.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So just because it hurts doesn't mean that you fail. To forgive. Number four, forgiveness. This is really important. It is not a one time event. Mm. So I'll give an example. Names and details obscured to protect the guilty. There's a couple, probably two months ago, where many over a decade ago, the husband committed adultery. She chose to forgive him. God redeemed their marriage. They're doing awesome now, like, amazing redemption. Lord, Lord. Her husband, like, I literally can see him when she. He's across the lobby and she comes up wasting a little line, and she's talking to me and Jan and she's like, hey, you guys know my story. You've prayed with me before. I'm really struggling because every time she's like, he has never given me any reason not to trust him since that time. Been totally faithful. But for some reason, when I see him talk to another woman, even in a totally normal way, all those feelings come back up and I'm angry at him for something again. And you know, hey, that doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It doesn't mean you failed to forgive him. That wound is still a little bit there. And you're going to have to choose to forgive over and over and over.

[Paul Cunningham]

I've experienced this when my parents got divorced my freshman year. And relationship with my mom has never been the same. And it was tough. I had an initial moment of forgiveness where I drifted away from God because I had a season of rebellion, came back, but I wanted to hold on to the hate from my mom. And God said, it doesn't work that way. You're going to have to go release it, forgive. But even then, I would find it coming up again. But then when I was a teenager reading C.S. lewis, and he actually pointed out that when Jesus says to forgive 70 times 7, it doesn't just mean for different sins, it actually might mean for the same sin.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Wow.

[Paul Cunningham]

I remember reading that as a teenager and it just unlocked something because I thought I was okay. And these feelings of bitterness and anger would come back. And just reading that unlocked it for me where I'm like, no, like every time, like you said, it comes back up again. Take that same journey, forgive, and then move on.

[Carlos Araso]

And so, yeah, so somebody's asking, man, That's. That's right. That's. That sounds right. How do I do it?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Wait, can I finish this?

[Carlos Araso]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

My bad, my bad. You're right.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We need just two more real quick. Number one. And then number five, Forgiveness is not trust. So that. That's one thing. Some. Some well meaning but gullible Christians Will think, oh, I've forgiven him. That means I need to trust him again. Nope. Forgiveness is not the same thing as trust. If Uncle Billy abused your kid, you can forgive him. Can he ever babysit again? Nope. Because you know, forgiveness is given. Trust should be what here's important. Trust should be gained in drops, but lost in buckets. That's just how trust works. Amen. Trust is earned. So that's not bitterness that you're not trusting that person. That's not bitterness. That's called wisdom. That's called wisdom. Okay, so trust should be quickly lost and slowly gained. And then number six, this is really important. Forgiveness is not always reconciliation. Takes one person to repent, takes one person to forgive, takes two people to reconcile. This is why Romans 12:18 says, this is important. Romans 12:18 says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. So you can totally forgive somebody, but if they don't, depending on the action. Some caveats here. If they don't repent of what they did, change what they did, regain your trust from what they did, the relationship might not be totally reconciled. That doesn't mean you have failed to forgive them. So there you are. Are six things forgiveness is not.

[Carlos Araso]

Those are great. Those are really good. Very helpful to clarify. So now if somebody is feeling paralyzed by their past and they want to get past their past, and maybe they're wrestling with guilt, shame, dysfunctional family, trauma, real trauma, what are some of the things that they need to be doing? What do they do now?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You want to start? You want me to start?

[Paul Cunningham]

I guess I can start, yeah. Actually, a few years back, reflecting what I've been through and just reflecting on the scriptures came up with really, in a sense, a two step method. Step one is actually to be very brutally honest about what happened to you. Because sometimes people are like, oh yeah, there's no big deal. It may have been a very big deal. And just be brutally honest. In the Old Testament, the Psalms, there's an occasional psalm where someone had been deeply victimized and hurt and they would just unload. And I think that it's a biblical thing to say, hey, what happened to me was wrong, and be very specific. I even encourage sometimes for people to write it down. But then you have a choice. Once you do that, once you write it down, once you have it out there, you can hold onto what they did to you. But that's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. That's just not a good strategy. You can give them what they gave you, you can return the hurt that they gave you, or you can give them what God gave you. And so step two is, then take that pain and take that. Basically be very blunt about what happened to you, but then take it to the cross. And there at the cross is where justice is served. And so anytime someone has hurt me, I have to realize, if I take it to the cross, justice is going to be served in the sense of either the person who hurt me is going to be held responsible for their sin.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Sin.

[Paul Cunningham]

Or that sin is going to fall on Jesus on the cross if that person is a Christian or becomes a Christian. And so in that moment, if I stand at the cross and I'm still holding on to bitterness, I'm basically telling Jesus, yeah, what you did isn't enough. I need more. And so then I have to.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's what you said is so important. Will you say that one more time?

[Paul Cunningham]

If I stand at the cross and I want to hold on to my bitterness and unforgiveness, I'm basically looking at Jesus and said, what you did wasn't enough. I need more.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Somebody told me one time, you cannot carry a cross and a grudge at the same time.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's right, because. And then with that, when I'm at the cross, what I realize if I'm looking around, just, if you can, like, even just picture this metaphorically, I'm going to see, like, notes there with my name on it, meaning I've hurt others. And also I have sins against Jesus. And so in that moment, I realized, like, I'm only here because of what Jesus gave me, and that was forgiveness. And so now I'm called to give them what he gave me. So that's. So basically, step one is be very honest. If you need to write it down, I'm not saying to give it to the person who hurts you, but write it down. And then step two is just metaphorically, in a sense, take it to the cross if it helps you to go to, like, a physical cross, and then just release it and say, justice is going to be served, either because they're going to have to deal with that, or Jesus, you have dealt with it. But I no longer have to deal with it. I no longer have to carry it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's fantastic.

[Carlos Araso]

You're saying not to post it on. On Facebook whenever you write it down.

[Paul Cunningham]

A wise thing or X right now, or X.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's what. That's all X is. That's kind of all.

[Carlos Araso]

Honestly, that's true.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's like George Costanza what's the holiday festivity festival now? It's time for the airing of grievances. Nobody will know where. You have no idea what we're talking about. You didn't see Mary Poppins or Seinfeld. You don't know who George Costanza is?

[Carlos Araso]

I don't know.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh, my gosh.

[Carlos Araso]

I never saw Seinfeld.

[Paul Cunningham]

So is it okay that I have a time of prayer right now?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I need to forgive Carlos.

[Carlos Araso]

I will gladly receive it. I'll say I'm here to learn from you.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Stop, Dude. So a couple things. One, you're talking about action steps, and I'm going to agree with a lot of things Paul just said. So first of all, let me just say your ability to master the Christian. Let me just say this. The Christian responsibility to forgive every sin that's ever committed against you. Your ability to do that will determine the quality of every relationship you have in your life. Families run on forgiveness. Marriages run on forgiveness. In general, I don't. Do you know, when I used to do a lot of marital counseling. In general, couples don't fall out of love. They fall out of forgiveness. Because when we sin, every time you sin, it's like, that's the. You're bringing trash into the family. Forgiveness is how you take out the trash. And if you don't take out the trash, the whole thing starts stinking.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's good.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So forgiveness is the take out the trash model. A lot of guys will do this, especially men. I've noticed this. Maybe not especially. I'm just a guy, so I notice it more. But they feel like forgiveness makes them. I'd be weak. I'm letting them off the hook. Amen. Holding a grudge doesn't make you strong, it makes you bitter. And forgiving somebody doesn't make you weak. It sets you free. So it takes a lot of strength to just go. You know what, man? Vengeance is God's. I'm going to leave it to him. Romans 12. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. I'm going to leave it to the Lord. I release myself from the responsibility of paying that person back for everything they've done. Done. That's a big deal. Couple of action steps. Number one, part it. Paul already got it. You got to believe the gospel at a real deep level. You. You will never be asked to forgive something more than you have already been forgiven. Number two, I will say this. I feel like maybe more Christians. We need to remember Proverbs 19:11 says, it's the glory of man to overlook an Offense. So honestly, dude, like, the vast majority of the time, you know. You know, honestly, dude, like, toughen up, buttercup. You know, it's like, hey, dude. Yep. People are sinners. They're not always gonna do what you want. And, you know, part of maturity is the ability to go, you know what, man? I'm just. I didn't. I'm not even gonna treat that as a big deal. We're moving on. We need that verse on X. Proverbs 19:11. There you go, man. I will both. I didn't know you had done this, Paul. Both me and Jana, a couple times we've been like, very egregiously sinned against. We have done what you said and we wrote out letters. And honestly, we wrote what we would say to that person if they had the maturity and humility to receive it. We did not give it to them, but we needed to get something out of our heart and acknowledge what had been done to us. When we were done, Jana burned hers just in case.

[Carlos Araso]

Did you say you grabbed a couple of scissors and then Jana just threw.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It in the fire, bro? Jenna, I just threw mine away. You know, Jana literally went out to the fire pit and burned it. Jana's got a high justice bone.

[Carlos Araso]

Healing, healing right there.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It is healing. It is healing. That is, by the way, why some people think this is cheesy and dumb. At encounter, that's I. We still. We put up the old wooden crosses around every sanctuary, auditorium, whatever we call them now. Every sanctuary we got at every campus. And we do that at encounter during the prayer time. If you got sin you need to get rid of or sin that's been committed against you go up to all these crosses and nail it there. You can call that cheesy. I think it's awesome. Yes, we do that. And then I would say sometimes you need some help in community. So heads up. There is, I think an entire week in rooted. But rooted is our 10 week discipleship experience that literally every Christian should do at some point in their life. Like. Like, you can't walk out of rooted without going, oh, that's what it's like to be a disciple of Jesus. There's a week that gets real heavy into. It's. It's a strongholds week is, I think, part of that.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah, it's. You get to open up and I mean, again, the. You have some authentic, real raw conversations in that group. Yeah. So that's coming up in a couple. That's a new initiative in our church. Root it. 10 week discipleship experience. And if somebody right now is tuning in right now and they're not in a group group, we're launching that, like, soon.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Everyone needs to do rooted and so to.

[Carlos Araso]

We'll make it easy for you to sign up to, to attend rooted and to be a part of a group. Text rooted to 20411 and then we'll, we'll be in touch. But, yeah, that's a, that's huge. Just the, the aspect of being surrounded by the right people. You need to have that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You got to gang tackle that, that thing with some, some brothers.

[Carlos Araso]

There you go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And then, last thing I'd say here is Jesus said to pray for your enemies. And Jan and I have found that a significant part of getting freedom from a wound is us just making a decision. We're going to pray that God blesses that person and prospers that person. And there's something that it does in our hearts. So I say that, man, what about.

[Carlos Araso]

The person that maybe is wrestling with this? And they say, yeah, I know this, but, man, I'm really just struggling to forgive myself.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Myself.

[Carlos Araso]

I, yeah, like, I, Yes, I, you know, I've done some things and I, I just, I'm. I guess I'm happy to forgive other people. I just, I can't do that with myself. What would you say?

[Paul Cunningham]

What would you say?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I don't like that language. Yeah, I don't like the language. I can't forgive myself because you're not the judge. He is. And honestly, honestly, what I think that does is there's one sense where that puts you in too power, powerful of a position, and there's actually another sense where it puts you in a powerless position. So, number one, don't put yourself in God's seat. God's the judge. So let's remember that number two, that puts you at the mercy of your own emotions. Whereas if I go, man, actually, I don't need to forgive myself. I need to receive the forgiveness. The Father has already spoken over me. Well, now it's not dependent on my emotions, is dependent on the propitiation that God has accomplished through the crucifixion of his son. Done. Yeah.

[Carlos Araso]

Yeah. And if somebody's, I would say, if somebody's wrestling with that man, I would say it sounds like you need to differentiate whether you're feeling condemnation or conviction because they're different. Right. And so like condemnation, we would say, is when your enemy, which you have an enemy, your enemy is hatefully attacking you for past forgiven sins. Hey, you have been forgiven. You don't need to forgive yourself. You have been forgiven. If you are a Christian, conviction is when the Holy Spirit is. Is making you maybe uncomfortable for a present sin that you need to bring to the cross. And so, again, there's a difference between those two. If somebody's saying, man, I'm just struggling to forgive myself, hey, is that condemnation from the enemy or is that conviction of the Holy Spirit? Identify which one and then take the necessary steps.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, briefly, when I've talked to people about this, when they say something along these lines. This is going to sound like a weird quote at first, but just follow me is I often will tell them, God expects less from you than you do from yourself. And what I mean by that is that he already knows every sin you're ever going to commit. And by the way, Jesus, Jesus died for every sin you're going to commit. So oftentimes people think like, oh, like, when I accepted Jesus, it's all for all my past sins. No, he died for all past, present, and future. By the way, that doesn't mean we should go out and sin and do whatever we want because of that. By no means. But what it does mean is that when you committed whatever sin you can't forgive yourself of, God isn't surprised by that. Jesus isn't saying, oh, I didn't see that one coming. I guess I got to get back up on the cross. He already paid for it, or I.

[Carlos Araso]

Wouldn'T have gone to the cross if I knew. You would have done that.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah, he's not saying that at all. So, again, it's like, don't hold something against yourself that God is no longer holding against steam. And so there you go, man.

[Carlos Araso]

That's really helpful.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You guys can do a hard transition.

[Paul Cunningham]

Let's do a hard transition.

[Carlos Araso]

I was trying to make it a little smoother, but I was gonna say, man, that's. That's great. We live in a time where we comed, we see comedians and podcasters are now theologians.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Well, are they? As you're about to see.

[Carlos Araso]

And so we got a video that I would love for us to react to. This is a. It kind of went a little viral. Obviously, we have three.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Does that thing have. Yeah, it's at 400,000. Pushing 400,000.

[Carlos Araso]

A bunch of clips shared on social media. Obviously, we got three strong personalities. This is. This is, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure if this is it, but. So Andrew Schultz, he has a podcast named Flagrant.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Did he interview Trump during the. During the.

[Carlos Araso]

I think he Did I think the election.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I think he did.

[Carlos Araso]

I think he did, man. And then, Josh, you want to introduce the other guys?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You know the other guy's name? I think I'm pronouncing it right. Sink Uygur. And he's. He's a. I think he's a CNN guy.

[Carlos Araso]

Young Turks.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Young Turks Pod. His name is Podcast or.

[Carlos Araso]

It's his thing. It's like the. He's a very leftist, if I'm not mistaken. Leftist liberal.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's correct.

[Carlos Araso]

Opposite of Daily Wire, basically.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

By the way, I'll just. We need to do a whole podcast sometime on. On Islam. That's. We're. Someday we're gonna do that. It's one of the most interesting things. And we're not going to talk about right now the alliance between Islam and political progressivism. Literally every value they have is the exact opposite, but they always stay on the same team. And it's very interesting why. We'll talk about that in a different podcast. So anyway, Sink Uygur, he's a. That's it. And then Charlamagne, the God who has a huge. What's the name of his podcast?

[Carlos Araso]

The Breakfast Club.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Breakfast Club is a huge, huge. So these three guys was. I saw this. I was like, carlos, we gotta talk about this. These three guys, they just start talking about the Bible because Andrew claims. He claims Christmas Christ. And that's not me casting shade that I'm just. That's. He says I'm a Christian. These three guys, like, start talking about where we got the Bible, Constantine and this like a lot of shared ignorance here. And I thought, let's react to this. And then let's. Let's real quick, let's talk about how did we get the Bible that we have and why can we be confident in it? Why these 27 books of the New Testament. All right, let's go.

[Carlos Araso]

Also Turkish. No, that's a. That's a really.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Tell me if I got the story right. Christianity was created by Constantine, and Constantine essentially needed a no. Wrong. And the mascot was Jesus. Wrong.

[Carlos Araso]

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Paul Cunningham]

Christianity was not created by Constantine. I think Constantine codified.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, he codified. He basically made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. Yeah. First of all, nope.

[Paul Cunningham]

I'll go ahead and say the problem this video is pretty much everything they say is wrong. You're like, what's the biggest problem? Well, that literally everything they say isn't, isn't true.

[Carlos Araso]

I love how Andrew's like, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Which is good on him.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. So Constantine did not make it the official religion. He legalized it in the sense that it had been a persecuted religion before. And so he legalized it, but he did not. Actually, Constantine did not prohibit paganism. He just legalized Christianity. It did not become the official religion of the empire for at least another 60 or 70 years.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So he didn't create Christianity and make Jesus the mascot. Paul.

[Paul Cunningham]

No, I think it's safe to say that the founder of Christianity is the person it's named after. You know, and when I say that, some people are like, well, Jesus didn't create a religion. It's about relationship. Yes. But if we define religion, maybe one way we can define it is this is the acceptable beliefs and practices that are related to the central figure of that faith. All right? And so Jesus did say to go out and make disciples and teach them to obey all that I've commanded you, which was both things to believe and things to do. And those apostles then went out and did that. And so the fact that you did that and then it spread over the next 300 years, and people called themselves Christians, which means little Christ. What I like to tell people, briefly, is that, like with Buddhism, if I took Buddha out of it, someone else could have come along and taught the same things. If I took Muhammad out of Islam, Allah could have revealed himself to someone else. If you take Christ out of Christianity, you lose everything.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, that's it.

[Paul Cunningham]

It's not just the teachings. It's his death, it's his resurrection, it's everything. So the fact that he's a central figure. Yeah, I would say the person it's named after is the founder of Christianity.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So he's not the mascot?

[Paul Cunningham]

No, no.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He's hilarious.

[Paul Cunningham]

Pause for emphasis. If I had hair, I'd pull it it out, you know, kind of a thing. Sorry, Carlos.

[Carlos Araso]

No, you're good. No, that's great, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, so let me hit. I'll do a couple of quick things here. There's more myths about Constantine and Christianity than you can imagine. So let me just hit. These are like, things you'll hear around your. The water cooler, your workplace. And now, from now on, dear Live Free listener, you can be the person that's going wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And you can correct it. Number one myth. Number one about Constantine, Christianity. We already hit it. That he made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Wrong. He decriminalized Christianity at the edict of Milan. In 313, there actually there was a future Roman emperor, Theodosius, in the year 380that the edict of Thessalonica made it the official religion of Rome. But he, to my, if I understand correctly, he didn't then criminalize all of the religions. He just said, that's us, we're a Christian nation, et cetera. Number two, myth number two, Constantine decided that Jesus was God. They always around Constantine that they went, oh, Jesus is God. A, that's totally insane because Jesus literally says in things in the New Testament, things like before Abraham was. I am like, he just openly just says like, yeah, I'm God in the Bible. Like in the Bible way before Constantine. Number two, will you toss that little Megiddo mosaic thing up? So this is Kenny. Yeah, yeah, see if we can get that. So we have even external to the Bible evidence. Evidence of people believing Jesus was God way before Constantine and worshiping him as God. So this is called the Megiddo mosaic. It was discovered in ancient Israel. It's a little. Well, you know, it's a mosaic. It was at the bottom the floor of a chapel. That thing was made in an estimated 230 A.D. and I'm gonna, I'm gonna read you the inscription of what it says. The God loving kept us. That's my best shot has offered the table. Listen to this language to God, Jesus Christ as a memorial. So in the year 230 A.D. a hundred years before Constantine, you have outside the Bible evidence, Christians were already worshiping Jesus as God. So no, Constantine did not decide Jesus was God. That's literally insane. And then number three, the other myth about Constantine is that he made Sunday the day that Christians worship. That's apparently like a very common myth. And no, number one like wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong Bible. Yeah, you have evidence of this in the Bible verses like Acts 27, where Paul goes, hey, on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with him. It's implied New Testament Christians had already changed their day of worship to Sunday, the day Jesus rose from the dead. You have this in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 6, 16, 2. On the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, etc. Etc. Again, Paul's assuming, oh, these New Testament Christians gather on Sunday, first day of the week. And then Revelation 1:10. A lot of people miss this. When John receives the revelation of the book of Revelation, it says, I was in the spirit on. And he uses the word the Lord's day. Obvious he's talking about Sunday. So way before Constantine in the Bible, way before, like The Bible, they're already. So let's. We already busted. Those are the three Constantine myths. We just busted them. Let's keep going here because.

[Carlos Araso]

So Constantine pulls together all the different books that.

[Paul Cunningham]

That are out there.

[Carlos Araso]

But Remember, this is 300 years after Jesus.

[Paul Cunningham]

Right.

[Carlos Araso]

I don't even think that's true. Yeah, I don't think I know what you're talking.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Council of Nice.

[Carlos Araso]

I think that they found texts that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Had existed before that. But I think a lot of times we confuse what the council is actually. But there was no religion called Christianity.

[Paul Cunningham]

Of course.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Let's go ahead. You want to talk about. So here's myth number four. Constantine made up the Bible. Paul.

[Paul Cunningham]

So what do you say? Yeah. So again, probably the biggest problem with this is that the first council that the New Testament canon was established at, it was a local council. But still, when that happened, Constantine had been dead for almost 60 years. So, I mean, he had some power, but deciding the book in the New Testament, that was at Hippo in 393, and then it was reaffirmed at Carthage in 397. Now, before that, you had, like, Hippo.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

As in Augustine of Hippo.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, he was there. He was there, he was there. And so is there an influence. So you have people.

[Carlos Araso]

By the way, I love how excited you got when Augustine of Hippo was there. He was like, yeah, he was there. I love that so much. He was there.

[Paul Cunningham]

It was so there. But, yeah, so again, the problem would be like, man, if Constantine created the New Testament, he did it from the grave. And so, I mean, he'd been dead for almost 60 years. So, yeah, when people repeat this, usually what I assume is that they have either read or were taught by people who read the Da Vinci Code. And I'm not even just saying because Da Vinci Code popularized this myth that Constantine was the one who put the books of the Bible together, when, again, it was not even established at a council until almost 60 years after he had died.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But it was established among Christians. Christians recognized the New Testament canon way before Constantine, way before that. Talk about that. So let's answer this question. How did we get the 27 books that comprise the New Testament?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. So early on, you definitely had the apostles going around and teaching and preaching about Jesus. But even then, they then wrote letters to these churches, basically further instructing them of faith, putting down heresy and false beliefs about Jesus. And it's not simply that. It wasn't about being right. They wondered, what's wrong? Namely the real Jesus. And people were coming around and Preaching fake Jesuses. And so though as time went on in the first century, they realized in addition to the letters that were being writing, hey, we need to record these things because the apostles were going to begin dying out. And hey, we need to make sure that the real Jesus is taught so people don't come to believe in a Jesus that didn't exist. Hence why the Gospels were written and all those kinds of things. So almost immediately, anything or really anything that an apostle wrote was considered scripture. We actually see this in the New Testament where Peter refers to Paul's writings as scripture.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I've got this verse. Let me just read that real quick because this is important. Second Peter 3, 15 and 16. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom of wisdom that God gave him. Listen to this real close. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His. I love this part. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand. So let me just say, if you've ever read your Bible Bible and gone, dang, what the heck's that mean? So did the apostle Peter. This dude's tough to understand.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yep.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But then he says, which ignorant and unstable people distort. Watch this as they do the other scriptures. And when he says scriptures, he uses the Greek word graphe, which is reserved for sacred writings. It is the word that is always used to refer to what scripture?

[Paul Cunningham]

Bible.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So even in the New Testament, the apostles were recognizing by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that dude's writing under the inspiration of God and that scripture.

[Paul Cunningham]

And it is authoritative.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Authoritative.

[Paul Cunningham]

And so then in the 1002, we also get writings from early church fathers that are quoting the Gospels, they're quoting Paul's letters, and they're quoting them as scripture. So in the early church, they universally saw the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Paul's epistles as authoritative. But what happens is the churches start making collections for them to have because people weren't wealthy enough and a lot of people didn't read and write. And so they would go to church, hear these things, read. So churches are making collections. And what does happen over time is different things are written. They have to discern, hey, what is authoritative, what is inspired, what is from God and what is not. So used three broad criteria. But again, this was very organic. This wasn't. Everybody got together at one meeting and said, this is our criteria. This was happening organically, which actually to me gives it more weight if they all decided in A back room, I'd be more suspicious. But the fact that churches across this area and across the world, we're using pretty much the same criteria is pretty incredible to me. Number one, apostolicity. So was it written by an apostle or associated with someone who had a close relationship with the apostles? So for example, the book of Luke, Luke traveled with Paul, and so therefore it was authoritative. So written by an apostle or someone associated with the apostle. Number two, you have to pause on that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh, please let me pause on that. So written. So a book had to be written. This was an early measure book had to be written by an apostle or was called an amanuensis. Yes, and an amanuensis is somebody that either was essentially right next to the apostle, writing down what they saw or what he wrote.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So, and here are the New Testament books that were not written directly by apostles. They were written by amanuenses. You have Gospel of Mark, traditionally attributed to John. Mark, who was a companion of both Peter and Paul. This Paul, Paul Cunningham. You've got both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts written by Luke, who is a doctor. That was Paul's traveling companion. So you got that. You got the book of Hebrews. By the way, what's your theory on Hebrews? If you had to, if you had to guess who. Are you really doing this right now? If you had to guess who wrote Hebrews?

[Paul Cunningham]

I'm an Apollos guy.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You're an Apollos guy.

[Paul Cunningham]

This is. It's total, by the way, for people who listen, don't know is or can't be for sure. This is actually one of the reasons why the book of Hebrews was adopted a little bit later because they couldn't establish the. The authority. And was it connected to an apostle? I'm probably more of an Apollos guy. Who would have been connected to Paul.

[Carlos Araso]

That's my favorite theory, by the way. Apollos writing it because he was a preacher and people say it reads like a sermon.

[Paul Cunningham]

The Russian letter Hebrew is the highest in the New Testament and it would. Yeah, tie that.

[Carlos Araso]

Who are you?

[Paul Cunningham]

Are you?

[Carlos Araso]

Are you?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We're three for three.

[Carlos Araso]

I love Apollo.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So you got Hebrews and then the book of Jude. And Jude was written by Jesus, brother. All right, so those are the ones. Now you keep going, Paul. So that was number one, apostolic authority.

[Paul Cunningham]

Number two would be universality or some people would say catholicity. Is it widespread? In other words? It's not just, hey, these random little cluster of churches in this one city really like this text says, hey, is this accepted by churches in different parts of the Roman Empire where the church had spread? Number three, is it orthodox? Does it teach things that align with the rule of faith? So there's actually hilarious stories that are out there in the first few centuries of people like, hey, we found this new thing by Peter, and they start reading it. And actually sometimes, because the person that was leading this church in this area wouldn't want to have to go and investigate. Oh, yeah, go ahead. And then the teaching would get back to him and it would have things like, oh, yeah, Jesus really didn't suffer and die on the cross, really didn't raise from the grave. It's like, oh, no, no, no, that is not true. Because they had an established rule of faith, they had the right beliefs of the faith. And so it had to align with that. And so basically, they were aligned using these three criteria to say, hey, what are those books? They have to be written by an apostle or associated with the person that was associated with the apostle. It had to be more universally used, and it had to be orthodox in teaching.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's also why we can talk about this in a second. A lot of people ask the question, wait, so why does the Catholic Bible have. I think it's like four. Why does the Catholic Bible have four books that we don't have?

[Carlos Araso]

And in the Old Testament, so the New Testament, we kind of match.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We'll do this in a second. We'll do this in a second. This is called the Apocrypha. But really those books break that. They break a couple of those, but they break that one in particular as far as, like, being doctrinally aligned. So, for instance, the Apocrypha, that's where the Catholic Church gets the idea of purgatory. It was just totally in opposition to anything else the rest of the Bible teaches. Anyway, we'll get to the Apocrypha in a second.

[Paul Cunningham]

Well, and even although I'll go ahead and say this now, it's a good quote to bring in. So Jerome, who actually put together the first Latin authorized version of the Bible, the Vulgate, he included the Apocrypha, but he specifically said that it is not the same thing as the Old and New Testament in its way. Actually, here's a quote from him. He's giving advice to someone, is basically, I think it's a mother who basically wants her daughter to grow up in the Lord. So he's given advice of what books to read. I'm thinking of our fall sermon series. He says Read the Song of Song, Song of Solomon last, just to make sure you read it correctly kind of a thing. That's just funny. So here's what he says. Let her avoid all apocryphal writings. And if she is led to read such not by the truth of the doctrines which they contain, but out of respect for the miracles contained in them, let her understand that they are not really written by those to whom they are ascribed, that many faulty elements have been introduced into them, and that it requires infinite discretion to look for gold in the midst of dirt.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Dude. So here's why that's a really stinking big deal. Is Jerome including those books in the Latin Vulgate around 400 is, like, the biggest reason they ended up in the Catholic Bible?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So the guy that was the primary cause, not the exclusive, but primary cause of those books ending up in the Catholic Bible himself said, nope, that's not Scripture.

[Paul Cunningham]

And we can. Again, we'll get back to. In terms of how the canon developed, the New Testament canon developed. But what's interesting is the apocryphal wasn't even established by the Catholic Church as scripture until the Council of Trent in the 1500s. And why? Because a few people came along called Protestant reformers.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

They're Protestant. That's us.

[Paul Cunningham]

And basically said, hey, this is not Scripture. This is not. Because they were. The Catholics were appealing to the apocrypha, for example, for Purgatory. And Martin Luther said, no. And they're like, well, actually, it is scripture. I'm like, oh, we decided that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Interesting.

[Paul Cunningham]

1100 years after. Yeah, all that kind of thing.

[Carlos Araso]

Anyways, so Paul, just real quick, so before that, then what was the term used to say, this is Scripture? Because if they made it, quote, unquote, official, they would say, we closed the canon in 1500s.

[Paul Cunningham]

Different terms were used for it. You had. Some people did consider it to be inspired. Some did. But I think, again, the misnomer among both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believers is that no, everyone has always considered them fully authoritative inspired. There's simply not. Not the truth. And so anyway, so basically, some people would call it ecclesiastical books. So there's not like it's books that are used to maybe help the church or maybe like devotional reading, but not like, when I read the Bible, I am reading the words of God, I am reading truth itself. If I read the Apocrypha, it might contain truth, but it isn't necessarily truth.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

Sorry, you better get in this back.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Well, we didn't plan on going apocrypha there. I'll just get into it. So here's. If somebody's going, so those are the four books. Does anybody remember? It's first and second Maccabees, one called Toit. And then what's the. There's one more.

[Paul Cunningham]

We got Estrus Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Solomon.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Sorry, Wisdom of Solomon. That's the other one.

[Paul Cunningham]

I was using another term for it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So those are the books that Catholic Bibles include that Protestant Bibles don't, and no one should. And let me just say. So here's four things to keep in mind on those things. Number one, Jesus and the apostles quoting the Hebrew Old Testament. Never cite the Apocrypha ever. Yeah, they never cite the apocrypha. That's number one. Number two, the New Testament contains more than 300 Old Testament citations. Not one single New Testament book ever cites any apocryphal book. Very interesting.

[Paul Cunningham]

So real quick, because some, some people say, oh, there's allusions to it. Even if there were allusions to it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Do they say Jude, Jude? Is that whole Janice and Jambr, does that come from the apocrypha?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, but even though they do, I think it doesn't negate anything you just said. Is that even if there are allusions to it, and again, there are allusions, it's like, oh, this could be an allusion to it. The key is when they are referring with Jesus and the apostles to the Old Testament, it'll say it is written or God has said, but any kind of allusion, even that's possible to the Apocrypha. It is never said that way. They do not introduce it as scripture, even if it is an allusion. Just to get out of it. If there's any of my Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, Paul also alludes to paganism.

[Carlos Araso]

Pagan poets, and that doesn't mean it's Scripture.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, and he quotes that person again as Hyde. But he's not literally saying that they are inspired. He's just simply saying that, hey, in this one specific thing, they're right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Number three. Number three, apparently, particularly the book of Tobit has like significant proven historical errors. Whereas like in the New Testament books, archeology just continues to like, whoa. The New Testament books are like, they're dead on, like archeologically, historically. Apparently. There's like extremely agree. I, I don't, I'm not familiar with this. I read this in prep for this. Historical errors in Toba. Do you know something about this?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, well. And even with that, actually.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Keep going, keep going, keep and Then number four, this one's really interesting to me. The vast majority of Jewish people have never considered, ever at any point have ever considered the apocryphal books as scripture. Here's why that's significant. Romans 3, 2 says this, this is really important. What advantage then has the Jew or what value is there of circumcision? And Paul's answering a bunch of stuff here, but then he says this much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes. And so even to connect some dots for people in terms of how the apocrypha came about. And I'll try to keep this brief because I know we got to get back to the developing the New Testament canon, but we were going to get to this anyway. So nice little side to get led right into it is that the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. But then what did happen around 3rd century BC is a Greek version was commissioned called the Septuagint and so they translated that into Greek. And so what did happen with more Greek speaking Jewish people is they would have the Old Testament as we know it, but then they would have what's called intertestamental books, which is the apocrypha. So books that were written between the Old Testament that Protestants would have and the New Testament. And so they would include those, but, but Hebraic Jews would not include them. So for example, Josephus in the 1st century Early Jewish historian, when he is relating to the Romans about the Jewish religion does not include the message scripture. It only includes the Hebraic and Aramaic Old Testament. And so that's how they got in. Early Christians that were Greek speaking often then would use that. And that's how many early Christians began using the apocrypha.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Interesting.

[Paul Cunningham]

But it wasn't unanimous, it wasn't widespread. And again there was generally a distinction. I mean I quoted Jerome, I could also go to the Eastern fathers of Cyril and other others who basically say the same thing.

[Carlos Araso]

And so interesting, very briefly Paul, because I know we have to keep going here because people would say today, well, especially like our Catholic friends would say, well the Catholic Church had the Bible and then like, you know, 1500 years later the Protestants basically removed the books. What would you say?

[Paul Cunningham]

Well, a few things. Actually Martin Luther didn't remove the books.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh really?

[Paul Cunningham]

No, he had them in there. But he basically said the same thing, which is these can be used to, but they're not true. So in other words, when you there's a difference between saying something has truth or is true versus it's inspired. Inspired means it can't not be true if it's infallible. If it's inspired, that is the Old and New Testament. It is completely true, Martha. Luther said it has some truth in it. And so even though he would rail against, for example, the doctrine of purgatory, he would include it, so we didn't remove it. And what we would say is also is that, again, throughout the history of the church, actually going back to the earliest days, is even though it was included, it was not included with the. The idea that this is sacred scripture. It was included almost like now. Best analogy I can use is if. Imagine we created a Bible today and we had things like Jesus calling it and other stuff like that.

[Carlos Araso]

Commentary.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, commentary, Exactly. It's like, just because it's literally in the pages doesn't mean that it's inspired.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Interesting. So you want to keep living in the religion called Christianity.

[Paul Cunningham]

Of course, the believers of Christ were Christians.

[Carlos Araso]

This has happened for years. Hodgepodge.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

What?

[Carlos Araso]

What, until the Turks came in? No, no, he branded it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He marketed it, to be fair. Constantine Greek. Right.

[Carlos Araso]

And he. And so just like the yogurt. Yes. So anyways, what he does is he.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Puts together the Bible. Did he say Constantine was Greek? Was Constantine Greek?

[Paul Cunningham]

No, I think he was actually trying to say he's Turkish when I watched the whole thing. He's big on Turkey. And so even, like, when he just mentioned just, like, the yogurt, he's. He's making that argument that pretty much everything good is from Turkey.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You want to know, is he on this? Really interesting. So when I went to Turkey to film for the Seven Churches of Revelation thing, like, they eat, like, yogurt. All yogurt, bro.

[Carlos Araso]

They have yogurt, bro.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's all yogurts everywhere. They put yogurt on their meat.

[Paul Cunningham]

Like seasoned yogurt or just straight yogurt?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Like, yogurt, yogurt. I'm out. I'm so out. But did you really try it? Yeah.

[Carlos Araso]

Oh, okay.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's when I figured out I'm out.

[Carlos Araso]

Okay, there you go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So, like, so this is a true story. Jana loves Greek yoga yogurt. So originally, when they started selling yogurt in America, all the popular brands, most of that yogurt that's marketed as Greek yogurt, it's Turkish, but so. But they started selling it, and because of, like, cultural connotations and religious connotations, Americans wouldn't buy Turkish yogurt. So some dude, marketing guy over in Turkey went Let's just call it Greek. So like most of the yogurt that you get that's called Greek yogurt is Turkish.

[Carlos Araso]

That's funny.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. So anyway, let's keep going.

[Carlos Araso]

He would disagree with you, but he seems to like it together. The book, the Bible.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Right.

[Carlos Araso]

He's like, okay, these books, we don't like them, that they don't help these books, we do like them. And he makes out the Bible. So he's kind of the creator of the Bible.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

For sure. For sure. Did you hear him for sure again?

[Paul Cunningham]

I mean, Constantine's got some power to be able to do that from the grave.

[Carlos Araso]

He said he, he's kind of the creator of the Bible. For sure.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

For sure. One thing we didn't hit. And let me just read this real quick. So Paul was talking, talking about. Paul Cunningham was talking about how the, the Christ Christians, they didn't decide what was in the Bible. They recognized. Yeah, they recognized these books are inspired. Jesus told us, by the way, this is what would happen. So John 16:13. I think you may disagree. I think this verse in part Jesus is specifically referring to how the New Testament canon would come about. Jesus said this, but when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. I think Jesus, before he dies, he's referring to spirit filled Christians will guide you toward which books are inspired by God.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes, well, and even I think there's this misnomer, even take away Constantine that some people would say, well, the church created the Bible. And I like, it's not.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We didn't.

[Paul Cunningham]

We received. And I think you meant the word discerned. We didn't create the Bible any more than Newton created Christ. Gravity there. Yeah, he discerns it. So even sometimes an analogy I use is like basically imagine someone who is trained to spot real gold from fake gold from fool's gold. It's like there's certain things they're going to look for. And going back to those three criteria, those are the criteria that were used, not again. To create like the Bible. It was used to discern. Hey, which of these in there are inspired and so should be in what's commonly referred to as our canon.

[Carlos Araso]

So the church did not create the Bible. The church recognized the word of God. That was already authoritative.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's exactly right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, let's keep going back to sync over here. For sure. For sure. Oh, did you do. We did it. Go away.

[Paul Cunningham]

There we go. But those books did exist.

[Carlos Araso]

That's why Andrew's right about that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Right? Yeah. I think That's.

[Carlos Araso]

But that's when it takes off. Because then.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Was that it? That's it. Trinity. There was.

[Carlos Araso]

There you go, man.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So here's the big lesson. When people are standing around the water cooler or around the baseball field or on the golf course, and they just start throwing out, Constantine Crane, the Bible we made up, like, they're all wrong. And then now you've been equipped to go wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and help them out.

[Paul Cunningham]

One more thing, if you don't mind me jumping in, which is because I think even in connection to this, they referenced a few times. Oh, there's other books, there's other letters, and by the way, there are. That's not shocking. You've got the Gospel of Judas, Revelation of Peter. I mean, Apocalypse of Peter. And you've got different things like that that are out there. But here's what's interesting is that usually secular scholars, their critique of the New Testament, we can't believe it because it wasn't close to enough to the time of Jesus, which actually was extremely close to time of Jesus. That's been so debunked. But then what's interesting is then they'll take things like these alternate accounts and say, oh, but see, we should accept these and learn from these, even though they're hundreds of years older. And so basically, they don't even follow the same criteria. So just if you're listening out there watching this, because this is another thing that's thrown out all the time. So, hey, what about this alternate book that didn't make in the Bible? The reason it wasn't accepted is because it wasn't written by or associated with an apostle. So in other words, it came much later. And because it contradicted the teaching that was already established.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Bingo. So, like, Da Vinci Code. Didn't the Da Vinci Code, they. I read it years and years ago. The whole thing was about the Gospel of Thomas. Yeah, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Thomas. And it's like, okay, well, let's. Let's go back to our criteria we talked about. Number one, was the book connected to an apostle of Christ? Nope. Because Thomas totally did not write it. It was written, like the three hundreds. I think that's what they figured out. So, like, he'd been. Thomas had been dead for hundreds of years. Number two, was it orthodox? In other words, did it align with Christian doctrine that had already been clearly established by the apostles and the Gospels? Nope, sure didn't. There's crazy insane stuff in there. Number three, was it written in the era of the Apostles we've already established? Nope, sure wasn't. And number four, was it accepted as authoritative across the universal church? Not even close. So if you're going, well, I've heard about these books. Why didn't they get in? That's why right there.

[Carlos Araso]

Amazing, man. Well, the Bible is God's revelation. It's not human speculation. Today we get to hear the words of God. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. That the man and woman of God may be complete equipped for every good work. Praise God that we get to do that today, man. That's why we love the Bible so much.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Carlos, will you close this?

[Carlos Araso]

I would love to, absolutely. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much because you are a God that reveals yourself to us. Thank you. Because your word is active, is living, and it is powerful. And today we get to study it, we get to talk about it, we get to enjoy it, and we get to be blessed and enriched by it. Lord, I pray for our listeners and our viewers. I pray that that may be true of every single one of them as well. May you continue to stir our affections for you, that ultimately we may look to Jesus as we talk about forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration. God, there is good news that you are a good, good God. Father, I thank you for your word. Thank you. Because all truth is your truth. And today we get to learn from you and your word. We love you and we pray all this in your name, Jesus. Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

[Paul Cunningham]

Amen.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review and share the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Pointe Church Online every weekend and find more resources at Lake Point Point Church Live Free. We'll see you next time.