Behind The Pulpit
Our weekly pastors podcast where we discuss fun new stories, church events, previous sermons. As well as answering interesting questions from you!
Behind The Pulpit
Caperna-What?
Welcome Back! The episode opens with the return of the Weekly Warm-Up, unpacking Proverbs 4:18 and reflecting on faithfulness, character, and long obedience over time. From there, the discussion moves through current events, ethical questions, and the responsibility Christians carry when navigating complex cultural moments—especially when quick conclusions are tempting but wisdom requires patience.
The conversation then turns to difficult and timely issues at the intersection of faith and public life. The pastors wrestle with the sanctity of human life, disability and dignity, moral failure in Christian leadership, and how believers should think about justice, grace, accountability, and compassion. Throughout, the episode contrasts Christian moral reasoning with utilitarian frameworks, particularly when it comes to human worth, suffering, and decision-making in moments of crisis.
A significant portion of the episode is devoted to sermon recap, revisiting Mark 2 and the story of the paralytic whose friends break through the roof to bring him to Jesus. The discussion explores advocacy, barriers—both physical and spiritual—and what it means for the church to actively remove obstacles that keep people from encountering Christ. The episode also addresses healing, suffering, and why Jesus prioritizes forgiveness before physical restoration, grounding the passage in the larger story of the kingdom of God.
The episode closes with a Theology Sprint on sanctification, offering a concise reminder that growth in Christ is progressive, grace-driven, and shaped over time. As the year begins, the conversation invites listeners to pursue wisdom, faithfulness, and Christlike maturity in a world that rarely rewards patience.
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:04 Weekly Warmup
8:19 In The News
30:52 The Great Book War
49:17 Audience Questions
47:42 Sermon Recap
1:08:28 Theology Sprint
Music
"Ventura"
Morgan Taylor
U76EPPNJDYZYU0Y7
Hey, good morning, everybody. Welcome to our podcast that comes to your home weekly through YouTube or through whatever audio app you're watching this. We're so glad that you've joined us this week from Behind the Pulpit. It is uh the second week in January 2026. Uh the weather's been a little bit warmer. The snow is melting out there. It's been up into the 40s. I think it might even hit 50 this weekend. And uh we're glad to see that kind of blessing here in the month of January. I didn't even wear my coat uh and I'm pretty excited about the fact that we're not totally snowed in. And I'm here with my uh co-pastor with his brand new Millington Baptist Church quarter zip. What is going on, Bob?
Bob:I'm rocking the quarter zip. You got the Billy Graham quarter zip, I got the Millington quarter zip. It's that time of year. Tim is not wearing a quarter zip. I almost bought it this morning. So, but you were wearing it on Saturday, so yes, at some point during the weekend you did. It's it's a quarter zip uh quarter zip uh weekend.
Dave:Very cool. There you go. Well, we got a lot to uh get to today, and we are going to resurrect a segment that we weren't sure was still alive, and it's called the weekly warm-up, and we want to know how we can get our stuff uh stretched out and do some calisthenics this morning.
Tim:What's going on, Tim? Yes, we uh we we did a weekly warm-up, and then we had the Christmas episode, and then we had the week off and the new year, and then totally forgot about it. Uh so we are back with the weekly warm-up. As an athlete, I think you understand the importance of stretching before we go into a full-on workout. Stretching before and after uh as someone who was deep into the track and field universe at one point is very important. Um so yeah, we are on episode or season four, episode eighteen of Behind the Pulpit. So that is where we will be drawing our weekly warm-up from this morning, and just to remind you all um that this is just a quick little warm-up uh for the pastors to just break down a verse uh for us, a little bit of early theology uh and teaching in the episode before we jump into the rest of the yeah.
Bob:I feel like we should have the Rocky theme playing right here.
Tim:Could get a copyright infringement. We might have to find a uh something similar. Uh so here is today's weekly warm-up. It comes from Proverbs uh chapter four, verse eighteen. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. How would you guys break down this verse? This is one of my favorite verses.
Dave:Um so when you live a righteous life, it is not very exciting. As a teenage boy, uh, if you're trying to walk the straight edge, if you're trying to be one of those guys that always follows the rules, that uh isn't necessarily wanting to be um you know the coolest guy in in your pack or the you know the the the leader or whatever, that's not gonna seem very um wonderful and attractive to other people as a young man. It's like you have this dim light, right? So you're pursuing righteousness, you're pursuing God, you're pursuing holiness. At the beginning of a man's life, that is a that is not very um magnetic, right? So guys are attracted to the big explosions and the guys who are willing to step over the edge or break the rules, or you know, there's there's attractiveness to um unrighteousness at it at a at a at a at a fleshly level, we tend to not get excited about um you know just being ethical, being moral, living a living a good godly life, right? So we we might even make fun of guys who are uh unwilling to bend the rules, who are uh you know trying to you know please the Lord with their life. It's like they have this dim light, right? But then over time, as a man goes into his 20s and his 30s and his forties, if he has consistently stayed with that track and he has consistently tried to live an ethical and moral life, it's almost like the sun coming up at the beginning. It was a dim light, and it keeps getting brighter and brighter and brighter. And in the in the the summer of a man's life, in that season of life, if he has kept his his uh his way pure and he has followed the Lord, you know, by his grace, of course, we all know that we need salvation and we we all know we need God's atonement and and mercy. But if generally speaking, if that man has decided to stay the course and uh he has um kept the faith, so to speak, all of a sudden you notice people start thinking of this more like a bright light. Like, wow, look at this guy! Like he's he's kind of he's kind of stayed true. Like I wow, I I kind of really look up to him. That's a great and it takes a a lifetime to for the sun to rise and for the that reputation to shine brightly like that, and you realize, wow, that's a track record of year after year, decade after decade of faithfully following God, and that that's amazing. That's a bright light that now all of a sudden this is really attractive. The light that used to be dim has now fully the sun has risen and it has fully come up. And I I think that's wonderful. If you ever see a guy who's in the latter season of his life who's really just stayed faithful and true, it's it's a sight to behold. So, you know, when you're a young man, we st I'm talking from a male perspective, so sorry, ladies, but from as a young man, I just know from me, like as a young man, being like being attractive or magnetic or whatever was all about what I did on the ball field. Like that's it was all about athletics, okay? And maybe if you're not into athletics or some other way, but that's what guys were comparing, right, in high school. So if you couldn't perform on the basketball court, then you weren't like a man or whatever. Then as you get older, guys start comparing other things. We start comparing like, okay, what you know, what does his girlfriend look like, or you know, who's he gonna marry? Like we start comparing that. And then as you get a little older, guys start comparing like the finances. Okay, what kind of car does he drive? What kind of house does he have? What you know, what does his life look like? And each phase of a man's life, you start comparing like different things, right? And measuring what's what's it what is it to be truly a man or whatever. But then towards the end of life, you start comparing uh a man's character, you start comparing like his good name, if he still has one. And if he does, that righteousness shines brighter and brighter, and it gets really bright towards the end of a man's life. That's what I think that verse is talking about. And so Solomon is training the next king, and he's telling him, you know, stay the course. Uh, you know, I know this isn't crazy uh exciting at the beginning of your life just to live according to God's law, but it will pay off later. You know, you will get to the place where you'll be like a bright shining sun, and it will be a wonderful way um to to look back on on a life well lived.
Bob:Think about how many people um get to sometime later in their life and they regret things they did when they were younger. Uh so Solomon writing Proverbs sort of in midlife is giving advice to younger folks. Um what is it? Eugene Peterson has that book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. And that's really what the the Christian life is, and to the world that's maybe not as exciting, uh not as um uh enticing as other things you might be able to pursue, but uh just kind of a daily walking in the path of righteousness, pursuing him um is is what God calls us to. So good verse, Tim. Good warm-up.
Tim:Looking forward to next week.
Dave:I think that's a good Band of Brothers Bible study right there, bro. I'll uh I'll share it. Just put it in your pocket. There we go. It's in there. Alright, we're warmed up, and thank you for that. I feel stretched out. How about you, Bob? I did a lot of talking there. Do you need to stretch?
Bob:Well, I was I was physically stretching as you were uh as you were talking. Okay. I got my muscles warmed up.
Tim:The week is here. Night of Revival 2026 is finally upon us, and we are so excited. As you are watching or listening to this, our sanctuary is getting prepped. We're getting our lights ready, uh, the band is getting ready. Noah is getting his message ready. We are so excited for what is our biggest worship event of the entire year. We are so excited to call on the name of the Lord in the new year and use our gifts and talents to glorify and worship him. We cannot wait to see you. If you've never been to an at a revival, come. There's something just about getting a room full of people together on a Friday night with the sole purpose of doing nothing but worship and calling on the name of Jesus. And if you know someone that you think could benefit from this service, we'd ask you to invite them. If you're at the service yesterday, you would have received a little index card that acts as an invitation. Give that to somebody. Uh, if you weren't there, if you don't have one, send someone some promotion on social media. Text them, call them, invite them out here on Friday night to Middleton Baptist Church for night of revival. We're gonna call on the name of the Lord for 2026. Don't miss it.
Dave:Well, now we're coming to that point where Bob's really gonna work out, and that is his favorite segment. You know it's his favorite favorite favorite. Look how excited he is about this. It's coming up, ready in the news. All right, Bob. I took like 13 news stories last week and tried to update everybody. How about you, talk? What's going on in the news?
Bob:We we started out with two and then you just kept saying, oh, and one more thing. You said that several times.
Tim:It was the first hot time I ever had to put part one and part two of in the news as we covered so much stuff.
Bob:I'm sorry. We were debating what the what's the cover. It's out of control, Bob. There's always so many things going on in the news. What the but there's two that um I think that everybody's talking about. Uh one just kind of nationally, and then the other one maybe within the Christian world. I've seen a lot of posts about it. Um and they and we were talking before we started to record that these um both of these sort of to some extent tie in with what we covered in the in the sermon yesterday on the sanctity of human life. But the first one is the um is of course the uh the shooting in Minneapolis with uh what's her name? Renee Renee Good, um and then the ice officer, I forget his name. Um but basically if if you haven't if if you haven't been paying attention, uh meaning you probably don't don't watch any news because this has been all over the place. Um this woman, I guess, was um part of uh the the Ice Watch, if I remember correctly. Um and uh they would go or they will go around the city and I think on this particular day she was she and her uh her partner were um following ice trying to impede their um investigation, their their uh their whatever work they were doing. And uh there was an altercation um where they were yelling at ice, uh I think using some choice language, and she was about to drive away and the one ICE officer wound up shooting her and she wound up dying. Um so th this has caused a whole lot of um controversy, obviously, because somebody died, but you know, questions about should should uh this ice officer have have shot her uh in a very graphic way. Um was she instigating it? Uh, you know, uh the there's different video footage, I've seen about five thousand different video angles of this uh that's out there. And um I I think we recognize there's probably people that have different opinions um about this and even different reactions. What's interesting, and uh Dave was saying this before, is that you you um we live in a culture where everybody seems to have snap reactions and we're incentivized to as soon as something happens, we should post it rather than waiting to see what the investigation uh reveals. And uh and and who knows, um this is gonna be investigated and um and then there's also been debate about who's investigating it, is it gonna be the federal government, is it gonna be the state government, and then can we trust the responses there? Um maybe there should be some collaboration on the investigation. But um I I think the commentary, the only commentary we would give about it, other than it was natur just just tragic, is that uh this was somebody who we believe is made in the image of God that lost their life. Um now they may have been engaging in unwise behavior, um but that person did die. And uh yesterday we were talking about how every everybody's made in the image of God, everybody uh has has dignity and worth, and uh we should not be celebrating when somebody lost their life. Uh no matter what they were doing, no matter how um how unwise or foolish their decisions were, um we should grieve the fact that somebody who was made in the image of God died. It shouldn't be something that we're celebrating because our side won. Um and I think that's from a Christian perspective, that's that's one of the biggest things to take away uh from it. Um and the rest of it is sort of in areas where there's a lot of debate. Um, what would you add to that, Pastor Dave?
Dave:Yeah, thanks. I think you teed it up good. The other thing that's disputed is whether or not she was actually trying to get away. So like there's a story about how maybe she wasn't trying to get away, maybe she was trying to directly use her vehicle as a weapon and you know, ram this particular officer who then in a split second had to make a decision whether or not this was a self-defense type of situation. So that's gonna be something the courts decide, and um we'll see. I think what I was gonna say about it is uh how quickly we have our own made-up conclusion before we even look at all of the evidence and how quickly uh each kind of polarized side went to their kind of narrative. I already know the end, so I'm gonna find a way to talk about this story in such a way that justifies my particular uh political worldview. That's something to be aware of. I don't think you can get rid of it, but at least if you're aware of it, you can then call it out and then look for evidence to the contrary, right? So uh, you know, maybe this police shooting was a justified self-defense. Um, or maybe this was completely unjustified and uh she should not have um lost her life in that way. But would you be willing to consider all of the details, all of the evidence before you make up your mind and just decide that you know with such certainty uh you know the all of the details of the case? And I think that's something to be aware of how our brains function in such a way that we um that we look for we see what we want to see, right? And so we have kind of this I guess that's the way the brain functions, right? But it's something to be aware of. The other thing I think is important to talk about with this particular story is uh you know, I think there's a culture right now that um is like let's say you let's say you you come from the perspective that you don't think that good had any business being there and that she put herself in harm's way and she um you know she could have avoided this if she would have just uh respected law enforcement. Let's say that's your perspective. What's behind that? Like why why she's not the only one, right? There are people um that are like her that are protesting this weekend. There are so what's what's going on underneath underneath the surface there that would cause her to want to take the time from her morning and go out and try to p, you know, do her best to to put a b to put a barrier um in between law enforcement and and b you know whatever they're trying to do. What do you think is the motive what do you think is her motivation? Or was her motivation. She's not with us anymore, but what do you think's behind it? Are you asking me to speculate? Yeah.
Bob:Um, I I th I think uh probably in somebody's somebody like that's mind uh I I am engaging in some kind of justice work that what what these officers are doing is not just, and I'm gonna be somebody who comes in and um saves the day. I'm gonna be I'm doing my part uh to help out my neighbor. I could see that argumentation uh coming out from this. Um I I would venture to think that's at least part of the motivation, even if it's if it's not all of it.
Dave:Right. Yeah. You know, I think um I see I almost saw her behavior like a mama bear type behavior. Like so, you know, women are amazing in their ability to empathize and nurture and care for those who uh they don't feel has anyone on their side. They're gonna come to their aid, right? And it seemed like she was putting herself in that position that she was gonna be the one to step in and uh and care for the vulnerable, those who are being sought after, right? So underneath of it, there's this empathy, there's this motive that um you know we can call out as that's also part of the image of God, the fact that she's wanting to be protective in that way, too. Some people might call, you know, say this is bordering on what you know what writers call toxic empathy, right? So you're you're only empathizing for one particular side, but you're not realizing there has to be empathy for all parties and make an informed decision, right? So there are actually dangerous criminals in Minneapolis that that need to be removed, right? So um empathy has to show empathy for all all parties, not just one one particular subset, right?
Bob:Yeah. Yeah, gotcha. Alright, so that's uh that's the one news story. Um the second news story that's kind of been more in the uh evangelical world is uh Philip Yancey, uh author, who's written many, many books, probably people have read. Uh maybe the most well-known one is What's So Amazing About Grace, um, The Jesus I Never Knew. Um those were written in the late 90s. He's written a bunch of other books. But um was this over the weekend, or was last it was last week this came out, that he admitted that he was engaged in a uh an extramarital affair for eight years. So this was his statement. He said, To my great shame, I confess that for eight years I willfully engaged in a sinful affair with a married woman. Uh he also was married. Uh my conduct defied everything that I believe about marriage. It was also totally inconsistent with my faith and my writings and caused deep pain for her husband and both of our families. I will not share further details out of respect for the other family. Um I've confessed my sin before God and my wife, and have committed myself to professional counseling and accountability program. I failed morally, spiritually, I grieve over the devastation I cause, and of course, he's going to be um uh apologized to his his readers, and he's gonna be not doing any more speaking and writing and and all of that. Um so obviously it's a really tragic thing, and this is this is uh an issue that keeps coming up too often with uh Christian leaders, uh, you know, public Christians who uh engage in some type of moral moral failure like this, and it it causes a lot of pain for people that have placed their trust in. Somebody like Philip Yancey, who has been very influential with his writing career. Now his wife, Janet, also made a statement, and I'll just read that. So I Janet, she says, I, Janet Yancey, am speaking from a place of trauma and devastation that only people who have lived through betrayal can understand. Yet I made a sacred and binding marriage vow fifty-five and a half years ago, and I will not break that promise. I accept and understand that God, through Jesus, has paid for and forgiven the sins of the world, including Philip's. God grant me the grace to forgive also. Despite my unfathomable trauma, please pray for us. So maybe a couple things to state here. Um First, I mean, i it's it's interesting uh that uh w one thing I I I mentioned a day when this came out. I said this this Philippians is seventy-six. So this is not this is not a young man that has done this. This is somebody nearing the end of his life. He's been actually, I think he's been diagnosed with Parkinson disease. Uh-huh. And uh he's he's he's in the decline. And some people actually were criticizing him to say, well, what would you have confessed if that wasn't the case and you basically needed your wife to take care of you at the end of your life? Uh-huh. So that's been some criticism that's that's thrown out to him. Um also interesting that some people were criticizing her for staying. Uh-huh. Um, you know, that she she obviously has maybe gr grounds for leaving, but she's choosing to stay to to keep uh with her vow that she made uh to him, uh, which personally I think i is is very commendable despite the amount of pain that she's gone through. Um is is certainly a a a decision of integrity. Uh but it's got to be incredibly, incredibly painful. Um the the other th and and the thing about him being older is that this is something that we always have to be aware of. You don't don't just think this is something that happens when you're a young person. You know, you're in your twenties or thirties or forties or whatever, and uh these things happen more often. This is something that can get you even at the end. To your to your point about the the Proverbs 4 passage, you you want your uh your character to remain true all the way to the end. You don't want to lose that, because if you lose that, I mean Philippians now has to live out however many years he has left with the fact that this basically everything he built up to that point has been tarnished. Um so that's p that that's you know a very sad place to be in. Um but we also do remember that God, you know, when we confess, we repent, God meets us where we are. Um and and those two things are are both true at once. So what other thoughts do you have about this? I have three thoughts.
Dave:My first uh thought was to pull out my silver dollar that Peter Pendel gave me. And remember that if you fall into ministry, heads means you're gonna probably lose your wife, tails means you're probably gonna lose your church, and the edge of the rim means you're gonna lose your witness to the world. And of course that's not always the case, but it is a good sober reminder. Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall, right? Number one. Number two, um you know, I loved his books. I remember reading What's So Amazing About Grace in the year 2000. I thought it was fantastic. Um I also read Jesus I never knew. I also read the the one about the Bible. I'm not remembering the name of the Bible that Jesus read. Yeah. Yeah. Um those three I read, I don't remember if I read any more, but he's obviously a brilliant uh wordsmith. And um so the second thought is the thing about uh grace, right? So Tolkien Tovigeon, Billy Graham's grandson, about ten years ago, also had an extramarital affair. He was the pastor of the church down in Florida that D. James Kennedy pastored. I'm not remembering the name of that church off the top of my head, but Coral Ridge. Coral Ridge Presbyterian, and then he was basically uh he stepped down, I think, and then he was uh he went to another Presbyterian church, Willow Creek, and he was on staff there, and then he confessed to another affair, and then they they removed him, and in the process of all that Oh, he had two affairs? Yeah, and then he had um hidden the second one though, and then when they found about the second one, he was he left that church and he was in the process of sort of church discipline, um, and there were some people that are very big names that are involved helping him with church discipline, including Paul Tripp. And Presbyterianism, if it's anything, it is very organizational. And so they uh had a process to you know have him follow, and he kind of it felt like to Tripp and to Elise Fitzpatrick and to some other people that were on this team that were trying to restore him, it felt like he was sidestepping the process. And so he kind of left, disappeared for a couple years, and then married someone else, and then started a new church with this new lady. And um he posted about Yancy, and his post kind of it struck something kind of weird in me. So Tullyan decided to post that um you know Yancey has fallen, and I want to speak to people who are surprised about this. One of the things that we can't be is surprised. Yes, we can be disappointed, yes, we can be obviously um you know uh sad, we can feel but but Tullian was saying I don't think we should be surprised by this. This is the the humans in nature, and we all have that. But he posted that the day the story broke, and I decided to comment. I'll read my comment.
Bob:So you commented back to I can't help myself, I can't know.
Dave:I said this. I appreciate the insistence that grace must not bypass the devastations in causes. What feels missing to me here, though, is the role of the church itself in the dispensing of grace. In scripture, grace is not abstract or self-administered, it is ordinarily mediated through repentance, discipline, and submission to church's authority, especially for those who teach and for what it's worth. I'm not shocked. I'm disappointed. And disappointment isn't rooted in some sort of high anthropology or naivete about human sinfulness, but in the weight of broken trust and vocational responsibility. And those distinctions are important and uh part of the restorative conversation. After this, um I I don't think it was related to my post. Did he come at the moment? No, but he's had another post talking about uh kind of the same topic, and he goes, Um, next post. Those of us who dare to show up at the crime scene with a message of grace are often accused of being quote unquote sin level sin levelers of contaminating the site. In other words, we're trying to say that all sin is exactly the same and everybody's exactly the same kind of sinner, and that's that's the accusation, right? And then he he goes into the Sermon on the Mount and how Jesus basically gets us all with the Sermon on the Mount. That's why I commented again. We had a pretty busy weekend. I don't know, man. Taking some break from the case. Something about this struck me as imbalanced. I like the guy. So I said this. What troubles me is how quickly the focus shifted here from the real victim, that's the wife, and the concrete harm, the family, that shifted from that to a warning about self-righteous observers. Like we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna change the conversation to be about this now. But why? And then I said, when that happens, the moral burden suddenly moves from the offender to those who name the sin. And then I said, Grace doesn't work that way in the Bible. It produces godly sorrow, it teaches us to deny ungodliness, it dethrones the self and centers it on the wounded, and it tells the truth plainly and calls the sinner to the freedom, freedom of repentance through accountability and church discipline.
Bob:Did you capitalize that all caps?
Dave:No, but I'm I'm telling you how it should have been read. Uh I always think verbally I get across my points better than in writing, but uh so freedom of repentance through accountability and church discipline, not by reframing judgment as somehow the greater danger here. So I guess what bothered me is like the the the instantaneous post that he had to make about grace for Philip Yancey. Like, okay, there's grace for Philip Yancey. How do you think his wife felt about your post? Like, let's say if you know you're the woman in this situation or the family, right? And like you immediately find out your dad like blew up everything. And the first reaction from the church is, hey, we gotta be more gracious towards dad. Like, what about us? Can we can we process this? This was hard. Like, yeah, there's grace for dad, but that's not like the first thing we're dealing with right here, right now. We're gonna go through some steps of how come this happened? Let's restore things, let's rebuild trust. And can you be here for the victims first before you go running to the defense of the offender? That only serves the offender. And that particular comment got 33 likes on the page. So um did did anybody try to argue with you? Yeah.
Bob:There's a couple people that are calling you to defend Tallin's calling calling you a legalist or something. Yeah.
Tim:So those who comment on our channel that Pastor Dave has gotten into tussles with on the internet, you're not the only one.
Bob:You better be careful if you uh want to get in the comment we'll be able to do that.
Tim:You'll just be coming out here and typing things because the little pink circle with the white D in it is always lurking somewhere.
Dave:Somehow. The white D. Sometimes I find time to like, and that I don't know, that story really trying. I was like, hey guys, yeah.
Bob:Do you enjoy doing that? I don't enjoy doing the comment stuff. Do you like doing it?
Dave:I I don't, I but when it's when I feel strongly, I'm like, I'm gonna say something. Hog watch. You you definitely enjoy it. I don't it's like it's exhausting to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Bob:I just think he's just like Alright, it's time.
Tim:Shh there was one day where to crack the knuckles and get to it. We had posted something that I think a while ago people would think that um was controversial. I forget what it was. And I remember this guy Us controversial. This this guy made a some sort of comment, and I was like, huh. Normally when we have comments, you know, we just leave them alone unless they're positive. I go home, the next day I come back, there are 31 new comments on, and it's just Pastor Dave and this guy going back and forth, back and forth.
Dave:Oh, dude, we developed a friendship. I've been emailing with that guy.
Bob:Oh, the church history guy?
Dave:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm still if you're watching, dude, you know, that that that's what started our whole relationship back when we were fighting with each other. What are you arguing about the uh history of the Baptist? History of the Baptist. Yeah. So he's kind of an interesting guy, but he's sent me a lot of different associational minutes since then. And uh we, you know, we've been talking, so you never know. It could develop into something.
Tim:Um Hey, you might be watching this or listening to this as someone who's new to Millington Baptist. You've come on a Sunday or you've watched online and you're like, hey, they have a podcast. What's that all about? And here you are. If that's you, we want to meet you and we want to know more about you, and we want you to know more about us. On Sunday, January 18th, that's this upcoming Sunday, after the 1045 service, we're gonna have our event that's called The Bridge. The Bridge is an opportunity for you to come and learn more about the mission and ministries here at NBC. You'll enjoy some light refreshments, you'll be introduced to some of our NBC staff and leadership, and you'll have the chance to fellowship and ask questions. The bridge is a great way for you to learn how to become more engaged in our ministry and potentially join our NBC family. So if you're watching or listening to this and you're someone who's new to the Millington Baptist Church family, we would really encourage you to come out to the bridge, learn more about us, meet some of our staff, meet some of our elders, have some light refreshments. January the 18th, that's this upcoming Sunday, right after the 1045 service. Be there. We're looking forward to seeing you.
Dave:All right, so uh we're talking about something controversial, and let's get on to our biggest controversial segment of the show, which is the Great Book War. Where are we, Tim? We had a big, big uh upset last week. Bob's making a big comeback.
Tim:So what's the latest? Pastor Bob is making a comeback. Uh it's a two-point game going into this week's reveal. Kicking the field goal this week. Pastor Pastor Bob, two-point conversion. You said something that someone told you something about um phone recommendations.
Bob:I was told that if uh you recommend a book on your phone and not a physical copy, then uh you you lose points in in his book. Well, so it didn't work. Pastor Dave won.
Dave:Hey! You know that phone shot was so terrible. I watched a podcast, I'm like, oh man, I gotta bring the actual book next time.
Tim:I I uh I was actually surprised because I thought Pastor Bob's book would have spoken to more people. I think Pastor, you just did such a good job pitching it.
Dave:Oh, by the way, hey, John Bucksbaum uh messaged me. Uh it's yours, bro. So whenever you want it, I have it in my office. Just come by and I'll get I'll give it to you. That might have been what happened too. I was also he's giving away free books.
Tim:I was bribing people too. This is uh this is the breakdown of the plate, didn't it? Now technically there was only ten. Uh you lose one of the blue votes there because someone voted twice, but they had the integrity this time to email me and let they let me know they're they repented, if you will. Wait, what's the you're only human? That's uh the name of Bob's book?
Bob:That was that was the book that I recognize.
Tim:Oh, you're saying that it created another one. I went back after the fact and added the author and the subtitle, um, and it created a different category. Okay. Oh, gotcha. Um so it was really 10 responses. Uh so Pastor Dave got a little bit less than he did there, but still one.
Bob:Let's just talk about so we we've been getting how many views do we normally get on these? Like 100, 100. Normally around 100 to 150. Okay. And we only get 10 responses. These are a small subset of people that are watching or actually voting. These are the elite. These are these are the committed, the committed core. We might behind the pulpit fans.
Tim:If we ever establish like a board for this podcast, these this ten would be the would be the board.
Bob:The board of directors behind the pulpit. Top ten. Be our separate 501c3. All right, Bob. Let's get on with it. What's going to be this week? Alright, so um I I am uh I I am gonna recommend this book that I I've been making my way through, and this is partly for my uh my doctoral studies. Um it's an interesting book because it's one of the only ones I found on this particular topic, uh, because this is what I'm interested in doing is disability genetic ethics. This is a book called Theology, Disability, and the New Genetics, Why the Science Needs the Church. And it's edited by John Swinton and Brian Brock. Brian Brock's the guy I mentioned yesterday. Uh they both teach at the University of Aberdeen, where they have a uh a department on disability and theology. So he he does um uh theological ethics, he's a Bonhoeffer scholar, um, but uh he's also uh John Switten was a uh was a former um nurse and they they both teach in the in this department. So this this book has is uh is a conglomeration of writings from people on different different types of topics on this uh uh you know whether it's genetics and and how you do care with them, theological reflections. Uh it was written in 2008, so it's a little bit it's a little bit older. It doesn't have maybe the most updated technology commentaries, but it does lay a good foundation for at least thinking about the issues surrounding this topic that's not normally written about within evangelical circles. We do a lot on the Sanctity of Human Life uh abortion, but this this is a topic that definitely ties into it. So uh Brian and Stephanie Brock wrote the opening chapter on being disabled in the new world of genetic testing, a snapshot of shifting landscapes, and that story that I was telling about their son is from that chapter. Um and then there's a whole whole bunch of other uh topics in here that are covered. It's a little bit more on the academic side, but it definitely will give you get get you thinking about how do you how do you engage with this particular topic and think deeply about disability and genetics and genetic testing and all that. So that's that's my invitation for this for today. And uh I do have it in hard copy right here, but I don't have another copy to give away.
Dave:Alright. I'm coming at you with uh something here's now for something totally different. So NT Wright um has a four-volume series on Christian original.
Bob:NT Wright's books are always like bookstops, yeah.
Dave:It's so thick. And this one is volume two, Jesus and the Victory of God. It was written in the mid-90s, and you know, if you want to kind of see somebody that's really interacting with the best critical scholarship and making the case for historic Christianity uh in the face of skeptics, I think N. T. Wright is a brilliant mind that's been gid given to the church. I don't agree with everything he says, but this particular book uh argues that um Jesus is um best understood as a historic figure inside of Israel's story, and that early Christianity only makes sense or that it makes the best sense when you think about Christianity as the fulfillment of all of the Jewish hopes and um all of the Second Temple Jewish system, rather than uh trying to figure out why that system was somehow abandoned. But he makes the case that no, that whole system was moving toward and f found its fulfillment in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and this is the victory of God. This is the story that he says of Yahweh actually becoming king, and this is how he did it in a very subversive way. All of the Old Testament looked forward to the coming age. They had this age and the age to come, and uh that coming age was supposed to be uh prefaced by the destruction of Israel's enemies and the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom. The archenemy of the Israel people was Babylon, and so in Isaiah it talks about the fall of Babylon. You know, Bob preached on that from Isaiah 24 and 25, the tale of two cities and all that stuff. Jesus actually subversively tells Israel's story in such a way that he says he becomes the new prophet who says Jerusalem had become Babylon and Jerusalem needed to be destroyed, and the Messiah uh called down destruction on that city and that temple, and then set up his kingdom, which is of course climaxing in the church. So if you're interested in some scholarly reading, I think it's accessible. There's not like other languages in here or anything like that. It's not it's in English. Um T Wright is somebody to wrestle with. So he's been teaching New Testament for a very, very long time. Um I think his title is Bishop Right now, but uh at the time he was not. At the time of this writing, he was not. But um The Bishop of Durham, right? Durham, something like that. Yes, yes, yeah. So NT Wright, that's my recommendation for this week. I realize this is a niche thing, and um, if you like it, you like it.
Bob:If if not, that's okay. Well, both of these actually are pretty niche books, so we'll see which niche wins out. Probably yours. The battle of hard to digest books.
Dave:All right, thank you for that. Uh, we move on to our segment that we want to talk about uh your questions. And you know, I saw Abby on the porch yesterday, and I said, Hey, Abby, did you watch the podcast? I answered your question on the podcast last week, and she said, Yeah, thank you. And um, I said, Did it make sense to you? And she had this puzzled look on her face, like, I think I think so. I think, well, it was a hard question, Abby. So thank you for asking it. Please continue to ask it. We love when you guys uh help us develop our podcast in a way that feeds your soul. So, what questions do we have this week, Tim?
Tim:We just have one, and it is actually a question that was co conspired by two of your staff members who were sitting there listening to the sermon and the scripture reading yesterday. And we're a bit confused. Today's question comes from myself and John Bonaventura, and it is could you please break down the pronunciation of Capernaum? Why is it not pronounced Capernaum?
Bob:Bob I I it's naum. I don't know. I mean I I think I think it's one of those things where some people debate about um uh where you're placing the em emphasis on the word. So I guess I've heard it both ways and I just kind of chose to to do do it that way. There's somebody else, um who's the king in oh in Daniel uh Darius. I've heard some people call it Darius, some people call it Darius. So it's mm-hmm.
Tim:I think we had a conversation about that once too. I was looking it up and I found this whole thread, and I found like 30 different people who who pronounce it all different ways. I was like, I'm I'm confused. Mm-hmm.
Dave:Well, um it was a fishing village up in the Galilean area, and there must have been uh multiple languages, you know, first Hebrew, and then obviously the the Greek culture came through. And you know how different languages pronounce things a little differently? So it probably has different kinds of pronunciations depending upon your linguistic background and that kind of thing. So uh I actually have um a uh YouTube video about how to pronounce this correctly. Yeah. So look at you.
Bob:All right, we'll solve it right here. We'll do a blog post on it. How do you how do you actually say Capernaum or Capernaum?
SPEAKER_04:And even accomplished a miracle by hearing a man here.
unknown:We are looking at how to pronounce Capernaum.
Bob:See, he said Capernaum. Capernaum.
unknown:Capernaum, the village.
Bob:The village.
Tim:That's what YouTube says. I don't know. Can you just send me the link to that video so I can send it over to you? Okay, sure.
Bob:All right. So, Tim, there was another question that came in over email to Dave. It was just to Dave and I. So I do want to address this one. It's more a more uh like a ethical. Yeah. So Ruth asked this question. She said, one question that came to mind is how do we think biblically about who receives life-saving treatment when resources are scarce, such as in a triage situation like a pandemic? I can't imagine that happening, or um disaster where everyone who could benefit uh cannot be treated. Some people who hold to a utilitarian view, um, which would disadvantage those with disabilities. How do Christians, especially in the medical field, navigate tough decisions? Um that's that's a great question. I don't know that I have uh off the top of my head a great um a great answer to it, other than obviously it's a uh it's a different situation. Um it's a tragic situation if that is the is the case. Um and uh you know, as she's mentioning, this utilitarian uh framework i is the one that kind of maximizes the uh uh the quality of life stuff we were talking about in in the sermon uh to to prioritize those that would be most productive uh to society. Although I will say that from a Christian worldview, um there often is a a over as law as much as you can to try and preserve life at all costs. Um so yeah, I I I I don't know, Dave. How how would you have you given some thought to this one? Or is this is this something that I have, yeah.
Dave:Yeah, you may remember in March of 2020 they had a shortage of ventilators, and um there was more people needing to breathe than they had the machines, and um it was a problem. And so I mean, we were basically being told by the medical team there's a chance someone else might need this ventilator, and uh we're sorry, but we're gonna need to let him die so that we can use the ventilator for someone else because it's very unlikely. Your father-in-law, just so people might know the story. So that we can use this machine to save someone else's life, who's more likely to be able to uh be retrieved based on this technology, which was a devastating uh, you know, n piece of news to get. It was ethically um it's one of those, you know, in medical ethics, it's one of those things that really makes your head kind of um, you know, twist and turn. So we actually got on the the horn with the CEO of the C um what's the name of the person who's the head of the hospital? C the administrator?
unknown:Yeah.
Dave:Chief Medical Officer. Chief Medical Officer, yeah. So uh we asked him about it, and you know, he basically confirmed that in a state of emergency like this, you know, hospitals have to make impossible decisions about triage, which is you know, who are you going to prioritize with limited resources? You have to make decisions that are very difficult to make, right? And then we actually, you know um called you know NM law firm to see if we can get some advice legally about what rights we had here to keep them on the ventilator as long as possible. And they basically said, yeah, in this particular case, you know, the government can actually step in and begin to make decisions about who who gets to you know receive medical care. And we were like, wow, um, not much we can do legally. Like they just make might make the decision. So that was really hard. Um but I think you know, this is where good medical ethic b medical ethics uh experts need to weigh in and need to make hard decisions. We as Christians, of course, believe in the power of prayer, we believe in the sovereignty of God, and we're gonna, you know, trust him that um he'll do all things that are right. But as a human, we have to make these impossible decisions sometimes. And we want to make decisions that will preserve the most amount of life, and sometimes that means making really hard choices. Um and we prayerfully do so.
Bob:You think it sort of sort of falls in the same category when people talk about the if there's a pregnancy that's threatening the life of the mother. Very similar. Where it's like an impossible decision, but you're trying to preserve as much life as possible. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's it's um very difficult, and and I I don't envy anybody who's put in that in that situation if it certainly comes up. Yeah. Um but you know, uh to your story, there was a uh Catharna um. Well there's there's a cathar na um actually in that picture that Jeff Letter Bible says catharna um. Uh in um in uh the picture that Jeff sent, that was how they spelled it on the sign, the Capernaum. It had the T H. There's a diphthong here. It's an Alpha uh Man, I would have really I would have thrown John for a loop if I got up there and said Catharne um.
Dave:What? So I mean the question is how do you pronounce Alpha Omicron Upsilon? Right? That's a diphthong. Is it um? A um, you know uh ne um um it seems like um seems like John is trying to shrink as if it's only one vowel. It's not. It's a diphthong.
Bob:Yeah. Interesting. Alright.
Dave:Sorry.
Bob:Um, medical ethics questions very, very um challenging.
Tim:One of my favorite things that we do here at Millington Baptist Church are is retreats. I'm a youth leader here and we go on a couple retreats every year, and even myself as a leader, always find myself walking away from those retreats refreshed uh and spiritually renewed. And we have a pretty big retreat coming up for our women of NBC. The women's retreat will take place from April the 17th to the 19th. Uh, you're gonna be staying at the Amishville Inn and Suites in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The theme for this year is gonna be in his presence, drawing from 1 Chronicles 1611. Seek the Lord and his strength and seek his presence continuously. It's gonna be an amazing time. There's gonna be amazing worship, awesome fellowship. You're in Lancaster. The food's gonna be phenomenal. And I'm hearing that you guys might even get the opportunity to go see Joshua at the Sight and Sound Production Theater. If you were not able to attend the informational meeting after church on Sunday and you're looking for more information, check out our website. There's more information there. Email Kim McCarthy. She's our director of women's ministries here at Millington Baptist Church. She would love to give you more information on the women's retreat.
Dave:Which leads us into our next segment talking about sermon recap. So yesterday, Bob preached. Can we get a 60-second flyover? What was the sermon recap?
Bob:I will give you the flyover, although I did want to mention um one thing that goes uh a tie to this. I had somebody come up to me who works in the in the medical field uh after the cernament, and they were talking about the quality of life um uh issue, and they were saying that uh physicians have this kind of clinical definition of what quality of life is um and how they, you know, let that when you when you go with their definition, they were going to send me some uh articles to kind of to kind of give an overview of that. Um But I I did I did say to the person I said, so but do you think in in the in kind of the secular clinical view of quality of life that that's used to justify things like abortion and stuff? And they and they agreed yes, because it's it's more of this kind of utilitarian uh perspective. So I found that to be interesting, and I'm sure that's used for the uh the triaging as well. Um a caveat here.
Dave:So if you're a medical professional, we realize there's a diversity of opinions and how these subjects might be handled. So it might be used by some people to you know justify ending of life, but that's not necessarily we're not necessarily saying all physicians, medical professional, no, oh no, no, no, no.
Bob:Yeah, sorry. Yes, yeah. This was just I said could could I think I my question was could that be? And the answer was yeah, in certain situations. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Thank you. Um what was the sermon about? Sermon was about Mark chapter two, but we're in this series on uh disability um and the kingdom of God. So we were looking at specifically uh the theme of advocacy. How do you advocate for people with disabilities? And we also were tying in the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday uh theme. So uh in Mark chapter two, we talked about faith that breaks the roof, and this is a pretty famous scene where Jesus comes into Capernaum, and uh uh people, crowds are flocking to him, they're in a in a house, and uh there's no room in the house because people are hearing Jesus uh teach about uh about his his heavenly father and about uh scripture and the gospel, and um these four men come with this disabled paralytic looking for Jesus to heal them, to heal him. And uh they they basically they they can't get in the door because there's no room, and so they take the roof off and they lower him down, and Jesus does heal him. Uh, but he uses that as an opportunity to um show his authority before these uh religious elites that are in the room, and so the healing is the the proof of his authority, that he has the ability to not only heal, but also to forgive sins, to heal heal the soul um itself. And so we looked at um how in in our world today um there are a lot of dicey situations, and who decides who gets to be part of the kingdom? Who who is it that gets to have um dignity and access to Jesus? And we looked at that from three angles. Uh we saw a couple barriers, and then we saw the advocates. We saw the barrier at the door, which was the physical barrier the um uh disabled man was encountering. Then we saw the barrier in the heart, which was the uh the belief, the uh presupposition that the leaders had about um people with disabilities, and then we at last we saw the advocate in the room, Jesus, um, advocating not only for his authority, but for this this man to be healed. And um uh and so the challenge was that we should be looking for different ways in in our lives to advocate for people that are disabled so that they don't they they they don't have a barrier in terms of coming to Jesus. So that's a 60-second flyover.
Dave:Very good. Well, thank you for preaching from Mark chapter two. Haven't been in the Gospel of Mark in many, many years, so it's good to be.
Bob:Maybe we need to go back, man. Mark just gets right to the point.
Dave:Yeah. And I understand there's a song that goes along with this particular passage. Is that there is there's a Brandon Lake song.
Bob:I think it's take the roof off or raise the roof or tear off the roof. Tear off the roof. There you go. Rachel was sending us the video. She was she was Rachel was very excited about that that song.
Dave:Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things that uh we wanted to address on the podcast, which you know, some things are appropriate for a sermon, other things, you know, maybe a little bit in the weeds, right? So um there was an issue that came up in the sermon of, you know, this disabled man would have had some restrictions living in the context of ancient Judaism upon what he was allowed to do and what he was allowed to access, and why God would write things in his law about people who have you know certain health challenges, disabilities, special needs, and restricting them from uh access to his temple. That that's a thorny issue that I think was something we wanted to cover. And I don't know if that was part of your research at all, but um maybe we can just take a second and address that issue and figure out what was going on there.
Bob:Yeah, well, my understanding, and and you can um chime in if I if I'm getting off base here, was that uh th this was some requirements that were specifically for the priesthood, because the priesthood was supposed to be um symbolically representing uh God uh himself, that he that they were uh supposed to be uh pure without blemish in the same way that God God Himself was. And so that was part of the reason why those with disabilities were were not uh that was not open to them. Uh now that did not mean that they were not um uh welcome within the larger community, just not within the priesthood. The priests function as living symbols representing God's holiness and perfection of the people, and uh in the nature ancient Near Eastern culture, physical wholeness was understood to reflect divine completeness. Um what's interesting is read the verse actually, so go ahead and context.
Dave:Leviticus chapter I'm in chapter twenty-one, verse sixteen, the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, for the generations to come, none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near, no man who is blind or lame, disfigured, or deformed, no man who has a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. I sorry I didn't know this word was gonna come back. Apologize. Going back to Isaiah. Sorry, this is uh okay. Verse 21. Well, that would be like a eunuch. No descendant maybe um no descendant of Aaron, the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings of the altar. So that there's the passage, Leviticus chapter 21. Sorry, just reading the context there.
Bob:Yeah, that's good. So that I think the restriction the idea is the restriction wasn't total exclusion that again the priests were were um physical defects might have uh prevented the priests from serving at the altar where the sacrifices were made. Um so the only restriction is to priests, right? Not everybody. It was this is just talking about serving food at the altar is the priest. Yes, yeah, it was more of a priestly thing. It wasn't a total exclusion from people that were um it the criteria was fundamentally aesthetic rather than moral. Um but the priest was a different category. Now, what's interesting is that when you get to the New Testament, Jesus has now the priesthood of all believers. So Jesus, like so many other things, kind of um turns things upside down and and expands uh the ability for people to come into the kingdom. And so this was sort of uh one of those shadows and types that gets you into the New Testament redefinition that Jesus brings.
Dave:So the temple never barred anyone from worshiping, it was just a specific uh characteristic for those who were serving in that particular role. And I think you see similar things about the animals, right? You're you have to bring certain kinds of animal that are not lame. Without blemish, yeah, right. So it's like, what's going on there in the Bible? What you know, is it about sidelining people who have disabilities, or is it a typology that's looking forward towards a perfect sacrifice, a perfect high priest, one that is absolutely impeccable, one that has no stain of the fall, one that has no stain of the effects of sin. And of course, all of these things are marching forward towards the beauty of Jesus Christ, who is the God man, who is without blemish or defect, right? 1 Peter chapter 1. This is the kind of blood that we're purchased with. So I think it's more, you know, picturing the perfection of the ultimate priest rather than sidelining those who are disabled. You gotta read Jesus' words towards those who are disabled, right? Like He I came to restore sight to the blind and to make the lame walk. Look, look at what he's doing in this passage. Right. Right. And then you read other New Testament writers like James chapter 2, you know, don't show favoritism towards people in the church. And you know, I think the larger ethic is one of uh inclusion, not exclusion. But there are certain pointers in the Old Testament that are looking forward to the perfection of Christ that is our representative that's gonna be coming. So I thought we should address that. Yeah, no, I think that's good. And that was the kind of thing like you get somebody who reads one verse in the Bible and like, what kind of God is that? Right, right, right? Yeah. So never just read one verse in the Bible. You gotta, you know, the whole context. Yeah.
Bob:So but that was that was sort of at least part of the background behind the response to the paralytic in Mark II, that there was this cultural and theological background there, which is why that person was marginalized. And not just there, but in other places within the gospels.
Dave:And like you said in the sermon, Jesus is subverting that or undermining that, right? Yeah. And similarly, he does that not just with the physical disability, but with this theological statement that he makes about the forgiveness of sins. So can you explain one more time for the people in the back who might have missed what you said there about what was going on with his um statement? What was he doing when he pronounced the forgiveness of sins?
Bob:What in what way did that address the barrier? Right. So what I what I was saying is that the the order matters that Jesus first is forgiving the sins, he's dealing with the spiritual need of the paralytic before he brings about the healing. And th this background is important because I think what he was doing is he was dismantling any stigma or any um um uh bias that people in the room would have against this person, even being worthy of being healed. So when Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven, he he first is using a very familial term, uh a term of belonging, a term of being part of the family. Um, and then he's forgiving his sins, meaning he's without me, if he healed him first, it would it would give this indication that in order for him to receive forgiveness, he would have to be uh f receive physical restoration or physical healing. And Jesus is saying, No, no, no, no. The f the most important thing is your spiritual needs. So I'm gonna address that first. And then he does the healing, and the and the point of the healing is to prove to the people that are in the room that he has the authority both to forgive sins and to bring about healing. So the I think the order the order very much matters. You remember Job's friends?
Dave:Like, so I do, but there was an assumption that they were made. Yeah. There was an assumption that they made that okay, you're suffering, so what did you do? Right. Right? And that was built into I think it's called retribution theology. It was built into their understanding of physical illness, is without exception, always necessarily tied to your particular disobedience to God's law. So why don't you fess up, Job? Why don't you tell God what you did wrong? Why don't you tell us? Why don't you confess your sins? And then all this stuff will go away, right? Because this is yours is you're kind of your fault, right? And then God severely chastises and rebukes those friends. And um, what does he say at the end of the book? Like, I I don't know them or something like that. I think so. You know, pay more attention to my servant Job, he'll pray for you, right? That kind of thing. So I think we have to be careful about that. Although the flip side is okay, I'm gonna say something hard, and I probably get my words wrong here because I didn't really prepare them well, but there are examples in the Bible of me sinning and the way in which God getting my attention is by bringing in as his discipline, as his loving discipline, trouble, physical trouble into my life in order to chastise me, refine me. You know, we talked about a couple examples during the run through 1 Corinthians 11. This is why many of you are sick because you're taking the Lord's Supper in a way that's inappropriate. Um we talked about Ananias and Sapphira, chapter five of the book of Acts, where God physically chastises them for their sin. So it does happen, but we as a human, from a human perspective, would never know. We we cannot assume that we would know, like Job's friends. Yeah. Um only God knows that. And so we have to just um leave the secret things to the Lord. Right.
Bob:So the tension is where where is that happening uh uh as in in response to what you're doing versus um what is just a uh effect of the fall. So the the passage that we're covering in a few weeks, which I alluded to yesterday, John 9, Jesus seems to challenge some at least some of that thinking. Um and I think at least part of this in Mark 2, the reason that the man doesn't get in the door is because people have this thought about him. He's not worthy of coming in, he's a sinner, we don't want him to be here. Um so that's part of the reason they're not making making room for him.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Good. Anything else you wanted to talk about about the sermon?
Bob:Uh well, yeah, I did want to I did want to talk a little bit about the healing section, because I did get one question about that. Um now, I I did say to this person, we'll we'll probably address this in further detail in the coming weeks. I think it probably it fits in a little bit better with the John 5 and John 9 passages. Um, but it is in this passage, so I wanted to I wanted to give some uh some commentary on it. The the idea that the point of the healing in the passage is to prove Jesus' authority but not establishing a formula. And um, you know, I gave this example of my friend my friend Rob and his his son um uh you know g doing the healing uh events uh and not and not receiving full kind of full healing. Um so so I think the tension for people is if I do that and and healing doesn't happen as I expect, what do I do with that, right? Some people use that as a way of walking away from God. I prayed for healing, I didn't get healed, and so God must not be good. Um the other thing is that if you're if you're somebody who's who's had a lifelong disability and and and you're you're living through that, then um you might have a feeling that you're you're not really valuable because your body is not is not whole, so to speak. Um and so the the point of that that commentary was to say, and certainly for this passage, is that your your physical healing does not um determine your worth and your dignity before God, and God, God is sovereign over that, God can use you, God is with you. Um the other thing is that Jesus in his healing ministry, the the the the gospel writers choose particular scenes um to to point out, to show, again, it's it's often pointing to the fact that Jesus is Messiah, it's revealing his identity when he does the healing. And um there's a whole lot of people that are sick that we don't necessarily see getting healed. So the point was that Jesus healed some, but not not everybody, right, in in there. And so um another example was Paul. Paul had this thorn in the flesh in in 2 Corinthians 12. He didn't get healed there. Um one point of clarification would be that we we do believe that uh, you know, if you're if you're a follower of Christ, you will experience healing, full healing at some point. It may be in this life, it also may be in the life to come. So there is off there's always um hope for that, even if full restoration is not happening now. But what we don't want to do is turn the good news into some kind of performance review where um, you know, I have enough faith, I get healed, and then, you know, and then and then I'm part of the kingdom. And that's that's part of what Jesus was doing again in the Mark II passages. He's letting him know you're you're forgiven, and then healing comes after. And but again, that's not not a formula that necessarily will always happen. It may happen, it may not, um, but when we get into the we go to heaven and the new heavens and the new earth, we'll we'll we'll experience um you know full full physical restoration there. Did you add anything to that?
Dave:Yeah, I mean I think we pray with boldness, yeah, right? So there's a tension here between what is strong faith and then what is um presumption, right? So we're gonna pray with boldness, but then we're also gonna accept God's answer, and then we're gonna pastorally commit to walk with people no matter the outcome. But let us be reminded, though um he did heal this man who was lame, what what happened to that guy later in his life is he got physically ill in some other way and he died, right? So like everybody everybody's gonna die at some point, right? He's gonna have their body eventually break down in some sense and have to uh face the grave, which is you know the ultimate um physical um let's uh ch I don't know how what what word I'm looking for, but we we're we're all headed there where our bodies don't work right anymore anymore. And so the hope, the great hope, is that is eschatological that God the the the miracle story is wonderful, it's a picture of the kingdom, but man, I'm we're looking for a better resurrection. We're looking for something way better than just a healing in this life. We're looking for the perishable to put on the imperishable, and that's and the kingdom is inaugurated, it's breaking through, but it's not fully here yet, right?
Bob:Yeah. So these are pictures of maybe what is what is to come.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
Bob:The other thing is we're gonna talk a little bit more about God's purposes and suffering. There will be a whole sermon on that in this series, um, which will be coming down the road. So those things all this intention, this idea of miraculous healing and suffering and God's purposes and both of those things.
Dave:Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Bob. Next week we're gonna talk about uh the topic of when God wounds, looking at some uh very difficult passages where we have Genesis 32, Jacob wrestling with God, and he gets wounded there on his hip, and then Moses uh has this trouble with speech, and God says, I'm the one who made your mouth. And so, how do we deal with uh the fact that God sometimes is the one who inflicts these wounds on us? And how do we process that as believers? So next Sunday uh we'll continue the series Upside Down Glory.
Tim:Hey guys, we are so excited about our Upside Down Glory series, and we are so excited to have Amy there yesterday representing First Choice on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. If this past sermon section or yesterday's message struck your heart and you're looking to help First Choice, there's an awesome campaign starting right now that you can take part of with just your loose change. If you haven't heard about it before, First Choice does a baby bottle boomerang where you can fill little baby bottles with your spare change. To participate, pick one up on a Sunday, come by during the week. We'll give you a baby bottle. Uh, and during the week, check out and during the week, check your pockets, any loose change you might have. Everyone's got that change jar on some shelf somewhere. Uh filled up. Last year as a church, we were able to raise over$19,000 for first choice. That's a lot of loose change. Let's see if we can beat it this year, which is pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, maybe the loose dollar bill here and there. Let's see how we can help first choice this year with just our loose change. Baby bottle boomerang. Let's do it. Mr. Tim, uh, I think we're ready to sprint. I think I am too. All right. Okay. What is sanctification?
Dave:Well, there's kind of different like definitions of that, and there's different phases of that. So, like, there is something called positional sanctification that we are all holy in Christ, that you know, Paul calls us saints, but then there's something called progressive sanctification, where we're on this journey of the mopping up of sin in the believer's life, and then ultimately there will be complete perfect sanctification where we will be really glorification, is another term for that. But um there's kind of different ways to define the term, but I think they're probably talking about progressive sanctification, right?
Bob:So that's I think when people think about that, they're most often thinking about progressive sanctification that over the course of your life uh the goal is to be made more and more like Jesus. And that's not always an like the st- it's kind of like the stock market. It's always, you know, a lot of times it's going up and to the right, but you can kind of have dips and you ups and downs, and um uh the the goal is to always be making the upward trend at some level towards becoming more and more like Jesus. And that's you know, when you're when you become a Christian, at first you are made right because of what what Jesus has has done for you, uh, but then the rest of your life is you you pursuing him, this kind of this long obedience in the same direction that we were talking about before. Uh, we're not going to be perfect uh in this life, but um our goal is to be growing in our love of God and his word and um reflecting the image of Christ to the world until the day when we are in his presence and we receive that that glorified body. Good.
Dave:If you're interested in learning more about sanctification, there's a workbook that we put out a couple years ago that has all kinds of information about the spiritual life and God's process of growing you. So that's available on our website. It's called Cultivating the Christian Life. We would encourage you to check that out. Well, that is a wrap, but before we go, one of my uh phone apps is the Daily Dose of Greek, and uh Robert Plummer at the right reads a passage, and um he's pretty darn good at pronunciation. So I I don't know what he's gonna say, but this is what he would say about Mark 2.1. All right, so Dr.
SPEAKER_00:Plummer. A cell phone pollen ace kaferna um kaferna umeroom.
Dave:All right, kaferna um. Dr. Plummer. That's theom. If you don't have a good, I just even more confused.
Bob:Kaferna um. Where's the F?
Dave:Evidently it's a phi. It's not a P. It's a F. So it's kaferna um. All right. That's a wrap. Thank you guys for watching today. It's been good to be with you. We will see you next time on Behind the Pulp Bit.