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
"Phibby" & The Gauntlet of Questions
Behind the Pulpit returns! Pastor Bob and Pastor Dave cover a wide range of topics touching both ministry life and larger cultural conversations. The episode includes reflections on winter weather and recent travel, updates from global missions through World Venture, and thoughtful engagement with current cultural movements shaping conversations around marriage, family, and children’s rights.
The discussion also takes up several listener questions, working through theological issues related to disability, suffering, God’s sovereignty, and how Scripture holds together brokenness and hope. Familiar segments return as well, including the Weekly Warm-Up, Book War, and Theology Sprint.
The conversation is anchored by reflection on 2 Samuel 9 and the story of Mephibosheth, raising practical questions about who is seen, who is overlooked, and how the church lives out covenant faithfulness in everyday ministry.
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The Underground Sessions Weekend
https://millingtonbaptist.org/underground-sessions/
When Love Hurts
https://millingtonbaptist.org/when-love-hurts-group/
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Christian Nationalism | The Underground Sessions Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qd5PuGc2bE
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:02 Denver & the "Snowpocalypse"
14:10 Weekly Warmup
18:26 In The News
28:26 The Great Book War
36:56 Audience Questions
1:01:24 Sermon Recap
1:17:39 Theology Sprint
Music
"Ventura"
Morgan Taylor
U76EPPNJDYZYU0Y7
Welcome back to Behind the Pulpit, the first behind the pulpit for February 2026. We've entered into the shortest month of the year. I am joined by my esteemed colleague, Pastor Dave, over here to my left. He's my my left-hand man. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good. Usually the right-hand man, right? What's the left-hand man do?
Dave:I don't know, but this is like the fifth time you told that dirty joke on the podcast. All right. I have. I said that before?
Bob:Yes. You know what's funny? What's going on with the M? That's like the third time you've asked me about the M. I do never asked you what the M is.
Tim:I don't remember this conversation. M from Millington? No, it's been getting old.
Bob:Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Oh yeah. That's when I'm starting my first. There's a lot of M's in your life. My first seminar next week. I do. I do. MBC, WMBC, M M B T S. We're glad you're here today. I know it's been it's been a while, Pastor Dave. We've in we've encountered the snowpocalypse. Uh I think we need to debrief that. I I flew over the snow pock snowpocalypse to Denver. Uh before we get after, let's just let's just recap. What happened these last 10 days?
Dave:The snow is at the point right now where it's been so cold that you can walk on top of the 12 inches of snow, depending upon how heavy you are. But you can like totally just uh ice skate in your backyard on this stuff, man. It's just hanging around. It's not going anywhere. Have you seen the mountains in our parking lot? I did drainage.
Bob:They're they're 20 feet tall. They're huge. I I also got a notification on my Facebook memories from 15 years ago. Oh the first year I was here, 2011, we also had a ton of snow. And it was just snowstorm after snowstorm. The mountains were at least 20 feet high. And then they don't melt because it's freezing. It's like it's 20 degrees outside. I'll put$100 on April 1st.
Dave:That's my that's my guess. Because that's like April Easter weekend. And I'm hoping we're not looking at mountains of snow on Easter weekend.
Bob:No, but I think there still will be snow here on Easter weekend. All right.$100. News Pastors Gamble. New Jersey Patches Gamble by the Pastors Podcast. What was your I I heard all these warnings when I left. I didn't I I we paid somebody to do the driveway because I went to Denver. I don't want my wife doing any shoveling. But I all these warnings about be careful when you go out in snow, you might have a heart attack because apparently people have unknown cardiovascular disease and the the cold you know closes up your arteries. So what was your snow so shoveling experience like?
Dave:Well, I did not shovel, thankfully, but my snowblower did not start and it was a disaster. I this one Craftsman snowblower I have, I it's my it's my my hate this thing. So like I do everything right. I run it dry, I put the fuel stabilizer. It doesn't start every year, and I'm like, I'm not shoveling this stuff, it's 12-13 inches, so I gotta get this going. So I took apart the carburetor. There's a little emulsion tube in there that gets clogged up with dirt, and I bought this little tool thingy with little cables where you like stick the cables in the little holes to get the dirt out of the carburetor. And then as I was putting it back together, I dropped a piece. It was like clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink somewhere in the garage, a little jet, and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it. I it's freezing in my garage. I'm looking for this jet for at least a half hour, and I gave up and I found a carburetor on Amazon for$19 next day, and it got here, and I took that carburetor apart, put the new jet in my snowblower, and said a prayer, and then it fired up. So I was able to use the snowblower tool, not a shovel. So I had no cardiovascular issues in the snowstorm. Although not that you would have anyway, but I you know it's uh it's a heavy workout. Let's just say I'm not going to the gym and doing snow.
Bob:That's a good call.
Dave:Good enough for the day.
Bob:I I flew to Denver for my world venture meetings, and when I got there, it was also cold and snowing. Not as cold though, right? It was cold. The first day it was very cold. It was very cold. We got two inches of snow. Yeah, but it's been like 10 over here. It's well, they're not equal. If it's 10 degrees here and 10 degrees there, it's warmer there. We it's it is frigid. My favorite part of the whole thing.
Dave:I've been there's less humidity. Yeah. Like at night, I'll I'll wake up with a cough like in the middle of the night. Like, what's why is it so dry in here?
Tim:I need a cough drop to go to bed. If you remember on the last episode of the show, I believe I can say the exact quote. Pastor Rob said, I'm gonna be in Denver where it's gonna be 50 degrees and I'm gonna be wearing shorts. And then I'm I was watching the AFC championship game in Denver, and then it was a whiteout. I was like, aha! He couldn't escape.
Bob:All right. Well, let me educate you here, Tim, about the Denver, the Colorado weather. So, yes, that was Sunday, but the rest of the week, indeed, it was in the 40s and it was quite quite warm. I had to take off my coat. So Wow in Denver. In Denver. See, here's the thing. If this was always the joke when I lived there, if you don't like the weather, you have to wait 15 minutes and then it will change. Oh, and that's that is fairly true. Did you stay hydrated? I drank a lot of water and uh I had long days, a lot of sitting. I got up and I moved. I went to my old YMCA that I I uh when I was in a workout? I did. I did so they had they had a little like little teeny workout room in the hotel, but uh there was a YMCA that I went to in seminary, and now I'm I I'm at a YMCA member here in New Jersey, and you can work out nationwide. So I went back in there to check out.
Dave:Hold on a hot second, because people people don't don't realize you didn't go to Colorado just for the YMCA. Why did you go to Colorado? Just back up a second.
Bob:It's a good why and everything, but no, I'm I I was out there for a board meeting for World Venture, which is our our mission agency. I go out twice a year now. Um, and it just so happened that this meeting coincided with this massive storm. So I flew out on Saturday, and then uh I did get Sunday to myself because I had to go out a day early because of the weather. Um, and then uh basically Monday to Thursday I was in meetings all day.
Dave:Okay. Yeah. But you and I kind of eat, drink, breathe this stuff. So maybe somebody hears the word world venture and they actually don't know what that means, or they hear the word mission organization, and they don't know what that means. So imagine you were on an elevator and you had to explain to somebody what's world venture. How would you answer that question?
Bob:That's a great, and actually, that is what we were talking about during our meetings. There was a whole DNA sustainability group um that was trying to come up with an elevator pitch for what does World Venture do. I'm pitching you the ball. I don't remember swing. I that was I can't say it because they didn't they didn't codify it yet. But World Venture is um an organization that oversees people on the mission field. That's and historically they're they're connected with our our our network, our denomination. Um which is Venture Church Network was historically Conservative Baptist Church in America. Um actually world venture still still does DBA doing business as Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Doing bus doing business as World Venture, actually, the other way around. Um but uh but yeah, so so they they actually this is great. I'm gonna share about this. So they they they they will um uh recruit people and then send them out, and they're the ones that provide the infrastructure, the support for missionaries that are on the field. Now, when people are out on the field, they're doing various ministries. They might be church planters, they might be um uh uh uh they they might be working in some some kind of uh of business. Um World Venture has a very proprietary um uh uh philosophy called uh uh missions 360. We're doing a we're doing a missions conference in October where David Love, who's one of their uh VPs for Global Initiatives, is going to come and share about this um missions 360. Their goal is to get people in all different sectors of life um engaging in missions because it's be it's becoming harder to get into especially closed countries on a missionary visa. Um and so if you're going over there, you might be a you might be going as a teacher, you might be going as a nurse, you might be going as a healthcare worker, you're working in those fields and then you're using that as a uh avenue to reach people for Christ. So World Venture has a very innovative history in terms of how they do missions.
Dave:So if somebody's watching and they feel like I think God's calling me to be a missionary, right? It's not as simple as, oh, so I'm just gonna get a plane ticket and go. Yeah. I'm gonna want to be sponsored by a reputable organization that's gonna help me. Yes, training.
Bob:Great, great. I I think we sh as Christians we should always be on mission, but to be be a sanctioned missionary that goes out, um especially overseas into a cross-cultural situation, you need support. It's not it's not the easiest uh thing to do. And so they help you with support raising, they help you with training, they help you with uh care while you're on the field. They have a whole ministry called Paraclete, which is uh provides counseling services for you and for your um your your family, uh, because there's different challenges that happen when you go out on on the field.
Dave:Um paraclete is the Greek term for a counselor in John chapter 14. So you know, it's someone to come alongside of you, someone to counsel you, someone to support you. Yes. In the spirit of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Bob:While I was there, they were appoint they had uh several um twelve, I think it was twelve to fifteen people they were sending out, and they had some really, really cool stories. Um this one a lot of them were going to in Indonesia, and um uh this one girl was coming out of uh like new age background, God saved her. This other guy was uh uh grew up Jewish, and then God reached him in a dream. Um lots lots of really, really amazing stories of how God was working in the lives of these young people. Most of them were in their twenties, Tim. And then there was a uh one middle-aged couple, guy had been a teaching pastor, and he and his wife felt called to go to Brazil, and uh she's going down, they're gonna work with this organization in Brazil, and uh she's gonna do work with uh disabilities. Spe she's gonna start a disability ministry down in in South America. So we connected. We're in our I mentioned we're in our series. I have to send them the link because they were very interested in hearing about what we were doing. So people outside of Mellington Baptist Church are listening to this series. Well, I I'm gonna send them the link and now they will. They were he was he was a teaching pastor in the Bay Area in California. Well, we know Sarah Bush is listening. And Sarah, Sarah is giving us cheering us on every single week. I always wait for my Monday morning email from Sarah. And she's gonna be here this week. Uh, I'm picking up that football and carrying it down the field. We love you, Sarah. It's gonna be good. All right. So yeah, so World Venture all day, every day. I came back Thursday night. I had to switch my flights both times. Oh, Pastor Dave, I was telling you. I do have to tell the story. I I was telling Tim. So switch my flight both ways. When I was going out, I got I was on the window seat and I had this this large man in between us, so I had to like I was kind of stuck to the window because I always like to give people people that sacrifice to get in that middle seat. I like to give them the room as much as I can. But then coming back, I switched my flight to an earlier flight, so my wife didn't have to pick me up at midnight. And um I was in between these these two uh these two people, and uh we were we're about 30 minutes from landing in Newark, and all of a sudden, Pastor Dave, you tell me if this has ever happened to you, I I start hearing a dog barking. There's a dog barking in the fuselage of the plane, and I'm saying to myself, Where is this dog? Where is this coming from? And I look down and I realize there has been this little Bichon Friset Yorkie thing in between the legs at on the floor of this this woman who's sitting next to me the entire flight. And all and the dog is sitting there at my feet barking. And this dog barked for about 30 minutes, barking its head off. In fact, you got the audio? I do I I do have the audio past your day. Why don't you give me your initial reaction to that and I'll find the audio and then we'll we'll move on from this. What do you think about this? He's speechless. Oh, you want me to talk before the reaction? Okay, actually now I have it, so you don't have to. So here, this is what the dog sounded like for 30 minutes as we were landing. For 30 minutes, this thing is, and that was like its calmer section. Yeah.
Dave:Well, you know, some people have anxiety issues or they, you know, need these, you know, emotional support animals.
Bob:On the way out, I saw somebody had a big golden retriever.
Dave:I didn't realize you can do this. I'm just saying mostly dogs or cats, but Tim, do you remember like there was a behind the pulpit like a long time ago with an alligator?
Bob:Tim, I tried to find an alligator for you at Cracker Barrel.
Dave:How long ago that was, but it was someone tried to take an alligator, right? Or something like that.
Bob:I did I saw a stuffed alligator a cracker barrel, and I thought of you whenever we talked about that, and then when I went back, it was gone.
Dave:So I'm sorry.
Bob:I appreciate it.
Tim:I couldn't find the alligator trainer of the show, emotional support alligator.
Dave:We're gonna be talking about dogs later in the program. So I'm just gonna throw an Easter egg out there, and I want you to tune in and look forward to that discussion when it comes up. Talking to you, Jim. Critical theology.
Bob:This is true. Speaking of theology, let's do a warm-up.
Dave:Let's do a weekly warm-up. Oh. I forgot about the warm-up.
Tim:So uh I got two really good ones. Um, and so we're only gonna do one. Uh so you have to tell me Old Testament or New Testament. Oh. Okay. Oh man.
Dave:Did you like my game the other week when I did Bible or not Bible?
Bob:I you know what? People seem to really dig that.
Dave:Someone came up to me after the service and was giving me more ideas.
Bob:You should have said this. There was there was some guffawing in the audience that week, Pastor Dave. And a lot of people got a lot of those wrong. I started to question Bible. Bible! My talk to the audience. I will shout out. My wife listened to it with me and she got she got them all right. She's like, that's that's not in the Bible. All right. Uh-uh. That's not in the Bible.
Dave:Well, thank you, Amanda. But she was maybe a little better than other people there. So, what's the warm-up? Uh Old Testament or New Testament.
Tim:Oh, you mean choose that? Yeah, pick one. Uh, New Testament. All right. Uh, this is episode season four, episode 19. So today's weekly warm-up comes from 1 John chapter 4, verse 19. We love because he first loved us. Break it down for us. Oh. Just explain it? Remind me. You know what? I'm rusty. Remind me what we're doing. So the weekly warm-up is either it's gonna be a verse in the Bible that directly correlates to either the day we record. So the other option was Genesis chapter two, verse three. But you chose New Testament. So this is episode four, season four, episode 19. So I find that a verse in the Bible that is 419. Okay. And then you kind of break it down in 60 seconds.
Dave:All right. First John was the first book of the Bible we ever had to translate in Greek, and I remember this verse. And John uses simple words, but they're profound concepts. And a lot of people read that verse and they think it means we love him because he first loved us, which is of course true. Um, but it's broader than that. I think it's the only reason we love at all is because he first loved us. We've got our sinful nature that's curved in on ourselves, and apart from the regenerating work of the spirit, we don't really have an outward focus towards God or others. So this is why uh the two greatest commandments are around this aspect of loving God and loving people. And when we're set free by the love of God, we're now set free to love others. So that's a major theme in First John. What would you add to that?
Bob:Well, I I would agree with that. Also, I I do we we did use first John for for what we call baby Greek at our our seminary as well. Um, but lots of lots of wonderful word pictures. Um the the theme of love is in there. And um I would just say that uh if we're gonna love others, we have to first be secure in our identity in Christ and the fact that he in first 1 John 3 talks about how he has lavished his love upon us. And um man, that's something that just uh is is so refreshing and wonderful about the gospel. Um also talks about you know, first John talks about confession and um uh how how you know if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse us and purify us from all righteousness. Uh it's John, maybe simple Greek, but he he gets right to the heart of what the gospel is all about.
Tim:Yeah, it was uh similar similar verse, a little different. Uh four, I think it's four eight, right?
Dave:You uh if you do not love you don't know God.
Bob:Can we do can we do the walk walk through the Bible uh uh motions?
Dave:Mm-hmm. I I don't know if I have them down, but if you guys were there, we had a good time. Forty different hand signals, creation, fall, blood, Moses.
Bob:Uh you know what? He got really excited on certain words. Joshua. Creation, fall, flood, Samson, Samson, Moses, Samson. He was getting super fine.
Tim:Everyone did what it was, right? I had I had my wife cracking up the last time we did it. I was waiting for the opportunity. Instead of Deborah, I said Debbie. Deborah. I had her cracking up. That was that was a good event. All right. Katie? Hey guys, we want to give you an important heads up about an upcoming weekend that we don't want you to miss out on. Saturday, March 7th, from 5 30 to 7 30 p.m., we're excited to be hosting our next Underground Sessions event. We're super excited to welcome Jason Thacker as our special guest. And the topic for the evening will be and who is a person? Human dignity in an inhuman age. As Christians engage in big questions around bioethics, technology, and cultural change, one foundational issue keeps rising to the surface. What does it actually mean to be human? In a world where personhood is often tied to ability, location, or stage of development, this session will help ground us in biblical vision of inherent human dignity as image bearers of God. And it will equip us to engage these conversations thoughtfully and faithfully. And then come back on Sunday morning for church because Jason is going to be joining us for both of our services, where he'll be preaching a message titled Crowned with Glory and Honor Human Dignity in an inhuman age. So again, that's Saturday, March 7th from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., the underground sessions event with Jason Thacker. And then join us for church on March 8th at our 9 and 1045 AM services, where Jason will be preaching for us. Make plans to join us for this entire weekend, focus on truth, clarity, and dignity of every human life. All right.
Bob:In the news or we have something else? A little news segment. All right, let's let's get right after it. In the news. All right, so much we could talk about here, Pastor Dave. There's so many, there's always like tons of things happening in the news. Um, but I I do want to focus in on one item today. I think this is worthy of conversation. I want to talk about something called the Greater Than Campaign, which launched on January the 28th, uh, just a few weeks ago, and it's a strategic national initiative led by a few, a few of our friends. Um friends, I don't know if they're friends of the podcast, but they're friends friends of the channel. Friends of the channel. Um Al Moeller, who you met Al Moeller listens every week, I'm sure of it.
Tim:Maybe friend of the channel.
Bob:You you uh you you recently met him, you sat with him in church. Yeah. Um he he uh does he although you're not sure he's gonna remember your name. Al Moller said pretty sure.
Tim:Aren't you the guy from from behind the pulpit? That's true.
Bob:Are you two exactly? By the way, I saw I saw John Stone Street one on his in the library, uh new in the library podcast. I need to listen to that. Loosely based off behind the pulpit. Loosely, loosely. Um the other one uh is Katie Faust, who we've had on a podcast. We've had her here for an underground. Um, Katie Faust. I won you know what? We were. We had Katie Faust before she was Katie Faust.
Dave:There was there was some season before Jordan Peterson and this is true.
Bob:Well, uh so her and her organization, then before us, uh, are kind of helping to lead this initiative, and it it represents a major shift in the legal and cultural battle over marriage, um, moving away from this traditional liber uh religious liberty arguments and focusing her her main theme is on children's rights. And so basically the this is a movement to uh become more focused on overturning Obergefeld, the same-sex marriage um uh ruling from the Supreme Court back in 2015. So Roe vs. Wade, that was a big battle for many, many years, and now that that's been overturned, there's been focus on uh moving back to the same sex marriage issue. So Al Moeller, um Katie Faust are are a part of that. Um the mission, the campaign's tagline is children. Are greater than equal, uh, which often reflects Katie's core argument that biological parents, uh children's rights to their biological parents are greater than adults' desires for marriage equality. Because her main argument is that if um if if a same-sex couple is adopting a uh child, they are uh at some level depri definitely depriving that child of access to their mother or father in some way, shape, or form, because the way the uh the couple gets um the child is either they do adoption or they do some kind of IVF surrogacy, and uh one of the two biological parents is cut out of the picture. So um now I've heard people say uh that this is this is this issue is done. Like we shouldn't be talking about this. But I would argue that marriage is fundamental, the fundamental building block of society, and um this has not been a great thing in terms of what our society has has done. Marriage is a pre pre-political institution. In other words, that the state may recognize a certain marriage, but that's not a recognizable thing in the eyes of God if we look at it scripturally. So um this is an interesting shift, though, in terms of argumentation, and you I think you were the one that maybe brought it up to me. So, what what was your initial reaction uh to this?
Dave:Uh, it's a brilliant argument. Nobody was really talking about this when O'Bergfell went through. It changes the conversation from around being an adult-centric conversation to being a child-centric conversation. Marriage and the redefinition of marriage has changed things to be all about adult desires, and we've forgotten that marriage is actually the most child-friendly institution that this world has ever known. And when it is just simply divorced from that and viewed only as a vehicle for my own adult fulfillment, then children actually not only don't get considered, but they get victimized. And so, what Katie Faust is saying is what you're normalizing there is child loss, and you're not allowing the child to even acknowledge that this is a loss, you're just pretending like it's not a loss. And so uh there's three prongs to the strategy. Number one, legal and policy engagement, so they're going to be preparing to influence the court system. Number two, cultural narrative shift. So this has to do with you know the public conversation, framing kids as the primary victims of um the redefinition of marriage. And then the third prong is church mobilization, which is developing theological and practical resources for pastors for congregations to help us uh frame this conversation in terms of child protection as a core Christian duty, and as what James chapter one would call pure religion to advocate for uh kids who've experienced parental loss. In the New Testament, those were called orphans. So rather rather than you know, reinvent the wheel, the the scriptures actually speak to this issue, and we're supposed to be advocating for uh the orphan. That's that's one of the four vulnerable groups that the the the scriptures uh specifically instruct us to uh look out for. So they're gonna be responding to critical questions on parenting quality, um you know, the the adages like can a gay or lesbian parent just be the same exact? Um can they be as loving as the you know the opposite gender parent? And the argument is no they cannot. A gay man cannot replace he can be a loving father, but he cannot replace a mother, period, they're saying. So children need I I should phrase this this way. Children deserve to have they have a right, she would use the word right, they have a right to both. And so um no adult, she would say, has the right to um a non-biologically related child, and no child should be forced to lose their mother or father because of this redefinition of marriage. So that's a very interesting line of argumentation that I think um for me it's very compelling. So um I'm looking forward to what happens through this new organization and try to get behind that with as much effort as I I can. So exciting story in the news. Uh Al Moller, Katie Faust. There's a couple other key people involved here. John Stone Street, um Ali Beth Stucky. Um yeah, I have to look it up, but there's a lot of people that are. Yeah, a lot of folks.
Bob:So I think that uh, and it looks like they're doing a church mobilization thing. I I mentioned that maybe at some point we should do some teaching on marriage, um, just marriage and family. So uh this might be something that we might be interested in. But uh check it out. Uh it is um uh greater than, and uh I think this is gonna be a really important uh cultural piece uh that Christians should pay attention to.
Dave:And if you're out there watching going, hey, that ain't never gonna happen. Is that what you said five years ago about Roe v. Wade? Because I would just maybe encourage you to um have a little faith there. Yeah, maybe maybe is it more about what's right, right?
Bob:That's a good point anyway.
Dave:Yeah.
Bob:So foundational. So there we go. That's that's what's going on in the news. That's uh that's gonna be a big deal. We we will uh we will continue to report on this as developments progress, Pastor Dave. What do you think? You heard it here on Behind the Pulp at first, probably.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
Tim:There you go. It's funny. I was watching a show yesterday uh with my wife, and in the show there is a there's a gay couple that is going through the process of adopting a kid, and I'm like, oh, here we go. Now we're now we gotta talk about child rights. And uh I told my wife you can thank Katie Faust and Charles Coulson for for the uh in-show commentary from me.
Dave:You know, as parents, you have to be watching out for this stuff uh in terms of the cultural narrative because they insert it into um uh a lot of different children's cartoons and you know, places that are trying to normalize this kind of thing.
Tim:For many parents, one of the deepest pains they carry is a relationship with an adult child that no longer feels close or it feels broken altogether. Maybe communication has slowly faded, maybe conversations feel tense, fragile, or filled with uncertainty. Or maybe your adult child has gotten no contact and you're left wondering how things even reach this point in the first place. Estrangement between parents and adult children has reached epidemic levels in our culture today, and some studies suggest that as many as one in four families are experiencing some form of estrangement. And for many parents, the hurt is real, ongoing, and often carried in silence. When love hurts, parents of adult prodigal children is a new group designed to walk alongside parents navigating these painful realities. Through group discussion, prayer, and spiritual discernment, this group exists to offer understanding, encouragement, and Christ-centered hope. The group will meet Tuesday nights from 6 30 p.m. right here at NBC beginning February the 17th. If you are a parent walking through this season and feeling alone, you don't have to carry it by yourself. This group is here for you. So next we have our theology. No, that's later. That's at the end of the show. Uh we have our great book war. Uh just a recap.
Bob:All right, you heard there was some big news in the book war.
Tim:Yeah, some big news. Um this is this is the current score. And so what happened was I went on to it's been like three weeks, so I was I kind of forgot about the voting. I go on and I realize it's a dead tie, which means that I get the opportunity to cast the deciding vote. And I thought about it. I looked back at both of the books. What what did we even recommend? Remind me what I recommended.
Bob:So long, this is so long ago.
Tim:So Pastor Dave recommended Jesus and the Rights Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright. Okay. And Pastor Rob, you recommended Theology, Disability, and New Genetics, Why Science Needs the Church by John Swinton. Boom. And it was the Swinton vehicle that came away with the win. Whoa! I've been really I've been really enjoying the sermon series. So this one seemed like more of a of interest to me at this point in time. Um so here is the here is the breakdown of the 13 votes. Pretty close. Pretty close. Look at that. Thank you for voting. Um, and here's the current score. Pastor Bob only down by two. We had tens of votes this week. Tens of votes. So, Pastor Dave, since you came up short this week, or I guess the last three weeks in the book war, would you please begin with the recommendations on your end? Sure.
Dave:Um trying not to be angry with you right now, Tim, but um in life. So Tim has a right to vote. It's his constitutional okay I know.
Bob:So this is done with voter suppression this week.
Dave:This week, I am going to recommend uh a counseling book by Dr. Ed Welch called Running Scared. It's about anxiety and fear and worry, and it's about understanding the God of rest in the Bible. So if you're looking for a resource that will help you with anxiety, if that's something that you uh experience, and I think all of us experience some fear in life from time to time, so it none of us are immune to that. Ed Welch explores this, I think, from a unique biblical counseling lens, and he explores the root of fear inside of the human soul and encourages readers to discover for themselves that the Bible is full of beautiful words of comfort for fearful people. Uh, it's endorsed here by Tim Clinton, Dan Allender, a couple other people you may know, Stephen Arterburn. It's not a hard read. Um, it looks a little thick, but it's it's not it's not a bad um sit down, get through it. It's got a lot of scriptures in here, and it's got some really good meditation moments, and I think you'll enjoy that if anxiety is something you wanted to work on and tackle. Um Do not miss Ed Welch, published by New Growth Press. I'm not sure about this cover. It's got a guy with a suit and like crossed out faces. Interesting. Um I don't know. There was a moment where they were doing this covers like like the legal pad looking thing. I actually have a published book with that style.
Bob:What what the year was that published?
Dave:Uh this is old now, probably at least 10 years old. So published in 2007, so more like almost 20 years old. Wow. So going back, man. Yeah, one of Ed Welch's older books, but uh not not dated in terms of content and biblical counseling and good stuff. So Ed Welch, PhD, licensed psychologist. He's uh, if you don't know, he's a faculty member of CCEF, the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, over there in um eastern Philadelphia. Uh he's been counseling for 30, 40 years. He's a best-selling author. Bob and I saw him, I think, speak one time. I think you think you were there. I don't remember. At uh one of the Harvey Cedars Shepherds Consumers.
Bob:Yeah, he did come in, right? Yeah.
Dave:Um got a lot of books, got a lot of mini books. Yeah, but this is a good one. So running scared, check it out. Running scared, check it out. I think you'll enjoy that.
Bob:And uh why you put it in front of my face?
Dave:You'll need to put my face a camera on it. All right.
Tim:Thank you guys. I thought we had a cutaway shot to my move on, move on. We're ready for the next trying to figure out the theology sprint here. Sorry.
Bob:All right. Well, um, my my uh uh offering this week, uh I think has a more creative and better cover. It is a book called The Redeemed Man. The Redeemed Man. I want you to notice that they very creatively uh different people contributed to the chapters on this, but there was three folks that edited it. And so to uh make it clear, they had all the contributors and then the editor right here, and then they had like a line that they drew to who was editing it. So um I don't know, it's a pretty attractive cover here, Pastor Dave. I I enjoyed it. Yeah. Kind of like a word map. He's speechless.
Dave:I can't endorse your book in the middle of a book war.
Bob:I'm just telling you. Okay, all right. So uh this book um is uh edited by Joel Beakey, Richard Phillips, whom we whom we also also have seen. We saw him then at that uh that conference one of the Aprils, and Paul Smalley, who I think we also have seen. They gather pastors and teachers from around the world to highlight what sets apart a redeemed man. Rooted in scripture and shaped by decades of ministry experience, this book gives readers a clear practical look at the core marks of godly manhood today. So there are chapters on work, friendships, repentance, evangelism, marriage, wealth, citizenship, perseverance, retirement, life and death, family, health growth, kids, faith. I've been making my way through this and they basically break it up into different sections. So the first section is God's uh a godly man's relationship with God, a godly man's relationships with with people, like parents, your wife's, uh how do you handle singleness, your family, your kids, a godly man's work. Did you say wife's plural? Well, just sorry, what wife, one wife, your wife, husband of one wife, resources, recreation, and then finishing well. So how do you sustain your health and a retirement? Actually, I think that that health one, and then also managing managing your wealth. Sometimes people don't integrate their Christian faith into those things. That as you get older, it's important that you steward your body uh well uh when you can't uh tackle things as you did when you were in your 20s. Um so I've been using this uh for some devotional reading. It is it is excellent. I highly recommend it. Uh The Redeemed Man, edited by Beaky, Phillips and Smalley, and it's got chapters from uh Kevin DeYoung, Dan Doriani's in here, uh uh Jim Newheiser, um, lots of others. So check it out. Love it. Solomon half heart. We recommend you decide. Sorry, King Saul, no heart. King David, whole heart.
Tim:Sorry when you said wives, not Solomon, half heart. Mostly bad.
Bob:But the thing is though, I they they all had multiple wives. Paul and uh Saul and David, and so they all had multiple wives. Not Paul. Or Saul. Not Paul, yeah. Paul was single. No, no, King Saul. Oh. He took he took some well, I guess he took some concubines.
Tim:Um anyway. Parents, there are some conversations we know we need to have with our kids. Conversations that matter deeply, but they don't always come with a clear script. Talking to your kids about sex and growing up isn't about fear or embarrassment. It's about guidance, trust, and timing. And for a lot of parents, the question isn't if we should have these conversations, it's how. Starting February the 8th, we're excited to offer a five-week parent group called The Birds and the Bees. It'll be led by Ken and Andrea Harold. And this group is designed for parents with kids ages 1 to 10 who want to approach these topics thoughtfully, biblically, and with confidence. We'll meet Sundays at 10.45, watch a video series together, and talk through practical, age-appropriate ways to engage these conversations using clear language you actually can use at home. Our goal is to help parents strengthen trust with their kids and feel equipped to lead these conversations well. Again, that's the Birds and the Beads parent small group starting Sunday, February the 8th. It's gonna run for five weeks through March 8th, and it's gonna meet at 1045. For more information, reach out to Ken and Andrea Harold or our kids team. And if you're a parent of a child age one to ten, this group is for you. Sign up and we'll see you there. So what what's next? We have a a collection of audience questions that we to uh to get through today. A pla a cornucopia of questions. Well, we take some time off, is when you guys ask questions, apparently. So we're gonna answer.
Bob:We gotta stop preaching so the questions are rolling.
Tim:So we're gonna go ahead and try to tackle your questions as as quickly as we can here. So first question was from an anonymous question asker, and they ask, I always thought things like disabilities and illness were a result of the fall and things not being as they should be. Meaning without the sin and brokenness of the world, there would be no sickness, illness, disability, or death. Pastor Dave's sermon challenged that idea in saying that it saying it is part of God's design. So where does sin and the fall and brokenness of the world fit into this conversation?
SPEAKER_00:Tim, you want to start here?
Dave:You have a line in the walk-up video. Um and the line can be interpreted in a couple different ways, and it's uh it's not a mistake in God's design. Did I did I quote that correctly? Yes. Okay. So that's worth thinking about because I think um part of the question is around my sermon from that week, two weeks ago, but that line in the walk-up video made made Bob and I actually think a lot about how do we exactly articulate this? God is certainly sovereign, um, He uniquely forms and designs every single person, those with or without disabilities. Uh, they all have equal dignity, value, worth. Yes, yes, yes. Um I think this might sound like semantics, but I it's worth talking it through. The word mistake can mean different things, right? So mistake, not in the sense that, oh God said oops, and he didn't really mean to create you like that. No, not that kind of mistake. But um if you think about the perfect original DNA design, um it was flawless. There was no imperfections at the beginning. At the level of biology, I'm talking about genetically, uh, it was precise and perfect. And in a sense, in a technical sense, disability would represent um, you know, a quote unquote mistake in the DNA. That's why we have CRISPR, that's why we have gene editing technologies to correct those mistakes in the DNA. But you wouldn't talk about somebody having cancer as if they they were a mistake in God's design either. So any kind of sickness, illness, um, you know, suffering that is a result of the fall still falls underneath of the the umbrella of God's sovereignty. And um I think we should be careful in the way that we talk about that, but um the everything I said in my sermon I would still stand by. So uh I would just use that caveat to help define the word mistake in a very careful way. So please add more thoughts.
Bob:Yeah, I'm I'm trying to rack my brain and remember everything we had we had talked about, but I think uh the the discussion was also around you don't want to look at somebody I think you did say this in the sermon, I don't want to look at somebody like um who was born with a particular disability and say, God God made him God made a mistake when he created you. Something is um something something is uh I guess it's okay to say something is not wrong with you in the sense that like you're you're not a a creation of God made in his image. Um and yet everything that we experience now until the new creation and um the new new heavens and new earth i is is is touched at some level by by the fall. I I think we can also we can also say that. Um so you're gonna preach on John 9 this week.
Dave:Right, right, right. If if there's no mistake, if there's nothing wrong, it it becomes difficult to understand why Jesus would even heal him. Right. So the fact that Jesus has this ministry of healing presupposes that there's something that's broken that the Lord wants to restore, otherwise his whole ministry would be unnecessary, right? If nothing were wrong, there would be no need for him to intervene, right? So, yeah, technically speaking, there are issues that the Lord's going to be correcting sometimes in this life, sometimes in the life to come.
Bob:The other piece I think we should talk about is Well, but but before we move on from that about the about the healing piece, the one of the ways that I think about that, and this this goes back to our um discussion about eschatology, which we we talked about ad nauseum last fall, um or two falls ago. Nero.
Dave:Dog healing.
Bob:Let's go let's talk about let's come back to the dog would like us to talk about AD 70. But um the in the the inaugurated eschatology, the the kingdom of God breaking through until it is it is it is it is already but not yet. And when Jesus came as he's healing people, as he's casting out these evil spirits, he is bringing the kingdom to bear on this world in an inaugurated sense, but it it's here, but it's not fully here. And so I I think in some of these healing senses, it is the kingdom of God breaking through, but it's not holistic yet throughout the world. And so there are still many, many places that are touched in our lives and in people's lives by by the fall. Um why God doesn't heal everyone is is a is a mystery. I think he heals some, uh, as we've been talking about, but not everybody. And my one of my concerns with the the disability thing is that you you can look at somebody with disabilities and just say you need to be healed, you need to have greater faith. And and that can be like and then what if God doesn't? What and what does healing what does healing mean? What does healing look like? Right? Um that that can be something that that places a huge weight on somebody with a with a disability in In the here and now. Um, and we'll talk about uh what's to come in in a few weeks. That's gonna be the last uh sermon in the series. Um but I think we have to hold those things in in tension.
Dave:Last thing. So uh if we don't acknowledge that there's something wrong, then we rob people of the space to grieve and lament real loss. And the Bible gives language for grief and lament. Um when we lose something, even if it's a loss of a limitation or just an unfulfilled hope or possibility. You know, I I didn't really have a chance to unpack everything about Mephibosheth this past Sunday, but there's other bits and parts of his story that are sprinkled in 2 Samuel, like before you learn that Jonathan didn't originally name him Mephibosheth, he named him something like Merebal, which means um conqueror of Baal. So, you know, Jonathan had these hopes for his son that he would be this mighty warrior, but yet, you know, he became Mephibosheth and God used him in his own right, but there were losses and griefs that I think were there. So there's unfulfilled possibilities and suffering. Romans 8 says all creation is groaning, and it's often these kinds of issues that persist that cause us to groan and lament. And so um we don't want to insist that nothing's wrong either. That's sort of sort of a form of baptized denial. Um so you know, I think it's okay to allow people to suffer, allow people to grieve, allow people to lament, and the for them not to feel isolated because they think that something's worth grieving over. They yeah, it's okay. Like Christian hope doesn't deny the loss, uh, it names the loss honestly and then waits in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to have the final word. Right.
Bob:And in the midst of that, that doesn't mean we will not suffer, right? Um so actually, when the John 9 passage that we'll we'll be talking about this week, uh Jesus specifically says that the disability this man had was not a result of um this man's sin or his parents' sin, but it happened so that the works of God, the glory of God could be could be revealed. There was a purpose in that in that suffering. Um and so we'll talk more more in depthly about that. But it wasn't like somebody's born with a disability and God says, Oh wow, that's a wow, I didn't see that coming. I mean, God is intricately involved in in uh in all the things. He walks with us through those things, and he has purposes that we we might not know of until we see him face to face. Yes. Yeah. So next question, Tim.
Tim:Question number two is from an inquiring mind, is how they would like to be known as. It seems the book of in the book of Job that so let me start over. It seems in the book of Job that it is Satan and not God that causes all of the disasters and calamities, since God said, Behold, he is in your hand, only spare his life. How do we balance this with all we learned in Sunday's sermon?
Bob:Which sermon is this referring to?
Tim:Uh this was wounding the wounding. On January 18th.
Dave:Okay, so you're you're uh This is the one with Moses and Moses. So I think it's a I think it's a really good question. Um you're right to point that out, and that's um you know a good scripture to wrestle with there. Job does seem to put Satan in the foreground, while the sermon that I preached about Moses' speech impediment or Jacob's limp, um were more putting God and his sovereignty in the foreground there. So here's a way for you to um think about the distinctions without flattening them all out. So Satan is an agent, um, and he is an agent of suffering in the book of Job, and he's the one who strikes Job, uh, not just his children, but his own physical health. Uh and so in that way, God does not personally inflict those disasters. And um I think that's okay to say that Satan can be an instrument in that way. But remember in the book of Job that Satan only acts by God's permission and within God's limits. So um, you know, actually, God specifically says, like, you will go this far no farther, you you have to spare his life. And that's not a throwaway line, that's a theological anchor of the book that Satan is not autonomous, he's not the opposite of God. He is limited, he's a creature, he cannot act apart from God's will, his allowance, and he cannot exceed what God allows him to do. There's boundaries there. And so we don't live in a dualistic world where it's like, you know, uh the yin and the yang. We we live in a world that's completely under the control of a sovereign provident God. Number three, go ahead.
Bob:Well, I was just gonna I was just gonna say I know some people that would any sickness, anything that's wrong in in this world, they want to blame on Satan. That the devil's doing this, the devil's doing that. I think it's fair to say that's not that's not correct. Some things the word every is where you get into trouble.
Dave:Right. Yeah. It's just too simplistic you're flattening out things in too simple of a way. Number three, God's sovereignty never means that God is the author of evil either. So um there's creaturely agency that's given to Satan, and God is um still overseeing all of that. And so somehow simultaneously it's God at work, but Satan's at work as well. There's a concursiveness there. Fourth, Job himself models this balance in his own response. Job says, the Lord gave, the Lord take, uh took away. Remember that? And then he says again, I think to his wife, shall we receive good from God and not evil? So he is the one, you know, attributing these things to God as well. He doesn't deny Satan, but he also recognizes the universe is completely under under God's control, right? So um, whoever you are, inquiring mind, I think you've asked a really good question. It's a theologically hard question, um, and it doesn't have a tidy answer, a tidy explanation. And I think we should um be careful about trying to assign blame too simplistically or too easily. The scriptures are more complicated than that. Reject simplistic answers. Yes, that's what Job's friends did. They had a simplistic explanation for Job's curse God and die. Yeah, that was his wife's advice, and his friends were like, Well, you must have done something wrong, fess up, and they, you know. Um so Job in wisdom trusted God's uh sovereignty, and sometimes the causality is not totally revealed. And then the last thing I'll mention is that as Christians, as New Testament Christians, the gospel helps us to hold this tension. So in Acts 2, there's an amazing verse in chapter 2, verse 23, where it says that human evil was at work and that yet God was also accomplishing his purpose on the cross. So God is never absent and he's never defeated, and he's never morally compromised. Even when suffering is at its worst, even when it's so real and so devastating, God's sovereign plan still uh will will have the last word. So I hope that answers that question a little bit.
Bob:So if God's not the author of sin, does that make Satan the author of sin?
Dave:That's another podcast question, and we we're gonna try to sort that up. Maybe the theology sprint. I don't want to get in trouble for contradicting our doctoral statement. Um, but that's a good question, too. All right, question number three there.
Tim:The next two questions are from the king of behind the pulpit questions. You mean Elvis? No, I mean better. The king of rock and roll? I'm talking about John Ripperside.
Bob:John may not have Elvis's hair, but he definitely beats Elvis on the mustache front. All right.
Tim:Yes, and he certainly asked more behind the pulpit questions than Elvis.
Bob:This is true. This is true.
Tim:Hit me. All right. Here is John's first question. In Luke 22, Jesus gives instructions to Peter and John to prepare the Passover meal. Sorry. Uh, why does Jesus only talk of bread and wine? There are many additional foods and herbs in the meal, especially the shank of lamb. The meat is missing. Why is that not revealed even as a symbolic representation of who Jesus is?
Bob:Say Dave. Passover. Bob's got the ham motions. I got dude, it got what you know, by the way, just a side comment. I did notice that he went through the whole Old Testament, and all we got for the prophets was prophets speak. There's about 17 prophets. 17 prophet books. Pretty quick overview. I don't know if there's like longer hand mode. Scattered. I don't know if there was like more in the longer version.
Dave:Well, Mr. John, uh you're you're asking a really perceptive question there. You're right to press on the absence. Um, you know, when we've had chosen people ministries or other, you know, presentations about the Passover, there's certainly a lot there at the table that we could talk about. Um the synoptic gospels focus in like a laser on the bread and wine. And I think there's a couple reasons for that. Jesus is redefining the Passover, and he's redefining it around himself. So he's not just observing the Passover, he's actually transforming it, right? So who has the right to change the Passover script? It is only the Son of Man, Son of God, and so he is focusing in on the parts that he's going to want us to remember for the rest of Christian history. And there's another reason, and I think I like it, although I can't prove it in the Bible, but it was in a Tim Keller book. So does that make it true? I don't know. But Tim Keller wrote a book depends on your feeling about Tim Keller called King's Cross, and then he changed the name of the book. It was about the Gospel of Mark. There's a new name of it now. It was originally Jesus the King.
Bob:It's called Jesus the King now.
Dave:Okay, so in Jesus the King, Keller says the reason why the lamb is missing from the gospel synoptic accounts with regards to the Passion narrative and the Passover meal is because the lamb is not on the table, the lamb is at the table. Now, I don't know if Keller was right or not, but that could be the case. And I will say, I think the Passover lamb was actually slaughtered after the Passover meal, and just like that, Jesus will be slain after the meal. So you could interpret it that way. So that's one way to think about it. Number three, bread and wine are portable and they're repeatable, and they are things that are going to be adopted by the church for uh the rest of church history. And so these are the elements that we're gonna be using to celebrate the new covenant. We don't need a lamb, right? We're not going to be sacrificing a lamb every Sunday. That's gonna require a whole temple system that was destroyed. We're gonna be eating commemorative elements, you know, drinking bread, eating bread, drinking wine, that kind of thing. Um, and then the last thing I will say is it it it focuses in on the blood, uh, which is a a very important, rich historical image from Exodus and them taking the blood and applying it to the doorposts. Um Jesus says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. So the blood imagery is relocated from the ritual object to the cup, and um this is this is what the cross is all about, Jesus shedding his his blood. So why do the gospel writers not talk about the whole Seder, the whole Passover meal? There's a couple reasons, none of them are hard and fast, but this is gonna be something the church covenant celebrates. We gather around uh these elements, and um we're not gonna repeat all of Israel's national feast. We're under a new covenant now, right? So remember Leviticus was offerings and feasts. We don't we don't do those anymore. We don't do offerings and we don't do the feast. We now have a new meal, we have a new covenant, and it's something that's wonderful, and Jesus has changed the whole script. So uh the absence of the lamb, I don't think it's an oversight, I think it's a silence that's Christological. And I'm going with Tim Keller on that. That's my that's my story. I'm sticking to it.
Bob:Offering's feast. Was it the spying?
Tim:Spying? Counting.
Bob:Counting, that's right. Wandering dying.
Dave:Everyone did what was right in their own eyes except Samuel Hears or something.
Bob:Samuel.
Dave:Samuel Hears.
Bob:That's there's the half heart, whole heart.
Dave:Prophet speak now. Samuel Hears. Oh, kingdom divided. Kingdom. King United Kingdom. United Kingdom, right. Kingdom divided. Saul, no heart.
Tim:All right, let's go to question number four. The last question in our question gauntlet, and if for those of you who were waiting for the kebab, the dog kebab right here. Is there a difference in the word dog kaleb used in 2 Samuel 9 8 and dog kunarion used in Matthew 15, 26 through 27, and dog kuan used in Luke 16, 21? Well, one's Hebrew, one's Greek, right? What's the Septuagint say?
Dave:Yeah, so yes, there's a difference. Um the Old Testament and the New Testament are written in different languages. So just to remind everybody, if you didn't hear my sermon in 2 Samuel chapter 9, the word dog is used. Mephibosheth uses a is it of uh uh uses it of himself. It's the word Caleb. And um it's a standard Hebrew word for dog. Now I said in the sermon, which I stand by, in the Old Testament, dogs were not the way we think of them. They were culturally, they were not thought of the way we think of them. They were despised, they were unclean, they were pretty much scavengers, they were worthless. And so that word dog was a symbol of utter humiliation and worthlessness. It was kind of a synonym for his own uh contempt. So um what Mephibosheth is saying there is I, you know, I am worth nothing. And that was a voluntary self-humbling moment there. David didn't say it. Mephibosheth said it of himself. Okay, fast forward New Testament. Actually, somebody asked me this question 20 years ago when I was preaching a sermon on uh the Mark passage where the lady gets the crumbs off the table and Jesus says, Should I take the children's bread and give them to the dogs? And this lady was super offended by this. Like, why is Jesus calling this lady a dog, right? So that word for dog, I just had to look it up, is kunar kunarion, which means um dog, but I'm pretty sure in my research, and I don't have it in front of me right now, it's a little dog, like it's a diminutive term. Like an airplane, like like the dog that was at the maybe like that size, the airplane. Yeah. So um that this particular dog, I don't think it's a harsh term. There's a there's a or a harsher term Jesus could have used besides little dog without the diminutive feature of it. And I think the woman understands the metaphor. She kind of leans into it and says, Well, even those little dogs eat the crumbs, and Jesus sees her faith and honors her and says, you know, people in Israel don't even have this much faith as this lady. And so um, that is a different word, it's a little bit of a different concept, and I think we can interpret it differently. There is another dog that showed up in the sermon you did on the Rich Man and Lazarus, where the dog came and lifted his swords. That's the word for a bigger dog, a street dog, hungry dog, scavenger dog, unclean dog. And so that passage is about Lazarus being so forsaken that a human being is not even tending him. He's got to be tended by animals and unclean animals at that. So the parable there is saying even dogs have more compassion on him than this rich man. So three different words for three different um connotations of the word dog. Big takeaway, John, is across the scripture, uh, the word dog consistently marks uh status. So for Mephibosheth, it was hey, how can you you know invite a dead dog just to be sitting at your table in a humble way? For the Canaanite woman with faith, it was she's gonna take the crumbs and recognize who Jesus is, and she's gonna be greater than the Gentiles. And then for Lazarus, it was his own earthly hardship contrasted with his heavenly exaltation, which would come later. So um it's a good question, but um maybe not the most exciting answer, but uh, hopefully that gives some clarity on what you were what you were thinking about there, John.
Bob:If not, let us know. The question would be would these dogs eat purina or kimmels and bits? That's a good question.
Tim:I will do a little more research on that. I don't know what they ate back then. And speaking of questions, this has ended our question gauntlet for today. Thus ends. That was a gauntlet alright.
Bob:You just kind of went after it right there. Wow. All right. I got more questions for you, by the way. Oh my gosh.
Tim:Hey guys, before we jump back in, we want to point into a recent conversation from the Underground Sessions podcast that feels especially timely for the moment that we are in. Few terms create more confusion or more heat right now than Christian nationalism. What do people actually mean when they use it? And how should pastors and Christian leaders think clearly about faith, politics, and the public life without reacting in fear? In this episode of the Underground Sessions, we're joined by Dr. Todd Williams, who is the president of Cairn University. He's a longtime scholar of social theory, civic life, and religious liberty. Together we'll slow down the conversation and ask better questions about moral authority, nationhood, and the limits and responsibilities of Christian political engagement. One of the key reminders of the episode is this politics cannot save us, but faith should still shape how we live, vote, and seek the good of our neighbors. If you're someone trying to navigate these conversations with clarity and conviction, we highly recommend this episode of the Underground Sessions Podcast. You can find it wherever you listen to your podcast or right here on YouTube. All right, are we on to the sermon?
Bob:We are. All right, so let's just let's dive into give give us a six-section. Between you and Armin. 60-second recap of what happened uh in your in your sermon yesterday, if somebody missed it.
Dave:Yesterday's sermon was about the forgotten at the table. And um there are marginalized people forgotten all around us. Oftentimes, people with disabilities feel like no one notices them, like they are forgotten. And yet the heart of God, as displayed in our passage from 2 Samuel chapter 9, uh, through the example of David, is to reach out to those who are forgotten and to invite them to the king's table. And this is what shows others the love of God, the Hesed of God, the loving kindness, the faithful love of God, uh, that of course the Lord Jesus exemplified perfectly. And ours is the privilege of being David's servant who got sent out from the palace to go retrieve Mephibosheth to come to the king's table. And so we, you and I, get to be like that servant, to invite others to come to this feast and um be hospitable towards those who perhaps need us to reach out to them. And uh that human care, human touch, human kindness can make all the difference in the world. So that was a challenge. We talked about how that might apply to the Ministry of Disabilities and how we can create a culture here, an environment where people feel cared for and welcomed at the table, regardless of ability or lack of ability. So that's the 60-second flyover, the basic gist of the sermon.
Bob:Well, uh, thank you for uh the flyover as well as the sermon. I was uh I was moved by it. Uh got a few questions. Uh so you told you started the uh the sermon with the image of the elephant man, which uh I th I'm glad you put that image up because that was, you know, I was hesitant about that. I know, but it it gives a sense of like Yeah, there was photography. What would you do if you met somebody somebody like that? Um would you look away? Would you lean in? How would you how would you respond?
Dave:I remember I was just describing like the cauliflower skin, and I was like, man, is this too graphic? But the picture kind of showed that it that's you know, it was like that.
Bob:Yeah. So you stayed in the sermon, we're surrounded by people who feel excluded. And the question I wrote down was, how do like are there some practical ways or exhortations, admonitions you would give us on how do we notice people who feel excluded? If I want to I know I want to notice them, but how how do I how do I do it?
Dave:How do I notice them? Well, some of them are more obvious than others, right? Like there's visible, very outward, um, obvious kinds of disabilities. This person has crutches, this person clearly is blind, this person is in a wheelchair, this person um you know has uh some visible symptoms, and so it's not uh too hard to notice people who are um more pronounced in their outward manifestations of the special needs. The question is then when we do notice it, you know, what do we do? Are we turning the other way? Are we trying to get out of the room? Are we trying to avoid? Are we trying to um lean in? You know, I had a very honest conversation in the foyer yesterday, what's today, Tuesday, Sunday, with somebody who right now has a wonderful relationship with someone who has special needs and is in a wheelchair, and they're very close and everything. Was fine, but he confided in me and said it wasn't that way 20 years ago. I was scared. I I avoided this person. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I didn't know what the right thing was to say. And I just basically was so anxious about um entering into that relationship that the barrier was self-imposed. And now they've crossed the barrier, they broke the barrier, and they faithfully pursued God in obedience and reached out and noticed that person. And they have a wonderful give and take relationship with um, you know, the the Lord's using him in mighty ways. So that was a a really cool explanation of hey, it's kind of normal for people to need to overcome this. Yeah. So how do you do it?
Bob:Yeah. I've heard lots of lots of wonderful testimonies uh from the series. Um, so you had a couple movements. The first one was the king's question, and um, you know, I was thinking, why would the king want to show kindness? Because you gave a whole background about normally kings kill their opponents, anybody from their line, but yet David chose to show kindness to show the the um Mendy would be proud of him. I will maybe I'll go knock on his door. Why would King David want to show kindness, other than the fact that he had King David whole heart?
Dave:Yeah. Well, he had this covenant with Jonathan, and I think that was something that he remembered and appreciated for the rest of his life. He felt like he was in Jonathan's debt. Um I think the kindness that he showed him was more than just gentle politeness. There was generosity, there was sacrifice. There the kindness cost David something, and I think that's the kind of kindness that he wanted to show. Um I would also say that he was the recipient of the kindness of God. He was once overlooked. I mentioned this in the sermon as the youngest boy of the family, and he chose to give the gift of being noticed to someone else when he perhaps could relate to not feeling noticed. And so here's an interesting story that I didn't get a chance to talk about um in the sermon. Mephibosheth shows up later, I think it's chapter 16, and Zeba accuses Mephibosheth of treason and betraying David and wanting to take Saul's uh kingdom back because he's of the family of Saul.
Bob:It's a well like chapter 18, right? It's it's later on.
Dave:Yeah, I think it's 16, and then um Zeba decides to take all the land away from Mephibosheth that he was given back in chapter 9. And Mephibosheth's response is unbelievable. Look it up, look it up. Go to 2 Samuel chapter 16.
Bob:He pointed at you.
Dave:When Dave gets at the finger, you need to go. All right, I'm just gonna tell you, but you should read it for yourself. So Mephibosheth's like, let him have it. Let him have it. It's it's like, what do you mean, let him have it? And I think Mephibosheth got to that place in his life where he received such kindness from David. And I was talking with Ed Williams about this after the sermon. Ed Williams calls this Mephibosheth part two. It's like, okay, yeah, that happened too. And the way Ed described it was Mephibosheth sunk down his roots not just into the kindness of David, but he sunk them down into the kindness of God that was working through David to the point where Mephibosheth trusted God to provide everything that he would need. So that if Zeba said, Hey, I'm taking your land away, Mephibosheth was like, Let him have it. I have seen God provide for me, and I will trust him to provide for me again. And so Mephibosheth came out like a rock star in that the second part of his story. And then when David, I think Absalom gets his hair cut up in a tree, and then David comes back, and Mephibosheth is there to like welcome back the king. And it's a really cool um narrative arc that shows you know Mephibosheth's tragic story, but yet here's a character that was greatly used by God, though he had a disability in his life, and he has um much to teach us in the scriptures.
Bob:Would we consider Ed Williams our resident Mephibosheth scholar?
Dave:I feel like if I got sick on Sunday and I like wasn't able to preach that, Ed would need five minutes' notice to be able to just get up there and do a Mephibosheth sermon. I heard Jeff Callender's pretty into the Mephibosheth guys.
Bob:You know, he is as Jeff and Ed could co-teach a Mephibosheth series.
Dave:Jeff and Ed tag team behind the pulpit, Mephibosheth edition.
Bob:I did. You know, I heard Jeff in the run-through refer to him as Phibi.
Dave:So Jeff is on he's on a give him a nickname, Phibi. Jeff, evidently he had some old sermon that he listened to on cassette tape or something. And the sermon had these drums in the desert, drums in the desert, drums in the desert, as they were coming to get Mephibosheth from low to bar, and Mephibosheth's scared that they're gonna take him away and kill him. And Jeff it's Jeff and Ed, man.
Bob:I mean, it's it's a it he has a it's a very compelling narrative arc. I mean, we were focusing in, of course, on the disability piece, but from a variety of angles, there's nothing to share piece. We might need a series. We might need a four-week series on Mephibosh.
Tim:We'll call it Phoebe. People don't notice, but let him have it is actually part of the Walk Through the Bible extended edition. Strong.
Dave:That's the six-hour version of Walk Through the Old Testament.
Bob:They could do that, they could do that walk through the Bible. We got the shorter version. I guess he could have done it in like six hours.
Dave:Yes. Wow. In other countries, they go slower.
Bob:Well, that makes sense. You need a translator. It may always make it twice as long as okay. I've have you preached through a translator before? Uh yeah. It's yeah, you you have to you have to wait.
Dave:You gotta speak, wait, speak, wait, wait. Yeah, it throws me way off. Yeah. And and you know how long-winded I am. That's that's challenging.
Bob:Two hours, right?
Dave:Buckle up, man.
Bob:There's a translator. All right. So maybe maybe the last thing I'll say is just in terms of David's action, um uh well actually let me say this. So I I was wondering, uh maybe maybe as part of your answer, you can talk about m what Mephibosheth, what he was originally named, because I I was sitting there thinking, who would name their son the son of my shame? Like what what what is that all about? And then what does David's action here, what does that teach us about maybe this disability topic? How could you how could you apply it for us?
Dave:Man, that name is rough, right? Well, I mentioned this early on in the podcast. Yeah. So 1 Chronicles 8, 34 names the same person, Marib Baal. Marib Baal. They're not two different people, they're the same guy. It's the son of Jonathan. So earlier Israelite um names sometimes included Baal, which originally meant Lord or Master, and it was not yet uh associated with like the the pagan worship of Baal. But um over time Baal worship became a big problem. But so Mirabal means contender with Baal. Uh and that's an interesting thought. And I I I think maybe um sometimes names in the Bible are used in theological uh uh used in theological ways. So I don't think it's a shift like oh Mephibosheth had some change of faith or something like that, but it's a it's a new understanding of what he's gonna be dealing with in his life. He's gonna be dealing with some shame. And uh the cool thing about that is David honors him and gives him covenant kindness and gives him a place at the table. And so, you know, I think the highlight of this text is not to think about Mephibosheth's shame, it's to think about wait, none of us really deserve a seat at the table. All of us uh in some way, shape, or form are sons of shame. We're sons of Adam. We live in a broken, fallen world. You know, you've said it before. Disability is not an abnormal part in a normal world, it's a normal part in an abnormal world. We all struggle with some kind of limitation. So spiritual imitation.
Bob:Another Harvey Cedars quote from uh Stephanie Hubak. Oh. Did she speak at Harvey Cedars? Oh, yeah, we saw her. Yeah, well, I was there. You were there? I've never I've never been there without you, so you were there. This was like 2018 or something. It was a long time ago. Okay, yeah. Sorry about it. It was before him I had my son, so I wasn't really I was not as interested in it as I am now. Wow, yeah. Okay.
Dave:Um, you know, I feel like I'm pouring water into a sieve. Like, what is the point of this? I don't remember anything. So um good to know that. I'm gonna look up my notes and see if Stephanie Hubach taught me something eight years ago or whatever that was.
Bob:I think it was around 2018. I think you should go check. 2018, 2019.
Dave:Well, as Stephanie would say, disability is a normal part of an abnormal world. We all struggle in some sense of being on the outside, and we serve a God who has taken us from the outside to the inside. He's invited us to a seat at the table. And now, as recipients of his mercy and grace, just as Mephibosheth was a recipient of his mercy and grace and later learned to live in a very open-handed way, we need to also live in a very hospitable, loving, uh kind way towards those who maybe need a seat at the table uh when it's our turn. So we talked about David's table, we talked about Jesus' table, but what about our table? And who is it that needs a seat at our table? That's the challenge, I think, for the message. Who needs a seat at the table?
Bob:Yeah. Well, I I did like you you asked two two questions at the end just to put the put the the bow tie on this as they do at Southern Seminary. Are we gonna call this the episode Phoebe? Is that I'm running? I will leave it to Tim, but I'm I will put it in his mind. And is it Phoebe with a pH or Phibi? That's his rapping name. Uh you asked the question when you meet people, do you do you um do you lean, do you stop and lean in or do you stop and stare when you notice people with disabilities? I thought that was a pretty convicting, uh challenging question. One of them is natural. Yeah. One of them is supernatural. Yep. So there you go. Let's follow the Lord who's supernatural. All right, good. Well, thank you so much. Again, as I mentioned, we're gonna be looking at John 9 this coming week. Uh Sarah Bush from Johnny and Friends will be with us. And when I was at World Venture, our chairman, Mark Hankey, who also he's got an adult daughter with uh Down syndrome, told me a pretty remarkable story about what God did in their life, and I'm hoping to work that into the sermon this week. So uh join us this coming Sunday, February 8th. It's gonna be uh the place to be. There you go. It could be Phoebe and Hankey. Those could be the I can't wait to see what what Tim does with this uh with this episode title right there. I got ideas. All right. Uh Theology Sprint, is that the last one? There it is. I missed I missed that. By the way, that was uh Lightning bolts. I was mentioning when we were looking at you on on the Mountain Views yesterday that you kind of looked a little bit like your uh uh your uh your meme right there.
Tim:Yeah, Pastor Dave looks like this before he does anything on camera.
Bob:I thought like Tim, I said, I said, look at Tim. Because he always looks like that when he's getting ready to go on camera. Yeah. There he is, Dave.
Dave:Yep. Smiling takes so many c calories, and you know, why would you want to waste your energy?
Bob:I don't want to burn any weight smiling. Who would do that? I gotta conserve, man. All right. Today's theology I burned about 2,000 calories on this episode today. Define what's the question here, Tim? Define imputation. What did the uh what did the Mibashev say? Just give it to him. Just give it, just give it to us.
Tim:That's Dave's translation. Define imputation.
Bob:Imputation. As as uh opposed to intinction. Uh okay. Where are you going with that?
Dave:All right, if you're an accounting person, imputation means to credit or to uh reckon uh or to deposit in someone's account. You impute it to them. So if you if you understand New Testament soteriology, we're um all understanding that there was multiple imputations that occurred. So uh first Adam imputed his sin to us because he was our federal head. He was our representative. Federal federal just means our representative. He was our representative head, and he imputed the sin, the guilt, the original guilt, to us. That was the first imputation. Imputation number two happened at the cross, where God the Father imputed Adam's sin to God the Son as he bore the wrath of um the divine punishment when he suffered on Good Friday. And then the third imputation is Christ's righteousness gets imputed to the believer's account in a legal way. It's a forensic imputation, it is not uh infusion of righteousness like the Catholic Church would teach. That's when you become more righteous. Imputation means it is credited to your account with no effort on your part whatsoever. It is an alien righteousness and that's been imputed to you, and it's Christ's perfect righteousness that's been given to you. Uh, you know um the founder of Westminster Seminary, um Machin. J. Garsha Machin was on his deathbed, and he actually said, Thank God for the active obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you think, wow, this guy's on his deathbed, and this is what he's thinking about. And what he's thinking about is Christ not only died for you, he lived for you. And he took that perfect righteousness that it was on his account, and he credited it to you as if you lived his life and you get to enjoy that as an imputation, as a legal declaration uh in God's eyes. And so we're thankful for that. That's the basic gist of imputation. What would you add?
Bob:No, that that's a great definition. I will say intinction is when you dip the bread into the wine during uh communion, which we don't practice here.
Tim:Passover.
Dave:That was a pre pre-COVID thing. That's a pre-COVID.
Bob:I got this. What was your favorite hand motion?
Dave:Terms on the fingers and the intinctions.
Bob:What was your favorite hand motion during the walk through the Bible, Tim?
Dave:Samson.
Bob:Samson.
Dave:You gotta go one arm one way, the other arm the other way. You can't just like you gotta do this. Like the interlocking monkey jump. You have to be like walk like an idiot.
Bob:You can see Mark Mark Mark Schaff. He was uh winding up. He could just Samson!
Dave:The one time he went both arms dead. Excellent.
Bob:He went after it, yeah.
Dave:Oh, yeah. He he kind of did like, you know, he did, you know, I am a real American, Samson. That was a good walkthrough. There you go. Let's come back and walk through the New Testament. Number two. That's right.
Bob:All right. Thanks so much for joining us for Behind the Pulpit. Sticking with us. We had a couple weeks to cover. We will see you next week on Behind the Pulpit. Same bat time, same Phoebe channel.