Episode Information
- Date: 2026-03(Mar)-13(Fri)
- Number:
e0020 -
Links:
- Episode: https://podcasts.coreyjmahler.com/2026/03/13-mar-2026-qa/
- Transcript:
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Episode Wiki
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Topics Covered
- Liberalism and Race
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- Regarding "On the Jews and their lies"
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- Resources for Christian counselling/psychology
::–::- Resources:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy should be your starting place.
- Delitzsch, Franz — A System of Biblical Psychology — Delitzsch is a bit of a mixed bag, but his book is generally sound.
- Chambers, Oswald — Biblical Psychology — with caveats, but worth having in your collection.
- Stuckenberg, J. H. W. — Christian Sociology (foundational text for the field)
- Melanchthon, Philipp — Liber de Anima
- Navigating Modern Marriage Laws
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- Capitalization Rules in Scripture
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- Question about speed reading
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- The gift of Celibacy
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- Characteristics Needed for Leadership
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- When do you quit your job?
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- Role of small biz owners (Christian)
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- TRT question (how to think?)
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- Old Apostolic Lutherans
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- When someone claims "well Jesus was a Jew"
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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It is the 13th of March, 2026.
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I am Corey J.
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Mahler, and this is At Any Cost.
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This is episode 20, a Q&A episode, and I really do not have any housekeeping.
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Just one little point before I get started on the questions here tonight.
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I’m also copying some questions over from the chat so that I can get them, if not tonight, at least.
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Next time, I don’t know that I’ll get that, at least all of them tonight.
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I have a number of questions prepared and ready to go.
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Insofar as the housekeeping goes, the one point is I know that I have been asked a number of times about the issue of beauty and the moral salience of beauty, particularly because of that one post on X that blew up and got 20 million views or something.
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At any rate, I wound up writing an article on that.
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I’m going to transcribe that hopefully tomorrow and then go ahead and publish that.
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That’ll be my core answer to the issue of the moral salience of beauty, how that ties into these matters.
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So that will be an answer for those of you who have been asking about that.
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I’ll probably also record something about it in the future, but the article will be the core of my answer to that.
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So getting into the questions here, pull up the first one.
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In today’s political climate, it is evident that liberalism and race realism are incompatible, but this was not always the case.
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When we think of a nation like Australia and their federation in 1901, one of the first policies passed was the White Australia Policy.
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But the men of that time and the following prime ministers who endorsed this policy wouldn’t self-describe as fascists or national socialists.
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The men of this time were quite liberal around trade, markets, civil liberties, democracy and other such things.
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Was the liberalism of that time something different from the incarnation today, or is it a category error to say that these men were liberal?
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Or is it the case that liberalism was intended for a white homogenous society, and when these parameters are not met, the system collapses in on itself?
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Additionally, is liberalism a political philosophy worth hanging on to or trying to reinvent or revitalize?
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Still just copying over a couple of questions here from the chat to make sure that I get those for next time.
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But insofar as liberalism is concerned, I think the fundamental problem is that it rests on the assumption of things that it destroys, in the fullness of time destroys.
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And this is similar to what we see with capitalism in the economic sphere, which capitalism and liberalism kind of go hand in hand.
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You have, one is, you even mentioned some of the economic aspects of liberalism.
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Liberalism is sort of the ideology or the philosophy of capitalism, and capitalism is itself also a bit of an ideology or philosophy, but more the economics of the philosophy.
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Obviously, they’re related, you can’t really extract the one from the other.
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But the issue with them is that they rely on all of this groundwork, all of these things that had been built up over a course of at least centuries, in Christendom, under a system that was very much not capitalist or liberal.
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And then relying on those things, they basically parasitize them and destroy them, and then eventually the system collapses because it can’t sustain itself.
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It doesn’t actually create the sort of conditions it needs to exist.
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It exploits the conditions that existed prior to it, due to other systems that preceded it.
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So, the short answer is no.
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I don’t believe that trying to revive liberalism or bring back classical liberalism or whatever it happens to be is a good idea.
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There is a particularly noxious atheist on X who happens to be not exactly a neighbor, but he lives nearby close enough that he’s sort of a neighbor for me.
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Forty minutes away, thankfully, decent distance, but that’s his whole thing.
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That’s his whole schtick is he’s a classical liberal and wants to bring back those policies.
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And you can see exactly where those sort of men end up, where that leads.
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The sort of men who are pushing for classical liberalism are the ones who generally lead a dissolute life and want to encourage others to do the same.
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So, regardless of what it may have meant for those men, and for those men at the time, it did not mean what it means today.
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There’s some overlap, of course, insofar as the economics is concerned, tons of overlap there.
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But insofar as the social policy and the morality and things like that, insofar as those are concerned, significantly less overlap.
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But like I said at the outset, I think the problem is that the system itself naturally leads to those consequences.
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I think that you end up there as just a natural outcome of pursuing liberalism, because what liberalism ultimately does is it tears down all of those boundaries.
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It tears down Chesterton’s fence, basically.
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It tears down everything that not only made it possible for that system to sit atop what it had not constructed, but also that makes it possible for the sort of society that can exercise that in a reasonable fashion.
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It makes it impossible for that to exist for any length of time.
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And in fact, it is the cause, it is the solvent that dissolves that society.
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I can’t think of a single instance in which you can point to liberalizing things in our society and the outcome has been good.
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I don’t think that liberalizing the interactions between men and women has led to anything good.
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I don’t think liberalizing the fashion for women has led to anything good.
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I don’t think that liberalizing behavior in public spaces has led to anything good.
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And everyone in this chat could go on and do that for dozens, if not hundreds of things.
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So those men were mistaken, I believe, in what they were pursuing.
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I don’t think most of them were doing it for evil or nefarious purposes.
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I think they were simply mistaken.
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But we have the advantage of hindsight.
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We should not repeat their errors.
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We know that it was deeply unwise, that it was something they shouldn’t have done.
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We shouldn’t give it another go.
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That’s sort of like saying, that wasn’t real communism, right?
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Hear that all the time from leftists.
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And you hear people today trying to say, well, it’s not real capitalism.
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No, what we have is real capitalism.
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It’s just the natural evolution of capitalism.
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It’s late-stage capitalism.
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It’s late-stage liberalism.
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So, no, I don’t think that we should try to pursue that.
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And I think that anyone who does, fundamentally does not understand the things that are facing us and what needs to be done to address those problems.
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Going back to, you know, late 1900s, first half of the 19…
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or late 1800s, first half of the 1900s liberalism, that’s not going to solve our problems.
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In fact, given how bad things are now, it is just going to exacerbate them significantly.
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And of course, there’s also a great number of malefactors who are pushing for it.
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I mentioned one.
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The next question, question two, is a related question, as soon as it comes up here.
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The tab is taking a second to load.
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At any rate, I remembered the question, so I will just go over it instead of specifically reading it.
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The question is about On the Jews and Their Lies, and which one, of course, now it loads, and which one you should purchase, basically.
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Which one is the best copy of it?
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I’ll read the question now that it’s actually loaded.
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I was hoping that you could speak about Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies.
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Unrelated to recent events, I started reading this from Luther’s Works, volume 47.
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In this case, it is Luther’s Works, the American edition, that is jointly produced by the LCMS, which is Concordia Publishing House, and unfortunately, ELCA, which is Fortress Press.
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Historically wasn’t as bad of a collaboration.
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Now ELCA has gone so far off the rails.
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It’s unfortunate that they’re working with them, but thus far, they haven’t done anything destructive to the American edition, so I guess pray that continues.
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I was speaking with someone about this, and he said that he had read it also, but after speaking further, I found out that we read different versions.
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Unfortunately, those exist.
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His version was only about 40 pages, whereas the one in the AE is about 170.
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I have heard that this is some, I’ve heard there is some disagreement on the text, whether it’s from Luther, accusations ranging from that Luther didn’t really write this document, to Luther attacking the prophets, Jeremiah in particular.
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I am about three quarters of the way through it myself, and I have not found anything that would indicate that this did not come from Luther.
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I agree on that point.
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I could see Luther being taken out of context, given his liberal use of sarcasm, particularly Germanic sarcasm, which escapes many when they are reading.
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Personally, I have found the text underwhelming, given the reputation it has.
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I think that’s fair.
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Many think that because of the title, On the Jews and Their Lies, it’s just going to be some full-blown polemic, just decrying the evils of the Jews and basically saying that, you know, we should destroy them, etc.
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If you want that, read his letters to his wife and his final sermon.
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But, insofar as On the Jews and Their Lies is concerned, it’s primarily a theological treatise.
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It is against the Jews.
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It is polemic.
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He does make frequent use of sarcasm in a particularly German way, but it’s really not sensationalist like most people expect it to be.
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The 40-page versions, and the ones in that sort of vein usually run about that length, are basically sort of pamphlet versions of it, reduced down to often just the polemical bits, removing the theology.
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And those were popular decades ago.
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They’re not very good.
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I don’t bother with those.
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Why?
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The actual one’s not that long.
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The full length of it, the Weimar edition, is about 65,000 words.
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And that’s basically the equivalent in the AE.
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So if you are going to read it, the American edition is a good option.
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It is, unfortunately, not available for free.
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There is, insofar as I’m aware, no widely available PDF of it.
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No one has yet made that available.
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So you’re going to have to pay the combination there, CPH, Fortress Press, I don’t know how they divide it up, but however that works, 50 to 60 bucks.
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If you know someone who has a subscription to Luther’s Works from, for instance, CPH, that person, he can order volumes at a discount.
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So if you have a friend, a pastor, someone who has that, your pastor might, if you’re Lutheran, ask him to order you a copy, he can get it a little cheaper.
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So you can maybe get it for 45 or get it used for less, but unfortunately, they have not done what they should and made it freely available.
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So, yes, the volume is not going to be as sensationalist as you think.
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Yes, the American edition, volume 47, specifically, is probably the one you should read.
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There aren’t major concerns about it.
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I am not fond of the man who edited that volume.
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I do not have any, I have not personally gone through and checked the translation against the German, but I don’t have any hard evidence showing he played games with this.
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But I know that he was friendlier with the Jews than a Christian should be, certainly than a Lutheran should be, certainly the Lutheran editing this volume of Luther.
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But he’s ultimately not the man who translated it.
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Bertram translated it, I believe was the gentleman’s last name.
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The other man who edited it, the editor is the one who has some questions there.
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But again, I don’t have hard evidence that he did anything wrong.
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As far as I know, the volume is reliable.
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I’ve read it, nothing stood out as wrong to me, nothing clashed with what I know from the German, so it’s probably fine.
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If you are concerned about any particular passage, you can always just take the German and drop it into an AI and get a literal translation of the German.
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That’s going to be sufficient to see if the editor played any games there.
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But basically, yes, that’s the option you want if you’re going to read it in English, and it’s not going to be what people have built it up to be because it’s a theological treatise.
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It’s not just polemic.
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It has polemical elements.
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It is a polemic as well, but it’s not exclusively that.
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But yes, to emphasize what I said at the beginning, to repeat it, I do believe that Luther wrote it.
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It sounds just like Luther.
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It sounds like his other polemics.
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You can read ones against, for instance, Henry VIII.
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He has a polemic against him in…
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That was a more recent volume.
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It’s on my shelf, so I can’t remember the number.
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The next question, I’m actually going to sort of punt this one, I guess.
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But I am in a position where I am increasingly asked to give counsel to people regarding a wide variety of issues, marriage, lack of marriage, addictions, anxiety, etc.
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Often these problems and the requisite counsel are relatively simple, but sometimes something complex comes up, and I am not as thoroughly equipped to deal with it as I would like to be.
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The trained and credentialed people to whom I would typically be advised to refer them, pastors, psychologists, therapists, are often questionable, and I feel I’d be doing them a disservice by doing so.
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Do you have any advice or recommendations for books or other resources that would be helpful?
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Both secular and Christian works on the subject are often reductive in the ways expounded in the Addicted to Psychologizing Episode of Stone Choir.
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And then the reason given, given the failings of the churches, this is a task that Christian men will have to more often bear.
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That’s true.
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I’ll say a few things about it, but I’m going to make a note for myself.
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This is something where it just makes more sense if I add this to the show notes, so that you can actually click through and find the resources that makes a little more sense than my just listing books.
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And also, I want to spend the time to look at it a little more thoroughly, since I have kept up with the psychology literature and those things to some degree, but I haven’t been heavily invested in that in 12 years or so.
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So I would like to do a refresher before I give too many recommendations on that.
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Yes, I answered previous questions about modalities that are permissible, or at least not entirely suspect, when it comes to psychology and therapy and things like that.
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That was in a previous Q&A episode.
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So it’s related to that.
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But as far as specific resources are concerned, I’ll put that in the show notes.
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I’ll try and go over that this coming week.
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But just sort of a basic starting point for a lot of people, just recommend some changes in behavior.
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A lot of the stuff where you’re going to run into it, just go do some exercise.
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It’s particularly for men.
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Lift something heavy, go for a walk.
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Your mental health is going to be so much better if you just get in a little bit of exercise and then lift something heavy.
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It’s pretty simple.
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A lot of this stuff seems really complicated and really difficult, and some of it is.
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I won’t say that it isn’t, but a lot of the system is really simple.
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God made what it takes for men to be happy a pretty short list of things and relatively achievable.
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Part of it is you need to be in decent physical shape, not, you know, great physical shape.
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If you can achieve that, by all means, go for it.
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But get in a little bit of cardio, lift something heavy, do something you enjoy.
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Don’t spend all of your time staring at the anxiety box, whichever one it is you prefer, your iPhone, your TV, whatever it is.
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Because go out and do something else.
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Those are sort of the baseline recommendations, and those things are free, practically.
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That’s where you want to start.
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And then from there, obviously, you can make recommendations out of God’s word.
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You know, God cares for the sparrow, certainly he cares for you, and things like that.
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You’re aware of those things.
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So that’s some of the Christian approach.
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But for specific resources for reading on it and understanding some of the underlying theory and things like that, I will, again, put that in the show notes.
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So look for that in the coming week or two.
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The next question is question four.
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I don’t know why my form is being a little slow.
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There we go.
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For those of us who aspire to marry one day, which should be most men, how should we go about navigating laws regarding marriage?
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For example, what is your opinion on prenuptial agreements in light of the 80% of divorces being initiated by women?
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Is it permissible to be de facto married, rightly ordered without involving the state in your marriage, for example, getting a marriage license?
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Do you think it would be worth moving to a state with better marriage laws?
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For example, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona permit covenant marriages that enable the married couple to legally waive the possibility of no-fault divorce, permitting divorce only in cases of adultery or abandonment.
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Yes, it is definitely better if you can be somewhere that has better laws.
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That doesn’t mean you necessarily move just for that, you know.
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California is going to be a great example, since I’m a California attorney, and I used to live in California.
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California marriage laws are really bad in terms of how they are enforced.
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On the books, they’re not as bad.
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This is actually a really significant problem in California.
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On the books, California’s laws are often pretty good.
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Sometimes they have some cruft in things that have been added in recent years, but they’re generally not that bad.
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It’s the enforcement, because the courts are insane and the judges are evil.
00:20:03.144 → 00:20:17.804
So you’re going to have to go to an attorney who specializes in the law in your state with regard to this, because there will be things you can do in some states that you cannot do in other states.
00:20:17.804 → 00:20:23.144
And so what is permissible in a prenuptial agreement is going to be a matter of state law.
00:20:23.984 → 00:20:28.784
It’s not a matter of, there’s no national standard for that.
00:20:28.784 → 00:20:33.264
I do not object to prenuptial agreements per se.
00:20:33.264 → 00:20:37.664
I would object to the inclusion of certain things in them.
00:20:37.664 → 00:20:47.744
And so that’s going to be a matter of ensuring that the covenants, the specific clauses in the prenuptial agreement are consonant with Christian morality.
00:20:47.744 → 00:20:52.204
And so just as an example, your state may or may not permit this.
00:20:52.324 → 00:21:03.464
But if your state permits it, by all means have a prenuptial agreement that says, in the case of infidelity, the party at fault gets nothing.
00:21:03.464 → 00:21:09.744
The children go 100% to the party not at fault, if your state permits that.
00:21:09.744 → 00:21:10.904
Your state may very well not.
00:21:10.904 → 00:21:14.424
It’s probably kind of likely that they will have some caveats there.
00:21:14.424 → 00:21:19.184
But things like that are perfectly permissible, because that’s how it should be in our laws.
00:21:19.184 → 00:21:33.584
So what you’re doing is, as a matter of private law, which is all a contract is, it’s private law, as a matter of private law, you’re filling in the gaps in the public law, and you’re bringing it more in line with the moral law insofar as you are able to do so.
00:21:33.584 → 00:21:36.064
That’s perfectly permissible.
00:21:36.064 → 00:21:42.904
But no, you can’t include in your prenuptial agreement, if I decide I don’t like you anymore, I can just tell you to leave and you get nothing.
00:21:42.904 → 00:21:44.764
That’s not morally acceptable.
00:21:44.764 → 00:21:46.304
You can’t do that.
00:21:46.304 → 00:21:53.124
So it’s going to be a matter of what your state permits, and then what is in line with Christian morality.
00:21:53.124 → 00:21:56.104
Just make sure that you line up with both of those.
00:21:56.104 → 00:22:02.364
And again, you’re going to have to involve an attorney because this is going to be specific to your state.
00:22:02.364 → 00:22:09.404
Yes, I recognize that’s sort of the general advice you get from most attorneys is, get an attorney’s advice, right?
00:22:09.404 → 00:22:13.804
But that is the reality for certain parts of the law, particularly this one.
00:22:15.224 → 00:22:18.944
So I would like to comment on the divorce rates.
00:22:19.064 → 00:22:25.604
As well, because the divorce rates look a lot worse than they actually are.
00:22:25.604 → 00:22:35.584
And the reason they look worse than they actually are is because the people who are pushing the narrative hate marriage, they want you to despair.
00:22:35.584 → 00:22:40.564
Only ever look at the statistics for first marriages.
00:22:40.564 → 00:22:42.204
That’s the game they play.
00:22:42.204 → 00:22:51.544
Because what they’ll say is they’ll say, oh, this giant percentage of marriages end in divorce because it’s the woman who’s had 15 husbands.
00:22:51.544 → 00:22:53.844
They don’t throw out the outlier.
00:22:53.844 → 00:22:58.564
So if you’re going to look at those data, make sure you’re looking at first marriages and maybe second marriages.
00:22:58.564 → 00:23:02.404
Don’t include the people who’ve had six, seven marriages.
00:23:02.404 → 00:23:07.364
That’s going to throw off the actual relevant answer.
00:23:07.364 → 00:23:11.364
Because those people are horrible outliers, and you don’t want to include them.
00:23:11.364 → 00:23:24.044
Because unless you’re going to be the kind of person who is going to have seven marriages, then that’s not really particularly relevant to you that the person who has a sixth marriage often also gets divorced and has a seventh.
00:23:24.044 → 00:23:32.024
So just recognize they play games, so those statistics, it’s, you know, the standard thing, lies, damned lies and statistics, right?
00:23:32.024 → 00:23:35.364
So you have to be aware of how they play these games.
00:23:35.364 → 00:23:39.384
And that is very much done with the marriage and divorce rates.
00:23:42.584 → 00:24:04.344
With regard to marrying but not being married in the eyes of the state, so in other words, going and having the church ceremony, but not being married according to what the state considers a marriage, I would generally say you should avoid doing that unless there is…
00:24:04.344 → 00:24:08.344
I won’t give a categorical blanket, no, you must not do that, it’s always wrong.
00:24:09.244 → 00:24:21.304
If the state is so evil and corrupt, that the best thing you can do is not have the state involved at all, the state’s going to involve itself anyway, just so you know.
00:24:21.304 → 00:24:28.604
But if you can minimize that involvement under those circumstances, I don’t think that that’s morally impermissible.
00:24:28.604 → 00:24:36.924
You know, if you’re in the Soviet Union, and somehow it’s going to decrease your odds of being sent to the Gulag, then by all means, don’t tell the state.
00:24:38.004 → 00:24:59.964
But most of the time, under current circumstances in our country, in the United States, it’s not really going to benefit you in any significant way to have the church, which the church may not even sign off on your marriage if you don’t go through the proper process so-called.
00:24:59.964 → 00:25:03.104
It’s not going to benefit you significantly, if at all.
00:25:03.104 → 00:25:10.984
In many cases, it may actually make things more difficult for you and harm you in terms of the outcome you want to achieve.
00:25:10.984 → 00:25:19.244
In a lot of states, it’s not going to protect you with regard to personal property or anything like that, if you should happen to get divorced.
00:25:19.244 → 00:25:26.304
Again, a question for an attorney who’s actually versed in your state law, since I do not know the law of marriage in every state.
00:25:26.304 → 00:25:29.104
I’ve never practiced that sort of law.
00:25:29.104 → 00:25:37.004
But odds are not going to significantly benefit you, not going to be something that you necessarily want to pursue.
00:25:37.004 → 00:25:42.744
And I don’t think that our circumstances are bad enough to make it compelling that you should do that.
00:25:42.744 → 00:25:57.904
I think follow the ordinary procedure, do the thing that is considered the right way to do it, and take advantage of pre-marriage counseling if it is available, and you have a good pastor.
00:25:57.904 → 00:26:02.264
Talk to couples who are in your church and have been married for 40, 50, 60 years.
00:26:03.624 → 00:26:21.404
Make sure that you are purposeful in what you are trying to do with that marriage, and that both you and your wife understand, your future wife in this case, understand this is for better or worse, in sickness or health, until death do us part.
00:26:21.404 → 00:26:24.984
Make sure you’re both on the same page, understand exactly what it is you’re doing.
00:26:24.984 → 00:26:28.504
That’s going to go a long way toward resolving these issues.
00:26:28.504 → 00:26:30.564
Part of it is just choosing the right person up front, right?
00:26:31.784 → 00:26:33.104
That’s the reality of it.
00:26:33.104 → 00:26:40.384
That doesn’t make it easier to do, but you can take some steps to try and sort of hedge your odds, right?
00:26:40.384 → 00:26:46.764
To make it more likely you’ve chosen a woman who’s going to make a good and loyal wife.
00:26:46.764 → 00:26:52.824
And for the women listening, you’ve chosen a man who’s going to make a good and loyal husband, right?
00:26:52.824 → 00:26:54.904
Take advantage of the resources you have available to you.
00:27:01.027 → 00:27:05.447
I did see someone ask about taking questions from live chat.
00:27:05.447 → 00:27:10.527
This is not actually going to be one of the numbered questions, since I’m just answering it in passing.
00:27:10.527 → 00:27:15.567
Of course, the transcript will go ahead and number them wrong.
00:27:15.567 → 00:27:17.407
But yes, I do look at the chat.
00:27:17.407 → 00:27:26.727
I often will take them and then answer them in the future if I do not have time to get to them tonight, because I try to keep this around an hour.
00:27:26.727 → 00:27:29.727
I often run over, but I try not to run over by too much.
00:27:30.527 → 00:27:38.887
In part, because the transcript then runs over, and then I have to split the transcript on the form in other places, and it just makes it a little bit more of a mess to handle.
00:27:38.887 → 00:27:49.787
But the next question, question number five, this issue has been bothering me for some time.
00:27:49.787 → 00:27:53.447
For reading and scripture memorization, I use the ESV.
00:27:53.447 → 00:28:01.887
Do you know why the choice was made not to capitalize the pronouns which refer to God when they were producing that translation?
00:28:01.887 → 00:28:09.467
In either formal or casual writing, shouldn’t the pronouns which refer to God be capitalized to be the most reverent we can be?
00:28:09.467 → 00:28:12.167
This has bothered me for years.
00:28:12.167 → 00:28:24.747
That actually bothers me as well, and I think it’s obvious from my writing that my personal preference is certainty to capitalize all of the pronouns and pretty much all the nouns that refer to God.
00:28:27.967 → 00:28:32.547
So, this has really two different answers.
00:28:32.547 → 00:28:39.907
The one is the answer they always give and sort of the practical answer, and then the second is the real answer, right?
00:28:40.967 → 00:28:49.207
The first answer is that capitalizing the pronouns that refer to God is actually relatively novel.
00:28:49.207 → 00:28:58.127
I think the earliest translation that did it in English goes back to maybe the 1800s, maybe the 1700s.
00:28:58.127 → 00:29:00.187
It’s not very far back.
00:29:00.187 → 00:29:04.247
Notably, the 1611 King James did not.
00:29:04.247 → 00:29:13.267
And so, people who are reading the King James and saying, well, the King James, yes, your King James does, the original did not.
00:29:13.267 → 00:29:24.747
Of course, you go back far enough and English turns back into German, and then it’s capitalizing things again, because German capitalizes nouns, but not pronouns, which is another thing worth noting.
00:29:24.747 → 00:29:33.647
In Luther’s translation, for instance, in Luther, no one is going to accuse Luther of being irreverent with regard to his view of the transcendent God, right?
00:29:33.647 → 00:29:37.907
He didn’t capitalize God’s pronouns, because German doesn’t do that.
00:29:37.907 → 00:29:49.027
Now, he did write the German equivalent of the Lorde Herr in all caps, which I believe is part of how we wound up with that convention.
00:29:49.027 → 00:29:55.627
When translating the Lorde in the Old Testament, it is in small caps in many English Bibles.
00:29:55.627 → 00:29:58.167
I believe that was following Luther’s…
00:29:58.167 → 00:30:05.307
Basically, he started that convention with his first translation of the scriptures into German.
00:30:05.307 → 00:30:23.787
So insofar as the capitalization in the ESV and other such translation is concerned, the reason that the translators will give for not doing so, there are four or five, but the two core reasons, the two most important, most salient reasons.
00:30:23.807 → 00:30:28.427
One, it’s just not something that we really have historically done in English.
00:30:28.427 → 00:30:35.767
It was something that people started doing, but it doesn’t go back very far, and they just stopped doing it.
00:30:35.767 → 00:30:39.327
And then also, there is no style guide that recommends it.
00:30:39.327 → 00:30:43.527
They love to appeal to that, you know, take that or leave it, whatever that’s of a value to you, right?
00:30:44.767 → 00:30:52.527
If you’re following a style guide, then you follow the style guide, unless you make your own subversion of it, right?
00:30:52.527 → 00:31:00.667
The other reason they’ll give, and this one I actually find more compelling, but I don’t find it sufficiently compelling to change my stance.
00:31:00.667 → 00:31:10.647
They will say that if you are deciding to capitalize or not capitalize a pronoun, you are in addition to making the translation choices, right?
00:31:10.647 → 00:31:13.007
Which the translator has to make translation choices.
00:31:13.887 → 00:31:15.887
That’s another layer.
00:31:15.887 → 00:31:28.327
You’re now actually making some theology choices, because, for instance, there are some places in the Old Testament where you’re going to have to decide if the angel of the Lord is an angel or Christ.
00:31:28.327 → 00:31:40.007
And if you don’t capitalize things other than basically proper nouns referring to God, then you don’t have to make that theological call.
00:31:41.427 → 00:31:47.927
I understand that, because often translators are not going to be the one who should be making that theological call.
00:31:47.927 → 00:31:50.607
Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
00:31:50.607 → 00:31:58.447
I think that when a proper English translation of the Septuagint is made, those calls will have to be made at that time.
00:31:58.447 → 00:32:00.187
I think that’s the right way to do it.
00:32:00.187 → 00:32:08.947
And I think, incidentally, angel of the Lord, angels should probably be capitalized in many of those cases, because it’s very clearly, to my mind, referring to Christ.
00:32:09.267 → 00:32:12.567
And so, it is referring to God and should be capitalized.
00:32:12.567 → 00:32:15.747
I think it is a proper sign of reverence.
00:32:15.747 → 00:32:18.947
It is something that English permits us to do.
00:32:18.947 → 00:32:25.387
You can’t do it in German, because capitalizing pronouns would make you kind of seem insane.
00:32:25.387 → 00:32:36.547
Because either you follow the modern orthography and don’t capitalize them at all, or you follow the older orthography and capitalize them all.
00:32:36.547 → 00:32:37.407
You do one or the other.
00:32:38.527 → 00:32:41.167
It would be a weird hodgepodge system if you tried to do it in German.
00:32:41.167 → 00:32:42.467
English doesn’t have that problem.
00:32:42.467 → 00:32:46.747
This is an instance where English provides us the flexibility to do this.
00:32:46.747 → 00:32:48.407
I think we should do it.
00:32:48.407 → 00:32:56.047
We sort of randomly capitalize nouns and things sometimes in English, when we want to show a certain sort of emphasis on things, right?
00:32:56.047 → 00:33:01.987
If you’re talking about the establishment and you want to imply some things, you capitalize the E.
00:33:01.987 → 00:33:06.687
So I don’t think capitalizing the pronouns for God is at odds with English grammar.
00:33:07.207 → 00:33:09.207
I think it’s permitted by English grammar.
00:33:09.207 → 00:33:10.707
I think it is a sign of reverence.
00:33:10.707 → 00:33:13.107
I think it’s something we should do.
00:33:13.107 → 00:33:18.447
And then the second point, the real reason, many of them are theological liberals.
00:33:18.447 → 00:33:22.607
Ultimately, what they’re doing is trying to downgrade the status of God.
00:33:22.607 → 00:33:26.247
They’re playing games with the text insofar as they can get away with it.
00:33:26.247 → 00:33:28.467
They’re doing it for nefarious reasons.
00:33:28.467 → 00:33:37.527
A lot of times they’re just spineless liberals, but they are doing it for wicked reasons, not because the Chicago style manual tells them they have to.
00:33:37.527 → 00:33:45.967
That’s the excuse they give, but the real reason is that they don’t hold God in the high esteem they should.
00:33:45.967 → 00:33:48.907
And they should never have been in a translation committee.
00:33:48.907 → 00:33:52.107
So, you have their reasons, and then you have the real reason.
00:33:52.107 → 00:33:53.947
I’m not saying all of them are wicked, of course.
00:33:53.947 → 00:34:02.107
There are some translators who try very hard to be faithful to scripture, but there are a lot of men who do it for the academic prowess, and they’re not good men.
00:34:11.863 → 00:34:18.583
The next question here, I guess, shifting gears a little bit, tangentially related.
00:34:21.063 → 00:34:24.983
I was wondering if you had any insight into speed reading courses.
00:34:24.983 → 00:34:34.843
I know you have had to do a lot of reading for your legal profession and on theology, and about 15 other subjects, yes.
00:34:34.843 → 00:34:39.463
I have to do a lot of reading for work, most of which is skim worthy for me to get the gist.
00:34:39.583 → 00:34:43.503
I also want to read faster to go through other material.
00:34:43.503 → 00:34:57.503
So insofar as speed reading is concerned, this is actually an issue that I looked into a lot back when I was doing psychology in undergrad, and then also interested in it up through law school.
00:34:57.503 → 00:35:11.143
But I went back and looked at the current state of the research to make sure that what I remembered was consistent with what they have found, and it’s been consistent over a course of decades now.
00:35:11.143 → 00:35:14.403
Speed reading by and large is snake oil.
00:35:14.403 → 00:35:20.283
Not entirely, so before anyone gets angry at me about that, or get angry at me, I don’t really care.
00:35:20.283 → 00:35:31.723
But the claims of a thousand words a minute, two thousand words a minute, you get even crazier claims, and you get the people who are just sitting there flipping pages, saying they read the page, right?
00:35:31.723 → 00:35:35.663
As it barely hit their retina, they read it.
00:35:35.663 → 00:35:36.863
Complete nonsense.
00:35:36.863 → 00:35:39.503
It’s not something human beings can do.
00:35:39.503 → 00:35:42.003
Is there maybe a weird outlier out there?
00:35:42.003 → 00:35:43.323
Sure, Asperger’s exists.
00:35:43.323 → 00:35:46.343
Like maybe that guy is out there somewhere.
00:35:46.343 → 00:35:50.243
Most people can see some sort of improvement.
00:35:50.243 → 00:35:53.583
There are different levels of how quickly people read.
00:35:53.583 → 00:35:59.523
Basically, they correlate almost exactly with level of education, at least they did historically.
00:35:59.523 → 00:36:04.083
Now, because of the weakening of admission standards and things like that, they no longer do.
00:36:04.083 → 00:36:06.943
It’s partly a correlation with intelligence, but not entirely.
00:36:08.523 → 00:36:16.283
Someone with some university education, if I remember correctly, is going to be around 250 to 300 words per minute.
00:36:16.283 → 00:36:17.363
That’s sustained.
00:36:17.363 → 00:36:20.583
And there’s a difference between sort of burst and sustained.
00:36:20.583 → 00:36:23.763
So reading a short article is different from reading a thousand page book.
00:36:24.583 → 00:36:33.303
The sustained one is going to matter more, given what you’re saying about reading, and just generally this sort of question, the couching of the question here.
00:36:33.303 → 00:36:36.463
So if you can get up to that 300 words per minute level, that’s pretty good.
00:36:36.463 → 00:36:38.363
That’s about what you want to hit.
00:36:38.363 → 00:36:40.683
Are there individuals who can go higher?
00:36:40.683 → 00:36:41.543
Sure.
00:36:41.543 → 00:36:58.043
If you take some of the reputable courses, and there are some that are reputable because they’re actually based on psychology, understanding of how human beings process things, short-term memory, how your eyes move across the page is actually really important.
00:36:58.043 → 00:37:06.283
You could maybe get 10 to 20 percent improvement in your reading speed, which it’s not nothing, but it’s not a miracle claim, right?
00:37:06.283 → 00:37:11.663
You’re not tripling or quadrupling or whatever your reading speed.
00:37:11.663 → 00:37:13.823
You can see some benefit from that.
00:37:13.823 → 00:37:19.523
But beyond that, I think just some practical recommendations may serve you even better.
00:37:20.783 → 00:37:47.283
And the state of the research basically shows that the training for speed reading is about as beneficial or perhaps even slightly less beneficial than the metacognition, which basically means understanding how your brain processes the things that you read, and then how to take what you’ve processed and store it in a way that will be retrievable in the future.
00:37:48.023 → 00:37:54.903
So, understanding those things is probably a better starting place.
00:37:54.903 → 00:37:56.603
So, that would be one of my two recommendations.
00:37:56.603 → 00:38:04.483
The other would be, do what is within your power to do to improve your attention span.
00:38:04.483 → 00:38:07.263
That’s not obviously a personal attack.
00:38:07.263 → 00:38:12.703
We all have shortened attention spans these days because of the hell rectangle, right?
00:38:12.703 → 00:38:26.643
Because of all the screens in our lives and all the other things that are designed to give you that dopamine hit and to make you want to click next, next, next, and just never stop staring at it, you know, doom scrolling, whatever you want to call it.
00:38:26.643 → 00:38:43.003
If you can pull yourself out of that morass, then by all means, that’s going to help you with reading because part of the reason modern readers have so much trouble maintaining a reasonable speed of reading is because they’re getting distracted constantly.
00:38:43.003 → 00:38:53.143
If you read ten words and then stare at your phone, you’re not going to get as much done as the person who can sit for an hour and just read, which is something human beings used to be able to do.
00:38:53.143 → 00:38:57.483
So improve your attention span, focus on metacognition.
00:38:57.483 → 00:39:08.443
If you can find a reputable course, maybe consider doing a little bit of it just to get that, you know, 10, 15 percent boost, but don’t expect to read a thousand words per minute.
00:39:08.443 → 00:39:35.283
Even under ideal laboratory conditions with men who are already very good at reading quickly, highly intelligent, trained men, they could only get them up to like 600, 700 words per minute, which is fast, of course, but it’s not the crazy claims of the speed reading programs, and it’s under laboratory conditions for a limited period of time.
00:39:35.283 → 00:39:36.843
You’re just not going to achieve that.
00:39:36.843 → 00:39:46.143
So if you can hit that 250, 300 words per minute sustained, by all means consider that a good achievement, and that’s probably enough.
00:39:46.143 → 00:39:50.183
Then the other practical recommendation is just, you’re going to need a hierarchy.
00:39:50.183 → 00:39:56.763
Prioritize the things that are actually worthy of your time, and don’t read the things that aren’t.
00:39:56.763 → 00:40:02.783
You get men who think that as long as they’re reading, they’re achieving something, you may be reading complete crap.
00:40:02.783 → 00:40:05.123
You may just be wasting your time.
00:40:05.183 → 00:40:08.383
So, why?
00:40:08.383 → 00:40:12.803
Focus on the things you need to read, and set aside the things you don’t, right?
00:40:20.480 → 00:40:24.800
The next question, definitely shifting gears a little bit here.
00:40:24.800 → 00:40:30.800
I’m gonna open up a couple so that I don’t have this tab loading issue going on.
00:40:34.460 → 00:40:38.200
And I do see people asking about taking questions and things.
00:40:38.200 → 00:40:40.020
And yes, you can just ask them in the chat.
00:40:40.020 → 00:40:42.400
I will likely notice them.
00:40:42.400 → 00:40:45.300
If I don’t, then please put them on the form.
00:40:45.300 → 00:40:46.780
Question about the gift of celibacy.
00:40:46.780 → 00:40:48.100
This one comes up every so often.
00:40:48.980 → 00:40:52.920
I have heard you mention the gift of celibacy and how rare it is several times.
00:40:52.920 → 00:40:55.160
If you’re willing to share, do you have that gift?
00:40:55.160 → 00:40:58.960
No, I do actually like women, so no.
00:40:58.960 → 00:41:08.860
That would certainly make focusing on reading and things more convenient and easier, because women are very distracting as every man who does not have the gift of celibacy knows.
00:41:08.860 → 00:41:13.460
So as I pointed out, just go over the basic of the gift.
00:41:13.460 → 00:41:21.340
You know if you have it, because if you have ever been tempted by a woman, you don’t.
00:41:21.340 → 00:41:22.960
Because that’s what the gift of celibacy is.
00:41:22.960 → 00:41:30.860
It’s God removing that desire from you, so that you can just 100% focus on whatever it is you’re doing.
00:41:30.860 → 00:41:40.420
Which, for some men, doing some tasks, God wants them to have that, because then they can focus on whatever it is of that utmost importance.
00:41:40.420 → 00:41:42.700
No one listening to this is going to have the gift.
00:41:42.700 → 00:41:44.060
It’s just, it’s very rare.
00:41:44.700 → 00:41:48.900
And it seems like God almost never hands it out these days, so.
00:41:48.900 → 00:41:52.760
But no, I would not count myself as one who has that gift.
00:41:52.760 → 00:41:55.680
I have indeed dated women in the past.
00:41:56.780 → 00:41:59.360
The next question, question 8.
00:42:01.960 → 00:42:06.640
How do you know if you have the characteristics or traits needed to be a leader?
00:42:06.640 → 00:42:09.680
More specifically, a political leader of some sort.
00:42:12.740 → 00:42:16.180
This is one of those where you’re sort of going to know.
00:42:16.180 → 00:42:22.720
If you are a leader, you’re going to have a general sense that you have the abilities, you have the capacity to do that.
00:42:22.720 → 00:42:25.360
You know, you run into Dunning Kruger and things like that, of course, too.
00:42:25.360 → 00:42:27.640
You’re going to get many who have no ability who think they do.
00:42:28.920 → 00:42:37.340
But you can look at how your life has played out and get some idea of whether or not you have those abilities.
00:42:38.820 → 00:42:42.020
And, you know, part of it depends on your age, right?
00:42:42.020 → 00:42:52.900
If you’re always the one in your group of friends who winds up making the plans, or at least saying, we’re going with that plan, you’re kind of filling the role of the leader of the group.
00:42:52.900 → 00:42:58.560
If people look to you for answers, you’re kind of filling the role of the leader of the group.
00:42:58.560 → 00:43:04.560
If you’re comfortable filling that role, that’s also a positive indicator.
00:43:04.560 → 00:43:19.800
It’s going to be something that you’re going to have a personal internal sense of it with regard to whether or not you have been given the abilities, whether or not you have cultivated the abilities necessary to be a leader.
00:43:19.800 → 00:43:26.520
I’m not saying you can’t equip yourself better than you are currently equipped, because certainly you can study some of these things, right?
00:43:26.520 → 00:43:29.300
I’ve got books on rhetoric on my shelves here.
00:43:29.300 → 00:43:33.540
You can do things like that, that will make you better at that role than you are now.
00:43:34.600 → 00:43:38.780
But there are some things you have or you don’t.
00:43:38.780 → 00:43:41.760
One of the things is going to be charisma.
00:43:41.760 → 00:43:44.500
Leaders need a certain amount of charisma.
00:43:44.500 → 00:43:49.120
You need more of it the higher up you are, basically, in the hierarchy.
00:43:49.120 → 00:43:55.000
A man who has zero charisma can probably lead, but he’s going to find it a lot more difficult.
00:43:55.000 → 00:44:02.040
He’s going to have to convince men in practically a purely rational way, which is really not how human beings operate.
00:44:02.740 → 00:44:08.060
So, there are things that you have to have innately, and there are things that you cultivate.
00:44:08.060 → 00:44:13.860
And those are related, of course, because even having an innate ability doesn’t mean that you’re an expert.
00:44:13.860 → 00:44:23.600
If you have innate artistic ability, it’s still going to take years of effort to become the best version of you at that.
00:44:23.600 → 00:44:26.460
The same thing is true with leaders, with public speakers.
00:44:27.860 → 00:44:35.820
So, if you are thinking about going that route, and you have questions about whether or not you have what it takes, join a debate club.
00:44:35.820 → 00:44:38.660
See if public speaking is something that you can even do.
00:44:38.660 → 00:44:41.280
Some people think that public speaking is worse than death.
00:44:41.280 → 00:44:45.420
So, if you’re one of those, you’re probably going to find leadership kind of challenging.
00:44:46.680 → 00:44:54.040
Put yourself in situations where you have the opportunity to see if you are able to rise to the level of a leader in a group.
00:44:54.040 → 00:44:55.720
If not, then you don’t have that.
00:44:56.040 → 00:44:57.360
Do something else.
00:44:57.360 → 00:45:00.980
If you have it, pursue it, cultivate that talent, and see where it takes you.
00:45:12.023 → 00:45:16.103
Okay, next question is question nine.
00:45:16.103 → 00:45:18.323
When do you quit your job?
00:45:18.323 → 00:45:22.303
This is tangential to the Iran conflict.
00:45:22.303 → 00:45:36.903
Now, it seemed to me, in that domain, you would want as many whites as possible, so that way if we later get control back, we already have ample people to ensure we are able to properly defend ourselves, particularly when it comes to production of weapons.
00:45:36.903 → 00:45:39.843
It is jam-packed with Jews and all sorts of other groups.
00:45:40.003 → 00:45:45.003
In my mind, it would actually be very bad if that were completely 100% controlled by them.
00:45:45.003 → 00:45:46.543
I would agree.
00:45:46.543 → 00:45:53.623
That was my rationalization at any rate, although destroying the Iranian regime is not, in and of itself, particularly wicked, in my opinion.
00:45:53.623 → 00:46:00.303
Nevertheless, it seems to me that aiding in their destruction, even indirectly, still gives the wicked reason to rejoice.
00:46:00.303 → 00:46:05.983
My main problem here is I am made uncomfortable by the fact that I have no real exit criteria.
00:46:05.983 → 00:46:10.503
I suppose I have to think of something regardless, but penny for your thoughts.
00:46:13.143 → 00:46:20.343
So, obviously, this person is working in the munitions field, we’ll call it, broadly.
00:46:20.343 → 00:46:32.303
I don’t think if you’re working for Northrop Grumman, or whatever other Raytheon, whatever other defense industry contractor it happens to be, I have a number of friends who work for those.
00:46:32.303 → 00:46:35.443
I lived near some of their facilities in California.
00:46:36.763 → 00:46:40.663
If you are working for them, I don’t think what you’re doing is inherently wicked.
00:46:40.663 → 00:46:44.423
I don’t think that it’s sin to continue working there.
00:46:44.423 → 00:46:53.523
Weapons of war have to be produced, because war is a reality of man’s life upon the earth, right?
00:46:53.523 → 00:47:03.263
You can think of the line from Job, yes, it is slightly different in the Septuagint, so I have to re-memorize it, but the life of man upon the earth is war.
00:47:03.263 → 00:47:06.223
Now, are there lines?
00:47:06.223 → 00:47:07.763
I think the answer is yes.
00:47:07.763 → 00:47:25.963
If you were, say, living in the Soviet Union, we’ll just go back to that example, much like earlier, and you are working on their nuclear weapons program, I do think that you should have some very serious moral qualms about arming a regime that wicked with nuclear weapons.
00:47:27.643 → 00:47:30.343
Now, is the US regime currently wicked?
00:47:30.343 → 00:47:34.703
I think the answer is unequivocally yes.
00:47:34.703 → 00:47:37.383
Are you arming them with nuclear weapons?
00:47:37.383 → 00:47:41.583
No, they already have rather many thousands of those.
00:47:41.583 → 00:48:02.023
What you are ultimately doing is producing the armaments of war for your government, even if your government is doing some things that are evil, it is still doing some things that are good, because the military does still act as defense of the United States, of America.
00:48:02.023 → 00:48:13.923
So, I won’t pretend that it’s a simple question, you know, it’s not a trivial question, it’s not an irrelevant question, there’s a moral aspect to these things.
00:48:13.923 → 00:48:22.563
But, I don’t think that you are violating any hard and fast black and white moral rule by being involved in the defense industry.
00:48:23.283 → 00:48:32.003
And, yes, I think our men should still be involved in these industries, because we don’t want them to be wholly owned by the enemy.
00:48:32.003 → 00:48:42.563
Maybe you can get into a position at some point, it depends on, you know, your career path and things like that, but you may be able to make decisions that are very important down the line.
00:48:42.563 → 00:48:55.503
And if we all just up and left society, right, if we just completely abandoned our society because our government is wicked, that would not actually make things better.
00:48:55.503 → 00:48:58.103
It would make them significantly worse.
00:48:58.103 → 00:49:05.603
And it would make them significantly worse for all of us as well, because we’d then all be unemployed and powerless, which is not ideal.
00:49:05.603 → 00:49:11.323
So as far as exit criteria are concerned, you know, when should you leave?
00:49:11.323 → 00:49:17.723
If they ask you to deny Christ is obviously a pretty obvious black and white line, you can’t do that.
00:49:18.363 → 00:49:22.443
If they ask you to worship a false god, you can’t do that.
00:49:22.443 → 00:49:26.143
Anything that is denying the faith, you can’t do.
00:49:26.143 → 00:49:37.263
But if it’s just producing weapons of war, and you have moral qualms about how your government is going to use them, I don’t think that is sufficient to say that you have to.
00:49:37.263 → 00:49:43.103
Now, if they ask you to personally deploy these things, that’s a different matter.
00:49:43.103 → 00:49:53.343
I have said that I think that soldiers, if they are told that they have to go be boots on the ground in Iran, they should say that they have a religious objection.
00:49:53.343 → 00:49:54.623
They have a moral objection.
00:49:54.623 → 00:49:56.403
They’re a conscientious objector.
00:49:56.403 → 00:50:00.723
Whatever it happens to be that you need to say to get out of it, I think you should.
00:50:01.223 → 00:50:04.583
I do not think that you should participate in that way.
00:50:04.583 → 00:50:07.603
But there’s a difference here.
00:50:07.603 → 00:50:10.843
It’s not just because there’s a level of attenuation, certainly that’s part of it.
00:50:11.683 → 00:50:23.763
But there is a difference in arming your nation for war, generally, and specifically doing X that you know to be immoral.
00:50:26.403 → 00:50:28.223
I can’t give you a hard and fast rule.
00:50:28.223 → 00:50:34.603
I can’t give you a black and white rule because it’s a matter of wisdom, and it’s a matter of conscience, as you correctly recognize.
00:50:34.603 → 00:50:37.183
But in this case, I don’t think what you’re doing is wrong.
00:50:37.183 → 00:50:44.443
And I think it’s good that we have men in these fields doing these things who are Christian men, who have these concerns.
00:50:44.443 → 00:50:46.163
Because what’s the alternative?
00:50:46.163 → 00:50:51.983
Men who have no concerns, who have no conscience, doing whatever they please, probably to us.
00:51:04.228 → 00:51:07.588
The next question, question number 10.
00:51:11.688 → 00:51:16.428
What do you believe is the role of small business owners in the current situation?
00:51:18.048 → 00:51:22.348
Only hire white male Christians, as much as practical seems obvious.
00:51:22.348 → 00:51:25.648
What is the historical understanding of our duties?
00:51:27.788 → 00:51:30.808
So obviously, I can’t tell you to do anything illegal.
00:51:31.328 → 00:51:34.128
I mean, I could, but I’m not going to tell you to do anything illegal.
00:51:34.128 → 00:51:36.108
And this is not legal advice.
00:51:36.108 → 00:51:46.628
But the duty with regard to being a Christian is to provide for those closest to you first.
00:51:46.628 → 00:51:48.648
Because it’s the same as always.
00:51:48.648 → 00:51:54.388
It’s the concentric circles radiating outward, decreasing duty as you go.
00:51:54.388 → 00:51:56.768
Inversely, increasing duty as you get closer.
00:51:58.108 → 00:52:00.948
We recognize this, the Ten Commandments are hierarchical.
00:52:00.948 → 00:52:05.848
So you have a greater duty to your parents than you have to your neighbor.
00:52:05.848 → 00:52:08.968
You have a greater duty to your neighbor than you have to the stranger.
00:52:08.968 → 00:52:15.608
You have a greater duty to the stranger who is sojourning in your country than you do to someone on the other side of the world.
00:52:15.608 → 00:52:22.248
You have a greater duty to the person visiting your country than a hostile alien, right?
00:52:22.248 → 00:52:26.048
There are, there’s a hierarchy or the concentric circles.
00:52:26.108 → 00:52:29.388
Whichever way you want to visualize that.
00:52:30.528 → 00:52:42.408
So, if you make it your explicit policy to hire only white male Christians, you will be sued and you will almost certainly lose.
00:52:42.408 → 00:52:43.868
So, don’t do that.
00:52:43.868 → 00:52:45.188
That would be unwise.
00:52:45.188 → 00:52:47.068
Do not be unwise.
00:52:47.068 → 00:52:50.308
I guess the basic recommendation there is don’t break the law, right?
00:52:50.308 → 00:52:53.788
Which, that I can give as legal advice, but it’s useless legal advice.
00:52:55.488 → 00:53:05.148
But, what can you do that is permissible under the law and is very unlikely to get you in trouble?
00:53:05.148 → 00:53:08.148
And part of this depends on, right, the size of the business.
00:53:08.148 → 00:53:13.368
For a small business, you’re less likely to be harassed by the government than a larger business.
00:53:13.368 → 00:53:15.908
But a larger business has a compliance department.
00:53:17.848 → 00:53:19.608
Hire those who are your neighbors.
00:53:20.768 → 00:53:26.508
Hire the friend of a friend, or the nephew of a friend of a friend.
00:53:26.508 → 00:53:31.888
The good version of nepotism, which nepotism comes from nephew, nepos.
00:53:31.888 → 00:53:41.188
So, put up your help wanted ads at church, at whatever your local club is.
00:53:41.188 → 00:53:46.528
Put them up in places where you’re going to get the response from the sort of men you want to hire.
00:53:46.528 → 00:53:47.468
There’s nothing wrong with that.
00:53:47.528 → 00:53:50.088
There’s nothing wrong with using word of mouth to hire people.
00:53:50.088 → 00:53:53.728
There’s nothing wrong with hiring your friends or your family.
00:53:53.728 → 00:53:56.028
Perfectly permissible.
00:53:56.028 → 00:54:15.628
So, don’t do the things the law says you cannot do, but do the things you’re permitted to do to help those God has entrusted to your care, because God has entrusted resources to you so that you can use them to perform your duties and to aid your fellow men, those to whom you owe the highest duty.
00:54:16.988 → 00:54:26.848
So, that’s the basics of it, but at another level of it, this is an anecdote that many will know from history.
00:54:26.848 → 00:54:33.608
There was a saint who basically asked, and the story may be apocryphal or not, but the point drawn out of it is good.
00:54:33.608 → 00:54:50.308
There was a saint who prayed to be shown how he could be a great Christian, and if God would show him a great Christian, and he was shown a shoemaker, and he wondered how this shoemaker is a great Christian, how can this be the perfect good Christian life?
00:54:50.308 → 00:54:55.228
The man said a short prayer before he went into work, and then he made good shoes.
00:54:55.228 → 00:55:08.288
He didn’t put crosses on the shoes, he didn’t emblazon verses from scripture into them, he didn’t do any of those things, which is sort of the kitsch version of people believing, oh, this is how you’re a good Christian, and he made good shoes.
00:55:08.288 → 00:55:09.768
Your neighbor needs good shoes.
00:55:10.648 → 00:55:18.568
Your neighbor needs good food, good woodwork, a good desk, whatever it happens to be, good glassware for his tea, right?
00:55:18.568 → 00:55:20.808
These are the things your neighbor needs.
00:55:20.808 → 00:55:25.568
You serve God by serving your neighbor, and you serve your neighbor by doing a good job.
00:55:25.568 → 00:55:28.808
You do a good job at a fair price.
00:55:28.808 → 00:55:30.648
That’s how you serve as a Christian.
00:55:30.648 → 00:55:38.288
It’s not stamping crosses into everything and loudly declaring, oh, I’m a Christian, and that’s performance, that’s not Christianity.
00:55:39.448 → 00:55:41.708
Christianity is doing your duty.
00:55:41.708 → 00:55:47.768
Being good at whatever job it is, doing the best that you can do for the people around you.
00:55:47.768 → 00:55:50.148
That’s what you should do as a small business owner.
00:55:50.148 → 00:55:57.868
Give people a good product at a fair price, and hire the people you can who are the men to whom you owe duties.
00:55:57.868 → 00:56:02.588
So again, family, friends, members of your church.
00:56:02.588 → 00:56:03.168
That’s what you do.
00:56:04.008 → 00:56:08.288
It’s not a matter of the performative version of Christianity.
00:56:08.288 → 00:56:10.408
It’s the reality instead.
00:56:10.408 → 00:56:12.728
Because the concrete stuff matters.
00:56:12.728 → 00:56:22.788
The person who is praying really loudly on the street corner is not the one who is helping the man who is homeless and naked, right?
00:56:22.788 → 00:56:26.388
The guy who’s homeless and naked would probably rather that you give him a coat and a sandwich.
00:56:37.307 → 00:56:41.567
The next question, question 11.
00:56:44.547 → 00:57:03.127
Given microplastics and other things in the modern world seeming to be assaulting our hormones and masculinity in new ways, indeed, this has come up a couple times already about microplastics at least, is testosterone replacement therapy permissible for Christian men in our late 30s, early 40s?
00:57:03.127 → 00:57:07.767
I don’t want to chase the fountain of youth, but do modern problems call for modern solutions?
00:57:07.767 → 00:57:12.507
The good news is, the fountain of youth doesn’t exist, and if it did, it would be called hell.
00:57:12.507 → 00:57:14.867
So TRT is just fine.
00:57:14.867 → 00:57:16.387
Nothing wrong with it.
00:57:16.387 → 00:57:17.367
Perfectly acceptable.
00:57:17.367 → 00:57:24.467
If you can find a good doctor to make sure that you, you know, calibrate things properly, by all means, do so.
00:57:24.467 → 00:57:25.867
That’s a…
00:57:25.867 → 00:57:32.327
There’s nothing wrong with taking measures to safeguard your health, which is all testosterone replacement therapy is, right?
00:57:32.907 → 00:57:38.027
It’s not trying to subvert God’s plan or God’s design.
00:57:38.027 → 00:57:42.167
It’s accounting for the reality of living in a post-fall world.
00:57:42.167 → 00:57:44.247
It’s similar to…
00:57:44.247 → 00:57:45.887
I was looking to see if I had anything on my desk.
00:57:45.887 → 00:57:48.127
Use an example, but I’ve got, you know, nicotine here.
00:57:48.127 → 00:57:50.527
It’s not exactly what I wanted.
00:57:51.707 → 00:57:53.627
It’s similar to taking supplements, right?
00:57:53.627 → 00:58:03.087
If you supplement vitamin D, which you should be doing, because past a certain age, you actually stop producing it, in sufficient quantities.
00:58:03.087 → 00:58:04.987
There are those who think, you know, oh, if I get…
00:58:04.987 → 00:58:07.007
just get enough sun.
00:58:07.007 → 00:58:20.467
If you’re a 40-year-old man and you spend your entire day outside naked and manage not to get arrested for public indecency, you still will not have enough vitamin D, even if you live somewhere like Southern California, because your body just doesn’t produce enough.
00:58:20.467 → 00:58:23.787
So that’s something you should be supplementing if you’re over…
00:58:23.787 → 00:58:26.187
I don’t remember the exact age, but it’s somewhere in your mid-30s.
00:58:26.767 → 00:58:29.187
You should be supplementing that.
00:58:29.187 → 00:58:42.787
There’s nothing wrong with supplementing testosterone as well, because yes, we have environmental factors that are pushing that, trending that downward, and that’s not good, because God designed men to have a higher level than modern men do.
00:58:42.787 → 00:58:49.127
So by all means, if you can find a doctor who will prescribe that for you, I think that’s perfectly acceptable.
00:58:49.127 → 00:58:50.687
It’s probably even a good idea.
00:58:50.687 → 00:58:54.427
It’s something that more men probably should be doing.
00:58:54.427 → 00:58:55.527
Get your levels checked.
00:58:55.687 → 00:59:00.727
If that’s something that your health plan provides, or you have some way of doing that.
00:59:00.727 → 00:59:02.207
And just keep that in mind.
00:59:02.207 → 00:59:05.507
It’s similar to how we test other things about our health, right?
00:59:05.507 → 00:59:12.747
You get an ECG, or you occasionally check your heart rate, or your blood oxygen level.
00:59:12.747 → 00:59:15.867
These are things that you can test very easily.
00:59:15.867 → 00:59:18.207
I have an oxygen meter right here.
00:59:18.207 → 00:59:20.107
This thing costs probably $10.
00:59:21.227 → 00:59:28.827
They’re easy things you can do to keep track of your health and detect issues before they arise.
00:59:28.827 → 00:59:32.727
And checking your testosterone level is certainly one of them.
00:59:32.727 → 00:59:43.207
It will probably help your marriage, if you make sure that your level is where it should be, or at least close to where it should be, instead of way below where it should be.
00:59:43.207 → 00:59:45.967
But yes, the basic answer is it’s perfectly fine.
00:59:45.967 → 00:59:46.667
It’s moral to do.
00:59:47.467 → 00:59:51.727
And likely also something that is, as a matter of wisdom, wise to do.
00:59:57.083 → 01:00:01.803
The next question is sort of a theological question.
01:00:01.803 → 01:00:07.503
The other one was as well, but this one’s sort of, I guess, more core theological question, as it were.
01:00:07.503 → 01:00:12.183
Do you have an opinion or any knowledge of the old apostolic Lutherans?
01:00:12.183 → 01:00:22.743
So these are one of the subgroups of one of the revivalistic, pietistic Lutheran groups.
01:00:23.423 → 01:00:30.303
They are separated out from the Swedish Lutherans.
01:00:30.303 → 01:00:32.503
It was the Swedish Lutherans, right?
01:00:32.503 → 01:00:46.743
One of the pastors went up there into the Sami lands, which is sort of their version of, obviously not Amerindians, but their version of natives living out in the middle of nowhere.
01:00:46.743 → 01:00:54.063
So he went up there to try to convert them to Christianity, because they converted pretty late.
01:00:54.063 → 01:00:59.863
And he was a Lutheran pastor, Lystadius, that’s the gentleman’s name.
01:00:59.863 → 01:01:01.303
So these are Lystadians.
01:01:02.363 → 01:01:04.063
Don’t critique me on pronouncing Swedish.
01:01:04.063 → 01:01:05.663
I have no idea how to pronounce Swedish.
01:01:05.663 → 01:01:09.683
So if I said it wrong, then I apologize to the Swedish.
01:01:09.683 → 01:01:19.603
But that’s only fair, because every time I run across something on social media that’s Swedish, I get a few words in, and I think it’s German, then I hit the little symbol on the A and realize it’s Swedish.
01:01:20.423 → 01:01:23.263
But at any rate, he was trying to convert these people.
01:01:23.263 → 01:01:26.063
Same sort of problem we had with the Amerindians.
01:01:26.063 → 01:01:27.243
Wild heavy drinkers.
01:01:27.243 → 01:01:29.583
Alcoholism was rampant.
01:01:29.583 → 01:01:39.543
So he went overboard, because, for instance, he became a teetotaler, almost, because he still used wine in the sacrament.
01:01:39.543 → 01:01:41.023
Thankfully, he didn’t mess that one up.
01:01:41.023 → 01:01:48.463
But he otherwise was a teetotaler with regard to alcohol consumption, partly because he was working with the Sammy.
01:01:49.203 → 01:01:57.563
But it’s the same sort of thing that you see in a lot of these movements, where they’re going to say, oh, well, all dancing is bad, right?
01:01:57.563 → 01:01:59.503
You should never go to the movies.
01:01:59.503 → 01:02:00.803
You shouldn’t smoke.
01:02:00.803 → 01:02:01.863
Nicotine’s all bad.
01:02:01.863 → 01:02:03.383
You should never drink.
01:02:03.383 → 01:02:08.283
Basically, all worldly pleasure is evil and bad, and you just, you know, it’s horrible.
01:02:08.283 → 01:02:14.103
That’s not Christian, because God created the worldly pleasures as well.
01:02:14.103 → 01:02:21.103
You should not abuse them, but using them in the right way, in the way God intended, is perfectly fine.
01:02:21.103 → 01:02:23.683
Like I said, I have some nicotine sitting here on my desk.
01:02:23.683 → 01:02:31.683
I don’t use it a lot, certainly, but there’s nothing wrong with consuming nicotine or alcohol.
01:02:31.683 → 01:02:33.603
In reasonable amounts.
01:02:33.603 → 01:02:40.303
It’s not to be done in excess, because that would, of course, be in the case of alcoholism, which is not good.
01:02:40.303 → 01:02:45.763
You don’t want to be a drunk, but there’s nothing morally impermissible about drinking.
01:02:45.763 → 01:02:49.323
In fact, scripture praises alcohol in a number of places.
01:02:49.323 → 01:02:54.763
One of the ways you could worship God in Old Testament Israel was liquor.
01:02:54.763 → 01:03:00.703
Not as strong as our liquor, Zechera, is what they called it, but still liquor.
01:03:00.703 → 01:03:03.403
So, I don’t like these groups.
01:03:03.403 → 01:03:05.983
They go overboard with these things.
01:03:05.983 → 01:03:17.903
But at the same time, they’re not that relevant, because I think there’s only about 25,000 of them in the United States, and like 180,000 of them, worldwide.
01:03:17.903 → 01:03:35.803
So, I guess if you are Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, or Sami, then they’re going to be more relevant to you, because they’re going to be, if not in your area where you live, then at least relevant back in your lineage to your people.
01:03:35.803 → 01:03:40.643
Maybe you don’t have those people in your direct lineage, but you live somewhere they used to be.
01:03:41.763 → 01:03:43.343
Or maybe you still are.
01:03:43.343 → 01:03:50.703
If you’re not descended from those groups, or living in those areas, then they’re just completely irrelevant to you, go join an actual Lutheran church.
01:03:50.703 → 01:03:58.123
Insofar as joining one of their churches is concerned, I would say just join an actual Lutheran church.
01:03:58.123 → 01:04:12.923
Maybe there are good congregations, I don’t personally know, but I do know that many of them are sort of in the habit of doing the mutual excommunication sort of thing, where you’ll have the old Apostolic Lutherans, and then you have…
01:04:14.423 → 01:04:15.503
I can’t remember the name of the other group.
01:04:16.423 → 01:04:18.543
There are three main groups of the Lystadians.
01:04:18.543 → 01:04:26.583
I can’t remember the other ones, but two of them have mutually excommunicated each other basically and said, no, you’re going to hell, no, you’re going to hell.
01:04:26.583 → 01:04:28.363
That’s not productive or helpful.
01:04:28.363 → 01:04:29.803
That’s just nonsense.
01:04:29.803 → 01:04:42.323
And it’s also false theology, because they’re denying the reality of the invisible church, the Church Universal, which includes believers from, if not every, at least most denominations.
01:04:42.323 → 01:04:46.263
I’m Lutheran, I have significant disagreements with Rome.
01:04:46.263 → 01:04:49.483
I believe there are Christians in Roman Catholic churches.
01:04:49.483 → 01:04:52.003
I believe there are many Christians in Baptist churches.
01:04:52.003 → 01:04:54.583
I have significant disagreements with them.
01:04:54.583 → 01:05:11.543
If you deny the reality of the invisible church, you’re just making a complete nonsense claim about, no, no, no, this one corporate structure, physical entity, legal fiction thing in the world is Christ Church.
01:05:11.543 → 01:05:15.103
That’s absurd, and it’s bad theology.
01:05:15.103 → 01:05:19.423
Partly, if you just look at scripture, Adam’s the first Christian.
01:05:19.423 → 01:05:22.583
Of which church was Adam a member?
01:05:23.883 → 01:05:27.143
Was Adam ever a member of the Roman Catholic Church?
01:05:27.143 → 01:05:29.843
Was Adam ever a member of the Lutheran Church?
01:05:29.843 → 01:05:32.563
The answer is no, because he was a member of the Church Universal.
01:05:33.243 → 01:05:41.563
So, claims about any specific group being the Church on Earth are almost always per se incorrect.
01:05:41.563 → 01:05:44.823
Can you say that you have the best theology?
01:05:44.823 → 01:05:47.583
Of course, and you should believe that if you’re a member of that church.
01:05:47.583 → 01:05:49.903
That should be one of the reasons you’re a member.
01:05:49.903 → 01:05:55.363
But does that make you the Church, and no one outside of your body can be saved?
01:05:55.363 → 01:05:59.883
Of course not, because the only church that matters is Christ Church.
01:05:59.883 → 01:06:05.763
And it is only his church, and that is the church that is constituted from all believers.
01:06:05.763 → 01:06:14.143
So, if you happen to have one of these congregations near you, and they’re a good one, because there are different branches of Lystadion.
01:06:14.143 → 01:06:18.283
You mentioned this one in particular, but they’re different ones.
01:06:18.283 → 01:06:24.423
If they’re good, they’re not teaching anything weird, so they’re not emphasizing some of these weird bits of their theology.
01:06:25.623 → 01:06:27.923
I don’t have significant issues with them.
01:06:28.103 → 01:06:35.503
I don’t believe that they actually hold to the Augsburg Confession, which is a meaningful point for Lutherans, right?
01:06:35.503 → 01:06:37.643
That is our confession.
01:06:37.643 → 01:06:39.043
They say that they hold to it.
01:06:39.043 → 01:06:45.923
This is sort of, I guess, inside baseball for Lutherans, but they hold to the Augsburg Confession.
01:06:45.923 → 01:06:56.423
I believe they also say they hold to Luther’s catechisms and maybe the small cold articles, but I don’t think they hold to the book, the formula of Concord, the last two documents in the book of Concord.
01:06:57.263 → 01:07:00.423
That’s a little more common among Scandinavian Lutherans.
01:07:01.503 → 01:07:02.663
Are they Lutheran or not?
01:07:02.663 → 01:07:04.843
We could have that argument.
01:07:04.843 → 01:07:27.583
But I think the problem with the Lystadians is that they actually violate one of the articles of just the Augsburg Confession, because article 14 is about who should or should not publicly in the congregation administer the sacraments and teach and preach.
01:07:27.583 → 01:07:30.643
And we believe it is only those who have a rightly ordered call.
01:07:30.643 → 01:07:37.323
And incidentally, this article translated from the German with an AI, do not use the English translations.
01:07:37.323 → 01:07:41.403
They’re really bad, which is unfortunate because it’s really simple German.
01:07:41.403 → 01:07:42.423
They just botch it totally.
01:07:43.683 → 01:07:55.023
But, the Lystadians actually use lay ministers to, for instance, absolve people of sin in their services.
01:07:55.023 → 01:07:59.503
They’re also kind of non-liturgical, so I have major problems with them.
01:07:59.503 → 01:08:03.043
But I could say that about the Baptists and many others as well.
01:08:03.043 → 01:08:09.103
So again, if you have a good congregation near you, then maybe it’s worth considering.
01:08:09.103 → 01:08:10.663
It would not be my top choice.
01:08:11.263 → 01:08:13.403
It probably wouldn’t be my top five.
01:08:13.403 → 01:08:19.343
But I don’t know where you are, and I don’t know what churches you have around you, and I don’t know if you happen to have…
01:08:19.343 → 01:08:21.983
Maybe there’s a really good one.
01:08:21.983 → 01:08:25.523
But that’s sort of the general overview of the Lystadians.
01:08:25.523 → 01:08:32.863
And this particular group, the old Apostolic Lutherans, I believe they are the first of the three, and they claim to be…
01:08:32.863 → 01:08:38.743
They’re one of the ones that claim to be the only one, and so they’re going to say, you can’t join another one because they’re heretics.
01:08:42.003 → 01:08:45.163
But they’re probably not relevant to you because there are so few of them.
01:08:48.203 → 01:08:55.663
Sort of a little bit of inside baseball for Lutheran and Lutheran-adjacent groups, but useful for some men.
01:08:57.043 → 01:09:04.743
The next question, question 13, I think I will also try to get to some of the questions from the chat.
01:09:04.743 → 01:09:06.063
I see someone brought up gambling.
01:09:06.063 → 01:09:07.263
I’ve commented on gambling before.
01:09:07.323 → 01:09:13.803
I’ll just answer that one quickly before I get to question 13 proper, so this is, I guess, a little bonus question.
01:09:15.103 → 01:09:26.663
Gambling is not absolutely categorically morally impermissible, but it should not be something that we encourage as a society, not be something that we engage in an organized fashion.
01:09:26.663 → 01:09:29.583
So I would ban casinos and things like that.
01:09:29.583 → 01:09:42.423
But if you want to play a $10 poker game with your friends or whatever the equivalent is for you in your income bracket, $10, on Friday night, I have no moral objection to that whatsoever.
01:09:42.423 → 01:09:46.643
I don’t see any way you could possibly object to that.
01:09:46.643 → 01:09:49.023
You know, it’s a within reason sort of thing.
01:09:49.023 → 01:09:52.243
Don’t gamble money that you can’t lose.
01:09:52.243 → 01:10:00.183
And don’t gamble huge amounts, don’t make it your life or your entire personality.
01:10:00.183 → 01:10:05.023
It’s fine as a hobby, basically, or just an activity that you do with friends on the weekend.
01:10:07.903 → 01:10:09.263
Question 13.
01:10:09.263 → 01:10:20.443
I know this has been covered extensively throughout the SC catalog and your Twitter account, but I find myself struggling to come up with a concise rebuttal to the claim that Jesus was a Jew.
01:10:20.443 → 01:10:29.223
The best I can muster is Jesus was a Judean, obviously, but modern Jews have almost nothing in common with them other than their satanic and murderous intentions.
01:10:30.103 → 01:10:39.403
Assuming all the baggage that comes along with someone that makes that statement, how would you respond to that claim in a way that makes sense to them?
01:10:41.523 → 01:10:47.043
The issue with the Jesus is a Jew thing, right?
01:10:47.043 → 01:10:57.783
First off, the people who say it often give away the game by saying Jesus was a Jew, and that use of the past tense is not determinative, right?
01:10:57.843 → 01:11:03.963
It doesn’t always mean something, but it kind of implies something about the beliefs of the person advancing it.
01:11:03.963 → 01:11:05.823
You’re probably not dealing with a Christian, right?
01:11:05.823 → 01:11:09.963
You’re probably not even dealing with someone who is open to the idea of Christianity.
01:11:09.963 → 01:11:13.643
You’re probably dealing with someone who is hostile to Christianity.
01:11:13.643 → 01:11:26.343
And my general approach, if someone pops into my replies at this point and just comments, well, Jesus was a Jew or Jesus something on those lines, it’s almost always just that verbatim, I just block them.
01:11:27.303 → 01:11:28.923
I’m not going to get anywhere with that person.
01:11:28.923 → 01:11:34.603
The person is obviously just trying to sow discord and dissent and cause problems.
01:11:34.603 → 01:11:38.543
And it’s a waste of everyone’s time, and I’m not going to engage in it.
01:11:40.563 → 01:12:03.183
So if it is someone who is not that, if you happen to know this person to some extent, this is someone who has a legitimate concern, someone who has an actual curiosity, someone who actually will listen to what you are saying, then you can actually probably get somewhere by pointing out just the reality.
01:12:03.183 → 01:12:07.623
You can, of course, point them to the episode, which is the fuller treatment of it.
01:12:07.623 → 01:12:15.703
But I think the best starting point is use an analogy, right?
01:12:15.743 → 01:12:21.543
Use something on which you and that person agree, and it’s going to depend on your context.
01:12:21.643 → 01:12:30.863
If I’m talking to an American audience, right, I could say something about the founding fathers, and were they American, right?
01:12:30.863 → 01:12:33.343
Was George Washington an American?
01:12:35.043 → 01:12:39.263
That rather depends on what I mean by a lot of different terms, doesn’t it?
01:12:39.263 → 01:12:40.963
At what point in his life?
01:12:40.963 → 01:12:44.143
Because he was British, then he became American.
01:12:44.143 → 01:12:46.843
Was he American according to citizenship?
01:12:46.843 → 01:12:53.263
Well, after America became a thing, was he American according to blood and birth?
01:12:53.263 → 01:12:56.123
Yes, but also British.
01:12:56.123 → 01:13:01.623
And so you can see how it depends on what we mean by the term.
01:13:01.623 → 01:13:03.963
You can do the same thing with languages, right?
01:13:03.963 → 01:13:13.343
If I say, I speak English, is that the same thing as saying that Chaucer speaks English, spoke English?
01:13:13.403 → 01:13:15.223
Yes and no.
01:13:15.223 → 01:13:19.223
He spoke Middle English as a different thing.
01:13:19.223 → 01:13:23.083
Still English, so it depends what you mean by the term.
01:13:23.083 → 01:13:34.043
And you’re basically trying to point out to the person, just because we’re using a word doesn’t mean that we’re using it in the exact same sense, and doesn’t mean that it has only one sense.
01:13:34.043 → 01:13:36.343
So you have to define your terms.
01:13:36.343 → 01:13:45.963
Anyone who has any familiarity with debate of any kind, discussion, academic, discourse, knows that one of the most important things is defining your terms.
01:13:45.963 → 01:13:51.403
Because if you don’t define your terms, you’re going to have a real problem.
01:13:51.403 → 01:13:54.503
You could give a concrete example, right?
01:13:54.503 → 01:13:59.923
Let’s say, for instance, you are meeting someone for dinner, right?
01:13:59.923 → 01:14:10.843
And you say, we’ll go to your favorite Italian restaurant, and you think his favorite Italian restaurant is restaurant A.
01:14:10.843 → 01:14:15.563
But he, in his own head, knows, oh, it’s restaurant B, I’ll meet you.
01:14:15.563 → 01:14:18.343
How likely are you to meet each other for dinner?
01:14:18.343 → 01:14:25.403
The answer is, you won’t, because you’re using the same term, favorite Italian restaurant, to mean two different things.
01:14:25.403 → 01:14:27.723
You have to know to what you’re referring.
01:14:27.723 → 01:14:34.623
And so, this is where the episode really lays it out in a way that is going to be what you want for someone who’s actually open to this.
01:14:35.043 → 01:14:53.703
But, when a modern, the short version for you, when a modern person says Jew, he means someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ, who does believe in the things the Jews believe, who is an inherent of Judaism, and is probably also ethnically Jewish.
01:14:55.643 → 01:14:59.963
Was Jesus a non-believer in Jesus?
01:15:00.983 → 01:15:04.443
I think that’s probably already enough for most rational men to go, there’s a problem here.
01:15:05.043 → 01:15:09.143
Okay, was Jesus a believer in Judaism?
01:15:09.143 → 01:15:13.263
No, because Judaism post-dates Christianity.
01:15:13.263 → 01:15:29.623
You have the Old Testament civil law, you have the ceremonial law, these were for Old Testament Israel, and are a separate thing from Judaism, which is Talmudic, and from the 500s AD, notably.
01:15:29.623 → 01:15:30.563
A little irony there as well.
01:15:32.043 → 01:15:35.503
That is something that doesn’t even work chronologically.
01:15:35.503 → 01:15:42.123
And so, the only way in which you can say that he was a Jew is if you mean Judean.
01:15:43.823 → 01:15:46.363
But then, why are you using the word Jew?
01:15:46.363 → 01:15:50.803
Well, you’re using it because you want to do something with the term.
01:15:50.803 → 01:15:56.683
The person using it is using it in a deliberate way, usually to sow discord.
01:15:56.683 → 01:16:02.543
And so I usually, like I said, block those people as malefactors, because they’re just going to waste my time and everyone else’s.
01:16:02.543 → 01:16:13.103
But you kind of have to run through the logic and point out to the person, just because you’re using a word doesn’t mean that everyone using the word means the same thing.
01:16:13.103 → 01:16:17.223
Another one that I’ve used sometimes is, you know, autoantonyms, right?
01:16:17.223 → 01:16:20.343
There are words that have opposite meanings.
01:16:20.343 → 01:16:23.463
You are supposed to cleave to your wife.
01:16:23.463 → 01:16:32.463
Well, that’s not the sense we usually use these days in modern English, because the most common sense of that word now, cleave, is to split in two.
01:16:32.463 → 01:16:39.203
But the autoantonym of cleave also has a definition of to hold fast.
01:16:40.403 → 01:16:43.843
There are a number of words like that in English, so that’s another good example you can give people.
01:16:43.843 → 01:16:48.683
You have to understand what you are saying when you use the term.
01:16:48.683 → 01:16:59.883
So, my first recommendation is just to block these people, because it really is just people trying to be divisive, for the sake of being divisive and obnoxious on social media.
01:16:59.883 → 01:17:08.303
But, if it is someone who is earnest, then by all means, take the time to try and understand, what is the person saying?
01:17:08.303 → 01:17:08.923
What are you claiming?
01:17:08.923 → 01:17:10.823
That’s partly how you could start off.
01:17:10.823 → 01:17:13.323
I think this is usually a good way to do it.
01:17:13.323 → 01:17:19.403
If you’re dealing with someone who makes some sort of claim and you object, just say, what do you mean?
01:17:19.403 → 01:17:21.823
What do you mean by the word Jew?
01:17:21.823 → 01:17:23.603
To you, what is a Jew?
01:17:24.503 → 01:17:29.983
And if he can’t even define it, why is he asking you the question, right?
01:17:29.983 → 01:17:31.403
I think that’s probably a good place to start.
01:17:31.403 → 01:17:33.483
Just ask him to define his terms.
01:17:36.783 → 01:17:38.883
That was question 13.
01:17:38.883 → 01:17:45.643
So now I can get to some of the questions that I pulled out of the chat earlier.
01:17:47.943 → 01:17:49.103
I’m going to scroll up here.
01:17:52.223 → 01:17:54.103
Question 14.
01:17:54.103 → 01:18:01.223
I will try to write these down as I go, so that I can add them into the show notes.
01:18:04.523 → 01:18:15.403
How do we square the necessity of incest for humanity to multiply out of Adam and Eve, and later from Noah’s sons, with the fact that God’s morality cannot change?
01:18:15.403 → 01:18:19.983
This is actually, interestingly, tangentially related to the last question.
01:18:19.983 → 01:18:21.663
We have to define our terms.
01:18:21.663 → 01:18:35.423
And so, if by incest, you mean someone producing children from someone who has similar blood, right?
01:18:35.423 → 01:18:43.923
Someone who is too closely related, consanguinity, then yes, you’re going to have some sort of issue there, right?
01:18:45.183 → 01:18:54.143
But if you are instead appealing to the law and what is prohibited, that’s a different thing.
01:18:54.143 → 01:18:56.183
For instance, we have this today.
01:18:56.183 → 01:19:01.683
There are countries that permit first cousin marriage, and there are countries that prohibit it.
01:19:01.683 → 01:19:04.603
In fact, there are states that permit it.
01:19:04.603 → 01:19:16.723
They shouldn’t, but the issue is not that it is morally, absolutely, categorically prohibited in all cases.
01:19:16.723 → 01:19:20.483
And so, historically, yes, there are relationships that are, right?
01:19:20.483 → 01:19:23.643
You know, parent-child band, period.
01:19:23.643 → 01:19:26.863
Never acceptable violation of the moral law.
01:19:26.863 → 01:19:36.583
Siblings, permissible back then, because the degradation of the genome had not proceeded to the point where it would have caused problems.
01:19:36.583 → 01:19:39.203
That’s basically the reason we have the law.
01:19:39.203 → 01:19:45.083
We don’t have the law so much because it is an absolute moral prohibition.
01:19:45.083 → 01:19:58.863
Yes, God is now built into us disgust mechanism and revulsion and things like that to avoid these problems, but the reason the law is in place, the reason law was enacted, is because of the consequences of it.
01:19:58.863 → 01:20:02.323
What happens if you marry your first cousin for 500 years?
01:20:03.463 → 01:20:12.923
Well, you wind up with certain nations, and I’m sure we’re all thinking of one in particular, but you wind up with problems, that you can avoid by not doing that.
01:20:12.923 → 01:20:16.703
And so that’s why God has that law for us today.
01:20:16.703 → 01:20:21.183
Again, nothing absolutely categorically, morally impermissible there.
01:20:21.183 → 01:20:25.203
It is a matter of the consequences of the action post fall world.
01:20:25.203 → 01:20:31.223
So would God have made that a law in a world without the fall?
01:20:31.223 → 01:20:32.843
I don’t know.
01:20:32.843 → 01:20:38.363
Maybe he would have for the sake of human diversity and spreading out over the planet and subduing the planet.
01:20:39.183 → 01:20:44.643
But it’s a counterfactual, we can’t run, because we don’t know what the world would have been like without the fall.
01:20:44.643 → 01:20:51.723
We can’t even envision that perfect world, because we’re living post fall with the consequences of it in our own bodies and minds.
01:20:51.723 → 01:20:58.083
So it’s not that God’s law changed, it’s that God enacted law to deal with something.
01:20:58.083 → 01:21:01.623
It’s not that the morality of it changed, right?
01:21:01.663 → 01:21:09.163
Because, for instance, that there are certain relationships that are still absolutely categorically prohibited at all times, because it’s a matter of the moral law.
01:21:09.163 → 01:21:12.183
But there are other things that aren’t, they’re basically civil law.
01:21:16.423 → 01:21:21.863
A second question from the same person, this is the question 15.
01:21:25.083 → 01:21:29.143
What is the best way to tackle the problem of the fate of the un-evangelized?
01:21:29.403 → 01:21:37.443
Is there a way for someone living in a society like Aristotle, or Aristotle himself, to dimly believe in Christ?
01:21:39.103 → 01:21:45.503
This is one that has come up many times, down through the centuries, of course.
01:21:45.503 → 01:21:53.223
And you have the Roman Catholics who start making things up to try to deal with this.
01:21:53.223 → 01:21:56.363
Limbo does not exist, it’s not in scripture, things like that.
01:21:57.183 → 01:22:18.043
But I don’t think you have to do that, because you have places in scripture where, for instance, God speaks of the times of ignorance he overlooked, and you have places where it speaks of the nations groping toward God to find the light, and you have places where God speaks of assignment and things like that.
01:22:18.043 → 01:22:37.223
So I don’t think that we have, like, a hard and fast set of rules that we can say, oh, well, this pagan, this heathen, this unbeliever, whichever term you want to use, in this sense, not necessarily a pejorative sense of the term meant, this one went to paradise, and this one didn’t.
01:22:37.223 → 01:22:42.983
I don’t think we can do that, because God didn’t give us enough information to make that call.
01:22:42.983 → 01:22:46.023
But we don’t have to make that call, because that’s God’s call.
01:22:46.023 → 01:22:56.603
So do I think that there were those living in those societies who had enough of the light to be saved?
01:22:56.603 → 01:22:58.903
I think that’s probably the case.
01:22:58.903 → 01:23:04.703
I think that God preserved enough of it in some way that that was possible.
01:23:04.703 → 01:23:06.363
I don’t know exactly how that played out.
01:23:06.363 → 01:23:08.723
I won’t even hazard a guess at the percentages.
01:23:08.723 → 01:23:10.323
I don’t know.
01:23:10.323 → 01:23:17.623
But I don’t think that we have to categorically say that everyone living in those societies was simply damned.
01:23:17.623 → 01:23:24.503
I think that goes overboard, and I think it also ignores some verses in scripture that hint at things that are not fully explained.
01:23:24.503 → 01:23:33.643
So we leave it to God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice, and we’re content with that, because God is perfect and He will do what is right.
01:23:40.445 → 01:23:50.485
Another question from the same person about original sin, let’s see.
01:23:54.945 → 01:24:03.185
Basically, the question over a few messages here is, how does inheriting original sin actually work?
01:24:03.185 → 01:24:06.185
And so, there are two aspects to this.
01:24:07.285 → 01:24:11.425
One, you have concupiscence, which is what original sin is.
01:24:11.425 → 01:24:27.165
It’s the desire to do that which is wicked, a desire contrary to God, and a lack of original righteousness, and in a sense, also a lack of the imago dei, the image of God in man, which is tied up with original righteousness and things like that.
01:24:27.165 → 01:24:38.125
And original sin impairs these things in man, thoroughly impairs these things, but doesn’t replace them because that would be to confuse substance and accident, right?
01:24:38.125 → 01:24:50.445
But it impairs them in man, and it does it in such a way that everything we do is tainted by sin, because we are sinners, as I’ve pointed out many times before, and will undoubtedly many times in the future.
01:24:50.445 → 01:24:52.365
We sin because we’re sinners.
01:24:52.365 → 01:24:54.505
We’re not sinners because we sin.
01:24:54.505 → 01:25:02.345
Yes, we’re also additionally sinners because we sin, but the reason we sin in the first place is because we’re sinners, and we’re sinners because we fell in Adam.
01:25:02.965 → 01:25:08.845
You can think of this as similar to, I think it’s the seventh chapter of Hebrews.
01:25:08.845 → 01:25:18.125
You have the author of Hebrews pulling out the example of the Levites tithing to Melchizedek.
01:25:18.125 → 01:25:19.665
Well, the Levites didn’t exist yet.
01:25:19.665 → 01:25:25.605
It was Abraham who did, but the Levites were in his loins in the word of scripture.
01:25:25.605 → 01:25:28.065
And that’s the way you have to think about these things.
01:25:29.525 → 01:25:40.445
When Adam fell, Adam being the head, the federal head of all creation, not just of mankind, but of creation, everything fell in Adam.
01:25:40.445 → 01:25:43.545
You fell when Adam fell.
01:25:43.545 → 01:25:47.325
You were already corrupt at that point.
01:25:47.325 → 01:25:55.805
Yes, you are then born, and you inherit as part of that process, original sin, but you fell in Adam, because the fall happened then.
01:25:56.405 → 01:26:02.145
It’s not a fall every single time some new creature comes into existence.
01:26:02.145 → 01:26:03.565
The fall happened with Adam.
01:26:03.565 → 01:26:06.345
It corrupted all things at that time.
01:26:06.345 → 01:26:17.605
Now, the cumulative effects of the fall, related to the previous two questions, primarily the first question, those cumulative effects over time get worse.
01:26:17.605 → 01:26:23.825
And so, if you ignore God’s laws, and you do the wicked things that the Canaanites did, right?
01:26:24.405 → 01:26:30.365
Incest was part of how they worshiped their gods, and child sacrifice, and all sorts of horrible things.
01:26:30.365 → 01:26:40.625
If you do that, the effects of that accumulate over time, and you wind up worse off physically, with regard to your body.
01:26:40.625 → 01:26:54.705
Yes, there’s also a relationship between, of course, the soul and the body, but it is not original sin that directly causes all of those consequences down through the centuries.
01:26:54.705 → 01:26:58.085
There are intervening, there are intermediate steps.
01:26:58.085 → 01:27:04.865
There are the actions of your wicked ancestors accumulating over a course of many generations.
01:27:04.865 → 01:27:18.485
So you have original sin, everyone fell when Adam fell, you inherit it through natural generation, and then you have also this accumulation of consequences of wicked actions subsequent to the fall by previous generations.
01:27:19.165 → 01:27:30.685
So, you have to have a generational outlook and a headship view of these things, not an individual view, because you’re not a disconnected individual, you’re a link in a chain, leading all the way back to Adam.
01:27:39.274 → 01:27:44.794
Person also asked a question about, how do we balance prayer and the sovereign will of God?
01:27:44.794 → 01:27:49.234
I went over that in a previous episode, so I would just direct you to that.
01:27:49.234 → 01:27:59.934
Maybe someone knows which specific episode, I don’t know off the top of my head which one it was, but basically the short version is that time and causation don’t apply to God.
01:27:59.934 → 01:28:04.474
So you’re thinking about it from a human framework, don’t think about it from God’s viewpoint.
01:28:10.834 → 01:28:13.774
So write those down so I remember them for later.
01:28:20.172 → 01:28:22.572
The next question, question 18.
01:28:23.912 → 01:28:27.932
What do you believe about partial preterism in regard to end times beliefs?
01:28:27.932 → 01:28:32.292
How do you deal with the time indicators this generation shortly take place?
01:28:33.932 → 01:28:43.052
This is a broad topic, so I’m going to do a superficial treatment of it right now because I’m not going to spend, you know, an hour right now going over this.
01:28:43.052 → 01:28:58.952
Insofar as the fulfillment of prophecy is concerned, there are some prophecies that have been fulfilled, but for most prophecies, particularly eschatological prophecies, prophecies dealing with the end times, you have sort of a cyclical fulfillment.
01:28:58.952 → 01:29:16.852
You’ll have lesser fulfillments in the sense of sort of minor, just not complete, not, you know, lesser in the sense of unimportant, but you’ll have them basically symbolizing or mirroring in an essence the future full fulfillment of the thing.
01:29:17.752 → 01:29:20.372
And God loves to do this.
01:29:20.372 → 01:29:26.132
God loves symbolism, God loves typology.
01:29:26.132 → 01:29:28.552
This is how he likes to do things.
01:29:28.552 → 01:29:32.012
You have this all over the Old Testament and the New Testament as well.
01:29:32.012 → 01:29:41.952
And so, for instance, you have Abraham serving as both a type of Christ and a type of God, right, because he’s sacrificing his son.
01:29:41.952 → 01:29:48.952
In his case, he doesn’t actually sacrifice his son, but it’s typologically connected to God sacrificing his son.
01:29:48.952 → 01:30:00.772
You have the times where he delivers his relatives serving as a type of Christ, delivering from, not from relatives, but from Satan, so a greater fulfillment, the antitype versus the type.
01:30:00.772 → 01:30:07.392
You have Joseph as a type of Christ who goes ahead of the people and then comes out of Egypt and things like that.
01:30:07.392 → 01:30:10.392
You have Israel itself serving as a type of Christ.
01:30:11.332 → 01:30:20.912
In bondage, in Israel and being called out of that bondage, right, symbolizing sin and things like that, this is all over the scriptures.
01:30:20.912 → 01:30:24.112
The same thing happens with prophecies about the end times.
01:30:24.112 → 01:30:34.252
You have minor fulfillments, you have typological fulfillments, and then for most of them, there is a future true fulfillment.
01:30:34.252 → 01:30:44.672
And so, for those who wouldn’t, for instance, pass away until these things take place, 70 AD was one of the fulfillments, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.
01:30:44.672 → 01:30:57.232
And so, sometimes when Christ is talking about it, he is meaning that fulfillment in that typological sense, not the ultimate one that will come at some point in the future, even from our perspective.
01:30:57.232 → 01:31:02.692
So, insofar as partial preterism is concerned, it depends on what the person means by it.
01:31:02.692 → 01:31:07.152
If they just mean that some things have been fulfilled, okay, fine.
01:31:07.152 → 01:31:13.992
If they mean that some things have been fulfilled in a way that means they can’t have a future greater fulfillment, then I probably disagree.
01:31:13.992 → 01:31:21.552
Because I think that, generally speaking, there are future greater fulfillments even for the prophecies that have had minor fulfillments in the past.
01:31:28.707 → 01:31:31.567
The next question.
01:31:31.567 → 01:31:39.247
I don’t know how many more I’m going to go through, probably not too many more though, since we’ve run about an hour and a half, I think.
01:31:40.427 → 01:31:43.927
Question regarding the Pentecostal or Charismatic movements.
01:31:43.927 → 01:31:50.667
I understand the argument against them for being modern innovations, 1900s and 1960s respectively.
01:31:50.667 → 01:31:51.787
True.
01:31:51.787 → 01:32:02.827
And I am aware of many of the excesses that go on, but what is the theological argument against the common use of spiritual gifts in church that seems to be laid out in 1st Corinthians 12?
01:32:04.567 → 01:32:17.027
And so we will, of course, turn to 1st Corinthians 12, because it is always best to actually look at the scripture when we are going to use it.
01:32:18.827 → 01:32:21.747
And so we’ll pull up Logos here.
01:32:24.747 → 01:32:25.127
And.
01:32:32.865 → 01:32:36.965
Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
01:32:36.965 → 01:32:42.165
You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.
01:32:42.165 → 01:32:51.805
Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.
01:32:51.805 → 01:33:03.505
Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone.
01:33:03.505 → 01:33:31.405
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
01:33:31.405 → 01:33:37.945
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually, as he wills.
01:33:40.685 → 01:33:50.025
So the question for the gifts, right, is, well, first off, are you a cessationist or not, right?
01:33:50.025 → 01:33:51.145
That’s sort of the first step.
01:33:51.145 → 01:34:02.525
Lutherans are not, at least not in the sense of being a full cessationist, which basically means, have the sign gifts, these sorts of gifts, ceased in the modern church?
01:34:02.525 → 01:34:05.245
Has God stopped handing these things out?
01:34:05.245 → 01:34:08.345
Lutherans are not full cessationists.
01:34:08.345 → 01:34:14.225
Now, have these things certainly petered off, right?
01:34:14.225 → 01:34:15.825
Are they less frequent these days?
01:34:15.905 → 01:34:27.205
Absolutely, because by and large, God was using these in order to establish the early church in a way that was completely irrefutable, right?
01:34:27.205 → 01:34:29.225
And you can think of Christ’s words, right?
01:34:29.225 → 01:34:32.205
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
01:34:32.205 → 01:34:38.845
And so, is it more blessed to believe, despite not having had sort of the thunderbolt from heaven strike you?
01:34:38.845 → 01:34:41.405
Yes, Scripture is very clear on that.
01:34:42.785 → 01:34:44.925
But that doesn’t mean these gifts are never given out.
01:34:45.725 → 01:34:48.905
And so, are there people who have these gifts?
01:34:48.905 → 01:34:51.765
I would say yes, there probably are.
01:34:51.765 → 01:34:54.525
The issue would be identifying them, right?
01:34:54.525 → 01:34:55.645
And you have to test the spirits.
01:34:55.645 → 01:34:59.945
You have to discern whether or not this is someone who has these abilities.
01:34:59.945 → 01:35:15.725
And I think that the issue with regard to the Pentecostals and others is that it never takes the form that we see in the ancient church, and it never takes a form that is good and orderly and builds up.
01:35:15.725 → 01:35:18.085
It’s always chaos.
01:35:18.085 → 01:35:22.885
And for some reason, it’s always speaking in tongues, right?
01:35:22.885 → 01:35:32.205
When’s the last time you went to a Pentecostal service and saw someone tell a cripple, stand up and go home?
01:35:32.205 → 01:35:35.805
If someone does that, then okay, I’m going to say fine, he has the gift of healing.
01:35:35.805 → 01:35:40.605
God has given him the gift of healing, as long as he can also say Jesus is Lord.
01:35:40.605 → 01:35:44.385
But it’s never that, it’s always someone standing up and screaming gibberish.
01:35:44.385 → 01:35:46.925
Well, what does it say just even here?
01:35:46.925 → 01:35:50.925
Some are given the gift of tongues, and some the interpretation of tongues.
01:35:50.925 → 01:35:58.125
And then there are other places, of course, where Paul says, unless someone is present to interpret, shut up, is basically what Paul says.
01:35:58.125 → 01:36:01.065
He says it in a slightly nicer fashion, that’s what he’s saying.
01:36:01.065 → 01:36:09.925
Okay, if someone is present to interpret what it is you’re saying, and what you’re saying is coherent, then by all means, maybe God is…
01:36:09.925 → 01:36:11.765
But there’s also the misunderstanding.
01:36:11.765 → 01:36:16.905
People think that tongues are some new language God has given you.
01:36:16.905 → 01:36:18.425
Think of Pentecost.
01:36:18.425 → 01:36:24.605
The gift of tongues was so that men could understand what was being said in their own languages.
01:36:24.605 → 01:36:25.365
Great.
01:36:25.365 → 01:36:44.925
If someone who has spent his entire life living in the United States has never left whatever state, I won’t pick one because someone will be annoyed that I’m picking on their state, but someone has lived in this state in his entire life, never left, knows only English, and suddenly stands up in church and he speaks fluent Dutch.
01:36:44.925 → 01:36:45.925
Okay, fine.
01:36:45.925 → 01:36:48.645
He has the gift of tongues.
01:36:48.645 → 01:36:52.885
But it’s never Dutch or German or French.
01:36:52.885 → 01:36:54.425
It’s gibberish.
01:36:54.425 → 01:36:56.625
That’s the problem that I have with Pentecostalism.
01:36:57.785 → 01:36:59.425
It’s emotionalism.
01:36:59.425 → 01:37:01.205
It is enthusiasm.
01:37:01.205 → 01:37:07.585
It is a denial of the way in which God has said that he wants to work with and through his people.
01:37:07.585 → 01:37:16.405
Because God is very clear in the scriptures that the way that he works with his people, the way that he bestows his gifts is the word and the sacraments.
01:37:16.405 → 01:37:22.485
And the enthusiasts always go for the burning and the bosom, which is the same argument that we hear from the Mormons.
01:37:22.485 → 01:37:26.265
And I give it about the same cretins that I give the Mormons.
01:37:26.265 → 01:37:33.365
That would be the real issue that I have with regard to the Pentecostals, the Charismatics, and any of the sign gifts.
01:37:34.085 → 01:37:35.505
They are less common these days.
01:37:35.825 → 01:37:38.105
It doesn’t mean they have ceased totally.
01:37:38.105 → 01:37:49.705
But demonstrate them in a way that is consonant with scripture, that is a matter of good order, and is real as opposed to what I always see when I see the Pentecostals.
01:37:49.705 → 01:37:51.325
Don’t just stand up and scream gibberish.
01:37:51.325 → 01:37:52.925
Anyone can do that.
01:37:54.385 → 01:37:56.725
Play any online game and you’ll hear that in voice chat.
01:38:05.083 → 01:38:09.923
See a couple of questions popped up and people answered them with stone choir episodes, so I can keep scrolling.
01:38:19.677 → 01:38:27.997
I’m going to guess that the question about Eastern esoteric practices regarding sexuality is meant as a joke.
01:38:29.017 → 01:38:38.297
So, but the real answer to that question, not directly, but indirectly, is that you should be having sex with your wife frequently.
01:38:38.297 → 01:38:41.037
Pretty much as often as you can manage in your schedule.
01:38:42.917 → 01:38:49.717
Another reason to go back to the earlier question of cardio and lifting heavy things, is hopefully the heavy thing not being your wife in this case.
01:39:00.370 → 01:39:01.930
Question 20.
01:39:01.930 → 01:39:05.850
I won’t count the question about sex as a question, but question 20.
01:39:05.850 → 01:39:10.410
I have a close friend looking to get into reading the Bible for the first time.
01:39:10.410 → 01:39:12.430
What order would you recommend?
01:39:12.430 → 01:39:15.190
Mark, Luke first, Acts, then some letters.
01:39:15.190 → 01:39:19.010
I think that’s probably a pretty good way to go about it.
01:39:19.010 → 01:39:22.710
Part of it depends on your friend, right?
01:39:22.710 → 01:39:24.130
You know your friend better than I do.
01:39:24.130 → 01:39:29.690
If he’s the sort of man who will enjoy Job, then by all means read Job, Proverbs.
01:39:29.690 → 01:39:45.570
For the average person though, I think Luke is probably my general first recommendation for a European, for a white man, because it reads more like how we think.
01:39:45.570 → 01:39:48.210
Unsurprising, Luke being Greek.
01:39:48.210 → 01:39:51.630
So I think Luke first, then maybe Mark.
01:39:53.430 → 01:40:02.790
John is more heavily theological, so if your friend has the mind for that, he will probably enjoy John.
01:40:02.790 → 01:40:16.670
I mean, obviously, you eventually get around to John, but you could recommend John Acts, of course, is also a very good one to have early on to learn about how the early church handled things, how it spread, some of the history to tie things in in a concrete way.
01:40:17.950 → 01:40:38.790
And then definitely Genesis should be in your top handful, top five probably, top five, top six, because Genesis is going to give you a grounding in the history, and you’re going to start seeing echoes in the New Testament of things that take place in the Old Testament.
01:40:38.790 → 01:40:48.670
And that’s an important part of the Christian faith, is recognizing that continuity exists, and that God has been consistent over a course of many generations.
01:40:48.670 → 01:41:01.990
And then, of course, to answer the theological questions, Romans, and if your friend is the kind of man who’s going to enjoy John, then Hebrews, right?
01:41:01.990 → 01:41:05.090
Get around to Revelation whenever you get around to it.
01:41:05.090 → 01:41:09.030
Guys go off the rails, Revelation, so it’s not ever going to be in my top recommendations.
01:41:26.436 → 01:41:31.396
Someone asked about the Stone Choir intro theme, and if it changed.
01:41:31.396 → 01:41:34.876
If it did, that was not intentional.
01:41:36.336 → 01:41:42.496
So if that changed, it would probably be when I changed…
01:41:44.376 → 01:41:54.116
I think I may have edited the really early episodes, initially in Garage Band, and then switched to Logic Pro.
01:41:54.116 → 01:42:01.036
But those two DAWs should be totally compatible, so I don’t know why that would change.
01:42:01.036 → 01:42:05.076
So if that changed, good ear.
01:42:05.076 → 01:42:09.296
I don’t have perfect pitch, so at least I don’t think I have perfect pitch.
01:42:09.296 → 01:42:10.696
I’ve never tested myself for it.
01:42:10.696 → 01:42:11.696
I don’t believe I do.
01:42:11.696 → 01:42:16.116
So if you notice something that I didn’t notice, well done.
01:42:16.116 → 01:42:17.316
But I did not do it intentionally.
01:42:18.356 → 01:42:19.336
It was not an Easter egg.
01:42:19.936 → 01:42:20.016
So.
01:42:26.908 → 01:42:35.408
Okay, I think I will go with one more question for this episode, and then call it an evening so you can all as well get to your weekends.
01:42:38.388 → 01:42:46.128
I will have to pick a question that is about someone I know, because I scrolled to a question and gave me a name of someone I do not know.
01:42:48.328 → 01:42:48.648
Let’s see.
01:42:56.541 → 01:42:58.861
I am not German slash Nordic.
01:42:58.861 → 01:43:02.061
How can I feel like I’m not larking by joining a Lutheran church?
01:43:02.061 → 01:43:09.761
I am Iberian and Irish and agree with the Book of Concord, but I feel like I’m larking because my ancestors weren’t Lutheran.
01:43:11.681 → 01:43:17.861
I don’t think that the problem there is that your ancestors weren’t Lutheran.
01:43:17.861 → 01:43:22.121
So, and I’m going to, two different lines here.
01:43:22.141 → 01:43:24.061
One is the theology, right?
01:43:24.901 → 01:43:32.221
We all should agree on the theology because the theology is a statement of truths about the Christian faith.
01:43:32.221 → 01:43:37.341
It’s a statement of the tenets of the Christian faith and an explanation of them.
01:43:37.341 → 01:43:44.381
We should all agree on that because insofar as we are correct about them, we should all want to be correct.
01:43:44.381 → 01:43:45.941
And I believe Lutheranism is correct.
01:43:45.941 → 01:43:51.101
You say you agree with the Book of Concord, that’s going to be a great step in the right direction.
01:43:51.101 → 01:43:51.941
We agree on that.
01:43:53.221 → 01:43:58.341
The other aspect of this, though, is insofar as praxis is concerned.
01:43:58.341 → 01:44:02.221
So as opposed to sort of theology is the theory, right?
01:44:02.221 → 01:44:04.341
Doctrine is the theory.
01:44:04.341 → 01:44:09.501
What you do in church and how you live out your Christian life is the praxis.
01:44:09.501 → 01:44:11.801
That’s going to have some similarities.
01:44:11.801 → 01:44:13.101
We’re all going to pray.
01:44:13.101 → 01:44:15.161
We’re all going to sing in church.
01:44:15.161 → 01:44:18.861
I guess harkening back to the question about the Lystadians, they don’t use instruments.
01:44:18.921 → 01:44:20.501
I like instruments.
01:44:20.501 → 01:44:22.001
Lutherans always use them.
01:44:22.001 → 01:44:23.861
I’m sure you agree on that.
01:44:25.021 → 01:44:31.661
These things, and many like them, are going to be similar across denominations, right?
01:44:33.121 → 01:44:35.941
So, that is good.
01:44:35.941 → 01:44:37.321
We should have some similarities.
01:44:37.321 → 01:44:39.401
We’re worshipping the same God.
01:44:39.401 → 01:44:41.621
We’re all Christians.
01:44:41.621 → 01:44:44.381
But we’re not racially identical.
01:44:44.381 → 01:44:46.281
We’re not racially interchangeable.
01:44:47.301 → 01:44:49.621
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
01:44:49.621 → 01:44:52.861
The Irish should not worship in the same way as the Germans.
01:44:52.861 → 01:44:57.221
The British are not going to worship in the same way as the Germans.
01:44:57.221 → 01:45:01.081
And you can get differences that are even more significant, right?
01:45:01.081 → 01:45:05.461
The Russians are not going to worship in the same way as the Spanish.
01:45:05.461 → 01:45:08.441
The Spanish won’t worship in the same way as the Japanese.
01:45:08.441 → 01:45:10.081
There’s nothing wrong with that.
01:45:10.081 → 01:45:14.821
There’s going to be an ethnic, a racial, a national expression of Christianity.
01:45:15.501 → 01:45:24.001
As long as you maintain the right doctrine and that core of reverence, I don’t think you should be completely irreverent in church.
01:45:24.001 → 01:45:26.661
But different levels of that, right?
01:45:26.661 → 01:45:31.001
Germans are going to be a little more rule-bound, as it were.
01:45:32.161 → 01:45:35.001
The expressions are going to be different, and I think that’s a good thing.
01:45:35.001 → 01:45:38.281
God wanted diversity in this world.
01:45:38.281 → 01:45:39.861
Diversity is not a dirty word.
01:45:40.561 → 01:45:44.801
Diversity is a good thing that God wanted in its place.
01:45:44.801 → 01:45:50.961
The problem is when you have it mixed up in a way that destroys what God actually wanted.
01:45:50.961 → 01:45:53.881
You can think of it like invasive species, right?
01:45:53.881 → 01:46:04.781
There is a diversity of life on this planet, but if you have a species that’s supposed to be in one place and it’s in another, it’s going to be destructive to that environment because it shouldn’t be there.
01:46:04.781 → 01:46:07.441
Or it will get destroyed by the environment, which is actually the better outcome.
01:46:08.561 → 01:46:12.561
So, there’s nothing wrong with having these different expressions.
01:46:12.561 → 01:46:25.521
I wish that there were a significant Lutheran Church in Ireland, and in Spain, and in Italy, and I wish that those were respectively Irish, Spanish, and Italian.
01:46:25.521 → 01:46:26.941
That’s how it should be.
01:46:26.941 → 01:46:35.701
I don’t want the Irish to take the German Lutheran Church, transplant it into Ireland, and then go to church on Sunday and pretend they’re German.
01:46:35.701 → 01:46:36.401
That’s absurd.
01:46:37.241 → 01:46:40.501
I want them to be faithful Christians.
01:46:40.501 → 01:46:55.461
It happens to be, I believe, that is the Lutheran expression of Christianity, and so doctrinally and theologically, I want them to be essentially identical to the Germans, but not with regard to the praxis, because I want them to be Irish Christians.
01:46:55.461 → 01:47:01.501
The same as I want Americans to be American Christians, not French Christians or British Christians.
01:47:01.501 → 01:47:05.521
We’re going to express things in similar ways, because those are our cousins.
01:47:06.361 → 01:47:11.761
But they will be distinct still, because they’re different from us, we’re different from them.
01:47:11.761 → 01:47:21.421
So it’s not a larp to join a Lutheran church, because you’re not joining it because, oh, it’s German, or, oh, it’s Nordic, right?
01:47:21.421 → 01:47:23.961
The Nordics weren’t originally Lutheran either.
01:47:23.961 → 01:47:25.921
Lutheranism had to spread there.
01:47:25.921 → 01:47:33.961
And you could even think back all the way to the beginnings of Christianity in, you know, Greece and in Rome, right, for us Europeans.
01:47:34.061 → 01:47:40.821
Because it didn’t start off with the Germans, the Germanics being Christian.
01:47:40.821 → 01:47:47.061
We had to be re-Christianized, and the Celts had to be re-Christianized, and the Slavs had to be re-Christianized.
01:47:47.061 → 01:47:54.301
In fact, they had to have an alphabet given to them by Christians in order to spread the word for them, right?
01:47:54.301 → 01:47:58.421
So you’re not LARPing as a Lutheran.
01:47:59.281 → 01:48:04.201
You’re just being an Irish and Spanish, in this case, Lutheran.
01:48:04.201 → 01:48:12.181
You’re being what you are, but adhering to what you have been convinced is the actual true statement of the Christian faith.
01:48:12.181 → 01:48:15.781
So don’t pretend you’re German, because you’re not.
01:48:15.781 → 01:48:18.161
Don’t pretend you’re Swedish, because you’re not.
01:48:18.161 → 01:48:24.681
But being Lutheran is not inconsistent with being whatever you happen to be.
01:48:24.681 → 01:48:31.901
This is the same sort of thing that I get to explain to the ones who will listen anyway, neo-pagans and some others, right?
01:48:31.901 → 01:48:36.501
It’s not inconsistent to be a German and a Christian.
01:48:36.501 → 01:48:40.601
It’s not inconsistent to be an American and a Christian.
01:48:40.601 → 01:48:45.161
The inconsistency would be pretending you’re a Jew, which you’re not.
01:48:45.161 → 01:48:46.881
And you know what?
01:48:46.881 → 01:48:51.761
The one thing that above all certainly destroys a Jew is when he becomes a Christian.
01:48:51.761 → 01:48:58.901
Granted, I don’t think that that really happens these days, as some of my more recent posts on X certainly indicate.
01:48:58.901 → 01:49:16.161
But there’s nothing wrong with being a member of the denomination, the tradition of Christianity, that you believe is consonant with scripture, even if it is something that has been ethnically something slightly different from you, right?
01:49:16.161 → 01:49:20.861
And in this case, yes, it’s different, but it’s not a world of difference.
01:49:20.861 → 01:49:29.521
It’s not like I’m saying, you know, you’re Ugandan, and now you have to behave exactly like a German, and worship exactly like a German, and build your churches exactly like a Saxon, right?
01:49:29.801 → 01:49:31.801
That’s absurd.
01:49:31.801 → 01:49:34.021
So, it’s not a LARP.
01:49:34.021 → 01:49:44.001
What you’re doing is you are acting out your faith as you have been convinced of the truth by the Book of Conqueror, which is why I recommend people read it, because, you know what, go argue with those men.
01:49:44.001 → 01:49:45.221
Don’t believe me, argue with them.
01:49:46.061 → 01:49:48.081
See if what they say agrees with scripture.
01:49:48.081 → 01:49:49.521
If it doesn’t, great.
01:49:50.041 → 01:49:54.161
If you don’t believe it agrees, then find what you think agrees with scripture.
01:49:54.161 → 01:49:58.001
But if you believe it agrees with scripture, then become a Lutheran.
01:49:58.001 → 01:50:10.561
It may be that you have to have a home church for a period of time, and that’s true in Lutheran lands, historically Lutheran lands, as well as those that have not historically had a Lutheran church, because there are so many faithless churches these days.
01:50:10.561 → 01:50:14.881
And as I’ve gone over before in other episodes, there’s nothing wrong with having a home church.
01:50:15.521 → 01:50:19.561
A home church will many times be the best option around.
01:50:19.561 → 01:50:21.861
That’s how the church started out.
01:50:21.861 → 01:50:23.201
There’s nothing wrong with going back to that.
01:50:23.201 → 01:50:24.361
It’s unfortunate we have to.
01:50:24.361 → 01:50:26.861
It would be better if we had the cathedrals still.
01:50:26.861 → 01:50:32.541
But until they’re faithful, it’s better to have a small faithful church than a large faithless one.
01:50:32.541 → 01:50:34.741
So, no, it’s, in short, not larping.
01:50:34.741 → 01:50:36.621
There’s nothing wrong with it.
01:50:36.621 → 01:50:39.381
Just be an Irish Lutheran.
01:50:39.381 → 01:50:41.801
I’m an American Lutheran.
01:50:41.801 → 01:50:43.141
Nothing inconsistent whatsoever.
01:50:46.861 → 01:50:51.421
So, I think that is it for this week.
01:50:51.421 → 01:50:55.721
I will note down any questions I did not get to.
01:50:55.721 → 01:51:06.161
And as always, if I do not get to your question, if you put something in chat or elsewhere, I believe this chat is giving me all of my messages, but it might not.
01:51:06.161 → 01:51:08.741
It’s a plug-in and there’s concatenation and things.
01:51:10.261 → 01:51:19.501
If I have your question, I will put it into the growing thread on Omnifora of the pending questions that I have.
01:51:19.501 → 01:51:29.061
If you do not see it there, please go ahead and submit your question on Omnifora, or you can submit it via Telegram or X.
01:51:29.061 → 01:51:31.141
I am more likely to notice it on the forum.
01:51:31.141 → 01:51:32.981
I try to get to those first.
01:51:32.981 → 01:51:36.941
That’s what I went through for the first handful of questions for this episode and for previous ones as well.
01:51:37.721 → 01:51:43.461
That is the preferred way, because it is easier for me and easier for people in the future to search.
01:51:43.461 → 01:51:47.361
But that is it for this week.
01:51:47.361 → 01:51:52.881
Thank you for those who submitted the questions, and thank you for those who listened to the stream.
01:51:52.881 → 01:51:54.681
I always appreciate that.
01:51:54.681 → 01:52:10.821
And for those who listen for audio only, if you prefer audio only, or you just want it for your collection, whatever it happens to be, maybe you’re a digital pack rat, if you are so inclined, the audio is put out slightly higher quality audio when the recording goes well anyway.
01:52:10.821 → 01:52:14.761
I try to put that out in the day two, three, after the episode.
01:52:14.761 → 01:52:19.801
You can subscribe to that via the RSS feed on my website, coreyjmoller.com.
01:52:19.801 → 01:52:22.181
Just click on the podcast link.
01:52:22.181 → 01:52:24.201
And that will be it for me this week.
01:52:24.201 → 01:52:29.081
I hope you all have a great weekend, and God bless you, and go to church on Sunday.
01:52:29.081 → 01:52:30.081
I will see you next week.