The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_05Trump said the US would meet North Korea with fire and fury like the world has never seen. Kim said the US would pay a thousand fold for its heinous crimes. Trump called Kim rocket man. Kim called Trump a barking dog. Trump then tweeted, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before. Kim called Trump a mentally deranged US dotard, prompting millions to Google the word dotard. Trump responded, why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me old when I would never call him short and fat? Kim said, a nuclear button is always on my desk. Trump responded in a tweet saying, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food-starved regime please inform him that I too have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works. Kim then said, My dad's a policeman and I'm nuclear proof anyway, so there. Trump then said, Your dad's a poopy head and I'm everything proof times a million no returns. Kim then said, Your maternal hamster smells like elderberries. An insult which lost much in translation. Trump responded by saying, it takes un to know un, a joke which is much funnier written down. These are the men who this morning discussed the fate of the Korean peninsula, home to 75 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, these are not the leaders we need, but perhaps they are the leaders we deserve. At a time when global communications is a stinking cesspool of social media rage, this is what emerges. My social media feed is full of people who know how peace will emerge on the Korean peninsula, and yet they cannot properly use the word there. They're misusing their theirs and would have no clue how to spell that sentence, but they know how to usher in world peace. Trump and Kim are just the incarnations of how our online interactions generally go. Social media seems to be about yelling at avatars of real people. Like this social experiment where New Yorkers were encouraged to boo a picture of a baseball player who had just left their team.
SPEAKER_01Winners is in New York, not in Seattle.
SPEAKER_05But when they actually met the player in the flesh, it was a different matter.
SPEAKER_01Maybe try trying again. Should I try it again? Welcome back to New York. I'm gonna need you in New York. Hey!
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna put you, I'm gonna do you. I'm gonna actually do you. And this is our great hope. Trump and Kim, after all their words, got together this morning face to face, and that is a tremendous achievement. Who knows if their accord will bring lasting change, but this has to be the way forward, treating one another as human beings, and if possible, getting face to face. It's the way of peace. It's what God did. He came into our swirling cesspool, he absorbed the rage and the insults, and in response, he offered his face. Of course, we struck it, yet nonetheless, he rose again to turn the other cheek, to offer relationship once again. If we receive that relationship, that really is world peace. And it might even trickle into our online interactions. Unless you're a do tard. It's the 12th of June, this is Speak Life, and you're watching the live cast.
SPEAKER_03See you all. Sturtering on my lunch. Yeah, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_05You thought I'd be withering on a little bit longer on the ranch. Loads of time. No no shortened to the point. Um nice to see everybody. Yeah. Um uh Emily Wiles says hello. We've said hello back. I don't know if anyone else is uh watching on Facebook Live. If you're listening later on the podcast, you're missing out on quite a treat. Well you get you're getting the banter. Oh, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, I wasn't really listening to what you said.
SPEAKER_05Which you can do on a podcast, I guess, a little more. You can listen to us in double speed or something. And but you you miss our lovely faces. Yep, yep. Um no great loss.
SPEAKER_04Sally we've got a few others with us. Sally says thanks.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. You're welcome. Alan, hello, Roz from across the water. Uh James. James. Nice to meet you. Uh uh a recent liker of regular post regular commenter. Now a regular commenter.
SPEAKER_04Picking up on those comments there.
SPEAKER_05Good to see you all. Good to have you with us. Very good. So, how about that meeting between Rocketman and uh short and the dotard? Whatever, whatever that meant.
SPEAKER_03It's uh yeah, it's a bit strange, isn't it? Like, I don't quite know what to make of it. And I don't think anyone does, do they?
SPEAKER_05No, I mean Oh no, everyone knows exactly what to make of it. Like on the surface. That's that's certainly the way that they tweet.
SPEAKER_03But you know, is it is it legit? Like it is you know, people say is it a propaganda thing for Kim? You know, what's Trump doing? Should you be mixing with dictators? Right. All this kind of stuff. It's very Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Don't talk to strangers, don't don't have face-to-face meetings with tyrannical dictators.
SPEAKER_03Well, the thing I find a bit bizarre about it is just you know, they've been talking about uh North and South and the possible you know, hopefully one day they'd like to see a reunification and stuff, you know, that kind of thing's been thrown around at times. Yeah, yeah. And then of course there's this relationship happening now with the states and um North Korea. And the question that goes through my mind is, you know, let's say they kind of work this all out. Right. Like what happens to Kim Jong-un and that and that because if they reunify surely it won't be just like, well, you carry on being in charge, it won't work like that.
SPEAKER_05And that seems like I mean we might be a devolved parliament, if you're like, you know.
SPEAKER_03But also, I mean, like, even if they come to some agreements like in the States and that, you kind of think, isn't this a guy who, you know, like blew his uncle apart with an anti-aircraft carrier? Yeah, there is that. Like, do you just kind of sweep that under the rug? Yeah. You know, what do you do, or do you say actually it turns out you're actually a massive criminal? Yep. You know, human rights violations.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I mean, how do you how are you supposed to j because you want it it looks like a good thing that's happening? Yeah. It's pushing in a direction that at least looks like it could be promising, but you kind of think, how would you work out those bits further down the line? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know? Well, you know, I mean, with Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, and I'm I'm wary that uh Ros Allen is there um in Ulster, so she can she can police what I say. But um but you know, I mean, alongside the Good Friday Agreement, there were all sorts of people, you know, released from prison and and clemency and that sort of thing, you know, offered, y you g it kinda does go with the territory when you you do have to bury the hatchet or you know. I mean I mean South Africa, that sort of um what what was it called? The the Council for Truth and Reconciliation. So um Desmond Tutu and and and others were sort of leading the way in sort of trying to transition from apartheid to non-apartite, and and that that seemed to be an interesting way forward in in terms of loads of hearings in which the grievances of those who have been downtrodden are heard and lots of lots of truth was spoken before the reconciliation, which I thought was I th I think that's a that's a much more biblical idea, isn't it? Rather than just forgetting the past and trying to trying to erase it, um facing the horror of it and then forgiving, you know, truth and grace going together. Um But yeah, I mean it's a it's a huge deal that they they sat down together in the same room and absolutely there's all sorts of pop uh propaganda going on and there's all sorts of mixed motives in going on, but you know, at the end of the day they sign something that commits to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
SPEAKER_03I particularly enjoyed the BBC News article's description, they only came away with that good start. I mean, I've not done a huge amount this morning. Um seems like they're doing better than I am, so um yeah.
SPEAKER_05I mean, Professor Michael McFaul, I saw this on on um Twitter earlier. He's a he's a professor in Stan at Stanford University, and uh he did make an an interesting point. He said, How can Trump establish an excellent relationship with a North Korean dictator in 45 minutes? But he can't establish working relationships with our long-standing democratic allies after 18 months.
SPEAKER_06Yep.
SPEAKER_05You know, a little um reference to the G7 that was uh held over the weekend. I don't know if anyone saw this photograph. Um extraordinary. Look at that. Merkel Merkel kind of laying down the law and Trump. What's he saying? What's he saying right there?
SPEAKER_03Trump already looks like he's been photoshopped in at this point. Like he doesn't even look like he's making eye contact.
SPEAKER_05Doesn't look real, does it? Um speaking of Photoshop, people did uh make use of Photoshop quite nicely. So uh after that photograph went out, then there was this. Perfectly captures the moment. And then everyone on Twitter was calling this a Caravaggio painting.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um which I thought was was quite um, you know, I thought that was quite good. And then this tweeter says, if you're going to refer to a now famous photo as being like a particular artist's style, at least know the difference between Baroque and Impressionism. Then, you know, make it look like that very thing. Caravaggio, it ain't. Shoot. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the internet.
SPEAKER_03There you go. That's what the internet was made for. Stuff like that. Forget communication around the world. Meme.
SPEAKER_05Someone getting And then someone getting angry about the meme. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Correcting the meme. Making his own meme, because no one else's meme was quite as correct as his meme. And he didn't he didn't use a correct apostrophe. I don't know. So I'm I'm continuing the whole thing. Artists, a particular artist's style, it needs to be an artist apostrophe S. Anyway. So I see, right. Can someone Photoshop that in? Can somebody please? For me. For me, honestly.
SPEAKER_03But so Was that was that was that professor though? I mean, is he I can't work out from his his thing whether he's just having a he's just having a laugh at it, he's saying, you know, can't even do this after every month for 45 seconds. Or is he actually saying like is he actually a bit miffed about the fact that Trump and Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, no, he totally is face-to-face. Go to his feed and you'll see, yeah. Yeah. And you can understand, you know, it it it it's it's a photo call for Trump, you wonder. But you know, can God use it to to bring about peace on the Korean peninsula? That'd be astonishing. And and you know, the Berlin Wall came down, a apartheid ended.
SPEAKER_03And you've got to think this is surely better than the position we're in where one was shouting at the other across Twitter and bounced and forwards.
SPEAKER_05This Trump is better than the other Trump.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, this is probably Yeah. Probably a step forward.
SPEAKER_05Because they got face to face, you know, and I th I think that's the that's the beauty of it. Uh having hurled insults at each other over well, Trump was using social media.
SPEAKER_03I'm not sure they have Twitter in North Korea, so you know, he had to have state addresses to But wouldn't it be more funny if they'd had the courage of their convictions that as they met they were saying, No, I'm sitting here with this dotard. Yeah. You know, or selfie time. You know, where they really just they just Yeah they just went for it. Yeah. Part of me would have loved to have seen it just be completely honest and okay, dotard. You know, if you said it, just stick with it, stick by what you said.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, there was a bit of a massive kind of U-turn about how respectable and honourable Kim Jong-un was and all that kind of stuff. But you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, things like that have been said in the history of diplomacy. Um But it did it did remind me of that Jimmy Kimmel clip that we saw um in the monologue at the start. Just the the difference between yelling at an avatar and meeting a person flesh to flesh is just night and day. Like tot I don't I don't know if you've ever met someone offline for the first time and you've only ever known them online, but it's it's just a it's a totally different experience to kind of Yeah, I mean you're all right online. That's right, and now and now Oh man I'm I'm alright when I've got hundred by hundred pixels. That's like smudgy. Yeah. But that Jimmy Kimmel clip, Jimmy Kimmel's the name of the um uh the late night TV host who set up the social experiment where people were yelling at the baseballer called Robinson Carnot. And uh I thought I thought it was hilarious. It's just perfect.
SPEAKER_03It's it is brilliant just to see the way they change. You suck! Oh hey on a dime. Oh man. Yeah, but I I I wonder if there were any though, like because obviously they they would have selected those clips out of that selection. I wonder whether there were any who just went, yeah, you're terrible.
SPEAKER_05No, I don't think so. I think face to face just i is incredible, and I think I think that is the gospel. I think the gospel is that in the midst of these storms of back and forths and insults, you know, God showed up face to face and he said, Do you want a face-to-face? And we said, Nope. We did we did do the thing, but you know, we we punched the baseballer in the face, you know. Yeah, God shows up and we actually punched him in the face. Yeah. You know, and then put a crown of thorns on his head and strung him up on a cross. And we actually You know, so we struck him on one face, and then he rises up from the dead and he offers us the other face, the other the other cheek, which is one face, do you? Not a two-faced Jesus. But yeah, um that that would be uh the Nestorian heresy, as I'm sure all our viewers know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Familiar with Nestorian heresy.
SPEAKER_05You ought to be. You ought to be.
SPEAKER_03Come on, come on. I just don't remember anything.
SPEAKER_05Um Nestorius is sort of the double-headed monster Jesus, you know, kind of there's the there's the divine Christ and the human Jesus and you know, that kind of thing. Two-faced Jesus, basically. Okay, yeah. It was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Hey, hey, not just banter? We've not just banter. We've all learned something. Yeah. And um but yeah, no, the gospel is Christ showed up to offer us his face, we struck him, and then he rises up again and and turns the other cheek. And if you want that relationship, then then that really is peace. That really is reconciliation. And maybe if we know that reconciliation, it might flow out into the rest of life, maybe. Maybe. You'd hope it would, wouldn't you? You'd hope it would. I mean I I I get this wrong. You know, I I I got into a back and forth with a with with a with a Muslim on Twitter who I know from my Speaker's Corner days. And so, yes, Speaker's Corner is quite a robust interchange, if anyone's ever been there. Uh Hyde Park Corner on a Sunday afternoon. Um these days there's there's kind of like 200 Muslims and 100 Christians and and and they kind of uh speak and they dialogue, and it's it's a robust interchange. And uh and anyway, a guy from there sort of picked up a conversation with me on Twitter, and we were we were as robust on Twitter as uh as we ever were uh offline. And uh Yeah, that was unfortunate. That was unfortunate. We can we all fall in for fall into uh bad ways of just answering in kind. You know, a harsh word stirs up anger, as Proverbs 15, verse 1, but then it says a gentle answer turns away wrath. I think that's that's the great hope, isn't it? And and that at the end of that conversation I said I'm sorry, and and uh hopefully that's the way forward, isn't it? A gentle answer turns away wrath. Yep. Maybe. Which is interesting, because that that word turns away wrath is like that's how we describe the cross. You know, the cross is a sacrifice that turns away wrath. So the cross is basically, yeah, God answering kindly to us when we've only got anger to s to to to spread. And and then I guess the flip side of that is then when we try to offer kindness to people when they've just been harsh to us, it will feel excruciating. It will feel like a miniature cross.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. It's a sacrifice, it's brutal, isn't it? It's a brutal sacrifice.
SPEAKER_05But on the far side, hopefully there's the there's the resurrection of of face to face and and uh and peace. So yeah, no, watch this space and and you know, and just pray for for especially the Christians in North Korea. Um, you know, they pray for us and they pray that you know us in our relative ease and comfort would use that to spread the gospel. Um so let's let's let's pray for their protection, but also pray that the gospel spreads in North Korea, and that that becomes the the great source of of peace there in North Korea. Brilliant. Are we gonna do anything else about uh stuff in the news? What else is in the news?
SPEAKER_03I don't think there was anything. Well, obviously there is stuff in the news, but uh That's it. That's it, nothing else has happened. That's pretty much it.
SPEAKER_05Uh we won't talk about the the World Cup yet. There'll be there'll be plenty of time for England to be depressed. Oh man. Yep in the in the coming weeks. So let's not preempt that depression.
SPEAKER_03We've got a question about uh question here about the Kim Trump thing. Do you think it's possible or do you guys think it's possible Kim has become a Christian in secret? Wow. Wouldn't that be great? Wow. Yeah that's an interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Who would he tell? You know? Yeah. What would what would happen? What would it look like?
SPEAKER_03And you become a yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I mean Nebuchadnezzar, right? I mean he He had his, you know, Daniel 4 moment, he's, you know, obviously this incredibly powerful, proud despot who gets humbled and then Then he tells people about it though, doesn't he? Like he he then does write to his whole kingdom and and kind of say there's no other god but the most high and and things like that. But interesting.
SPEAKER_03Whether and whether it 'cause even though we assume he has this kind of ultimate power there, as he is if you wonder w could he just come out and say that would it would there be sufficient power to turn on him within the forces beneath him? Yeah. So that movie that would make him hesitant to just come out and say, Oh well I'm in charge and we're doing this now You know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't yeah, I don't think it'd last long, would it?
SPEAKER_03Well I don't know, that's what I'm saying. Like how 'cause there i it is my understanding is slightly different to a political leader, isn't he? In the sense that there's more of a worship thing going on. Yeah. So perhaps if they have that that's almost divine sense, maybe that that puts people off going against them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I don't know, maybe a Constantine moment. And then you know. Christendom two point oh begins in Pyongyang. How about that? That's that's you heard it here first. If you're looking for Christendom two point oh and who isn't?
SPEAKER_03Well, uh at the end of the day, you just don't know, do you? Who knows? It's possible that this, you know, someone like Saul can become Paul.
SPEAKER_05Saul can become Paul, Nebuchadnezzar can, you know, who knows converted what can happen to this guy. Cyrus's own heart can be turned and and you know, Constantine and who yeah. It's an interesting it's an interesting thought experiment, and let's be praying for it. And and it's interesting I've got a prejudice against a kind of an idea of a top-down thing. I'd far rather it be this grassroots, you know, thing, and somehow the church triumphs just by, you know, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church there in North Korea and and somehow but actually a a lot of you know global change, it is top down. It is top down.
SPEAKER_03And so I can understand, I mean, because I've read about the Constantine stuff that that I c I can I can't remember where I read it now, but I swear I read someone saying that uh in a sense that was the birth of nominal Christianity because because Christianity became the religion of the state, and so it was advantageous to be a Christian just from kind of social and economic purposes and therefore, you know, so what you got was a lot of kind of watered down people just saying, Oh yeah, I'm a Christian. Right. Um so you know, it was there was there was a positives, but there were also negatives to it. So you can see in this country how actually you know, you know, we're we we're coming out of that kind of nominal Christian thing, aren't we? People who were less likely to identify perhaps as Christian, although there's still loads who do. Um but we've certainly had a kind of my my grandparents would have certainly grown up in what I would describe as a nominal Christianity, you know, on the whole.
SPEAKER_05And now it's nominal atheism, isn't it? I think you know.
SPEAKER_03I mean I I always check out Jordan Pet the unbelievable. Have you seen the unbelievable saying about how he doesn't think a lot of people who claim they're atheists actually are atheists, you know, they're living out something else. No. Something very different. Yeah. So that's the unbelievable big conversation. Big conversations that they're having. Which is which is great. So the first one's out, isn't it? Yeah. Peterson and Susan Blackmore. That's right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I watched that the other day. Yeah, very good.
SPEAKER_05And they've got some great ones lined up. They've got Steven Pinker lined up, Daniel Dennett lined up, they've got um who's the Australian philosopher who says Infanticide is cool. What's his name?
SPEAKER_03Uh Singer.
SPEAKER_05Singer, Peter Singer. Peter Singer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not a singer. Singer. Hummy Few Buzz. Kill all your babies. Kill all your babies. It's okay, says Peter Singer. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03That's the bit the big conversation dot show, I think, isn't it? People can find that. Yep. If they want to check out those, they're worth a look. Yeah, definitely. So again, I mean the thing I was frustrated about by that whole thing, we're verging off topic here, but we couldn't. Justin Briley tried to pin down Peterson down near the end and say, What do you actually think about Jesus and whatnot? And I think even Susan said, you know, you've you're dodging the question here. Yeah. Do you think there was a man? And you know, you're saying we're all got this bit of divine in us, but he do you think he was something? Yeah, more divine in some way and did miracles. And he finishes by basically saying, um, render to Caesar Caesar, you know, what render to God's what is God's, that's a miracle. It's the separation of churches. Separation of judges' state, that's a miracle. Yeah. I'll leave you with that. You're like, Yeah. Come on, Jordan. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, at that stage you just wonder, does he worship the West rather than worshiping Jesus? You know, sure, yeah, yeah. I don't think he worships Jesus. Um, no. Is it is it the West and this idea of yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But it was a fascinating conversation still, and I think I think the rest are gonna be really exciting. And there's lots of big names, like you say, in it. Yeah. Um so it's by no means kind of Darren Brown. Darren Brown's on it, yeah. So it's the kind of people that actually um I think my atheist friends would know about. Right. Or my my atheist. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But they're not really either. Yeah. Um I think I think Peterson is getting that that idea of atheist nominalism. I think he's getting that from Nietzsche. He's a big fan of Nietzsche, um, an existentialist kind of um idea, because Nietzsche kind of critiqued humanism, you know, this this uh that's kind of atheism as Christianity light. It that's just Christianity light. You've just swapped out God for the good, and now you're worshipping the good rather than God. You have no foundations for good and evil, for goodness, truth, beauty, and love, and all those sorts of things. Um but you're still essentially Christians. You just you just say you don't believe in God, and but you you live in a Christian universe. Yeah, very essentially. Um so I yeah, I mean, and I I just when people say that they're atheists to me, I I don't really believe them. In the same way, you know, I always say if you're over 65 and you say you're a Christian, I don't believe you. You know, I'm not rude about it, I don't poke you in the chest, just say, prove it. Prove it, old man! You know.
SPEAKER_06What's your prayer life like?
SPEAKER_05I don't do that. But at the same point at the same by the same token, if someone's under 35 and they say they're an atheist, I don't believe them.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because both both kinds of people, they it's just has been very easy for them to take a label, put it on, walk out into the world as a Christian in the past, an atheist today. You don't have to put five minutes thought into the metaphysics involved in any of these things. It's just a label, right?
SPEAKER_03Sure, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So Christians don't be put off when you know your mate's an atheist. Well, like we we so often think, oh my mate's an atheist. Oh no, they're like doubly behind the eight ball, you know. Not only have they not got a concept of deity, they also don't believe that Jesus is that concept of deity. You know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I mean it's yeah, and I think the interesting thing is uh loads there'll be loads of people who we might consider as atheists, you know, atheist friends. But yet, you know, they're all there there's loads of people who are there then kind of into kind of very you know spiritual stuff, right? You know, despite the fact that they're they're they're they're denying a kind of religious thing, yeah. They're you know, organized religion is often the phrase, isn't it? I don't really do organised religion, right? You know, um but yet how many are are reading horoscopes, how many are yeah, you know, uh interested in the paranormal and all that kind of stuff. You know, there's a lot of stuff there, and I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying I'm just saying these people aren't really atheists. They think there is something beyond, you know, you know, uh uh someone I know just you know saying something like I know I'm gonna see this person again, you know, that kind of and you go, where'd that come from? Because as far as I know, this person's an atheist. I'm like, well, where where's this concept come from? So I think is there is a sense of that nominal atheism and yeah, or it's like in with the um the evangelism stuff that's been going on in Eastbourne in the last week, you know, something like a thousand people talked to in the streets, yeah, 250 people prayed with. Yeah. And you and you think most of those people, I imagine if you you would think they're probably a lot of atheists, yeah, but yet they're happy for you to pray with them. Yeah. So why? Why that why do they want prayer? What do they think that's doing? You know, they've got s there's something going on in there, something else.
SPEAKER_05I I was part of this, I was one of the there was about 60 odd people who went out from Eastbourne this last week and got into conversations with people, and I got into conversation with a guy called Kane, self-identified atheist. Um those are the first words out of his lips, really. Oh sorry, I'm an atheist. And we just within 30 seconds he was saying, Oh, I definitely believe there's something more, I'm just not sure about it, you know? And you just you know, like and again, it's this nom nominal atheism. And I'm not saying there aren't really thought through, and if you're watching and you're an atheist and you say, I've read all the books and I, you know, I've thought this through, yeah, fine, great. But just as I admit that there are nominal Christians, can you admit that there are nominal atheists? And I think there's a heck of a lot of nominal atheists, then we just need to be not put off by that and and and just say, Oh, which God don't you believe in? And they end up describing some kind of guy with a beard and a lightning bolt ready to hurl, and you say, Oh, I don't believe in Thor either.
SPEAKER_03A big hammer.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm not really into the Thor thing either. Can I talk to you about Jesus? You know, which God don't you believe in? And then to the the nominal Christian, I say, Well, which God do you believe in?
SPEAKER_03Because it's not always obvious that and that's I see being I mean, one of my things I've been relatively big on in some of my preaching to Christians, has been can we stop talking about the generic God? Yeah. You know, but and and it was the whole thing is you know, when you say God, you know, it was like, what are some of the words we use as Christians that people outside the church don't get? And of course, you know, I had people discuss it, and you know, of course you get like sin and stuff like that. Um and I think there were a few others, yeah, I can't remember exactly where they were. Um and I just and I said, Yeah, sin was definitely one of them that I'd kind of thought to myself, but the big one is God. Right. When you say God, you know, we're just assumed suddenly we're all talking about the same thing. But of course, people aren't hearing that, and I think we touched upon it the other week. We talked when we mentioned about how I preached on the Loki God, yeah, you know, from Avengers, like God is this figure who comes to he's a power figure who comes to crush you and submit you. Yeah, yeah, and all that. And we'll maybe touch on that a bit in the freedom thing anyway, but yeah. Um people are thinking of like you say, the old man with a beard sitting on a throne in the sky, yeah. Um who wants to just be in charge. Right. And you go, hang on, this is a bit different to when when you talk about God and I talk about God, we're talking about different things. Yeah. And I just see a lot of Christians talking very generically about God. Yeah. Um which I think, yeah. And uh hence um why it's such a good thing, I think, uh with stuff like 321 that we start with the Trinity. Yeah, right. And there's often this sense. I even had someone say to me once, a very competent, you know, Christian person in ministry say to me once, Oh, you're not one of those people who thinks we should talk about the Trinity and evangelism, are you? Hope not. But there's a sense, I think, amongst Christians that the Trinity is like it's like the advanced level Christianity. You know, once you've got all your basics, then we you know, if you if you feel like doing a bit more study, you can get into the deep stuff.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I think, yeah, more and more it is the distinctive thing, isn't it? What makes our God different from Allah or a lot of other gods? Yeah. Well, let's talk about the Trinity, the very nature of God Himself. Yeah. Um, but we're so reticent to do that and we so often talk generically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Huge mistake. And and then, because we we claim to be people who believe in the exclusivity of Christ, but you shoot yourself in the foot if you first of all define God in this really generic sense. Okay, there's some kind of you know, spiritual Novicane in the ninth dimension, this vibe. Let's call him God, right? And like everybody believes in that, right? And then you shoot yourself in the foot because then you say, Oh yeah, and by the way, this guy Jesus over here, yeah, yeah. He's the only way that you get to that other massive, you know, there's this incredibly broad generic reality over here called God, and then there's little Jesus over here. And like, and then you start, you know, then the exclusivity of Christ sounds like the most narrow, ridiculous thing in the world. It's like you've got to squeeze through this thing called Jesus, and then you get to the God. Whereas if you just bite the bullet and you believe in the exclusivity of Christ from the outset, then you just say, Okay, when I'm thinking about God, I'm thinking about a bleeding victim with his arms outstretched to the world, loving his enemies, right? That's that's what I'm thinking of. I don't know what you're thinking about. But it's just somewhere on the same, you know, sheet. I I you know, I I think it's Jesus. And therefore you you believe in a in a Jesus-shaped God and a God-sized Jesus, and then it's not this weird kind of I've got to squeeze my way through the narrow Jesus way to get to the big God thing. And it's just good news, because you're just saying, you know, the only God that there is is the Jesus God.
SPEAKER_03Which is always why I found it I think I always found it so hard. The kind of classic ways I've been taught to share the gospel, you know, you've got the the kind of you know, God creates the world and he creates people and it's all good. People rebel against God, and there's judgment, you know, there is the the wages of sin is death. And it's like, okay. Um and now here's Jesus. Who's this guy? And Jesus is God. And I remember doing this to like teenagers in like secondary schools, you know, and they'd be like, hang on a second, I thought Jesus was the son of God. Well he is the son of God, but he's also got, well, hang on, which is and you're going, yeah, well you're kind of this backpedaling, kind of going, oh man, I've Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then you're starting to think maybe Trinitarian evangelism has a place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Maybe I should have started there, you know. Right. Um Yeah, so and I th so I think it is much better to start with that, start with the Trinity. Just lay out who God is.
SPEAKER_05Well the thing is if you if Jesus comes in late, you've got a you've got you've got two options, okay? If if you've already defined God and you've already defined man, then Jesus comes in, and then then now you've got a choice. Like, so who is he? Is is is he other than God? If he's simply the son of God, then okay, he's less than God. So he sinks down into the line of the prophets, and you've got Islam, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Or you just say, oh no, he is God, right? And then that's the heresy of uh one of those Trinitarian ones. One of those Trinitarian like Mordalism Patrick. That's Mordalism Patrick. Uh you need to see that.
SPEAKER_03Lutheran satire. Lutheran YouTube, if you don't know what we're talking about there. St. Patrick's bad analogies.
SPEAKER_05We don't know our heretics, but we do know Lutheran Saturn. Um Yeah, so at that at that point, Jesus then is the God that you began with. The father turns into the Son. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You get this sense of like God has come out of heaven, like almost like heaven's empty, and God's just come down and wandering around and is limited there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And then people always ask, well, who's he praying to? Because he's praying all the time. Yeah. Like if he's paying a debt to God, I thought he was God. What's going on?
SPEAKER_03And it's Well, he's like steam and water.
SPEAKER_05That's modalism. And it just doesn't work. And and actually it makes you think that actually the tr the Trinity clarifies rather than complicates. Like when you're not Trinitarian, that's what complicates your evangelism.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think as well, sometimes we feel the reason we struggle with wanting in not wanting to explain the Trinity is because we we feel we don't have the how can God be three and one thing. We don't we feel we don't have the perfect. We're looking for an analogy and we don't have a proper analogy. But it's kind of okay just to go, well, this is this is what it is, you know. Three persons in one, you know. One God. There you go.
SPEAKER_05Uh three who's one what. Yeah. There you go. And just let it be.
SPEAKER_03Right. Um and go.
SPEAKER_05If there's anything worse than Trinitarian analogies, it's our perceived need for them. Like, why do you think you need one?
SPEAKER_03Like Yeah, that's true. It's not like scripture lays anything else out, is it? An analogy for it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Rather the opposite. Isaiah says, To whom shall you compare me? And we're like, I know. How about? Three leaves. Three states. Or an egg. Or you know how with a banana, you put your finger down there and you get three verses. Behold our God. It's like to what shall you compare me? I give you the banana.
SPEAKER_03The banana.
SPEAKER_05Whereas actually, like, like, so I I kind of push back when some people say, So you begin with the Trinity. I kind of I want to say I begin with Jesus. And it's just that Jesus is doctrine of God, Jesus' doctrine of the world, Jesus' doctrine of you is what gives you 3, 2, 1. Um, so when you begin with Jesus, well, but as soon as you've got Jesus, he's the Son of the Father, full of the Spirit, and you know, you can't be anything but Trinitarian. Sure, yeah, yeah. Um and that that sort of hopefully staves off a little bit of the accusation that, you know, we're meant to begin with a creed or something, or big you know, begin with a philosophical statement about threeness and oneness. I don't care about philosophical statements about threeness and oneness, but when you begin with Jesus, the only doctrine of God you can have is Trinity.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, and I spray it gets difficult, doesn't it? Because you can easily if you start just with the generic God, you can easily end up almost having Jesus, like you say, is this other figure who comes to save us from the big bad figure in the sky. Yeah. Um, you know, and you know, Jesus is the one who does all the nice stuff like coming and dying for us, and there's this nasty figure up there who he's trying to placate.
SPEAKER_05Um the cross of Christ, John Stott says that's that's the big problem with our doctrines of the atonements. Like we we we can't understand the self-substitution of God that's happening at the cross unless we're Trinitarian. Because if we're not Trinitarian, then we've just got, you know, who's this guy who just rocks up and God just zaps him with a thunderbolt so that he can zap me with blessings.
SPEAKER_06Like Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then you say, and now will you trust God? Like, no. Like that's what he does to Jesus. But if it's God in Christ reconciling the world to himself, then that's a Trinitarian doctrine of the atonement, and it's you know, yeah, it just paints a very different picture, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_03Very different picture entirely.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03How do we get onto this? I don't know. I don't know. Start with Jordan Peterson. We moved on to Jordan Peterson and nominal atheism, nominal Christianity.
SPEAKER_05I think we're sponsored by Jordan Peterson, and we cannot go to the entire episode without mentioning him. But uh Yes, because that was part of the big conversations and uh things like that. I don't know why we got onto that though. Um I've got a friend who can literally he can trace back like every every single like bifurcation in the conversation and he says, you know, this is when we talked about that, and then before that we talked about that before. Isn't that a weird skill?
SPEAKER_03It's like Is it a condition? No.
SPEAKER_05It's so not what I can do. I can't do anything like that. Carmen Shi says, loving this chat. Thank you, Carmen. Good. I'm sure you wrote that before we just went off the rails.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is not at all scripted now. It's just completely off. Just saying whatever comes into the top of my head.
SPEAKER_05Random. Random. Um anyway, so that's we've um saved the world with Kim and Trump.
SPEAKER_03It's brought about or will be soon.
SPEAKER_05Because it's about face-to-face people. It's about face-to-face.
SPEAKER_03Um we say to you through the medium of your screen.
SPEAKER_05Well, you know, this is an image at least. Um Good. Shall we talk about the thorny question for this week?
SPEAKER_03So the thorny question this week was, won't Jesus rob me of my freedom? Yes. Which is that your answer? Wow, this has got awkward all of a sudden. No, is that is that wrong?
SPEAKER_07What?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so we were thinking about this question, won't Jesus rob me of my freedom? And I suppose that comes that ties in slightly with what we talk about about you know, defining God, is that people often think of God as that figure, as we said, the Loki figure who wants to come and take your your freedom. Yeah. And I think there's a great scene in the Avengers film, yeah, the first Avengers film, where Loki comes and he says, You know, I come with a gift, the gift of uh I want to set you free, free from freedom. Free from freedom. Free from freedom. Yeah. And he says, you know, freedom is humanity's great lie. Right. Which actually, you know, we we touch upon a little bit at the beginning of the video, don't we? Yeah. Who is truly free? Yeah. You know, because we're all enslaved, the Bible talks about being slaves to sin. But even on outside of that, you know. I mean, I remember a friend at university um saying to me, like, she couldn't understand how I could be a Christian, because she said, I just don't understand how you can have something outside of you that is your you know, that is in control of you, so you want to do when I and at the time, you know, I didn't really know what to say. But um of course the truth is, I mean, she as much has things outside of her which are in control of her, right. Uh as anyone does, you know. Right even even on the most basic levels of you know, you're not free to walk down the street and just stab someone in the face. Right. You know? And that's I think that's a good thing, generally. Yeah. Um not generally all the time. It's not it's not excusable in any but you know, that that there this illusion of freedom. Yeah, you know, and and again, I suppose part of that comes in our in our in our evangelism, that we can perpetuate the illusion of freedom in our evangelism sometimes. That we we talk about you know you you're on the throne or you're on the throne of your life.
SPEAKER_05You could call your evangelism the choice we all face. Yeah, as though is there anyone from Sydney watching? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03But this idea, of course, you know, that you people are in a position, you know, either we've rebelled against God or we've submitted to God. Yes. Um and you know, we need to make this choice to come back to God.
SPEAKER_05Um Carmen is from Sydney, I've just seen. As is Eleanor Greenwood. So, you know.
SPEAKER_03Um they can't reach us here. Um But um what are we saying? Uh so this this idea that you know you need to make a choice, it's like we're these free free beings who have actively gone our own way and you know, and now need to come back and stop being so rebellious. Um and obviously there's elements of that which is true, but you know, the Bible so often talks about us being slaves and captives and all that kind of stuff. Right. And I think when you talk so uh again, part of my issue in in some of that evangelism, evangelism has been we you we say to people, you know, you're rebellious, look, you do this. Have you ever stolen anything, you know, paper clips from work or whatever, because gods we we like to make God sound really petty. Yeah, you know, and they say, Oh yes, of course I've stolen paperclips, and we say, Oh well, you're a thief and you're gonna hell. Um and you just think that sounds like the most ridiculous thing, and no wonder people sit there and balk at that. But actually and and I think I think though that when you start talking about what about those things that enslave you in your nature and you know, your in your very being so being rather than behaviour. People everyone can connect with that, I think. Everyone can connect with, you know, don't you put stuff up, don't you tell yourself you're not gonna do that again, but yet you find yourself doing it. Right. Don't you kind of find yourself sometimes you know, letting yourself down and whatever it is. I think those deeper kind of drives Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And is it tied to a doctrine of God as well? So if God is simply a power above you, then what is the punchline to that gospel presentation going to be? Like it must be bow. Like, it's gotta be that. Submit. Submit. And there's there's a great religion out there, and if you want to go and do that, you know, go for your life. There's 1.6 billion of them, yeah. And and there is there is a power above, and the whole doctrine is that we are to bow before that power above, and the very essence of it is submission, and within Muslim countries, the you know, the number one name for for boys is Abdullah, which means a slave of Allah, you know, and that's that is that's the high the highest and best that you can be as a slave of Allah. But if God is a father loving his son in the joy of the Spirit, and the Son comes to be you know, becomes your brother in order to invite you into the family, then you can be a heck of a lot more than a slave. You know, you can actually come home to family love.
SPEAKER_03Be a child of God. Come sit on the throne.
SPEAKER_05Come sit on the throne. Isn't that isn't that interesting that the Bible ends, you know, in Re Revelation 3 You know, that that actually the the great promise to the to the seventh church is is that come down and sit with me on my throne, says Jesus, just as I sat down on my father's throne. You know. So in a sense, the gospel is at the beginning, Adam abdicated his rule. Like he was meant to rule and reign, you know, in obedience to God's word, absolutely. Um, but he abdicated that rule. Sure. You know, and he listened to the voice of his wife who listened to the serpent, and it was kind of the great reversal of rule. It wasn't he didn't take charge. Yep. He abdicated. The great problem was that man abdicated, not that man st you know, ruled. I mean, I I I know that there are other ways of conceptualizing it that are also true, but here's one perspective man abdicated, then Christ came and said, Now join me on my throne.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Which is which is the opposite of, you know, your big problem is that you're on the throne and and now get off.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very much so. It's very different, isn't it? Very different indeed. But is it is it Martin Luther who said something like people are ridden like a beast, either ridden by God or Christ or by the devil? By the devil or God. Yeah. And that's and that's where, you know, I know both you and I have used that um the illustration from the Mitchell and Webb sketch, you know, we the baddies, where they where they're Nazi soldiers and they're kind of looking around and they begin as they weigh up the evidence to go, hang on, there's a skull and crossbone. Why is there skull and crossbones on everything? Why are we wearing them? Skulls and crossbones. What kind of army marches under skull and crossbones? Skulls are quite funny.
SPEAKER_05Pirates wear skulls.
SPEAKER_03And there's this whole bit where they're discussing that, and there's this moment of realization where one of them just goes, Hans, are we the baddies? And I think that's what it's like with Yeah, I've I've definitely preached, uh I think it was on Ephesians 2, you know, saying, you know, that as we look at ourselves, that that should be our realization. Are we the bad guys? Are we the bad guys? Oh actually we are. Yeah. You know, you know, enslaved to sin, the world, the devil, or the flesh, the world, and the devil. Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's not I'm over here independent, go me, I'm so free. It's you're enslaved to the flesh, the world, and the devil. Yeah. And I don't think we're great sometimes at doing that, saying that in our evangelism tends to be more rebellious. And I think we've talked about it before, you know, it's great for the rebellious 14-year-old teenage boy. Right. Um and we often reduce it, don't we? I see a lot of it in youth work and it it why i I don't like it. It's the sin, you know, when they say sin is stands for shove off God, I'm in charge, no to your rules, or whatever it is. The acronym, yeah. The acronym there. Um which, you know, in one sense is is not a bad thing. Um but if you leave that purely as your definition, I mean I I I've said uh a few times, said that the problem I have with it is that that says nothing to the the legalistic teenager sitting there going, Well, I'm not saying stuff I've got, I'm saying, you know, I want to be good and I'm trying my best, you know, you know, and actually trying to obey the law.
SPEAKER_05I'm the faithful one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. So unchanging.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, so actually there needs to be more than that.
SPEAKER_05Um and it also doesn't reach I often say it doesn't reach the three M's, it doesn't reach the Muslim, the meth head, and the mother, right? Yeah. So so the the Muslim immigrant who is like sending every penny home, who's working himself to the bone, who, you know, is is serving Allah in in all that he tries to do that that man is still s is still enslaved and he's still sinning, right? But do we have a de definition of sin that takes account of that? Or the meth head who's not trying to rule his own life, in fact, he he is abdicating. Totally abdicating. Or and and the mother, you know, is it's just because of the alliteration, but you know, the the but you know, the the the single mum who has given herself to unworthy man after unworthy man after unworthy man, and and those men are sinners too, but but if she is a sinner and everybody's a sinner, what does her sin look like? It doesn't look like she's trying to take charge of her life. She's actually abandoning her life in all sorts of wrong ways. And that too is wrong, you know? Yeah, absolutely. What kind of definition of sin? And and so when we ask the question, Will Jesus rob us of our freedom? I think one of the first things we need to say is, what freedom? Rob us of what? Like what now? We don't have it. And that's kind of where our video begins. So should we have a look at uh just a couple of minutes of this first video, which includes a terrific uh uh comedy clip from Key and Peel. We hope you enjoy it. Christians sometimes wear t-shirts saying Jesus saves. Sometimes atheists reply, Jesus slaves. Ooh, rush me to the burn unit. But maybe the atheists have a point. It seems like bringing God into your life could only limit your freedom, right? Well, Jesus disagrees. He insists that he hasn't come to take our freedom because we don't have any. In a famous passage about freedom, Jesus says, Whoever sins is a slave to sin. And that means all of us. We're all addicted to being in charge, addicted to being right, addicted to short-term pleasures that only end up enslaving us. In our bid for independence, we run away from our home in God and we get lost. Like the prodigal son from Luke 15, far from home, we've chased a false view of freedom and have only wound up enslaved.
SPEAKER_03That's because freedom is not about making your own truth, it's about submitting to it. We often think that freedom means not having any restrictions on what we do, but true freedom is not the absence of restrictions, it's the presence of the right restrictions that fit with the givenness of your nature. So for example, you'll often hear people say that if you put your mind to it, you can do anything you want.
SPEAKER_02I can flip! Anybody can fly if you believe in yourself the way I believe in myself to money. You what's the next one? You can't get a little bit of kids, you're kidding me. You can do anything!
SPEAKER_03That makes for a great motivational tool. But you also need to face reality.
SPEAKER_00First and foremost, I just want to say the twelve families who lost children. Sorry, my statements were irresponsible. I subsequently looked up the terms literally and metaphorically, and found that whereas I was not incorrect, they did not mean what I thought they meant.
SPEAKER_03Whereas I was not incorrect, they don't mean what I thought they did.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely brilliant. Keen appeal. You can fly, no, you can't. No, you actually can't. Actually reminded me of um the fly thing. When when my mother dropped me off for the last time at university, Freshers Week, and I still remember we'd sort of unpacked the last box and she was about to return to the car and drive, drive back home and to leave me into the the freedom of Freshers Week. I remember with a tear like coming down the cheek, she hugged me, and her last words to me were, Glenn, just fly, Glenn. Just fly. And that's kind of how you feel, isn't it? You you you feel you feel that that's you know, that's freedom. Freedom is to be released into Freshers Week, where you could go anywhere and do it and become a whole new kind of person. But of course, in Freshers Week, you're ne you've never seen such lost people in your life. Just I mean, physically nobody knows where anything is. No one knows where the library is. Of course, three years later they still don't know where the library is, but still you know, but they and then the then the the wisdom is that you've got to find yourself, you know. But isn't it ridiculous? If you're lost and you find yourself, um you've just found a lost person. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Still lost in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_05Like, I need to find myself, but you're lost. Finding a lost person has never much help. So still lost. Still lost. And and isn't it interesting, like our modern version of freedom sounds a lot like the biblical uh definition of lostness. Our our our human view of freedom is that we run away from home, we've got the wind in our hair, the horizon beckons, and we're just by ourselves. And actually the Bible's like, okay, so you're a runaway from home, you're all by yourself. Um the money's gonna run out, isn't it? And you'll find yourself in a pig sty. And that's called being lost. That's not cool being free. Yeah. You know. So we actually need someone to come and find us and bring us home, which I guess that's that's what Jesus has come to do. Yeah. You know, not to not to cramp your style or rob you of your freedom. But to reveal to you, nope, you don't have you're not free. You're actually a slave. Let me bring you home. You know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And and you know, I think we mention you know, we mentioned, don't we, that uh you're you you can have free freedom doesn't mean like you say, no restrictions at all when we use the illustrations, don't we? Of the you know, the doctor telling someone as they get older, now you you can't just eat whatever you want now. You're gonna have to you know if you want to stay healthy, then you probably need to restrict what you're doing here. You have to limit your freedom or the musician who limits their freedom of their time or whatnot. By practicing and by practicing all those things. Um Yeah. So the the idea that you can just do anything, and that's what being free is.
SPEAKER_05Such a nuts definition of freedom, isn't it? Like that you can go anywhere and do anything, like so it's so limited, you know, which is what's ironic about it. And yet, you know, Jesus confronts these people in in John chapter eight who thought that they were free. And like he says in John 8, verse 31, to the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And it's such a, you know, a glorious phrase that you think it should be cross-stitched onto a wall hanging and the truth will set you free. But it's really insulting, because he's saying you guys are liars and slaves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. By implication, you are not free if someone says you will be set free.
SPEAKER_05You are deluded, right? You need the truth because you're deluded and you're slaves. And of course, they then go and prove how deluded they are and how enslaved they are by saying, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we should be free?
SPEAKER_03And you're like, the descendants of Abraham are almost definitionally slaves by What was that big thing that happened to you guys in Egypt somewhere?
SPEAKER_05Like haven't they been enslaved by? Yeah. Not just the Egyptians, but you know, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks. And can you imagine being a Roman centurion just overhearing them saying?
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_05Not not slaves of anyone, okay. Yeah, whatever. So it j it just goes to show how very deluded we are and how very enslaved we are. And then Jesus explains at verse 34, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Which is interesting, because like sin in the Bible, it's not just you know transgressing and doing naughty things, but it it it is that matter of the heart. And it it's it's that matter of what it is that you love has been twisted and perverted and changed and takes you down the wrong path, and that's what's enslaved you. Which again makes you think actually our modern notion of freedom is is pretty similar to the Bible's notion of sin. Like our modern notion of freedom is just is follow your heart.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_05And the Bible is like, Yeah, well, where's that gonna get you? You know, the the pig sty.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_05And then beautifully, Jesus says, Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. So actually he's bringing back that language of family. And again, here's the Trinity, the son of the father becomes your brother, joins you in the pig style, takes responsibility for all that sin, rises up again to bring you to the family home. And then I mean when you're home, that's when you're free, right? You know, I th I think that I want to find myself. Actually, I want to find home, you know. And then when I'm home, I can just be myself. I don't have to find myself, I can just be myself. And that's what freedom really is. And from the outside, that kind of love relationship looks like it comes with a lot of strings attached. It might look like it comes, you know, when you get married, you're like, you know, or you're so born and chain. The born and chain in it. Um But you know, as we say in the video, th there are a lot of cultures where when you get together with somebody, you inscribe your initials and their initials on a lock, and you lock yourselves together, put it on the bridge, throw away the key. Because you're saying, actually, I want to be joined to this person forever, and that doesn't feel like slavery, that feels like love, feels like freedom, you know? Different a different idea of freedom. But it's an idea of freedom that that really takes into account our humanity, because if if our human if we were made to be an island, if I was made to be an island, an individual, a decision-making individual who can do anything and go anywhere, then maybe freedom would be what we understand it to be in the West, you know, my ability to go and do anything. But if I'm if I belong to you and you belong to me, and if we're in if we are these communal beings, then my very identity is caught up in relationships that bring with them bonds, bonds of love. But but, you know, if you if you see it from just the the individualistic Western perspective, then those things are just shackles that you know must be thrown off. But to throw them off is to throw off who I am. Because I'm a I'm a creature in relationship with others. So freedom's gotta be a relational thing. You know, coming home, coming home to love.
SPEAKER_06You know?
SPEAKER_05So come home, come home everyone, to the love of Jesus who sets us free, free even from ourselves, which is the biggest slavery we can have. Um brilliant. Oh, I think that'll do us for this afternoon. Yeah. Is that a good one? It's been it's been a good one. Carmen Chi says it's a good one, so that's good enough for us. Um thank you guys. Uh, please do keep chatting in the uh in the comments, and uh I'll have a little bit of time to respond to comments now. Um but if you do not already like us on Facebook, please do um go to the Facebook page, give us a like, and even like prioritize us in your feed, because otherwise I don't know about your Facebook feed, but I only ever hear from the same 12 people like over and over and over again. Um and so if you want to actually hear from us, prioritize us. See first, isn't that what they should click?
SPEAKER_03Uh I think it's at the top of my at the top of the page, Speak Life page, there's a section I think that says follow or something like that. Click on it, and you've got an option there to put click see first in your newsfeed. So if you know this or you know other pages are things you want to see and not miss, click on it and you won't miss us.
SPEAKER_05Top tip, top tip. Uh subscribe to us on YouTube. Uh if you like listening, if you're a podcast kind of a person, go and search for the Speak Life Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and uh you'll get a version of this on Friday. So next week on the live cast, uh I'm not gonna be here in person, but uh I I have recorded uh an interview with Andrew Wilson, which was a terrific uh back and forth between him and myself, where I tried to convince him that the Good Samaritan was actually a parable about Jesus and the gospel. And and you can see, you can tune in next week and see if Andrew was in any way persuaded um by that kind of interpreter maximalism. But um, so that's next week, and he'll be talking about his book Echoes of Exodus. And uh we'll have another thorny question coming out on Monday. Great, good, well, good being with you, Paul. And you already fun. God bless. See you.