Dr Brian Simmons: Seventeen Years, A Bible Completed, And The Surprising Books That Changed Everything

Seventeen years, one audacious goal, and a finish line that arrived at 12 noon on 12/12 while closing Ecclesiastes 12. We sit down with Dr Brian Simmons to celebrate completing the Passion Translation and to open the doors he walked through along the way: Ezekiel’s piercing demands, Leviticus as a pathway to heal communal trauma, and a Revelation that burns brighter when you read the Greek closely and let metaphor do its work.

Brian shares how accuracy and devotion shaped every page—why Ezekiel required deep restraint, how footnotes became a pastoral space to guide readers through difficult texts, and why Revelation’s “fire horse” changes the feel of apocalyptic imagery. We move into the overlooked beauty of the Torah: Leviticus re‑introduces a wounded people to a faithful God, and Numbers’ forty‑two stations map the inner journey from bondage to promise. These aren’t dry notes; they’re lived realities, tied to family legacy, a jungle snake‑bite miracle, and the joy of welcoming new grandchildren while closing a life’s work.

Our focus then tightens on Job. We talk about suffering with honesty: the adversary behind the scenes, the patience that sees “the end of the Lord,” and the wisdom of silence before arguments harden into condemnation. Job’s turning line—moving from hearing about God to seeing God—becomes a mirror for modern faith. Repentance reads not as self‑hatred but as recanting distorted views of God, a shift that precedes restoration and invites us to pray for those who wounded us. Along the way, Brian reflects on translating in Bethlehem, why walking the land of Israel anchors the text, and extends an open invite to explore Job with us at Kingdom Collaboration.

If you’re hungry to read the Bible with new eyes—to trade secondhand faith for firsthand encounter—press play. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who loves Scripture, and leave a review telling us which book surprised you most.

To contact Dr Brian: www.passionandfire.com

Transcript

Finishing The Passion Translation

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Today on the Greatest Things Podcast, I'm back with Dr. Brian Simmons. He is the lead translator on the Passion Translation. And he has just finished translating the entire Bible. So I thought I'd jump on a conversation with him, see how that was, to see what challenges he had in that, and some of the wonderful things that are ahead. Hope you enjoy. Well, today on the Grote Things podcast, I'm back with a good friend and Dr. Brian Simmons is in a state of retirement, but also celebration. How are you, Brian?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm doing good. Good to see you, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

It's great to see you. Um would love for you to share with the listeners why you're celebrating as much as you are at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Well, after 17 years of working on the Passion Translation for virtually every day, I have finished. And the crazy thing, Matt, was I finished on December the 12th at 12 noon as I finished Ecclesiastes 12. So it was 12, 12, 12, 12. And uh it's just what a thrill. I mean, it's my love gift to Jesus. It's all I can do. I feel like I'm a little drummer boy, and all I can do is rump a pum-pum on my drum. And uh my drum happens to be this passion project, but to give it to him and let him be glorified, let him take it and use it as he chooses. Uh, for me, it's obedience. It was obedience to do what he he called me to do. I've been I'm thrilled to have it completed.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

There's two things there, mate. Uh, when I started Greater Things with my wife, it was on the 12th with the 12th uh as well. And um, it was uh one of those journeys of the heart to step into something new, to do something. So when you said that, even in the Zoom that I was a part of yesterday, it was just like, yeah, this really resonates inside of my spirit. The second thing that really blessed me when sitting in that Zoom with hundreds of people wanting to celebrate you, finishing that, was listening to Joy talk and cry uh through what this thing meant to her and how generationally now this is going to be a standard for years to come where it'll be affecting people that in generations you haven't even even imagined yet. Like, how did you feel when your daughter was saying those kinds of things about Joy?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah, that's awesome. And of course, she's had a front row seat. Um, Joy was uh in the jungle with us as missionaries and uh pastored with us there at uh in New England and Connecticut. And now actually a neighbor, she's about a 15-minute drive from our home. So we get to see her uh weekly, if not more frequently. So yeah, Joy, our middle daughter, she's such a treasure to us. And I think we told you about the miracle of her snake bite in the jungle. She was bitten on her ankle by a uh pit viper known as a bushmaster, and she uh she was healed, God spared her life. Uh, it was really serious. I mean, very, very life-threatening. And uh now she has quite a testimony. How many people do you know have been bitten by a snake uh out in the jungle where there's no menace?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, it's amazing. And you also told us yesterday, mate, you're four days into being a new grandparent again.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Oh, yeah. Oh my lord, thank you, Jesus. He loves us so much, he keeps giving us grandkids. I love it. So I, you know, we want to we want to follow the mandate God gave in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. And our multiplication years are through our kids and grandkids, and now five great-grandkids. So we're looking forward to uh being a five-generation family here. Uh, not gonna rush it, but we've got a um a teenager, uh great grandchild who is a teenager, believe it or not. So the day will come when um somebody will win her heart and uh she'll get married and hopefully give us another great, great grandchild. Great, great, great grandchild, and uh we'll celebrate, take some five-generation pictures.

The Long Road: Early Releases

SPEAKER_01 4:32

I'd love to see those come up online. That'd be an incredible celebration. Well, Maith, congratulations on finishing the passion translation. I know, like you said, that there's a lot of work yet still to be done in the editing phases and all that sort of stuff, but getting through that, um, it's just want to take a moment to celebrate with you and just praise God for.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Oh, thank you. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, I was trying to I was trying to remember when I first read the Passion Translation and back back in the day when you used to release them book by book, um uh and I'd go down to the Christian bookstore and find the next one, look for the next one. And that's uh that's gotta be maybe 15 years ago. I don't know. Like when was it but when did you release Song of Songs?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Um, I believe it was the end of 2009. Um, but I don't think Kurong had it for a couple of years later. So probably around 2011 or 12 is when you were were finding it in the in the bookstores. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I remember my wife coming home with this the Song of Songs First, and she it's just it became her favorite book of the Bible, and uh to this day she will still quote uh phrases out of that. So it's just been for us, uh it's just been such a treasure, and um it's been something that I recommend to anyone to read. I've got a copy right here beside me on the desk as well that stays with me. So yeah, mate, just wanted to celebrate with you.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Oh, thank you. You're very kind.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

What was the most challenging book for you?

Leviticus As Trauma Healing

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Well, you know, I'm asked that a lot, and my answer really surprises people. But it was the book of Ezekiel. Uh it's it's long, it's a lot of uh chapters, and it's very mystical, but there were some chapters in Ezekiel that just really, really puzzled me, made me dig deep. And uh, you know, I felt compelled by the spirit to be as accurate as I could in the book of Ezekiel because I knew people could easily misunderstand some things. So I added a lot of footnotes, and there's a character or trait or quality or attribute, that's the word I want, an attribute of God that you see in the book of Ezekiel that uh, you know, for people who think God does not judge sin, they need to read the book of Ezekiel. And watchmen are given a responsibility to tell people of impending doom, or God will require the watchman's blood life, uh, you know, for for sparing uh others from hearing that message. So yeah, those chapters grip me. Maybe it was me being touched deeply by God throughout that book. Um I just finished uh the book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes. I love the the uh poetic literature of the Hebrew text. Um, I love doing those books, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Job and Ecclesiastes. But uh there were some uh there were some aha moments in both Job and Ecclesiastes that really got my attention. Um believe it or not, I love Leviticus. Nobody likes Leviticus, they don't read it, they skip over everything. Well, I think you're gonna really, I've said this to a couple of people, but I think you're going to be surprised when you read the book of Leviticus and you understand it, where you suddenly realize that God was healing the trauma of the golden calf, dancing around the golden calf. All of the book of Leviticus takes place at the foot of Mount Sinai. They were camped there and they had horribly sinned against the bridegroom God, the God of the ages. They horribly sinned against him because Moses was up there, you know, getting the tablets of the law, and he delayed, and they ended up erecting their own God. And uh the only way I can compare it uh to today's reader is to think about a bride on her wedding day having an affair, and that's what Israel did to Yahweh on the mountain. And they were so traumatized when they realized what they had done and the violation that had taken place. The Lord then gave them the book of Leviticus, he gave them that revelation to know how to approach him and it healed the trauma. I said, you know, it's like your kids doing something wrong. You want to say this is the right way to do it, and so Leviticus is the right way, and everything about it was the heart of a father healing his traumatized people. So I got blessed, I got incredibly surprisingly blessed translating the book of Leviticus. Yeah, um, wow, and Revelation. Oh my! Don't even ask me about Revelation, that's opening up a can of doves to talk about that. But the book of Revelation, I got so much insight from, I feel from the Lord. I can never make the text say, and I don't, I've never, to my knowledge, ever made the text say something I want it to say. I've had to faithfully translate it as any Bible translator that is faithful to God would do so. But I have footnotes, so I'm able to slip into the footnotes, like for example, the the four horsemen. Um, I I didn't think we were gonna go to the book of Revelation here on the on the podcast, but I'm already there, might as well continue. So the it's not a red horse, there's four horses, right? The it's not red, there's a very clear color red in Greek. It's not red, it's a fire horse. It's pyros, it's the the Greek word for fiery, like we have a funeral pyre or we have pyrex, you know. There's uh it's comes from that Greek word fiery, flame colored. So it's a horse on fire, not a red horse, it's a fire horse, which we know is not literal, and then the green horse or pale green, some translations twist it and say a speckled horse. Even pale green is a distortion of the text. You cannot say in the Greek language, pale green. You can't, there's no way you can even say that in the Greek language. You'd have to use a paragraph to explain what pale green is. It's either green or it's not, and it's grass green, which there's no green horse in the natural world. There's no green horse in anywhere on this planet. So this is, of course, a metaphor. And all those four horsemen come out of the throne room. It's Christ coming to conquer, to bring his glory, death writing on life. That's Galatians 2:20. I'm crucified with Christ, yet I live. So all of the revelation he gave me, translating from the book of Revelation, using the Greek text itself, not my own interpretation, just unveiling some of the words of the Greek language that I put in the footnotes really, really impacted me. So I know I gave a long answer to to your good question, but yeah, I I love your long answers, man.

Revelation’s Horses Revisited

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Like, because they again they inspire curiosity. This is part of what the beauty of what you have done time and time again. And I've said to you before how often people remark to me about the footnotes and the insights, the the nuggets that you drop there, the pearls of wisdom that you drop in that place to help us into an understanding of of what these words mean, how you've discovered them, what they've meant to you. Like this is this the riches of the kingdom that overflow from the wisdom that you have gained over the years, mate. So these are the things. I love that things like revelation have come alive. I love that Leviticus has come alive. Remember years ago, mate, someone challenged me about Leviticus, and I thought, I'll you know, stick with God with this one. And I got lost in not sure what chapter it is about the rest of God and the way that he invited me from all the toil, from all the burden, from all the things into understanding the rhythm of God. And in the middle of Leviticus, here am I going, God, you're so good. But there's so there's so many many riches to be found, as like you've been gold mining, right? You've gone ahead of us and opened up seams of gold that we just get to sit in now and receive. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, thank you. You're very kind, and I think people likewise are going to really be surprised with the book of Numbers, as uh there were 42 different uh stops from Egypt to the promised land, Israel stopped 42 times, 42 journeys, and those 42 journeys reflect our Christian journey into the fullness of Christ. From our leaving our bondage of Egypt to going into the promised inheritance of the fullness of Christ, we stopped 42 times. And the names of those locations where Israel stopped is the lesson, the spiritual lesson God is teaching us in that part of our journey. And I footnoted all of that in the book of Numbers. So I think uh people will like that. There were 42, the number 42 is so significant. Uh, there were 42 different uh stations of rebuilding the wall, 42 different, what do I want to say, clans or groupings of people who built the wall in the book of Nehemiah? There were 42 of them. And 42, of course, is uh how many months Jesus ministered on earth, 42 in the genealogy of Matthew 1, 42 generations. You can only see a rainbow at a 42 degree angle, on and on and on. That number 42 in the Bible is so significant. So numbers bless me, Deuteronomy. Uh just fascinating as they draw so near to the promised land. Joshua, they go right in, judges, they start to conquer the land. And uh then we step into the prophetic books of Ruth and Samuel and uh David's emergence, where he comes forth as a champion, deliverer, uh, a giant killer before he was a king. He had to kill a giant. And before we're going to reign in life, we're going to have to conquer some of our uh giants in our life that that stand in front of us to impede our advance. But when we do, that's when the promotion comes and favor begins to grow and expand on our life. And uh we look back and we say, Well, that giant was that was a mosquito out of nothing compared to the glory that God is uh is rewarding me with now by grace.

Numbers And The Power Of Forty‑Two

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Once I was uh teaching and I was preaching and I asked the question to a church, who's the giant in Davis' story? And a young boy puts his hand up and says, God. And uh I'm like 100%, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Well said. Well said.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, but the male survives, right? Yeah, so good. One of the things we're doing coming up in Feb is called the Kingdom Collaboration, which Brian, you've generously said, Yep, you're up for that again with me. And when I approached you and said, Would you be keen to do another one? I had the book of Job in my sites. Job has been for me one of the richest books in the Bible. Um, and for even when I was in uh college or you would call it seminary, um, my lecturer for the book of Job um had a had a disabled son. And he his take on Job changed my life. Like it allowed me to see God in areas that I'd not looked for him before. And it was one of those, and you would, I'm sure you would get it when you're sitting under someone's teaching where you're in a three-hour class and it feels like it's gone by in about 10 minutes. There's so much that sort of drops in that place. And ever since um it's been one of those things that if anyone ever says to me, um, having a Job-like experience, or I don't like reading the book of Job because it just sounds too harsh, or Satan has too much access into the heavens and things like that. I encourage them to slow the conversation down, to start thinking of the journey and discover the man, his faith, his hope, but also the presence of God through it. Mate, I wonder whether you like what's what's your broad brush, big picture take of the book of Job when you first sat down there going.

Giants, Promotion And Grace

Setting Up A Job Deep Dive

Job’s Suffering And The End Of The Lord

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Well, it it reveals our heart, like no other book in the Bible. And Job was a historical figure, most likely the man Jobab mentioned in the book of Genesis. He um would have been a contemporary to the patriarchs, and he was a king. He was not just a rich, wealthy man, he literally was a king in a kingdom, he was one of the most wealthy, powerful men on the face of the earth at the time that book was written. And it's both a parable and it's literal. There was a man named Job, but it's also a parable that when we unwrap it, it becomes such a mysterious comfort. I mean, if you can be comforted mysteriously, that's what Job does to your soul. It number one tells you that you're not the only person in life that's going to suffer. Number two, it tells you that the end of the Lord, which James, the book of James says the end of the Lord is goodness and mercy. And number three, it gives us a foundation to rest upon as we read in our life into that story of Job. None of us have gone through what he went through, honestly. The only human being who's ever suffered like that would have been the Lord Jesus Christ. But Job, he uh lost his entire family, uh, lost all his wealth, lost all his esteem, his reputation, everything was ripped from him in one day. And uh what Job did not see was the behind the scenes uh uh dialogue between uh God and the adversary. And it's in the book of Job, you'll be surprised to hear it's he wasn't called Satan, he was called the Satan, which means adversary. So the adversary was behind the scenes, but it was God himself that he started it. I mean, you got to put that in your theology somewhere. God started it, he said, Hey, have you seen my servant Joe? It was God that picked this fight, if you want to put it in those terms. It was God who you know put it in gear and came out of the garage and and just got that that car down the track. And Job had no clue that there was uh a spiritual cosmic dynamic behind the scenes that he was being a part of. But the the thing the Lord told me, I felt the Lord told me as I translated the book of Job, he said, you'll never understand the book without the New Testament. If you just read the book of Job, you'll never understand it, and that's why the book of James, chapter 5, verse 11, mentions Job and speaks about the patience of Job, that he waited until he saw the end of the Lord, the end of God. He saw the end, in other words, the end result, the end purpose of what he went through. And because he was patient, he saw the end of the Lord. And too many of us in our sorrow and our pain, and it's legit. I mean, it's horrible. I I've had my own, I look at 2024, and it was like a Job year for me with uh heart failure and two hurricanes and loss of of uh thousands and thousands of dollars, which uh the storm took away from us, all of that, but being patient to learn, to wait, to humble, to submit, those are the character traits that make us a double portion believer, that make us one who discovers the end of the Lord. Did you know the whole book of Job is less than one year in his life? Really, yeah. It's just one year. I mean, he lived a long time after that. He lived a long time. And there's uh Jewish uh tradition states that God, after he gave him all his wealth back and uh gave him children, and there's no indication that his wife ever left him, so he didn't get two wives. Sorry, mates, but he uh that God actually translated him to the Sea of Galilee and placed him there for a season of his life, and there's a Job's cave and Job's spring that I have seen with my own eyes, where tradition states that Job was treated to like I'd equate it to like a spa, all right, to a holiday uh on the lake and the Sea of Galilee, and in that cave and that spa encounter, the Lord comforted him and and soothed his soul and showed him the mercy and the grace, the kindness of his heart. Nothing will move God's heart like your faithfulness when you are faithful to God in spite of what you go through, appendicitis, you know, marriage issues, family, kids, this, financial that. If you be faithful to the end, you will see the end of the Lord, and he is good, he is good, no matter what the Satan, the adversary might tell us, He is good. And Job, I mean, there's never been a man that walked the earth like Job. He he was commended, uh, even uh, you know, he had God rebuked his what do you call them, miserable comforters. Uh, God rebuked those three men and and uh Eliphaz as well, Elahu, I mean, as well, and and uh rebuked them for missing the heart of God. And as you read it in the Passion Translation, I tried to bring that out in the text and in footnotes, that they distorted the heart of God. So when you're reading what those three miserable comforters said to Job, you're reading what religion, what tradition, and what uh uh unbroken heart will try to tell you about God. But when the Lord comes on the scene, whoo, where were you when I spread the constellations, the Maserith? Uh, have you ever walked on the bottom of the sea? You know what's in the depths of the earth. I mean, over and over, God is showing Job they don't know what they're talking about. Look to me, I have the answers. I am your your confidence, I am your great reward. And as we know, um he ended up with double. I mean, the guy was a billionaire already, so I don't I don't know if two billion made him all that excited after he got to see the Lord Himself. I don't think money and possessions meant meant a whole lot to Job afterwards, but God poured out his mercy and favor on that man and said, you know, sorrow may last for a night, but joy is going to come in your morning. And he turned the ashes of that year, and Job actually sat on an ash heap, and uh he turned those ashes into beauty, and job is a sparkling testimony of faithfulness in trial and the goodness of God if we'll wait to the end, if we'll be if we'll be patient and faithful, God will be kind.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah. No, one of the parts, particularly with Job's mates that um speak it spoke to me in an interesting way because the first seven days it says they said nothing. And sometimes when people go through suffering, like often I know Australians mate, we've we don't know what to say in grief or in mourning at times. We say the most embarrassing or the worst things possible. But silence is what they gave Job. And actually encouraged me a little bit because it's like sometimes when you just have a friend to sit beside you when there are no words, there is a bond of love that grows for me in those places where we don't need to compete, we can just be. The only thing that changed that was when Job started verbalizing his theological um challenges, and then religion got involved in a bigger conversation that ended up in condemnation for Job. So it shifted from presence to religion. Is that how you read that?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Yes, sir. I I love to hear your thoughts about it too. So are we gonna share about that uh together here coming up?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, we absolutely are fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

That'll be fun. Yeah, the theology of suffering and how everybody ought to tune in to this podcast. Learn to suffer with grace and mercy and God's kiss on your heart because you're all gonna suffer. You know, what is it? Man is born into trouble as the sparks fly upward. So we're gonna have trouble in our life. We might as well learn how to navigate it with grace and mercy and find the end of the Lord, eh?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Absolutely. Yeah, it was one of those prophecies of Jesus when he said everyone's gonna suffer. We're like, don't say that.

Presence Over Religion In Grief

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Um we don't want to hear that. We're we're triumphalist, we want to triumph over everything. Well, let's triumph over our depression, anxiety, fear, and difficulties, and don't let uh a family stress, financial stress ever dim the light of the glory of God in your life, and yeah, you'll become a double portioned sister or brother like Job.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

The other part that spoke to me, Brian, was the part where Job says to God, up until now, I'd heard about you, but now I've seen you with my own eyes. That for me, like I wonder how many Christians have heard about God, but not met God. And it's like growing up in a church, listening, learning all the practices, all the habits that we do in our our spiritual lives, but then to meet God. So for Job, there was this moment where up until now I'd only heard about you, and it spoke to me of the depth of this guy's faith just through the testimony of others, of people saying to him, This is who God is. But now I've seen you. Can you do you find yourself in that phrase as well?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Oh yeah, I have loved that for years and years. I'm just opening up my Job translation right now. I want to see how I handled that. That's uh chapter 42, verse 5, I believe. Let's go see here, real quick. Can you handle a little bit of Job scripture here?

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Absolutely.

Seeing God With Our Own Eyes

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Let's uh let's really find the goodness of God in our in our heartache, in our troubles. So all right. Um here we go. I love this. Wow. Oh my, this is so good, man. This is so awesome. Uh before now I had only heard of you from others, but now here in your presence, my eye has seen you. Now I know the truth. I take back all that I've said. You know, when he when he says he repents in dust and ashes, he's sitting in dust and ashes. He's not throwing dust and ashes on himself, he's sitting there in a dust and ash pile when God appears to him. And uh and having seen you, I repent sitting here in dust and ashes. That's just so phenomenal. So many, here's my footnote so many like Job live on borrowed faith, secondhand knowledge, traditions, and hand me down stories we've heard from others. But God desires us to know him personally and intimately, to see him in all our difficulties. The pure in heart will see God, where others only see trouble. Um you know, where Job in most translations says, uh, I abhor myself, and the word abhor is hate. I hate myself or despise myself. But here's the revelation: the word myself is not in the text, it's just I I hate. Well, what does he hate? He hates what he said about God and what he thought about God. He recanted it, more likely means I take back, repudiate everything I've spoken. The Aramaic actually reads, I despise my wealth, which doesn't quite seem to fit contextually, since he'd already lost all of his wealth. But what Job is despising and hating is his miserable attitude, not himself. So to use that verse as uh, you know, I hate myself, I abhor myself, I repent and dust and ashes, it's taken a little bit too far in evangelicalism today. Uh, we're not told to hate ourselves, we're told to deny ourselves, and a huge difference. Uh, and that's what Job is doing here. He's he's denying his words and recanting from what he said. Um, and if you'll let me go on here in verse six, I'm reading the footnotes here. I'm getting blessed from these footnotes. In the light of God's presence, we see ourselves as we truly are. Job did not yet know that God planned a stunning reversal to his fortunes, a restoration of his health and family, but his humble repentance happened before the blessing of mercy came upon his heart. So Job concedes that everything that happened to him was within the loving boundaries of God's plan for his life. I'm gonna say that again. Job said that everything that happened to him was within the loving boundaries of God's plan or his life. We need to be able to say that. So, with captivating wonder, Job surrenders to the will of God. And uh then he prays for his friends. Phenomenal. Job prayed for the people who brought him such pain and angst and misinterpreted everything he said, everything he felt in his heart. They they basically lied about his spiritual condition. But when he prayed for his friends, God turned to him with mercy and restored Job. I wonder if if people that prayed for their the people who are troubling you, if you'll pray for them, God's mercy might turn it around and make some of your enemies into friends.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

So so found.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

It's gonna be fun. I'll try not to preach, but it's gonna be a fun podcast.

Repentance, Footnotes And Mercy

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Well, the joy of sitting in a place where wisdom keeps on giving, and I think that's part of the beauty of so much of the old testament, too. Like I know how much you love going back to Israel, and I wonder, Brian, like how much of Israel inspires you when you are writing. Like, does it open up new things for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Oh, absolutely. I I I've said to my wife many times, I there's a part of me that wish wished I could have just moved to Israel and gone to the sites where I translated and just parked there and work on the translation there. I did have the privilege of of uh uh finishing the whole New Testament in Bethlehem. I was there. Uh come Lord Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus. I pushed back from the desk and I I thought this is incredible. I'm in Bethlehem where the word was made flesh, and I'm bringing the word to the English speaker here, and finished the New Testament in Bethlehem. That was amazing. So, yeah, Israel. You know, I know that that's a just even saying the word Israel is controversial to some people, but I'm telling you, my Lord Jesus was a Jew, and whatever you say, don't talk about his family. That that's his brothers, his sisters, his family. They were all Jewish, and the Lord chose to come to this planet with a Jewish form, and I think that that alone would cushion our heart from being uh opposed to our precious Jewish friends. You know, we can talk about political Israel till the cows come all, but the the precious Jewish people need to be beloved, and we need to cherish them, we need to love them and pray for them that they would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't believe in two covenant, uh what's known as a dual covenant, that uh Jews go to heaven because they're Jews, and Christians have to be born again, but there's two different covenants called dual covenant. I don't believe that. I think every person has to have the gospel preached to them, you know, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. But everyone on earth needs to be born again and come to know Yeshua, the precious savior of the world. And uh yeah, I you know it's your fault you got me started, Matt. But uh Israel, uh Israel is very dear to my heart. And uh I would hope all of our viewers and listeners they'd consider coming with me uh in 2026 in October and uh come to Israel and let me introduce you to the land of Jesus. We'll go to the legitimate sites, we won't go to the weird, um, you know, phony places. Uh it'll be where we have a high measure of uh degree of authenticity to it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Yeah. I just love listening to your heart, mate. It's just it reminds me of um Saint Francis of Assisi who says, preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. There's so much presence about you, uh, the of the love of God that just flows. Um, and when you add the words to it, like it's just like a rich overflow for me to sit in this place and uh yep, and uh come into Israel in October. I'm gonna chat with Chris about it now.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Come with us, we'll I'll save a spot. Uh hop on the bus, Gus. We'll just save a spot for you and you'll love it. You will love it.

Israel’s Land And Living Context

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Beautiful. Well, mate, I'm gonna put a Sila moment in our conversation because I'm believing that when we sit down in February to talk through more of this, that a lot more will flow from it. And for everyone watching, if you have a look at Kingdom Collaboration on our Greater Things website, you'll see Brian's handsome face there. And um, you can click on that and register to be a part of that time. But Brian, just on behalf of Trisha and I just want to say Merry Christmas to you and Candace and to the family, the ever-growing family. And I pray that this season for you will be one of health, of such grace and of such love enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Well, thank you. You are a very dear friend to me, and I appreciate your kindness. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to wish you a happy Christmas. And to all my Aussie friends, our hearts are breaking with you. We are in solidarity with you. We are all together with you in this painful trauma of what's happened at Bondi Beach. And just know that the Church of Jesus, we're one apart, you know, apart from geographical boundaries, we're all one in the spirit, and we stand in prayer and intercession for you. God is going to turn this around for your nation.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Thank you, man. Well, this is the Greater Things podcast. Thanks for everybody to listen listening or watching along if you're on YouTube, and we look forward to being back in your ears next time. Bye for now. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, or go to our website, greater thingsintern.com.