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Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture

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I was given the assignment last week to teach the 4th and 5th graders about Rahab and I got to tell you I was a little bit anxious about trying to explain how a deceptive prostitute in the city of Jericho filled with all kinds of wicked people who are about to be destroyed negotiated and concealed some Israeli spies. In order to save herself. How am I going to explain this? And then my granddaughter introduced me to a Taylor Swift song called the anti hero, and I had it. This is raising joyful children in an angry world. I'm Paul Osborne. The contrast between the character in that Taylor Swift song, and rehab. Boy, it's something that I thought, man, Christian parents need to understand. I love the story because there's so much contrast between our humanity, our fallen humanity, Rahab is the biblical picture of an anti hero. That means somebody whose lifestyle and whose system of way they live is anything but the virtues of a hero. And I think part of the reason I want to share this is we often get caught up in vocation. What do you want to be when you grow up? I can tell you the fourth and fifth grade kids, by the way, hate that question. This story takes, instead of what do you want to be when you grow up? Who do you want to become? And the story of the anti hero, Rahab, takes us to that more profound question. I want to start with Taylor Swift's song though, before I get to the story. And I, I would advise you to read it. I, in respect to copyright and the length of time, I'm going to summarize it. But there's a person in the song, and she recognizes she's got issues. She's selfish and manipulative. She recognizes that the circle of friends that she's in, Agree with her assessment. It causes restlessness and depression, and yet the song concludes, oh, this is tiring de debilitating to cheer for the anti-hero. And it is first and foremost a testament. You wanna know why Taylor Swift is so successful? She empathizes and relates to the struggles of her audience. And, but the thing about the song is all of this deep search inside herself and self analysis and trying to root for herself leaves her restless, depressed, and sleepless. There's no transformation. Now we go to rehab. The anti hero, she is a prostitute, she is deceptive, she is manipulative, and yet she conceals the spies of Israel before God is about to destroy this wicked city Jericho. And despite her flawed and manipulative and even perverse occupation, she worked with the spies to save herself and her family. And the Bible tells us, in Hebrews, it was because of her faith. How did she get the faith? Well, if you listen to her testimony in the story, she says when she heard, really when we heard, about how God parted the Red Sea, and God gave you the victories over other kingdoms on your way here, we knew you had the true God. It was a statement of faith. She heard the story, remember faith comes by hearing, and God planted faith where there was no faith. There was nothing but rebellion, nothing but rejection of God, and yet God takes this woman with all of her anti hero attributes and saves her by planting faith in her through sharing of his story. And he actually, as she's concealing the spies, he's revealing to Israel who he wants to save. And then comes transformation, right? You see the salvation by grace. She doesn't get what she deserves. She, she escapes what she does deserve and becomes the mother of Boaz, gets married, and now is in the bloodline of the Lord himself. Man, that's transformation who she became because of God's gift of grace and of righteousness to her and putting it into her heart. Man, that's, that's a, that's a fundamental story, but it points to us now. Then what is the purpose of Christian education, which is really the purpose of what I want to say today. John Milton, the great poet, Paradise Lost says, he answers the question, the chief end of education, that's the purpose, old way of saying it, is to rebuild what our original parents broke. To rebuild what our original parents broke. It's not that we can fix our kids or that we can fix ourselves, but when we understand in that story. That the Bible story, the stories of the greatness of God is how God gives us faith. And then you see, once she gets the faith, she gets on mission with God, which is the second part of what Milton tells us is we have to learn to champion God's providence. That's his provision and his gifts. and God's ways, ah, championing and advocating for what God is about and what he wants to accomplish. Getting on mission with God. That is Rahab's story. It's a story of salvation by grace, unmerited favor, escaping what she did deserve, and through God's providence, God's grace, and then getting on mission with God's mission. Your kids and your family You need to understand how to get out of the anti hero evaluation, how to get past the sinful nature. And that is told in this story and throughout the scriptures. And this is part of the second part. This is the offense of spiritual war. Last time in Exodus 17, I talked about the enemy wanting to destroy our trust, the envy of people outside of us. And when, when the enemy can destroy your trust in God and your kid's trust in you and God, he can then start to rob them of their peace. There's the character in Taylor Swift's anti hero song, lost their peace. The defense is to prevent the enemy from doing that. The offense is to get on mission with God. And then when we're on mission with God, our trust in him is strengthened and our trust in our parents is strengthened as well. The enemy's goal is to weaken. God's goal is to strengthen. Why is this so important? Because there's two philosophies that are dominating the American landscape. They're being led by two incredibly brilliant billionaires, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. In fact, the last election you could see these two philosophies, if you got past all the name calling and all the hyperbole, you got down to these two things. Bill Gates, he espouses that most of the problems in the world are because of human beings, right? It's what we drive, what we eat, how we manufacture, how we deliver energy. It's all wrong and it's causing all the problems and It's harming the world and the universe, the climate. And he's right. To a certain extent, human beings do do things that are harmful. And his solution is law, law, law, more regulation. Elon Musk on the other side says, no, no humans are the answer. Science, technology, innovation. We've got the ability to invent all these things. Don't you realize how fast AI can process these days? And his belief is that human beings can solve everything. Man, but neither one of them understands the fall of man. Neither one of them understands the providence of God. God created Elon Musk. God created the innovators. See, the problem in these philosophies is that neither of these men understand that people are created in the image of God and The card reels that Gates wants to put up have to be lined up with God's ways and the technologies that Musk tells us are going to help us have to be seen as those things that advance the ways of God. Because God created the person that created the innovation. Modern science gives us wonderful things, but it seems to lack the wisdom on how to use it. The old saying, physician do no harm. It's kind of useless if you don't have the right understanding of what is harm. It's how we got the opioid crisis. It's how we have this distrust in national institutions that incentivize with royalties to people who approve drugs. Now, Charlie Munger used to say, show me the incentive. I'll show you the outcome. I think we have to show our kids how to understand. God's provision and God's mission, particularly as they enter into this super advancing technology and this continuous philosophical battle across the West. I think there are three things that help give the lens to your children for them to understand. Number one is understanding the sin nature of man and the fault of man. The modern church doesn't spend enough time explaining what happened in the fall of man, the consequences of it, the wrath of God, eternal damnation, and what hell is all about. We've got to understand and help our kids understand that connection. And then when you understand that, that's the only way you're going to grasp it. What's so special about God's grace and then trying to restore what the fall. The source of all good is number two. The source of all good is God's providence, including our grace, including our understanding, the new heart and the renewing of our mind. But we have to see that innovation is also God's gift. And we have to know that those gifts are designed to benefit mankind. And so thirdly, I want to say, we've got to get on mission with God so that we see that these gifts, especially just for our own use, have to align with God's mission. If God gave us the gift through another person, we've got to see that these technologies and advancements are to better serve our neighbor, not merely for wealth generation. We can't have laws that aren't aligned with God's providence and God's mission. And, and God's laws and missions basically comes down to loving God and loving our neighbor. This is what Christian education is all about. I suggest we try and find a cause, one I might suggest just heard about recently, Unbound, the fight against child trafficking. You see it in the movie Sound of Freedom. But helping your children get the stories, the word of God, is what gives them faith. It's what gives them the transformation to get past the anti hero attributes in all of our lives. And then getting on mission with God strengthens the trust and allows us to navigate this coming innovation and seeing we use it in the ways God would intend. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.