CTP (S3EFebSpecial8) Judas, Redemption, And The Weight Of Choice

CTP (S3EFebSpecial8) Judas, Redemption, And The Weight Of Choice
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
We talk with Deborah Griffin about reframing Judas inside the story of redemption, how calling can outrun credentials, and why love must reshape judgment and church life. From cancer survival to a quiet nudge to write, Deborah shares how obedience, mercy, and free will meet at the cross.
• Judas as part of prophecy and redemption
• Free will held within God’s sovereignty
• Substance of message over perfect grammar
• Surviving cancer and learning God’s voice
• Poverty, compassion, and having God’s heart
• Discernment without hypocrisy or cruelty
• Church as people on mission, not buildings
• Practical love for widows, orphans, and the unseen
• Balancing accountability with mercy in daily life
• How to find Deborah’s book and connect
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A Short Story: A Lasting Legacy? book Trailer

Transcript

Opening Banter And Faith Framing

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, welcome to another episode of First of Two Storms Podcast. I am your host, Joseph L. Wonder. That's L-E-N-A-R-T at the front of Knowledge Wonderful. Thank you for tuning in. Let's get over the show. Welcome to Season 3, February. I'll be running two a week rather than one special a week on Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays in February to get caught up on some of the interviews. Joining me today is Deborah Griffin. I'm sure there's a prehistoric animal joke in there somewhere, but we'll right. How are you, Deborah? I'm well, Mr. Leonard. How about yourself? I I like I always say, and have my characters in my books say, could always be better, could often be worse. Yes? Absolutely. Right? Mind you, I do moan, whine, be complain, you know what I mean. But when I do, I remind myself a whole lot of people out there got it far worse than we do, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yes. Well, that's I think that's the faith journey. That's why um it says we walk by faith, not by sight. So, you know, we're we're in this moment of of of what it is and real, but with anticipation and hope uh for many other things.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Oh, I'm glad you said what you said because and and my my audience knows, and as you could tell by the griffin lame pun, I can't pass on lame pun. So you said walk, not walk by sight. Well, some can't because their head is up their hindsight, they can't see anything.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I feel like that many times, but I have to remind myself uh of the faith journey, and a part of the journey is that you just have to believe, or if you're of little doubt, confess, Father, that I am uh of little I'm I'm doubtful and I need for you to help me um stand in the space to get to what I'm believing for or hoping for.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, and we all are entitled to bad days. Excuse me, pardon me. Clear a a radio no no, clearing your throat on air. But anyway, uh oh, I forgot, uh forgot where I was gonna go. Oh no, yeah, we'll we're all human, right? All frail and flawed and perfect, right? So we're all entitled to bad days. Some days you can have a bad day and off day. Uh so and like in my the Book of Kennedy Project Carpe Diem, I call some out there mass holes, right? The masses of asses, the negative nellies, right? Always miserable SOBs that seem to dwell in their misery and they want to make everyone else miserable and drag them down, and I talk about indeed. Just try to avoid those people, right? And again, but Martin Luther King Jr. content of character, remembering again, we're all entitled to bad days. Uh, someone may be having a bad day. So a first impression may not always be the right impression, right? Why we're supposed to forgive and give uh grace and second chances, but even turn the other cheek is not an unlimited uh thing. It did Jesus didn't say always be a sucker, let yourself be abused. No, it's give a second chance, but if evil's gonna continue to be evil, well then you know their character and you react just accordingly. Uh what I this is why I don't script shows never know what rabbit holes will open when we go down, because that's not what you're here to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Well, I I I like the reference of uh Carpe Diem, uh sees the day, uh, because that's all that we have is today. Yesterday is gone, and our hope for tomorrow is just that uh it's uh tomorrow. So when I'm feeling low or oppressed or depressed, I I have to remind myself that all I have is today, and that way I draw myself back into staying focused on what I'm hoping for and what I'm working toward.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Absolutely, and both part of my life and living series of books, the Book of Kennedy Project Carpadiem, a female lead and a short story, a lasting legacy, Ryan, a male lead, both part of my life and living series, making that point. We can't determine how others will act towards us. But again, aside from a bad day where we may react badly, we choose how we react to others and the world. And our conscious Christian choice to try to sow good, plant good, and leave it to God to water and fertilize what we plant and hopefully change hearts and minds of others. Yes?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Absolutely. God holds us accountable for what we know about him, uh, and how we walk that out. That's where our accountability adds up.

Setting Up The Judas Conversation

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Uh pardon, I'm looking out the window because somebody was walking up to the porch. Apparently, I got an Amazon delivery. But we'll while we're recording. At any rate, and my regular listeners are no, that's an ongoing running gag uh segue thing. At any rate. So we're now like five minutes in, and let's actually get to what you're here for to talk about Judas. Like in my CTP3 book, I go into anti-Semitism, right? The idiocy of some fake Matthew 23 supposed Christians blaming Jews for the death of Christ when it was preordained. It was God's will, God's plan. Christ himself said in Matthew 5, 17, I have come to fulfill the prophecy. He had to die on the cross to be the final blood sacrifice and resurrect and prove he was the Messiah based on Jewish Torah law, right? So those few Jews involved in handing them over to Pilate, it's why Christ said, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. They were acting in their own interest, but as part of God's overall plan. They had to do what they did, or Christianity wouldn't be here today, yes? Yes, as as so Judas. Uh, because exactly why I was said that to lead into Judas. Judas had to do what he had to do. You're the Judas expert? Run with it.

Judas In Prophecy And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 8:44

I'm not an expert, but I I always uh proclaim and I truly believe that Judas is as much of the redemptive story as Jesus uh the Christ. Uh and I try in my simplest and most humblest way uh to outline that in the Judas book. Um I I I was told, I believe, to script that small book of why Judas was born to betray Jesus. Uh, I was watching the uh Passion of the Christ, and as I was walking out of the theater, I believe I heard a quiet, still voice within me say, Write a book on why Judas was born to betray Christ. Prior to that, I had no knowledge, no understanding, no interest, no nothing about Judas. And even doing that, I totally dismissed and minimized what I thought I heard. And that was because I had no interest uh in that. I had no knowledge, uh, no, no prior thinking of. And uh I thought that why would the would the father tell somebody like me who am not a real reader, I'm not a deep reader, I read only professional things and small things of interest. And why would he tell me to write in that space? I don't even think I had the proper command of the English language uh to write that. But he he did he did not give up on me. He kept uh from different times uh and spaces and places to tell me that again.

Deborah’s Call To Write On Judas

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah. Oh, I and I hear you like uh writing, I've written my whole life, it's a wonderful hobby. My profession was IT, but now that I'm on health-related disability, I have time, more time to dedicate to doing the show and writing my books. And I I I get a great chuckle. In fact, in both the books I mentioned, I talk about in the intro. I'm not Shakespeare or Dickens. If you're looking for Shakespeare or Dickens, go read Shakespeare or Dickens. I'm not even Hemingway, right? But I write in American English, not the King speech, and it kills me. A reviewer will say, I'm uh one too sure about the grammar. But did you get the point? That's what meant the substance. Do you get the substance? That's you know, the grammar Nazis that want to focus and nitpick trying to make it about them and their ego. Oh, oh, I'm I'm a PhD English scholar, Oxford trained, and that comma didn't belong there. They're making it all about them and their ego rather than about your subject matter. And that's an important subject.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Not how you're telling it, but whether you come across in Judas's life and absolutely, whether you can come across in the spirit of what you think uh God wants you to do, uh, how can you convey that where people who might can look past how you set it up, how you presented it, and catch the essence of the spiritual meaning. Uh, and and I think that's why I could give myself to it because he said to me one day, which I did clearly understand, that he caused the foolish to confound the wise. And that resonated with me because me as a writer was calling the foolish, and that I understood, and and basically my my conversation with him, even though I heard him internally, I verbally uh come conversed with him and said, Okay, father, I give, I understand, and I give myself over to this, understanding fully my limitations in this space, not only as a writer, but as an understanding of knowing the subject matter. And I did do some research as best I could uh at that time, uh, and as limited as I was, but God had brought me through so much. And what I did understand in that space was understanding his voice in a simple manner. Because prior to that, in 1989, uh I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I remember the Holy Ghost talking to me in quiet, still voice, and because I wanted to live, I held on to everything that was possible and comforting in that space, and that was learning his voice. His voice initially led me uh to get that lump in my breast that I felt out at a time when medical doctors told me not to worry about it, which was wonderful with me, because that was my intervention, but to keep on living. But God knew the what was in the center, the core of that lump or that tumor, which was cancer. It was it was uh encapsulated, and that's how I w walked uh forward with the Judas book because I knew there was something God wanted to get out and say to others.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I was gonna joke with you a bit, if indeed there's a bit of you in the book and a relation. Uh you you went a completely different place. I was joking, saying, like, I'm sure you've not betrayed your best friends or anything like that. And you're also not a psychology major, but that's at the bottom and the root of all this, too. Psychology, human nature, human interactions, uh, the willingness to throw somebody else under the bus to save oneself.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yes, absolutely, none of that. I I I I I was none of that. I I uh am a black female, as you can see. I was born to a 17-year-old mom, uh, and uh we were quite poor. Uh I was uh born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Mississippi says a lot, and uh we lived in Bowden, Mississippi, B-O-L-T-O-N, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Uh oh, is that where Michael's from? Bum bum, right?

Writing Beyond Perfection And Ego

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, Michael Bolton, Lady Ponti. Yeah. No, not not not not nearly the same. But I I I was born um in a very poor environment, um uh in terms of of in terms of financials. But I I I I understood God early on, and he said to uh me when I used to go to school, uh we had to pay for lunch. And even though I was poor, my parents did provide me with money for lunch. Uh, but when I would go to the lunchroom, there were a lot of kids who were left sitting in the room that couldn't go to lunch. Their parents were not able to give them lunch money, but I had a heart for them. And when I went to the lunch room, I would always bring extra milk back or my milk or something. Cookie back to some of the kids in the room, and I did that alone for a long period of time. But at one point in time, I can remember hearing the Lord saying to me that I had his heart. Did I understand that? No, but I remember him saying that, and while doing the Judas book, I grew to understand why he said that to me. Now he didn't just say that to me. I believe God speaks different things to millions and thousands of people. He's just wanting somebody to pick up that mantra and and and walk it out, and in that space, uh, not much had been written about Judas. I did not believe anything I had heard about Judas prior to about him being a traitor. I didn't doubt that, but I knew that that had there had to be more death, death to him in that space. And if nothing else, it's because he was he was picked to be one of the 12 disciples. So some right. So something, something more in depth had to be known of him, and he had to bring more to that position or that placement than I understood.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

But he is, of course, branded Judas the Traitor as Benedict Arnold in our early nation years. Benedict Arnold the Traitor. Benedict Arnold did a lot for this country. Judas did a lot for Jesus and the establishment of Christianity outside of that, but pinned with that label. But back to what you said about the lunch thing goes back to the top of the show, as I said, could always be better, could often be worse, right? You knew some worse off than you. And no matter how bad we are, if we can, the whole idea of charity supposed to be from our blood and treasure. We are to want to be our brothers and sisters keeper, not forced at the barrel of a gun to do so. I know that's off topic, but your reaction to that.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

But but that that that's not a off-top topic because I think I believe, and I I think you do too by us discussing that our omnipotent father knows the end from the beginning, every end from the beginning. And we get to walk it out. I think there are different paths that he allows us through that path of uh knowing to take. Um, and that was the same uh with Judas. And the third chapter of the book is a wonderful story about Judas's parents, uh, and even the the night that he was born. I did not create that chapter, I borrowed that chapter from a pastor whose name is John Piper. And during my research, I found that, and it fits so well in my thinking and resonated so well in the message that I was trying to convey in the that in that book that I reached out to him and asked for for permission to include that part in in that book, and and it came back. Why do you want to use it? And how do you intend to portray it? And as I and what is his cut of the prophet, right? Yeah, right. No, he I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, he did not ask for any profit, and I and I wasn't even expecting any. I looked at my writing or trying to write that book as a task. A calling. It's a calling, yeah. A task, not even trying to understand the message that God wanted to purvey broadly in different spaces. I just wanted to represent it from my limited knowledge and my limited point of view.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Okay, again, we've well established my inability to pass a lame pun. Even though we've already covered it, I'm gonna ask a repeated lame pun question over. Since this is a Christian show, what was the genesis, right? Padum pum of the root of why you wrote about Judas. And indeed, we have already covered that. So uh, but I can't pass on the pun. I gotta get in.

Cancer, Calling, And Hearing God

SPEAKER_00 22:45

And I and I think about from from my as uh my perspective of my background that I talked about, about the times that he told me that I have his heart, and as I've walked this journey out, I do believe that. I do believe that we are uh our brother's keepers as best as we can be um in those spaces. Um, I do believe that God is. No respective person, that he loves us all, and he's the creator of us all, even though we all come here in different circumstances and environments. And that helped me to formulate some of the beliefs uh that I've portrayed in that story, uh, in that book. And uh some might be right, some might be wrong, but that's because of the fallibility of my human perspective that I bring to the table. But I do try to uh release or or relate to those who read that we only know in a measure. God knows in the totality of all that we have, and that if we bring our tiny piece of measurement um or measure to that table or to that point, God has different stories for different people that He will reveal different things at the appropriate time or the time of their understanding. So I think my writing of that book was not to convince anybody of anything other than that Judas uh was as much of the redemptive story as Jesus. I think that at that time uh Judas uh was taken unto heaven when he was aware of how he betrayed Christ at the time that he was. I'm sure he was given a special place for playing that role. Yeah, absolutely. He had he had no foreknowledge, but then afterward, his foreknowledge was known, and that is how God, uh Jesus took his took Judas's whatever essence of what was left, his soul and his spirit, to heaven, which was in paradise, uh Hades, one side on one heaven on one side and and hell on the other side. And then I think he he he wanted to convey to us that he created us as free-thinking and free-willed individuals, because you know, in the beginning of some of the scriptures, he said, choose death or life, but I would prefer you to choose life.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, people have the ability and the free will to I go into my books exactly, and you have the free will to choose to be a mass hole and so evil, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

You have that choice to love him, uh, the choice to learn him, and the choice of how you walk out this opportunity of life that's given up given to us in this space.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah, I do want to go back to Brothers Keeper, widows and orphans, charity. Dog God, frog in my throat today. Aspect. The Bible also says if you don't work, you don't eat. Now, that isn't necessarily literal. We are to take care of widows and orphans and brothers and sisters who are unable. That's an implication. The context there is yes, be charitable to those who are unable, but we have no Christian obligation to those who are unwilling to bother to do for themselves important distinctions. Just like with Judas, you're making the important distinctions. You can't just focus on the betrayal. We need to look at his whole life as an example.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

100. And and I but I also think this scripture comes when it says, judge ye not. Uh, I I do uh believe that we are our brothers' capers. Uh, and I think that it's easy to judge anybody if you've not had any knowledge or walked in their shoes or understand their journey. So someone might not be, they might appear able to us, but even in right, but even in that space, if we're Christ-like, we should give them the benefit of.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah, oh look at me. I I'm due to a myriad of health issues. Both my arms work, both my legs work, right? I I don't appear disabled, but due to my health issues, I'm unable to work traditionally and I'm on disability. So, yes, and again, Martin Luther King Jr., right? Don't judge on appearance, but the content of the character. And I talk about Matthew 7 on this show all the time. It's really condemn not lest ye be condemned, for final judgment is for the Lord. There are 12 dozen, a dozen other scriptures that tell us to judge, including ourselves, by what measure you meet, you shall be met. Absolutely. Judge biblically, don't be a hypocrite. But as you're alluding to, or not alluding to, you outright said it. Be aware we can be mistaken.

Roots, Poverty, And God’s Heart

SPEAKER_00 28:33

He says, too much is given, much is required. And I think somewhere in this journey of life, that many people forget that whatever they have or position or station in life, I do believe that that was ordained as even anything that was ordained, and going making reference back to the Judas story. So, what does it hurt me if I give out of what I have to someone that I believe that needs it, even if they don't? I think it benefits it benefits me because sometimes he says that we uh entertain angels unaware, but not just in terms of entertaining angels, it's a part of the great story of God, which boils down to one word as far as I'm concerned, and that is love because I think that in pure God-like love, it minimizes or it decreases the the impact of judgment, just love, and if I love in that space and give of what I have, then I've walked out what Jesus tried to show in his lifetime of the 33 years that he was on earth, and more specifically, the last three years when he walked out the ministry, because the last thing I'll say, and I'll give it back to you, is that he says that we are all to go ye, and go ye mean that we walk out his life and the word or the preaching or the scriptures that that are prescribed uh before us.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah, I I ran into someone on god gone it, there go again. Social media who said, you know, I'm walking away from the church and gonna create my own group. And basically, he doesn't want church, he doesn't want the church of Christ, he wants, as Dennis Quaid says, churchianity, a building with a steeple, but it's really a humanist club, it's the church of humanism, the church of modern day, the church of woke, not the church of Christ anymore. And I am very concerned.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

I I I 100% agree with you because we think of church as a as a building, as a facility with a leader and all of those things. And I think that there are some wonderful churches, but at the same time, I think there are a lot of false churches or false false.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Matthew 23.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Right, right, and and and so what I what I would like to maintain uh or or try to convey in this point is that the church is truly us, it's how we get out. Wherever two or more are gathered, right? And when you learn of him and the things that he says, even if you don't have a great understanding of all that you have, the church is in us, and he wants us to do what we know.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I don't need to go sit on Sundays or whatever on a pew for somebody to tell me what's it's good to do that as a matter of community, but yes, it's not an what about those who cannot get there? Are they condemned to hell? No, and that is my point. Yes, absolutely. That's my point. Right. We we agree, we agree. All right, now uh I know you're associated with bookhavenliterary.com. Is there another website uh where people can reach out to you or whatnot? And I take it, find your book on Amazon and all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

They they can find the book on Amazon and Google, and I think you said other good stuff. Uh, I am affiliated uh with uh uh Bookhaven Literary. It is a new entity, uh, but the spirit of that entity I am attached to, meaning that I feel that they're trying to do as I do, and that is to spread the good news, not Deborah's news, not their news, but but but the good news. That's the amen.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

I'm not here for me, I right. I'm not gonna spend my days watching TV to pass the time. I'm here because I feel it necessary to be here to spread his message, not mine.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

I think with Bookhaven, the genesis of it is rooted in love and in truth, and that could come from different people in different places, and that's why I think it exists so it can give you different perspectives of what that really is.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Okay, well, thank you. I normally I repeat a person's name several times, right? Understanding marketing and that you you want to drop a name or reach people seven times to get it to stick, and I didn't do that with you. So thank you, Deborah Griffin. But of course, for those viewing behind the scenes video, it'll be on the bottom of the screen. So thank you, Deborah, for joining today. Great discussion.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

I'm I'm glad to be able to talk about the goodness of God. It's it's it's always uh a pleasure to talk about the goodness of God. It is it is not the scriptures according to Deborah, it is the scriptures that is according to Jesus the Christ.

Judas Beyond The Label Of Traitor

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Amen. Amen. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.