What's The Point Anyway?
It seems like much of the Western world is lost. The interesting trend over the last few years is that more and more people are working that out.
More people have worked out that endless materialism and chasing things that never actually satisfy us aint it.
So what’s the point of it all, anyway?
What's The Point Anyway?
Episode #34 - Talking all things theology with my friend Chris Deguido
I became friends with Chris a couple of years ago and since that time, the two of us have constantly been bouncing ideas and questions off each other. Chris, like me, is a full preterist Christian so we are very aligned in our views but I'd like to think we both approach things with a high level of curiosity which means we're always challenging our currently held positions.
This was a fun discussion which was centred around theology and the questions we're both grappling with. Chris spoke a lot about the Israel centric narrative of the Bible and his thoughts around what that means for us today as 21st Century Christians, how he formed his own views despite growing up as a pastors kid, and how he is currently re-examing his position on Calvinism. I shared my current conundrum of trying to work out the answers on the true identity of the Catholic Church and what I see as the limits on the sola scriptura philosophy.
Check out Chris on X to hear more from him.
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You're trying to find a good angle that doesn't capture like... When I don't shave I get like this double chin action. The audio is no good. Okay. or it's like, it's okay, I can hear you, but it's like super echoey. Okay, let's see I Think it yeah, I'm just doing into the computer right now Let's see give me one second. Let's see if I can find some headphones The Echo. I'm going to see if I can sync these to my computer real quick. too easy. No hurry for me, so take your time. that better. have a talk a more. Hey, my name is Chris and I'm glad to be here. Hopefully that sounds. like it's all right. It's just not a, it'll be fine. If you've, like, you had a good mic, use that, but if this is all you got, it's fine. Man, you know what's a shame is I have like a killer mic setup, because I used to actually do a lot of audio production stuff. It's just I haven't done it. I haven't done it so much so lately that it's like kind of packed away. That's what kids will do, hey? Yeah, so it's like I have it, but it's all just packed away. No, that's fine. We'll just go with this. This is fine. Well, thanks. You have, sorry, in your post-production, do you have any kind of like software that kind of helps with the echo and all that? Yeah, Riverside does it. like, I'm pretty, I'm not really, I'm not like super tech savvy with any of this stuff. So it's, it's made for people like me. Basically when I hit finish an episode, just hit like AI producer and it tightens up the sound gets rid of the gets rid of the pauses. So it works fine. Okay, well if you are, if you're good to go, then I am good to go. Perfect, how was bedtime? It was good. We tried to have him in by seven. And so, you know, it's not always perfect, but it's good. is it okay if I have like my coffee here? Yeah, sometimes when I talk a lot, it's like I got to have some. No, that's totally fine. I've got a glass of water here, but I've got like two drips in it. So I'll just have to go dry. So I guess with this, I'm officially like not a non, as the kids say, right? I've got you on video, but we can always produce audio only. So I'll call you Chris. I'll let you disclose your full identity if you wish. I don't mind video. I'm not really scared of anybody. I used to have on X, used to have, I used to do my account as like anonymous. And then I came to the conclusion. I'm like, anyone that's actually interested in tracking me, isn't going to get caught up by a anonymous X account. If they want to find me, they'll find me like so much of my information. I mean, we just live online now. Like our, information's out there. I'm not sure who we can actually really hide from anymore. I just didn't like this whole thing that happened like within the last few weeks where like people were like bullying other Christians like, you're a non. Like you should like tell us who you are coward. And it's like, dude, you need to chill. You know, not into that. thanks for coming on. How'd you go? I saw you put up the tweet a couple of weeks ago asking for help on the question. What's the point anyway? Where did you land? So I actually did think about it for this entire time. And I guess my answer in general would be like the point of it anyway or the point of our life is to, it boils down to John 17, which is to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. And everything within that simple phrase kind of expands from there. Yeah. We start diving into the kingdom of God, what it means to go from death to life, proper worship of God. So I would say the larger scope, the point of our lives is to know God in the truest sense and to worship Him and to give Him glory. And then from that, we are to love our fellow man and expand his kingdom through that love, through the peace of the gospel. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good answer. For me, it boils down and I mean, I'm in a position where I only became Christian sort of in my early 30s. So most of my adult life, I've been non-Christian, therefore had a worldview that's, you know, very opposed to what it is now. But the thing that I like about it is it is so black and white and objective. So like if If the Gospels are what they claim to be, then that more or less has to be the answer. The Gospels can't claim to be what they are and then the point is just to go about whatever you want to do and everyone's truth is their own truth. It's so black and white with what it's saying and therefore if it is the truth, that's what the point is. That's what for us to fight and it's for us to then... live in accordance with that because then we'll get the most out of life as it's sort of been designed for us. What was your, were you always Christian? Did you grow up Christian? I grew up in a Christian family. Yeah. So my dad converted to Christianity like I want to say a year before I was born. And then my mom followed shortly after he did. And so I was born in a Christian household. And for a moment, I was attending Catholic, a Catholic church actually in Georgia. And I don't remember exactly as a kid. And it's funny because. As a kid, you don't really think about denominations and things like that. I just remember like, this is church, this is what we do. And so I don't know when we made the switch to being Protestant. Like I was like, I remember being like five or six and going to, you know, Catholic church, but my dad was also a pastor. And so he was doing, you know, he was doing his own ministries too, like in the convalescent homes, nursing homes, and even. prison ministries. So I grew up in that environment of the convalescent nursing home, never did anything with prisons. So yeah, that was my whole life. So you're past this kid. Yeah. Yeah. What was that experience like? Because I know that can go two ways for a lot of kids. A lot of kids that grew up with pastor dads end up not wanting anything to do with the faith. Yeah, so I've seen like testimonies or I've even known people where it's like I was a patches kid and it was so strict and fundamental and it kind of strangles whatever faith they had out of them because of all the restrictions. Yeah, for me personally, like my parents were very much like this is the Christian faith, like we lived our lives according to the Christian faith and it was like you are going to church. Yeah. but it was never kind of like, you know, I can't even think of a good example, like a nun slapping you with a ruler type household. You know, like we were still like pretty normal, you know, like we would have movie nights. We'd even watch scary movies, you know? I had a normal childhood. I played video games and, but I was always in church and, you know, just like my whole life in a moral, moralistic View 2 is totally shaped by my upbringing, which is a blessing, actually. yeah, Yeah, so it sounds like you had like the positive passes key experience as opposed to the others. Yeah, I mean, my dad, I was always a daddy's boy. like him being a pastor, always looked up to him. And my mom did a fantastic job. Like she was more the traditional housewife. She did work like in her past life. And even when I got older, she took on some work. But my mom was always the traditional kind of stay at home. And she did a good job at maintaining. the Christian values in the home and things like that. I had a healthy kind of fear for my parents, nothing too irrational or unhealthy in that realm, which was great. So yeah, I was definitely blessed. I know there's some bad testimonies about that kind of thing, which is unfortunate. What then, like what's your early adulthood look like as you, you know, cause I think it sounds like you weren't like totally shielded, which I think that tends to be, that tends to be the thing that happens. sends kids from families where the dad's a pastor off the other way when like they're shielded from everything. And then all of sudden they hit, you know, 15, 16, 17, 18, and they can't shield them anymore. And they see the world and they want to What was it like for you like growing up and hitting 18 and starting to become an adult out of that environment? well, I was, when I was 18, I actually didn't know what I wanted to do after I was graduating high school. And so I joined the United States Marine Corps. I was, went to the military and, and so you're like, you're really on your own at that point. It's like, now you start practicing what you've been taught and you start upholding the values that, you know, should have been instilled in you. Mm-hmm. And there's a lot, I gotta tell you, man, in the military, you get around a lot of rowdy guys, you know, and it's like you're finally an adult on your own. You do stupid stuff. There's a lot of times where, you know, I did stupid stuff, sinful things. And, you know, and there's some things where it's like, I reflect back now and it's like, man, kind of regret. It's kind of like a sobering reflection. Yeah. but you also get to see how far you've kind of come, you know, which is also the blessing. And so I was around a lot of bad influences in the military, you know, a lot of drinking. Mom, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry. But yeah, a lot of drinking and just dumb decisions, you know, that I'm not proud of. Nothing. I did four years. one endless myth. So I got stationed on California and that's where I'm at now. And I've been here since 2013. No, I'm sorry, 2012. got into California. What did you start to, why'd you leave the military and what did you do after that? so halfway kind of through my contract, I kind of started thinking like, I don't want to retire. This isn't really for me. I wanted to give it a chance as me buying for extra years. And, and so I started reflecting and like music has always been a big part of my life. I was always playing guitar, you know, I had my own like garage band and, so was like, maybe I want to be a musician. And then, you know, upon reflection, I was like, I want to do the techie side. You know, I don't think I'm cut out to be some rap and little star. Yeah. So I want to learn the techie stuff. And so when I got out, I used my GI Bill. I went to school for like audio production and video production, which is ironic considering this, you know, like not using a proper microphone. Kids happen, I did that. Yeah. And I went to school for three years, got my bachelor's degree, and then I got a job doing live events. So I set up shows. I tour shows down. At a certain point, I was operating shows, but more in a corporate sense, not really in a music sense. So it more professional conferences, kind of like when you see like a Christian conference, you know, it's like, you know, I don't know, whatever Christmas conference you can think of, that kind of thing. So I was operating those shows. And then COVID came and took out that industry for a little while. know, people didn't know what was going on. Like, they kind of did this Zoom thing where all the live shows were on Zoom, and I didn't want to do that. So I found another job to pay the bills during the pandemic and ended up being a satellite technician. Right. So that's totally out of left field. You know, I had to really learn like from the ground up, like what am I doing? And that led to other things. I stayed there for about a year and then didn't like it, didn't like the work environment, didn't like the scheduling. was very underpaid, but it paid the bills. And so, and then I got a job through my friend who has his own trucking company. I was at my brother's house. during New Year's Eve. And he was talking about one of his clients. He's like, hey, they're looking for somebody and they're great people. And my wife was super excited. She's like, hey, what do they do? Because she didn't like me working there. You know, it was exhausting. We barely had time together. She's like, so what do they do? they're in the tile industry. And I was like, man, I don't know anything about tile. Like, technology's been my life for a long time at this point. You know? And so, but I got the number of one of the owners and met them. And I've been at the showroom. So designers come there and they design like houses or commercial projects. And so like it's a showroom. a gallery showroom. And so I manage that. And I've been there for like three years, three years and some change. And it's awesome. And so we're about to use San Diego. Yes, San Diego. yeah. Interesting. what's been like, what's been your, I'm interested now, like to dig in a little bit to like your faith as a kid who grew up as a pastor's kid and then became an adult off military and so forth. And then here you are now, like, have you always, have you gone through periods where you questioned what you believed and start to doubt your faith or has it always sort of just been a constant for you? no, I've definitely had some, some battles. and I think it's because partly I, I grew up in a more reformed Christian house. so that whole idea of like predestination, election, you know, the Calvinism thing, which I held to for a long time. And I say held to, I don't know where I land on Calvinism considering other things. Yeah. that we'll probably talk about. yeah, I struggled a lot because I was always like in these seasons where I felt super spiritual. Just reading my Bible, I was praying, you know, and then, you know, I would do something, I would sin or fall into some sin. And it's like kind of like, this is it. Like, I don't think I'm saved. You know, what if I'm not the elect and things like that. And so I struggled with that for a long time. And honestly, I don't know where in my life I just kind of put that to bed. Where now it's just kind of like, you know, I live my life as best as I can, loving God, loving others, do good to others, because that's the message that I see consistently in the Old and New Testament. And I think, you know, growing up, I've made it really complicated. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of people in the church make things complicated. Mm-hmm. And where have you learned it now in terms of, like, churching? Did you go to church? You ended up sort of, yeah. I love church, yeah. I still go. It's ironic because I go to... So California is very different. It's hippie land and the whole, I don't know if you're familiar. Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with the Jesus movement that was like in the 60s, 70s or anything like that. made a movie about it recently. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen the movie, but I know enough about it. So like hippie, hippie Jesus movement. of like, yeah, I would say like a lot of the modern like Christianity that you see today kind of came out of that with the modern music and the whole kind of charismatic kind of, you know, the spirit is upon me type teaching. So a lot of churches in California tend to be more charismatic. Yep. and they tend to be more dispensational. They tend to be more, you know, pre-millennial. And so where I'm at in my faith now, which is funny, I'm kind of like the odd man out, although no one really knows because it's not like I'm bum rushing the stage and shouting my beliefs. I submit to my pastor and, but, you know, as like a preterist going to a dispensational church, people... Yeah. But I've learned to kind of be at peace with that, which is kind of seems counter to what I post sometimes. But I'm also trying to be more gracious towards people. that's just where I'm at right now. It's a dispensational church, but I love the leadership. They're still Christians. I don't agree with their eschatology. that has an effect on, I think we have differing worldviews because of that. But like they're not teaching eschatology every Sunday. So like the day-to-day sermon, like I can still grow from that. And it's, never gonna, I've never met a pastor I've fully agreed with. So. don't think that exists. Yeah, and I also want my, you know, I want my family to be satisfied. You know, I'm not going to rip, you know, my wife and my son out of a church just because I disagree with them eschatologically. Well, you know, I want my son to grow up the way that I did where the parents instilled the values the parents taught the kid. And then the church just kind of helps build on that, you know, and Because there's been times, even though my dad was a pastor, there's been times we visited other churches. But I got most of my teaching and what I know from my dad. Is it, what's a, like what does a Californian Disbe Church look like? Like you go on a Sunday, like how many people are there? What's, how does the service run? it depends. it's not a hyper charismatic church. they do believe that the gifts still like operate. but they're not like, you know, NAR, you know, hyper charismatic. It's just kind of like, it's one, I actually appreciate this about them because they're not going around and like blowing on people like Benny Hinn style, you know, or throwing oil on people. But like if the pastor feels like he wants to pray for somebody and ask God for a healing, I'm not opposed to that. I think we should do that because I think God can still heal people, but it's just, you know, it's not like anyone there I think has a gift of healing, you know. But if we're praying on behalf of somebody, that's a widely different thing. Yeah, Is it a like, yeah, keep going. sorry. So I guess to answer your question, what it's like is it's got a couple hundred people per service, I would say. It's not a small church. And it's very structured as you would expect. You know, it's three worship songs, know, ties and offering additional worship song and then announcements, pastor, last song. That's it. It's very formulaic in that sense. And like, is the, what is like the prevailing worldview in a, in a, an environment like that? what sort of stuff's the pastor teaching and how are they, how are they applying this worldview to their lives? Well, I would say they aren't doom and gloom. I won't say that. They are dispensational pre-trib church. I know that for a fact. I've been there long enough. But they also don't say, you know, like one day, like don't do anything because we'll be raptured out, that type of thing. They very much realize that the kingdom of God is something that is realize now to a degree. And that's the difference. I think it's fully realized here in the sense that it is here. It's not a degree. But since they believe that it's here to a degree, their worldview is still to go out and, you know, heal the nations, preach the gospel. So I do appreciate that about them. They're very mission driven. There's a couple of mission. What's the word I'm looking for? I guess charities that they that they do. Man, they're building houses in Mexico, which is cool. They do a lot, you know, and that's and that's where I step back and I go, OK, look, I don't agree with them on X, Y and Z, but they're doing a lot for other people. And I can tell that they're genuine. you know, and they're not making money off of their eschatology, you know. And that's when it's, yeah. And that's where I kind of draw the line is like, it's fine to have that view. I think you can be a Christian and be a dispensational person. Cause I was and people in my family are. So I try to be. is that still your dad's position? My dad is, he's actually surprised me because for a while he's, I think he's always been dispensational. And I think he would still say he is. But sometimes we talk all the time and he sent me texts like, are you dispensationalist or are you a covenant theology guy? And he knows my position. He knows I'm a preterist and. He's never ragged me for it or anything like that. He actually enjoys the conversation. My brother, he was a dispensationalist for a long time and I don't know where he stands more so right now. He's kind of revealed some things here and there where it's kind of like I feel like he's coming out of it. But yeah, I mean there's people in my family that held that view. Yeah. held that view all the way up until 2020. Yeah. So how did that change for you? And cause you, I mean, when I first got to know you, which is maybe a year ago. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. And, it seemed, I remember one of your first comments. I don't think you were quite full preterist at that point where you were still, you still had a few things as yet future. what's, how, how, what's been the steps to get there? When I joined Twitter, I was just started being like more in the post millennial camp. But there was still like dispensational things that I had inside of me. So like when Hamas attacked Israel, I was very much like, yeah, let's go Israel. And I... that's only a year and a bit ago. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, not a full two years. And so there's like some like, and just to clarify for your audience, I'm not anti Israel. I'm just not pro Israel in the way that fundamental Christians say we should be. And I think that's a clarity. think Israel as a nation, like Benjamin Netanyahu does have a duty to protect his citizens. You don't let other people, you know, do what happened. And so I support them in that sense. I think with any country, it doesn't matter if you're Israel, Russia, Ukraine. don't like as if, yeah, you have to do what you got to do. But when I joined Twitter, I had some still dispensational things inside of me, but I was largely post millennial. But. My journey out of dispensationalism happened because of COVID. Yeah. The big end times event sent you the other way. Yeah, man, I gotta be honest with you. I was one of those guys that was looking for anything. I was so enamored with like, this might be it. Because every time we, you you turn around, you know, it's kind of like, you see the death clock ticking up and it's like, man, mandatory vaccines. man, vaccine passports. Like this is kind of eerie. Yeah. And dude, I gotta be honest, I was that guy, I was like looking for blood moons and I was like watching YouTube videos, yeah. first, I basically came to Christianity as an end time futurist. That was, well, you know, and I think if my faith was built on that, I think it would be a very, very rocky faith today and would probably disappear. But yeah, I get you. a lot. It does a lot of damage and people don't realize it because they're like, no, it doesn't do a lot. Like what are you talking about? It does because I've personally experienced it where I've seen people that I know who didn't want to have kids because like what's the point? We're in the end times. Jesus said, you know, woe to the nursing mothers. Like what's why should I have kids? Yeah. And it's like, now we're here five years later, right? And it does damage psychologically like that, you know? the answer I can't, I've reached out to heaps of them and none want to come on, but I really want to get like a hardcore this bit of come on this show and talk through what's the point anyway, because for them, the point is basically just to batten down the hatches and wait for the end. Yeah. So there is no point in the here and now. Yeah, and it's almost weird because it's this mixture of like, there's nothing we can do about it, but then they're selling like products, you know, like apocalypse food, store up on ammo. And it's like, why? If you actually think, yeah, like why are you teaching this? If like, we're just gonna fly away to Jesus. And so, I was like, yeah, I was really into it. I was like looking at the patents for, I was looking at patent numbers, okay, for vaccines and like this patent number has 666 in it, oh my God. And then I remember one day, like when it kind of calmed down, I remember sitting down and going, okay, and I told my brother this, like I'm gonna. do a factory reset in this area. And I want to sit down and I want to write what I think I know about eschatology. And I want to go to these passages that I know are talking about this thing. And I just want to see what it says. And so I kind of was reevaluating like maybe around 2021-ish. then I eventually kind of made my way out of it. I went from like dispensational to more like post-tribulational but still dispensational. And then I was so enamored with this. was some of the key dominoes that fell? Because I sort of went through this as well, but on a like, I mean, at this time you're coming out and I was first becoming Christian. So I've sort of, my journey's been condensed. But for me, there was a couple of dominoes. I'm interested to see what yours were. I think the biggest one was how the church taught the rapture and me not really seeing that as they explained it. That was the major major one. Other ones that I kind of picked up on as I continued were things like Daniel 9 for example. Daniel 9 was mine. Yeah, so Daniel Knight, there's no mention of a peace treaty. There's no mention of a third temple being built. And so those are two things that they kind of rely on. when I saw that, I was just kind of like, well. And so, but because I launched into this kind of study and I still obviously dabble in it, I was buying books from people that I didn't hold views of. And the book that really helped me. get out of it was R.C. Sproul's book, Last Days According to Jesus. And I didn't know R.C. Sproul's view, so I didn't know what I was getting into. And I was kind of excited. And I was reading it, and it was totally different to what I have ever heard. I have never heard of any other end times view other than dispensational pre-trib, pre-millennialism, never. yeah. when I did eventually hear about like all millennialism, post-millennialism, I didn't know what they taught. I just kind of brushed it off. And so when I started reading R.C. Sproul's book, who was a post-millennialist, I was just kind of like, I've never heard of this before. And throughout his book, he's actually, one of the main resources R.C. Sproul used was James Stewart Russell's book, The Parasita. And I think Russell wasn't a full preterist, but he was pretty darn close to it. It was pretty much like, think the only thing Russell really looked to was a final resurrection day. I think that was it, if I remember correctly. And so, Spro was like using that book hardcore and it was just kind of like from there I found Jeff Durbin, Apologia. He spent a whole year in Matthew 24. Yeah. And that kind of launched me into post-millennialism because on the way to work and on the way back to work, I would just listen to Jeff Durbin preach about post-millennialism and breaking down things that, like, this is what is symbolic and this is from the Old Testament and Jesus is quoting Daniel here and it just opened my eyes and it clicked. It clicked. I was like, my gosh. And Vody Bakken was another resource. He's on millennialism. And so he was kind of like, I forget how he framed it. It was kind of like, man, he's not an idealist where it just kind of like life kind of perpetually looks like revelation in a sense. But he was very much like one of the earlier resources that I had too when I was coming out of dispensationalism. But Apologia with Jeff Durbin was like, that drove me to post-millennialism because he did such a great job kind of going through Matthew 24 so intricately. And each sermon is like an hour long, you know? And then I was so convinced that post-millennialism was right. It just clicked. Yeah. And I got to give it to the post-millennialists, like 95 % of what they say is pretty much spot on. So where's your, so I was similar. Mine was Daniel 9. remember. And I mean, most people, most people would say is particularly despise and futurists is that Daniel 9 sort of like the linchpin chapter of all eschatology, know, like you, you, if you work that out and I remember reading different opinions on it. And there was a footnote essentially like a footnote saying, you know, of course there's also Martin Luther who has an opinion that's not really held by anyone that Daniel 9.27 was actually fulfilled by the Messiah. And that was what stuck with me. was like, oh, well that's sort of crazy. And I was like, hang on, but how could someone possibly say that? And obviously it's someone fairly famous in church history. And then as I started studying that more, the whole thing fell apart. So Daniel 9.27 was the one that caused futurism to fall apart for me. As you then went post-millennial, and you said it was 95 % there, what was it that caused that to fall apart for you? As so when so when I launched into Twitter, I didn't know what was going to come of it. I didn't intend to be and I'm still not by any means an influencer. I don't consider myself that. It was just kind of like a social media thing. I wanted to talk about Christianity and things like that. And so when I started engaging with other people, you know, it was. a few instances where like I think folks like yourself and a couple others that you and I always kind of engage with, where like you would agree with me, but then you would have your comments of like, but, and when I was at one day, actually, this is funny, one day I started a private direct message with two of those guys and, I was like, look, I disagree with you guys. Like you're full presence and I'm post-millennial. But you you guys are very well versed and you guys seem to know what you're talking about. So I would ask them questions, not to debate them because they seem like really great, great people. Yeah. And I think that's what's lacking. So many people are ready to clash. They're not really ready to talk. And I was like that too. And it's hard when it's eschatology to debate eschatology. It's really hard because it's two different languages sometimes. Like as a full preterist, how do you debate a pre-millennialist? I wouldn't even know where to begin. The hermeneutics totally different. Now you can debate within full preterism the nature of the resurrection. Yeah. Or if you're a post-millennial, you might be able to debate an all-millennial guy because it's so close. But it's one of those discussions where you just have to kind of talk it out. Twitter's not the best place for that. it. I often say it to our mutual friend, Parasear70, that like, I'll send him a message and you see like these like full disbes on X and then you say something and I know that the things I say are like Chinese language to them. They have no idea. Yeah. And it's so far apart. So you're like, you're never going to solve these differences in opinion there. The only way you actually get it is through I try to do it. I'm doing this at the moment with Catholicism, as you and I have discussed a little bit. I'm trying to really deeply understand the perspective that disagrees with me. I'm trying to work out what do they see that I don't and how do they see that? And I think unless you engage in a conversation from that perspective, it never gets anywhere. Yeah, it, it, conversation. Go ahead. No, was just gonna say like, if they're wrong, I wanna know they're wrong by hearing their best possible argument. don't wanna, I'm thinking, I'm not getting anywhere by straw man arguments and just, know, defeating what I think I understand, but I don't actually understand. Yeah, and I'm trying to watch myself even within this topic. It's kind of like, I'll throw a comment here and there, but like, I'm trying so hard and I don't know if any of my followers see it, to not be so pushy on the subject on people who obviously aren't like even post-millennial. I try to limit the discussion mainly to like post-millennialists now because they're just so close. Yeah. So, Parasy is one of the actual accounts in the DMs that I was talking to. And so, I was asking them questions, and I would show them like Bible verses that I thought, you know, proved them wrong, but then they would, and they were whipping out Old Testament stuff. that's another thing is my ignorance at the time of Old Testament stuff. And so, I guess what got me out of post-millennialism, to answer your question, is I started seeing inconsistencies. And I'm not saying that post-millennials refuse to see that, but it's very much like me, as hard as I went into this topic, which is almost like five years at this point. You know, it's not like I woke up and was like, I declare myself full preterist. You know, like I did the work. I bought the books. I bought books I didn't agree with, you know, and it's kind of like an insult on my intelligence in a sense of like someone just writes you off. It's frustrating. And so I just saw certain inconsistencies and one day I was just kind of like this is where I'm at, you know. And there's things I'm not like able to elaborately explain still. Yeah. It's hard because we're so limited with what we have as far as like, you know, in the Bible, you know, we every book in the New Testament has an eschatological reference to them. Every single one. And that's another thing that really made me love this topic. I was like, man, everything in the New Testament, at least once. Right? Obviously there's more than that, but every single book has eschatology in it. Why? You know? And that shapes your worldview. I don't care what anybody says. Your eschatology most definitely shapes your worldview. And you'll either be nihilistic or you'll search it out. Yeah. Yeah, see, I read during the week and I put up a tweet about this, that I found, I haven't spent a lot of time in the early church. It's sort of just not really where I've studied, but I'm starting to look there a little bit more. And I agree with you on all these epistles in the New Testament, it's all like about this sort of eschatological event that's coming. And then I read Clement's letter to the Corinthians. And you're like, the one, the couple of things that struck me, it's like that the, the imminent event that seemed apparent in all these epistles had disappeared. You know, it was a really different tone. Like it wasn't dealing with, the, of the epistles are dealing with the imminent eschatological event and Judaizes. There's no mention of Judaizes. There's no mention of falling back to the old ways. The tone is really, really different. And so people often say, well, why do none of the church fathers teach full preterism or why do none of them mention it? thinking about that, it's like, well, there's clearly a shift. There's a shift in, now I'm not sure Clement at that point in time needed to mention. And Clement probably didn't have all his theology worked out. Like I'm not sure any of the apostles ever had their whole theology worked out. Like it's, I'm not sure whether theology is ever something that's meant to be perfectly worked out. We have scriptures which are a record of events that were recorded often to give very specific details to very specific groups of people as well. You know, like Daniel was written to an audience that were, you know, 500 years before Christ, you know, and then the first century, like it's like, we're not the audience of that letter. So it's like, when you read Clement, to me, it shows that it's like they might not have worked everything out, but they were in a new mode. Like they were starting to do something different. They had a new focus and this imminent event that was there was no longer their focus. I have an inverse version of that. I've never read Clement. I want to get some of his stuff because I have a fascination with history. But I recently read Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians. And he very much has a, he doesn't lay out an eschatology group, but he very much held to a hell as we kind of see it today. Mm-hmm. And he did believe in a return, a physical return, and he did believe in a advance of Corpse's resurrection. did. And he was born in 1869, so a year before the whole Jerusalem siege. And it's fascinating because according to like tradition and things like that, he was the Apostle John's kind of student or one of his students or disciple. And for me, it's kind of like as a practice, I'm just like, okay, the guy who wrote Revelation is supposedly your teacher and you hold to these views. And that's the part where you just kind of go, okay, well, but what does the Bible say? Yeah. Is it possible for Polycarp to be wrong even though he was a student? think so. I mean, there was people sitting within Paul's audience who, like Hymenaeus and Phileetus, they were teaching off the wall stuff and they were around the disciples, you know? good example is, you know, Mary and Martha, where, you know, their brother, their brother Lazarus, who just died. And they're like, yes, yes, we understand at the last day, you know, you'll raise him up. And Jesus is like, yeah, that's not like, that's not entirely it. That's not exactly how it works. Like, there is closest confidence here on earth. And they didn't understand their eschatology of theology that you're like, and I think that, yeah, there's, mean, Peter, his right hand man through the whole period. like, it's not until first and second Peter written, you know, 10 decades later that the guy starts to have some really strong theology. Yeah, the Mary and Martha example is a good one actually because when they say, know that he'll raise on the last day, that they're going back to Daniel, Daniel 12. That's what they're going back to. And we know we love Daniel 12, you know, because the tribulation and the resurrection happened within the same generation according to Daniel. So it's kind of like, okay, Polly Carte believed this. You know, Irenaeus believed this, and this is what the Bible says. Yeah. The other thing I'm... Sorry, keep going. And I was just saying, I think people are uncomfortable with that. We're very much, we're very much Sola Scriptura, but not really. Nah, nah, no one is. It doesn't hold. Yeah, but let's cut out the reforming and let's say what was reformed at X point in time 500 years ago is the gold standard. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So where I'm at now is I think, I don't think sola scriptura holds and I don't think anyone actually holds it. At least Catholics are honest and say that they don't, but whereas like, A lot of Protestants and Reform guys say that, but none of them actually do. I was discussing this with my most recent guest, Greg Chacon, and he was saying, he's pre-Musk scripturer, that the Bible never intended to be a document that covered everything. It's a historical narrative of corporate Israel, really, and... events that would happen and then events that did happen. Which means that there's a whole lot of stuff that isn't covered and I would say that, I mean most full praetorists would say this, that it's not really talking about anything that's going on today. Which means that either we've been left with a void, you know, we've been given this 66 or 72, 73 book canon if the Catholics are right, that talk about all these events and then the event's finished and it's like, off you go, you know, there's nothing more for you. So it's like, I'm, I'm okay with, I'm talking with the idea, like, is there, could we be completely right on our reading of the scriptures telling a full preterist story, but there's yet future things to happen here on earth that just the Bible doesn't cover because it didn't need to cover. I was doing, I was doing an interesting study on the verses, what is it? Might be Luke 12, maybe where Jesus is talking about, you know, the stewards that he leaves and then he'll, you know, the one that goes and does good works, but be careful the one that doesn't, because he'll come back when it's not expected and he'll send them off with the unbelievers. And you read that and you're like, Like he clearly says like, he'll come back when it's not expected to the individual, right? Which means like, I don't know, like is there this idea that, and some people talk about this like the Parasite or the presence that there is like an ongoing element of it. You know, that it's maybe the coming that is the Parasite or the event that is spoken of in the New Testament is the 70 AD coming, but. Who's to say that maybe the individual death of a human is where there is another coming, where there's a judgment and there's a separation of the wheat and shaft. Like, I don't know, I'm just trying to think a little bit more out of the box to answer these questions. Cause you see this in preterism. I mean, there's a whole individual body or corporate body debate. No one can agree on what happens when you die now. They've got absolutely no idea. Yeah. agree on what the scripture says happens after death. A lot of preachers will say it doesn't cover it. And it kind of doesn't. Yeah, I mean, we get a few things, sort of, like when the Sadducees question Jesus on the resurrection, and Jesus goes, you don't know what the scriptures teach or the power of God, apparently, because you're rejecting this. You know, there's no marriage, and you'd be like the angels in heaven. I think that's a reference to the afterlife, but it's not detailed. We just know that we'll be like the angels in heaven, which I think is a reference to Daniel where you shine brightly as, you know, the stars or whatever. And then we get a parable about a rich man in Lazarus, but again, that's a parable and it's a parable and it's not even talking about the afterlife in the sense of heaven as opposed to what we would say is hell, like. The parable is actually Hades, the realm of the dead. not even, like Hades is still there. It's not even destroyed yet. And so that doesn't really count. That was more for their generation. And even when Jesus talks about like, you know, being thrown into hell where the worm dieeth not, I have very problematic. I have issues with the way that that was translated because I think that was more of a judgment kind of symbolic language. I think it was literal in the sense that it happened in Jerusalem. But I don't think Jesus is referencing a literal eternal conscious torment reality when referencing that. And so, For me as a full Preterist, it is one of those things you have to kind of wrestle with amongst the post-millennialists and or even with fellow Preterists. And where I've kind of landed is I believe the resurrection was pointing to a very specific redemption center event that did happen, that was necessary to happen. But also I think when our time is up here on earth, individually. do think that we are resurrected in the sense that I believe we go to God and he does judge us individually and you're either entering into his presence for eternity or you don't. And I know there's, you know, the annihilation view. I don't know where I land on that. Right now, I would say If I had to choose, I would say that I believe in an eternal separation from God that would kind of be a form of punishment, I guess. But I don't think it's meant to convey like God torturing you with fire. I think when you look at the Ezekiel 37, and you you see the Valley of Dry Bones, and Ezekiel's looking out and he sees the bones. they're in exile, they're out of God's presence. That's why they're pictured as death, they're dead. But it's interesting because it says that they are without hope. And I think that could be kind of like a picture of maybe that's what it is like, maybe being outside of God's presence for eternity is just kind of like, this is hopelessness. There's no hope for eternal life for them anymore. They squandered it. And so, That's just something I thought about recently, you but that's kind of where I land as far as you're after. Like, I don't know. I don't pretend to know. I used to pretend that I did know until Steve Magwa did a series on hell. And I don't know if you've seen that or not. It's worth watching. pretty familiar with Steve's position and I hold to a similar one. And that's, yeah, I'm sort of now okay with that. Cause I'm like, if the scriptures are what they are, then, and it's given to us, not to give us knowledge of every single thing from creation of the world to the end of the world and everything that happens in between, but to lay down the covenant and how we are to live here. I think it's a given that there's life after death. I don't think you possibly, as the Sadducees say, argue that there is none. But what if the scriptures are just not interested in explaining that to us because it's not the purpose of them? Which- I agree. I think the purpose of the Bible and its narrative from Genesis to Revelation is, in one sentence, it is about Israel's redemption. Mmm. Yep. Yep. And I know like a lot of the covenant theology people go, the church is Israel and there's no nuance there. Like the story is about ethnic Israel. It is. Now how we view Israel in the New Testament as opposed to the old, that conversation can be had, but even in the New Testament it was still ethnic Israel centered. I don't like going around and calling myself like we're all spiritual Jews. I don't hold that view of like the covenant theology view because like if there's no Jew or Greek in Christ, then why are you calling yourself a spiritual Jew? That doesn't even, that contradicts itself. I get what they mean, but they don't nuance it. They just slap a Twitter post. The church is Israel. It's like there's no nuance and it confuses people. And so... That's where I kind of fall in this interesting thing of like the dispensationalist. When it comes to the Israel importance, they get it right. It's like they're like 2000 years late, but they get that part right. then the cut. Yeah. post millennial guys. They're so consistent, they're willing to go back to the shadows. They're ready for red heifers, man. And then for the covenant theology folks, I find it hard to lean 100 % into there because they get a lot of things right in spiritual sense, but they downplay the importance of ethnic Israel. And the difference is the eschaton. Yeah, I've had some fascinating debates with, you know, like these reform guys about Israel and they'll like dump on me. I'm like, man, I'm like, I'm on the same page as you. I'm the most like anti-1948 Israel guy you'll find. Like they have no biblical significance whatsoever, but you can't get so emotional and caught up with that, that you say none of the Bible's about Israel. Like it's all about Israel. just... exactly. about the modern Israel and I agree with you on that. And that's that's that was a big thing for me coming into preterism too is anytime someone goes into preterism is there's unraveling you have to do because you're so caught up with all these other things you've been told or thought you knew. And it's always cool. It's always cool when I get a little notification on my phone and it's from like an A-MIL guy or a Post-MIL guy in my messages. And I'm just like, hey, tell me more. Yeah. And it's very rare. It does happen, but it's very rare. And it's just kind of like you're teachable. I'm not a pastor, and I'm not a teacher. I never went to seminary. Everything that I post on Twitter is stuff that I've kind of learned through my own study. And so I don't parade myself as some sort of authority. But it's kind of cool when someone trusts you enough to say, hey, You know, I see what you post. Can you kind of elaborate and help me understand? I enjoy those conversations because even if they ultimately disagree, and there's a few that do, like we could, build a relationship. 100 % yeah, I don't need everyone to agree with me. You know, I'm probably, I change my mind all the time. Like most of positions I hold are probably gonna prove to be wrong, but I hope I go about it the right way. I wanna shift now to get you to help me with my challenges that I'm working through, which sort of ties in with that Israel point. So, we've spoken about what we see the biblical narrative as being in it, that it is Israel-centric. And these Israel and the guys go off the end of the cliff with it. like, it's a story about, it's a mythological story about Israel has no significance for now. Like, I think that's so incorrect because I think from beginning to end, Israel was the means to the end with a purpose. was never the end itself. And the purpose I think from Adam onwards was that God's covenant people would bring goodness to the earth. They were here and it was never, it's the narrative is never about some ticket out of this place to go somewhere else. is so, people could be here. They could be the priests and the Kings that could bring healing to the nations. So the Israel only idea makes no sense that cool, this whole thing has been achieved and now it's just done. It's like, well, now it's achieved and now it can actually go to work. So, and I land in the sort of full preterist. is sort of split in two with some being sort of individual body views, some being corporate. I see it as a corporate story. I think it's a corporate body. The biggest argument against preterism, and if I'm being intellectually honest, this is not solved for me, is that if we see this great escapism, and this is, think, where it comes, people don't frame this argument the right way, but I think this sort of intrinsically is maybe what's driving people's criticism. is that you say, hey, everything was achieved at 70 AD and this new covenant body was created. Look, you can see it all in the scriptures. And then people will say, yeah, and then what? What about this like void? And I would argue against that by saying, hey, you know, like people of in every nation on earth for 2000 years have become believers, come into the new covenant community and through all these denominations, which I, you know, I would have said is a a feature, not a bug, mean that, you know, you're getting emotional Jesus freaks that are coming through the charismatic movement, you're getting conservative guys through reform movement. You know, that all these people are coming into the covenant. My issue, to this point, is the complete lack of cohesion as a corporate body. Now I can I can make those points all I wish but it is Israel was arguably in a better position 2000 years ago as a corporate body than we are now. We have no, the average Christian has no semblance of a corporate body is 40,000 odd denominations. Even in the full preterist and these guys are smart, intellectual guys, I understand their scripture. The Facebook groups in preterism are a disaster. Like it's a preterist arguing against each other on doctrine. And I'm like, like even like they're all arguing like individual body versus corporate body and even the corporate body guys like aren't getting together as one corporate body to go and maybe they're getting together to do debates, but they're not building hospitals and they're not building schools and not doing all this stuff. So I had on the show, Mesh Mesh and then I had Sean McMahon come on who were both full preterists that had become Catholic as a result of their preterism, which was a shocking thing to hear for me. I was like, what? I'm like, Cause I've always thought Catholics are just Christians that don't read their Bibles, you know, and fooled by Rome. And so I've spoken to these two smart people that became Catholic. I'm like, hang on. I'm like, how are you Catholic? And it, rather than dismissing them, I've been like, hang on, what are they saying that I've missed? So I've been going back to the drawing board and really looking again at Catholicism because if Catholicism is true, it solves this void. Like if it is the true church, then at 70 AD, new covenant creation became the new thing. It took over all covenant Israel and within 200 years, it's toppled the Roman Empire. And then for a good 1200 years after that, it becomes basically the dominant power in global geopolitics. establishes itself in every single corner of the earth. even over the last, I mean, even the last, up until the 19, mid 1900s, it's still like really the dominant sort of institution around the world. And it's only really probably in our lifetimes entered this period of losing its dominance. But I mean, there's still a billion plus Catholics around the world. There's still There's still Catholic churches on prime real estate in every city on earth. There's Catholic schools everywhere. There's Catholic hospitals. And I think Francis is a bad pope, but a lot of Catholics will say, you can have bad popes. It doesn't change the validity of the office. So I am much to my complete dismay, re-questioning whether I'm wrong on Catholicism. Where are you at on that question? man. And can you see where I'm coming from? Yeah, and you mentioned the Israel only folks and I messaged you when I found out about the Israel only position, I think I messaged you and I was like, man, like I'm a little worried here because it is, it's strange. They're like, they're so like, they're preterist enough to make all the same arguments in the same hermeneutic and. The only difference is, like, it just becomes agnosticism. To me, that's the hyper-predatorism. People always conflate full-predatorism with hyper-predatorism. it's, it's like saying, you know, you're a Mormon when you're a Christian. You know, it's like, because what? Because both have a Jesus. And it's like, it's not the same thing. And it is depressing. And, but you shared the Tim Martin video with me. The promised land of lot. saw, yeah, and I was like, man, this guy's incredible. And it kind of got me out of that funk and kind of reignited me a bit because that's the danger of Israel only is they're so good at sounding like poor preterists. They never discuss the other verses that talk about the church continuing. They never talk about the verses like in Isaiah 66 where after the judgment inside the new heavens and new earth. There are people who've never heard of God. And Isaiah 66 says, these survivors of this judgment teach the nations about this God. And it's very interesting because when you look at the last verse in Isaiah 66, it says, in the view the dead bodies where the worm dieth not, that's Gehenna. And so that's an eschatological passage. Yeah. So there's people who haven't heard about God in the new heavens and new earth and Gehenna is there and it's like, okay, we've got everything kind of backwards in that sense. And so, you never see the Israel only folks talk about that or like passages in Isaiah that talk about, you know, the new covenant being eternal and things like that. And so, It is very depressing, Israel only. As far as like the Catholicism thing, it is an interesting point because... I like you said, I'm trying to be more gracious with them too. Like it used to be, and you see it all over social media, these accounts that just pull out these straw man arguments and not everyone who sits in a Catholic mass. I don't think they even know all the intricate dogmas of Rome and all the Vatican one, Vatican two, you know, and all this intricate stuff. I think he could be a genuine Christian and be a Catholic. 100%. like you could be just like you could be a Protestant and probably be not a Christian. You know, and no one ever thinks about it like that. And so I think like you made an interesting point yesterday I have never thought of. You were like, when you had that old covenant economy with the high priest and the Pharisees and they sat in the seat of Moses and Jesus says, submit to them, but don't do as they do. Mmm. And you're like, that could be applied to Catholicism. Just because you're a part of the Roman Catholic Church doesn't mean you have to like do as they do. You don't have to like kiss Mary statues or kiss icons. But I think you could be a genuine Christian and acknowledge that, reject that, and still probably go to Catholic mass. You know, I think that's totally possible. Yeah, I was having this discussion with, you know, a friend recently and saying like, you've got to judge the office, not the, not the individuals in it. And I mean, that's a story from, if you're not getting that story from the whole Old Testament and New Testament, like you're, you're missing a big part there in that, like, just cause Israel had bad Kings didn't mean you could throw out the kingdom of Israel, you know, like the loyal Israelite through those periods would be like, yeah, this is a bad king, but this is still my God. And this is still an office that I need to treat with respect and pray for and submit to because an imperfect corporate body is still better than no corporate body. And that's the... Yeah. And then even if, I mean, if the claim that Peter's the first pope is true, the lesson from that is that the first pope was a pretty imperfect guy. Like after he had been given his title, he goes and denies Jesus three times at the cross. You're like, well. yeah, he's a hypocrite, he's eating with Gentiles, and the Jews show up and he's not, and it's, And so it's a topic that I've never delved into, although I've thought about it, but not to your extent where you're like really looking into it, maybe I should, but there is an apparent lack of structure that seems similar to what they have, meaning the apostolic church in the first century versus like bishops in these cities writing to each other like, yeah. and they took it seriously. Like when you read Ignatius and you see what he says where it's like you don't do anything outside the bishop's eyes. If you do, that's like simple. They took it seriously and they had these established offices. And then it's weird. It's like you're looking to the Protestant churches and you have like a board of elders, but it's like Joe the plumber and Matt the tax guy. And like, none of them really know their position. They're not people who are engaged with the body, teaching them, shielding them from falsehoods. Yeah. That's what I say. The more I'm looking into this, I'm like, all these like Protestant denominations, they're Catholic light or they're counterfeit Catholic. Like they try to establish, you know, that's me being controversial and brash with the comment, but it's, you know, like, you're still setting up a deacon. You're still setting up a group of elders. Like at least the Catholics are going all in on it. I won't mention the name of the church, obviously, because I served there for so many years. But I was transitioning out of that church and there was a group transitioning out too. We felt like it just the leadership was lacking and the theology was lacking. And so we had these meetings and someone took up the point of like, who are the elders? Like no one knows who the elders are at this church. And the response was, you know, well, it's on the website and you can kind of see, you know, the little bio in the picture or whatever. And it's like, these are supposed to be like the pillars of the church. And it shocked me that the pastor's response was like, yeah, but these guys are like plumbers and electricians in their full-time jobs. Their concern isn't the church really. And I was like, in my head, I was like, What do you mean? Their concern is the church has a priority for this office. Like, they're supposed to know us, they're supposed to teach us and guide us and protect us. And they don't, they just have the position just because the pastor was like, okay, you're an elder. You know, and it is cheap, that's cheap. And then you look at like, When Catholicism and you look at orthodoxy even, and I know you don't really get into the orthodoxy thing, but man, they have such a structured hierarchy within their churches and they are consistent. They have doctrines that they hold to as a corporate body. There's really no deviation. I mean, there are some, but it's not like us where it's like. Yeah, Presbyterians and Baptists fighting over child infant, like, Baptisms and stuff, you know, like... like a key thing is, and I see Catholics make this argument. I'm like, hey, you're making a good point. They're like, if it's solo scripture and it's, you know, each their own interpretations, like you guys can't even agree on what you need to do to become a Christian. You can't agree on who, whether you have your salvation or not, who can have their salvation. Like, these aren't secondary doctrines. are core doctrines and there isn't agreement. I think, go ahead, sorry. I heard. need to, I find myself making bad excuses for how that's the case. Yeah, I heard an interesting debate with Jay Dyer and I know you're like got your thoughts on him and he's kind of wacky. He's funny though. I gotta admit he's a funny guy. But he's an orthodox guy and he's super smart. Like he's really smart and he debates. He debates people on Sola Scriptura and I gotta say dude he puts him to shame. Unfortunately he just does. Yep. And one of the linchpin arguments he pulls out is how do you hold to Sola Scriptura when the Bible doesn't even list the canon of books that you guys follow? Like you guys kind of relied on us in church history to do that, you know? And then it just kind of goes on from there because his livestreams are like two hours long, but that was one of the main things. And I was just kind of like. I hadn't even answered that. Like it's true. Yeah. That's another thing about Predatorism 2 that kind of is shaping my views a little bit. And I mentioned it in our conversation last night where I was talking to my brother and I was kind of like, man, I feel like I'm a little bit less reformed these days because of my, you know, recent views on things. And it's just kind of weird, like. I'm not like I would call myself a Calvinist, but I'm not Calvinist as the reform folks would probably see it. Like, like when I see like predestination and the elect into biblical narrative, I do think it's talking about Israel. And I do think it's talking about the Gentiles who were elected for that specific time period. don't necessarily think it. I don't think it's necessarily talking about generations and generations of predestination elect. And I guess you can make the argument God works the same way. And since he is omniscient and all knowing and beginning from the end and we affirm all that, I guess in some sense, I guess you could say or make an argument for that. But I think in terms of honoring the narrative and the context, think It was largely talking about Israel and the Gentiles at that time period. in their specific fulfillment of prophecy in which you needed people to, I mean, if you put yourself in God's shoes, which is always a silly thing to do, but in fulfilling these prophecies, you needed people to move a certain way. You needed to place people where they needed to be. You couldn't. And I think, and I'll even go a step further, and I don't know where you land on this, when it comes to the Gentiles or the nations, I think a lot of that has to do with restoring the Northern tribes back. And people don't see that at all because they're like, no, Gentiles means Mike down the street. You know? But no, like Gentiles was just a common phraseology for the nations. I think that's what I think Romans is dealing mainly with the tribes. Yeah. whenever Paul is quoting from the Old Testament to the Gentiles, it's focused on northern Israel. And that's my frustration with the modern church these days is if you go up to, I don't know what church you go to, but if you were to go one Sunday, is it dispensational? I don't remember if you said. No, I go to like a Presbyterian church. That's... if you were to go to your Presbyterian church and you pull someone aside, I'm not saying do this, and you just say, explain to me what happened in the division of the kingdom of Israel in the prophecies of their restoration, can you elaborate on that for me? And in some cases, I've had people, I've had people who have been in the faith longer than me and they go, well, I didn't know that was ever divided. Mmm. Yeah. And so was just kind of like, okay, this is where some of the disconnect may be coming from. And so when you say, well, Romans nine Gentiles is talking about the scattered tribe of, you know, 10 tribes of Israel, that's again, it's like speaking Chinese to them. You know, they don't grasp it. But that's. Israel only guys then make the mistake and say, hey, all the Gentiles is always talking about the tribe. You're like, well, who were the nations that Abraham was gonna bless? Yeah. exactly. And so it's this weird thing. I think the Great Commission was specifically to have that restoration come into fruition because it was the gospel of the kingdom and the scattered tribes had to be restored back to Judah. That's the prodigal son. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people think that's about the feel-good story of we all backslid and we can go back to God. And I make the argument now that Prodigal Son is actually about Israel's restoration when you actually look at it. same argument this week to a mutual friend of ours who takes the feel good individual story about saying, we can't lose our salvation. We always come back. I'm like, that's a corporate parable. think I love the story. I love trying to put ourselves in it as an individual. makes us feel good, but I don't think that's the point of it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. question, I think it was Peter, Peter's first question and asks his Lord, when's the restoration happening? They expected it. It's not 1948. And that's cool thing about preterism is, man, it really makes the Bible like the best story. It's the most like intricate, like best story ever written. Yeah, yeah. What do you, what's the main thing you, I mean, there's probably a few that you've touched on, but stuff you're really grappling with at the moment. And then further to that, what do think you could, what do you have the humility to say you might be wrong on? one of the things that I'm grappling on is, I would say like, like you said, the disunity within the body is something my dad and I talk about a lot. again, I've never did the full deep dive that you're doing. but it is something that I do think about here and there, because it is very fragmented. also, just kind of being okay with undoing certain things. it, if full preterism leads me out of like the Calvinistic, long beard, reformed guy, smoking cigar tradition, like, am I okay with that? You know? And so like, when you start kind of unwinding some of the things that you held to for so long, it feels like you are doing away with a piece of you. Mm. You know, because like you've been a part of these things for so long and then you kind of peel it back and it's like I told you last night, it feels like you're walking away from the faith, but you're not. I actually feel stronger because you know, like Calvinism, for example, they don't address an eschatological framework. It's also the urology, but so urology is in a mix with eschatology because redemption is the theme. Yep. if you don't have a biblical outlook on redemption, you don't have a biblical soteriology. Yeah. Yeah. kind of goes back to what we were saying last night about the atonement. Who's under the curse of the law? If Jesus was born under the law to redeem those under the law, we were never under the Mosaic covenant. So what does redemption biblically look like? And how can we apply that to our lives post 70? What does it look like to be born again? If no... weren't born under the law. too. Yeah, and this is controversial because we often tell people they must be born again, but the people that needed to be born again, they were born in Adam and they're being born again into Christ. That's what it is. But what does that look like for us? And I'm not saying that that's where Israel only, they creep in. And that's where you gotta be careful because I don't think there's nothing, obviously. But there has to be a good biblical adult way to talk about these things without being slapped with like heretic, you know, you're damnable. And so like when you start peeling back to traditions, it's kind of like, it's very uncomfortable. And it's something I struggle with when I'm still going to a church that embraces some of these things and it's the normative belief system. I feel like I'm the odd one out. Yeah. it's been a good, great theology chat. I've enjoyed breaking it down. And I think this is probably going to be an episode. I know you're like a real go-to person for a lot of guys I speak to and everyone's like, Chris is just such a good dude, you know, and they love asking you questions. Cause you got, you got a nice, you got a really nice mannerism in terms of the way you do go about it. So I think, think a lot of people are going to enjoy just listening to us, just hashing it out over theology here, but maybe just to finish up. We'll go away from that and get a bit more on your personal situation. So your father of Thomas, you followed my lead and went with the best boys name that there is. Well done on that. Is he 12 weeks old now? He is, he's almost gonna be five months. So he's, he's grown up quick, man. He's practically in college. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's, it's one of those things where you knew it was gonna be, you know, everyone knows it's gonna be tough. You're raising another person. And there are some tough, tough things about it for sure, but it's so rewarding, you know. when you come home from work and it's like, he smiles because he hasn't seen me all day. You know, it's super cool. And I guess that's what, that's kind of, we can go full circle again, because I feel like we talk about so many things. I just want your audience to leave this episode knowing like, this all can be put together. I didn't want it to be, I didn't want to sound disjointed or anything because I love. talk about these things. But when we talk about like our worldview, if you have a biblical view on redemption and the eschaton, God's kingdom, you know, that is the point of life is like spreading that. And I think that's what Jesus means by the meek will inherit the earth. I think our purpose, like you said, is to We honor God, we love God with all of our soul and being. We love our fellow man. We raise our kids up in God's ways. And I think God blesses that. Now I'm not saying you're automatically a Christian because you grew up in a Christian home, but I do think God blesses children in a Christian home where it's kind of like, it's easier to believe. And I think there's, that's a blessing. And when you raise your kids up in God's ways, morals and statutes and just kind of take over the earth in the most peaceful, you know, non combative way. And I think that's kind of the point is like the gospel does fill the nations and those who are like, you know, Revelation 22 says those people who are willing, they can drink freely from the river of life and, and they can come in. the gates are always open. Revelation says the gates are always open, but it's interesting that there are people who can't come in to these gates because they're stuck in their sin. And so as we preach the gospel, even though the commission I think was to restore Israel into one body in the new covenant kingdom, New Jerusalem, man, I think that the great commission continues to happen. You know, it's kind of like fulfilled doesn't mean you fully stop. Like it's not a full stop. You know, and that's what we got to do. just, got to beat our swords into plowshares and take over the world for God's glory. As Steve Nagel would say, everything's for the glory of God. Yeah, great. mean, Greg on the most recent episode made such a good point on that. He's like, it's like for him, the greatest proof of God's existence is that like, worshipping God and living in accordance to his will has positive returns for you. You know, like if it didn't work and you felt miserable as Rosalia, like, well, doesn't really make sense. you know, when and we all know that whether we're believers or non believers, like we get our greatest joy when we love others, that doesn't really make any sense in an existentialist worldview. But when we love others, and we do for others, and when we, you know, I think when we gain dominion in the right way, in the good way, like these are positive outcomes. It should lead to a more fulfilled life. and life outside of it should feel lacking fulfillment. You see evidence of that. I mean, we've got more than enough evidence of people living an unfulfilled life. And that scares people in the sense of, you know, a of the people in the other kind of systems will say, you don't believe in this reset glorified earth where, you know, you're riding glorified animals and surfing the glorified tides of Australia. And it's like, that's not the point. though, so they can't be surfing. Yeah. not even the, that's not even the point, you know, it's, I think, again, like you said, there's so many positive returns and I don't think the Bible ever addresses the end of space-time continuum as we know it, but I think the earth can actually be transformed like people are transformed when the gospel hits, because when the gospel brings people to life and people live that way. It infiltrates. It infiltrates your businesses. It infiltrates politics. And course, people can mess it up. But I think there's a larger good, like you said. And that's what we should be striving for. Not this fake Christian nationalism where, you know, you force it like, you know, the pagan must have blasphemy laws. And it's like, that's never going to work. That was never the apostle's intentions. Hmm. apostles actually submitted to their government, you know? And so our goal is to take over the world with the peacefulness of the gospel because it's ultimately God who does the quickening. And that's part of the reformed aspect I still hold onto is, you know, it's God ultimately transforming, you know, through his people. Yeah. Amen to that. Well, Chris, thanks so much for your time, mate. I'll let you go and sit on the couch for, I don't know if, what is it? We started seven o'clock, is it? 8.30. If you're anything like me, you'll have about 15 minutes on the couch and then bedtime now. Yeah, it's almost 9 p.m. I don't know. I go to bed pretty early, so you're probably right. I'll take care and all the best. We'll chat soon. All right, thanks. Look, it was awesome. No problem. was.