#419 - Kyle Thompson // Aegisthus Dug His Own Grave

We go back to Homer’s Odyssey to expose a timeless truth: men love to blame anyone but themselves, even when they’ve been clearly warned. We connect Zeus’ opening rebuke to Ezekiel 18 and James 1, then challenge each other to reject excuse-making and practice real repentance. 
• why we choose Homer over movie hype 
• the opening scene on Mount Olympus and the warning Agathas ignores 
• how blame shifting shows up as a default habit 
• Ezekiel 18 on personal responsibility for sin 
• James 1 on desire, temptation, and death 
• why victimhood culture trains men to avoid ownership 
• a simple assignment to stop excuses in real time 
share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. 

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Why The Odyssey Matters Now

SPEAKER_01 0:20

If you're anywhere near movie culture this summer, you already know that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey adaptation is the biggest blockbuster going. There's been no shortage of hype and chatter about awards and things like that. But for the next two weeks on the Daily Blade, we're going to be skipping the movie and going back to the original source material from Homer, the Odyssey itself, and we're going to be drawing out the biblical connections and a close reading of the poem. And I actually gave a full review of the film on my Undaunted Life Show, episode 968, if you want my take. So I'm not going to be relitigating the casting here. So if you're wanting me to talk about how somehow a tranny became a hoplite soldier and a center point of that story, we're not going to talk about it here on this show. So sorry to disappoint. And I'm not going to be doing this series over the next two weeks because the Odyssey happens to be trending this summer. I'm doing it because it's one of the oldest stories in civilization. I mean, Homer finished the Odyssey, you know, like 700 years before the New Testament. And I mean, it was 3,000 years before anyone wrote a self-help book. So he's talking about a different God, but it's kind of the same wiring, the same conscience, and really the same problem, which is that a man has a tendency to blame everybody but himself. And so that's essentially where we're going to be starting out today on day one.

Zeus On Blame And Folly

SPEAKER_01 1:36

We're going to be looking at book one, essentially line one of the Odyssey. So here's the setup. The Odyssey opens up with the gods sitting around on Mount Olympus. Zeus, who is the king of all the gods, is thinking about a guy named uh Agathas. Agathas. And so on some of these names, guys, I'm going to struggle with some of these names. A lot of these names have multiple pronunciations, so I'm going to go with the one that just sticks in my brain the best. So we're going to go with Agathas. And so this requires a little bit of a backstory. While Agamemnon was off fighting the Trojan War, Agathas seduced his wife. And then when Agamemnon finally came home, Agathas murdered him. And this was not a crime of passion. This was premeditated. And here's one of the big details that really matters. The gods had already warned him. They sent, you know, Mercury, Hermes, depending upon which translation. Mercury is more on the Roman side. Hermes is more on the Greek side, but they're the same entity. They sent them down personally to tell him, Don't do this. Do not touch Agamemnon's wife. Do not kill Agamemnon. It will not end well for you. But he did it anyway. So at the very beginning of Book One, we have the very first council of the gods, and Zeus opens up with this line See now how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Agathas. He must make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him. For I sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things. Mercury told him this in all good will, but he would not listen. And now he has paid for everything in full. So this is actually a really big deal, guys. I mean, the king of the Greek gods, who we know as a pagan deity who is ruling over a pantheon of little g gods, which was famous for moral inconsistency and chaos and jealousy, opens up this famous poem by essentially saying, Stop blaming us for what you chose to do with your own hands. Okay? So this is a deliberate choice by Homer to begin this epic by establishing that a man is answerable for his own choices, especially if he ignores warnings to stray away from bad behavior.

Ezekiel And James On Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 3:46

And all that should really sound familiar because God says the same thing in the Bible. So if you go to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 18, we're going to start in verse 19 here. Yet you say, Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father? When the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to observe all my statutes? He shall surely live. Verse twenty. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. So what is God saying here through the prophet Ezekiel? He's essentially saying that you cannot transfer your blame to anyone else. You can't blame your father, you can't blame your family of origin, you can't blame your circumstances, you can't blame immutable characteristics like your race, you can't blame the government, you can't blame the mysterious they that some people love to blame for everything. You can't blame it on the Jews, you can't blame it on your hormones, you can't blame it on your algorithm. It's on you. And then we have James, the half-brother of Jesus, he goes further by saying this in James 1, starting at verse 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. So look, even a pagan poet writing centuries before Christ understood that man cannot pin his sin on the divine or really anything or anyone else.

Reject Victimhood And Repent

SPEAKER_01 5:25

And here's what I want you men to consider today. We live in a culture and society where victimhood equals value. So essentially blame shifting is turned into our own, you know, national pastime. And the villain in every story, there is a villain, but apparently it's never the man in the mirror, right? And here's the reality: we're not just mistakers in need of a fresh excuse, are we? We are sinners in need of a savior. And the hard truth is that your sin is yours. But you have the power to change your behavior. So here's an assignment for you. If you feel yourself about to give an excuse for something that you have done via your own agency, stop. Stop that very instant. Realize that it is on you. Take ownership, take dominion, and make the necessary changes to not let something like that happen again. If it's a sin problem, repent, turn the opposite direction. Remember, Agathas had every warning and red flag a man could ask for, but he still dug his own grave in the end. Don't be that guy.

Assignment And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.