Faith, History, and the Search for Truth: Jerry Pattengale on Purpose, Artifacts, and Legacy

In this episode of Risk & Resolve, Ben Conner and Todd Hufford sit down with scholar, author, historian, and Museum of the Bible founding scholar Jerry Pattengale. Jerry shares his journey from poverty and homelessness to faith, scholarship, publishing, film, and global work preserving biblical history. From ancient manuscripts and the Museum of the Bible to the Life Wedge principle and finding purpose, this conversation explores truth, calling, risk, and building work with a long shelf life.

Main Talking Points

• Jerry’s childhood in rural Indiana, growing up poor but loved
• Becoming homeless as a teenager and finding work at Holiday Inn
• The church camp moment that led to his conversion and scholarship to Indiana Wesleyan
• How faith sparked his search for historical truth and ancient sources
• The professors and mentors who shaped his thinking, writing, and purpose
• The “Life Wedge” principle and how purpose guides long-term impact
• Why writing one publishable page a day became a lifelong discipline
• The challenge of getting published—and the rejection that later came full circle
• Jerry’s role as founding scholar for the Museum of the Bible
• The story behind choosing Washington, D.C. and building the museum
• Meaningful biblical artifacts, including early manuscripts and hidden texts
• His work on films and series like David: King of Israel and The Road to Emmaus
• The importance of saying no—even to major opportunities
• His desire to create work that lasts beyond his lifetime

Transcript

Welcome And Jerry’s Backstory

SPEAKER_03 0:13

And now for your host, Ben Clear.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Welcome back to another episode of Risk and Resolve. I'm Ben Connor alongside Todd Hufford. And today's special guest is Jerry Pattingale. Jerry has a long bio, so I'm going to try to go quick because I want to talk about the bio instead of just list it. But uh undergrad in history from Indiana Westland University, uh, got his master's from Wheaton in interpersonal development, masters at uh Miami of Ohio uh in history, as well as his doctorate of philosophy in ancient history. He's a founding scholar for the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. He's authored dozens of books and hundreds of columns. Uh National Press Club Vivian Award recipient, National Educators Award from USC and uh Houghton Mifflin. Um he's just done it all. Uh board member for several global nonprofits and faith-based organizations, uh, interim president of religious news service, associate publisher of Christian Scholars Review. Jerry, you've you've done a lot, and we're happy to have you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Well, God's been good, except I've never shot under par. So uh there's still some time. Yeah, there's still some goals.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Say say that, Jerry. There's gonna be a question at the very end of the podcast that that will be a perfect answer for. Just remember that.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Um, well, again, we're we're just so delighted to have you. Um, before we go into all the fun things that that you've had a chance to do, um, I think it'd be helpful for our audience just to get to know a little bit about just you growing up and what that experience was like. Uh, because I'm sure that led you then to Indiana Westland, that then led you into some of the other things. So if you could uh give us a little bit of uh insight to what is what it looked like to grow up as Jerry Batingale.

Growing Up Poor With Eight Kids

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Well, I had a great childhood. I we were poor, but you know, I didn't know we were poor until I started to uh get to the dating age. And I I remember I was going to give a girl a uh I think a thrift store bracelet and a box I had made, and a guy kind of steps in front of me, so to speak, gives her a dozen roses. So, you know, it's like I really and he picked her up in a car and I had a moped. So it was kind of like you, you know, you learn that there's just different places in life. But you know, we had a house across a creek by Buck Creek, Indiana. And for a long time we had no indoor plumbing and um at times no electricity or heat, but you had to drive through the creek to get there. But there were eight kids. Our parents loved us. It's just that my dad uh was an alcoholic. He had a genius mind, but never went to high school, one of those guys, and could build anything and was over some big billing projects. But we never really um, you know, we just had a lot of fun and didn't go to church, just had a lot of fun, just poor as a

Homelessness And Working At Holiday Inn

SPEAKER_00 3:35

church mouse, and then suddenly we our family was gone, and mom was destitute and took four kids and moved off, and and we were homeless. Uh our the four oldest were homeless. I was 15 when that started happening, 16 when I had uh I was I was a graduate from high school early, uh 16 from Harrison High School by Lafayette. And then I um had to find a place to live, but fortunately, I was working in a holiday inn there by Lafayette. That was the one Purdue used a lot in those days, and I would just sneak into the linen closet, or finally they figured out what I was doing and they realized my situation. So I would try to get a room that had two beds where only one was used that night or the night before. And that's you know, got along and and um I drove a gremlin, you know, it was an ugly car with big old Craigger tires and a CB antenna that would take a traffic light out. It was hideous. That's all I had, it was paid for, and I worked double shifts during that summer. And a preacher took me in a little bit uh there towards the end, which helped, but I got saved at a camp in Franklin, Indiana. And

Church Camp Conversion And A Scholarship

SPEAKER_00 4:52

I no sooner got saved, and I thought it was a cult. I mean, I'd never been to a church, I mean, it was I don't know if you've been to a holiness church camp, uh, Ben. I don't know uh what denomination you grew up in, but I mean they were running the aisles and screaming and yelling, and I just thought these guys are crazy. And I was there because I was invited, had free room and board, and and stop me if I'm telling you too much here, but I I showed up in that gremlin. I'd put the rest of my stuff in holiday in somewhere. I had free room and board for 10 days, and there were a couple girls there I knew from other friends. I thought I'm gonna go, you know, they haven't invited. And I showed up on that camp, it was about 90 degrees that August day. It was called a family camp, huge camp in Frankfurt, Indiana. And I remember I showed up and I had uh cut-off shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. So if you know much about a holiness church camp, that's not what they wear there, and I didn't have any idea of that. And the guy walks up in a dark suit, looked like it was wool, with a full suit in the afternoon. And I was, and they were all in classes, everyone else was in some Bible class or something. So we were there by the snack shop. I get out of my hideous looking car and he looks at me, and I had long hair and everything, and he goes, Young man, what are you doing here? And I said, Come to church camp. And he goes, Not dressed like that. And I said, Well, it's camp, and he goes, It's not that kind of camp. So I got back in my car and I was pulling out, and my one of my friends saw this exchange, and then I was leaving, and they ran and they cut me off.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

And one of them was Jerry Shepard. You might know Carl Shepherd, a businessman there from Indy and chair of the board now at NA Westland. So I stayed at that camp um for that week and borrowed clothes. Wednesday night, all these people went to the altar and they became Christians, and I just thought it was crazy. I said, I'm not going. Well, the next night I became a Christian, and I was the only one at the altar. And I I barely got back to the seat, and a recruiter from Indiana Wesleyan was there, starts talking to me. I'm not, I'm not making this up immediately after the church, and they end up giving me what's equivalent to a double full-right scholarship. Uh, so I got the academic plus the Pell Grant, and it was a place to live and free food. And um, so that's how I that that's you know, started my journey. And one thing to close the loop on that, and I've told this on a number of TV shows, uh, and and indulge me here a bit, but I I just it I think it's honoring to God in my journey. Not long ago, I made a movie with the um Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. It's called The Road to Emmaus, and the main sponsors were none other than the owners of Holiday Inn. They were the heirs of Holiday Inn. Two sisters and uh wonderful people. I'd never met them. We'd finished the movie, they absolutely loved it. It's you hope you see it if you go to DC. Yeah, the the group uh uh uh that helps the chosen help make it, Mystery Box. And so I helped edit it and proof it and so forth. So I'd never met them, but I'm in my chicken coop office back on in Indiana by Indiana Westland. And they're zooming, and as we start, they don't know my story. And Harry Hargrave, the CEO at the time, he said, Jerry, can you tell them about your connection to Holiday Inn? And I said, Really? And so you have Jack, Jack and Betty Moore, and Carol and Bill West, he's one of the most famous cancer doctors. Uh we did a TV show together on his new book. They're looking at it beyond the screen and I a screen and I start telling them the story about living in the holiday and why as homeless, they start crying. And so Jack Moore and Bill West are two prominent businessmen in their own right, and their wives are absolutely wonderful. And these men and women are crying on the other end of the screen. And I start crying. And here I am supposed to be this, you know, the founding scholar of the museum, head of this, and we're and when when you have business meetings and these top business people, the nation are on the other side, and you're crying. It's like, oh wow, that's how we started. And um, I don't know how religious your your whole audience is and everything, but I I will say, in my view, God knew when I was 15 and I applied for that job at holiday end, and they turned me down, and I put my arm on the counter. I needed a job, and I said, I'll arm Russia for the job. And God knew at that moment that years later, I'd be sitting across from the owners of the very hotel chain and the whole industry that built that building. And so that was a good, and we are good friends to this day. We text all the time, it's been wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

That's incredible. That's incredible. He you sound a little bit like an evangelical Garrison Keeler. Garrison is, I think, a lot more gifted than most of us, so I uh but I I think of Garrison in the sense that he's a he's a writer at his core, he's got a certain knowledge base, and he produces things that people consume, whether that be a TV show, a movie, or whatever, radio show in his case. You seem to have a lot of those pieces together where you've got this uh subject matter, if you will, and but the output of it is quite varied. Uh, you just mentioned a couple different things. You mentioned a movie, you mentioned being on TV, you mentioned some other different things. Um, I guess you you were in search of a warm bed and some food, led you to the holiday inn, led you to the the camp in Frankfurt, led you then to school at Indiana Wesleyan. Um again, you went there because it was, as in your words, a double, a double uh what'd you call it? A uh the scholarship plus the Bell Grant. Um at what point at Iwo, I'm assuming it was at Iwo, did you go? Oh,

Ancient Texts And The Search For Truth

SPEAKER_04 11:18

this is my path. This isn't an accident.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, Todd, you should do this for a living. You're pretty good at this. Um I I was sitting in a class, and I'd been a Christian for about six months, and I realized I thought I'd been duped. Uh, I started reading uh ancient Near East text by uh Pritchard, an orange book, and it had these translations of these early artifacts like uh the Gilgamesh epic, the Atrahasis epic, and I realized there were other flood accounts, and I thought, I thought this was from the Bible. And so I just went head over, you know, just dove into all kinds of ancient text, and it was taken a language, you know, I wanted to read in the original, and I thought, man, there's other accounts. And then it dawned on me that there was a common flood account, and that's probably what happened. And I just started searching for the truth. I wanted research-based information. Evidence of demand verdict came out during that time, and I remember uh reading reading it, and I thought, I get this. And then I looked at the publisher, and it was some off-brand publisher, uh, good news publisher or whatever. They did a good job as a bestseller. It was by sociologist, not a historian. Great speaker, great guy. And um, but I thought the church needs people who can understand and converse at the big tables. Nothing wrong with those who don't, none at all. And another reason I was challenged to do that because my main professor had never published a book. He was absolutely brilliant. He was Mensa, my main scholar and undergraduate. He was the the annual lecturer for Youth with a Mission on Worldviews. And he taught me how to think. He was absolutely brilliant, Glenn Martin. I've written about him in the international piece on um, I think the January 6th event. And uh he just taught me how to understand presuppositional analysis and you know, ontology, axiology, epistemology, teleology, the big questions. But he also taught me the simple questions like um the ultimate question in life is theological. Am I who I am because of who God is, or is God who he is because of who I am? And I remember going back to my dorm about every night, just thinking, I've never heard these questions before. I've never read these materials before on these ancient artifacts. I I want to see evidence and I want to see how people come to conclusions. So I also studied logic. And so, Todd, all that fed together in my own life wedge. I would end up writing a book on your life wedge. And now, by the way, Ben, um, one of your uh people who admires you says you're the you're his favorite in the field. Our youngest son, Mike Pattengale, who's Oculet, used to be at Springback, who loves the the Life Wedge uh principle. So I spent many of my years. I thought I want to help people, and I want to do it from a published platform. I want to study with the best scholars in the world because the holiness denomination and the church uh needs people to do that. There's there's a lot of people doing that. But in those early days, Todd, I didn't know any of them that were doing the the part of explaining, but also had the the platform and the ticket, if you will, to the big dance. Of course, wrestling didn't dance back then. But you know, so that that really prompted me. I mean, it really prompted me to do that. And I I really respected my professors, they they really were wonderful. They just they just hadn't published now in the NYSC, there's hundreds and hundreds of books published

Publishing Setbacks And Persistence

SPEAKER_00 15:15

by uh faculty, and so that's going really well. But um, so I just felt like it was my calling and I could do that. And uh I you know, Ben, you have a good book out, so you know about this. It's hard to publish books today. I mean, there's 10,000 books that uh are submitted to most mainline publishers a year that aren't even read, they don't even read the proposals. And I I called five of them for an engagement I was doing. My first 10 years, I couldn't sign a book. I could publish research articles and all. It took me 10 years to sign my first book. And so, Todd, you asked that question. So I set off of this path. I get a good education, you know, I was accepted to study with FF Bruce and Yamauchi and Tom Odin and chose Yamauchi because the scholarship was the biggest. And I thought he was phenomenal. But I did all that, and then I couldn't sign a book. In fact, my first my first proposal I sent off was to Baker Bookhouse, and they sent a letter back, which at least they read it. And I was teaching in Azusa Pacific at that point, my first year. And I kid you not, Ben and Todd, this is the letter I got back. God may have told you to submit your proposal to us, but he didn't tell us to publish it. That absolutely happened. And so fast forward about 15 years. I started once I signed my first book and started publishing these articles, Chicago Tribune ran a ran a piece of mine in a day. And um, I I to this day uh I need to live to be 150 to to finish all these books, but but that first so fast forward 15 years, guess who I'm keynoting for? Baker Bookhouse. And I just presented on antiquities up in Michigan, the Van Camera collection. And so they're in front of me, and they asked me to come be their keynote and show them all these artifacts. And before I started, you know where this is going. I pull out a piece of paper. I said, Hey, I I just I just want to tell you it's really exciting to be here. And I think they wanted me to talk on how to hook an editor. I was having luck getting a lot of a lot of uh things published that time. I said, I want to read the first letter I ever got back from a publisher. And I I said, God may have told you to submit your proposal. And before I finish, the guy in the back goes, We fired him! We fired him. So I guess he'd sent that to a number of people, but I I did pause and I I said, you know, the truth is it didn't deserve to be published. Yeah, I was a little candid of a response, but that that manuscript will never be published. And so they were right in rejecting it. And and so that's a long answer to where you know I started, and I try to publish a pub, I try to write every day a publishable page. Even with today's schedule, and I spent half a day with a family here in uh Florida uh looking at antiquities. Um, they actually let me use this soundproof uh room in their house. And so uh I still have written uh that page already today. You have written or not? I have, yeah. Oh, congratulations. It's on the Magi. You'll see a book come out probably three years from now. One of those pages was written right before this.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Well, before the meeting, should put like a little clue on the page of so you can know that it was anyway, yeah. Risk and resolve has to be listed on that page. But anyway, did your um it seems like because I was gonna ask about your journey into history, and what I thought I heard was when you after you became a believer, it was a a search for truth. Was that was that what sent you down the pathway of history, philosophy, and your subject matter of expertise? Is that you just deeply wanted to uncover what is true and share that with others? Or or is there is was there something else that just ignited in your soul that that took you down the path that you went on?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, I I think that's part of there's two two it's a two-part answer. Uh, part of it is reading people like Francis Schaeffer, you know, Ann Wormoran, you know, Torture for Christ, and uh, you know, what was happening in world governments and so forth. So part of it was uh yes, I wanted people to understand what was really happening, but the other reason I went into history was because my first master's was in psychology or interpersonal development, and I was absolutely terrible at it. So I was terrible at counseling. I was going to be a stress therapist. And have you ever seen the Bob Newhart special, Just Stop It? So if you're listening to this broadcast and you haven't watched that little five-minute video, it's one of the funniest ever made. And Bob Newhart, if I had watched that before I went to Wheaton, I'd never gone to Wheaton because uh I just want to tell people just stop it when I got into sessions. So that put me back to my first love of history. So I was terrible at what I went into. I finished the degree, loved Wheaton, but finished the degree, went back to Indiana Wesleyan and uh did a second uh undergraduate degree, started what's called JC Body Shop, a youth organization there, and then went on to Miami. So that's what I went in. And I I like to be able to look at things that were objective, and and then I came to realize that as far as your beliefs, you can see what's accurate, what texts are accurate, what's authentic. You know, if you followed my career, um a lot of we've been duped. I mean, I blew a whistle with a couple other of my friends, Krishna Oscala and others, on this, the top Greek scholar in the world who had sold us stolen items and he had faked all the documents. And um and we also had some Dead Sea Scrolls, and you know, this has all been in the public. But I've been in the middle of all that where, you know, those things happen. Um so so when you're trying to figure out what the truth is in history, you want to know what the sources are that are accurate, which ones are real, and what you do with them in your own life, that's a matter of authority, and whether it's all whether you believe in capitalism or not, or whether you believe in some other view in politics, or whether you Believe in the Bible. It's a matter of you know your choices once you see the evidence. And and and unfortunately today, Ben, Ben, your presentation at the CFO conference was, you know, it's just outstanding the way you're saying, look, here's the facts. Just the facts, ma'am. You know, from Dragon. Here's what's happening in healthcare. And and and you had some other speakers there. It's like these are the real numbers. And so either you're getting bilked or you're not. You know, and so you're helping people to realize this is what's happening. But you know what, Ben, you can you can show that to a million people, and maybe only 10,000 of them will say, okay, I'll do something about it. And that's what's that's that's where I find myself. You know, I have a I have a TV series that just came out this week or last week uh with um David Cuttingham, who did attend all wars. It's called David King of Israel. It's top, it's top right now on the Fox Station. It's a it's a four four-hour series, and uh hope you see it and enjoy it. And whether or not people walk away from that believing more about David or not is up to them. My role as far as helping to edit that and and and talk on on some of the uh episodes is here's what the Bible says happened. We know this from other sources, so we were comparing those. What you do with the story of David in your own life and those lessons is up to you. So so that's where I'm at with what I do. And um, you know, hopefully that helps you to see a little bit of it.

Mentors Who Shaped His Approach

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Sherry, when you were younger, college, exiting college, was there somebody you modeled your career path after, or a couple different people that you saw doing some of the things that you're doing today, probably with different mediums. You're using, you know, it's a new technological world, but were there people that you can look back now and say, yeah, I kind of took the mantle from so-and-so, and I've helped carry the work that they did, and we've furthered it and deepened it and broadened it.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

You know, that is a great question. And all of us need people like that. There was a teacher, uh, there are a couple, I mentioned Glenn Martin at uh Indiana Westland, who who taught me how to think, you know, categorically. But there was also another professor, both of them have since passed away. By the way, I wear Glenn Martin's robe at graduation. I'm a lot heavier than him, so if I look like a shrink-wrap pair, that's that's why his widow uh, you know, she asked me to um to wear it. Um, but Keith Drew is the one who he walked over to the board one day and just wrote a V. And he goes, you know, it's sort of like a life, your life is sort of like a wedge, you know, and the sharper you get, and I'll never forget that that's the whole life way principle came out of that, even though that's all he ever said about it. But he's the one that told me you should write a publishable page a day. And the reason I bring him up is Keith Drury had a way of keeping you engaged when he was talking about deeper things. And so he had an influence on me through the years that you know I wasn't real close to him after school because I went away and had to survive and so forth, like everyone else. Um, Yamauchi, uh, my my mentor um at Miami of Ohio. In fact, I'm getting going to go speak at Miami University to give the Edwin Yamauchi um lectures here in a few days and giving history lectures uh there on Miami's campus. So it's a real honor to go back. He's still alive, he's 90, and he's still writing. And he's been an inspiration for me. He um I got I've I've contributed to two fesh rifts for him. He's lived so long that there's two books 20 years apart that are honoring his life. And um he's he's uh been tested, he knows at least 22 languages, and but he just had a you know, every day was it uh about you know about accomplishing something that day. And so that you know, that that helped me. And he also helped me one day. I made a statement about someone, um, it was in a total secular setting, uh, yeah, it wasn't a religious conversation, and I just disagreed with somebody on something, and he just reminded me that it's okay for people to have different opinions, and sort of like Thomas Aquinas' uh uh intellectual virtue, you know, enter every conversation thinking that the other person might have something of value for you, that you might actually learn something from the other person. After listening, you might determine no, you don't. But um, so Yamauchi helped me to have hopefully. I mean, I know I like to have fun. I'm probably a little loud for some people, but to have a humility when you enter with discussions with people. And uh so I think Todd, that's helped me through the years. Um, you know, to leave a room with a fragrance, you know, better than when you entered, you know, that people feel good about themselves. They'll they'll forget you in time, and that's okay. But, you know, you know, trying to help them in what they're doing.

The Life Wedge Purpose Framework

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Can you explain that life wedge principle a little more fully? I'd love to. In fact, uh Ben, you're gonna be excited about this. My agent, uh Depree Miller, Shannon Marvin. We go through the list of books, and one of them now on the list is I'm going to actually do a book just on the life wedge. And I've decided to have my son Michael as the lead author, and it'll be Jerry Pattingell. I mean, uh, you know, to have I have four sons, love them all. To have a son that says it's influenced, and you know Michael, he's been very successful. He's at Oculet, he's uh uh vice president, he was at Springbike, he's done really, really well. And um what it what I found out, and by the way, those of you watching this, uh, we didn't cue this question up because this is it sounds like a book promotion, but I'm telling you, this is where a lot of the next five years of my life will be. Um, and I'm 67, so so it's an important five years left. It is. Get it in. Early on, when I studied 23,000 students, college students across uh United States with um a scholar named Lori Schreiner, the heart of her research. She developed a really nice um application to try to understand students. And and I realized that everything that was being studied, it would show what was the most important to students and uh what was uh where were they the most satisfied was what she had developed. And I went to her and I said, Dr. Schreiner, I said, um, the problem I see is I I love what you do, it really helps you understand students, but everything you're measuring ends up being an extrinsic motivational factor. Like you need better rooms, you need better parking, this or that. And I said, we need to figure out a way to figure out what motivates them intrinsically. And I realized early on that education had a real problem, and that is that the behaviorists, those who could measure everything, and you'd probably fall into that category, and those who ask life's ultimate questions, like those in my field, the humanities, you know, like the Platonic questions and everything. So we need to get those people together, and that's why I brought Lori in on a book I was asked to write, um, called Visible Solutions for Invisible Students. And so what I propose, if we could help students, what we found out, by the way, in that study is that the students that were the most likely to succeed into their second year of college and for four years were those who had a uh a good understanding of their overriding sense of purpose. So it just makes sense. So intrinsically, if they understood what it was that they really got excited about, it may not be whether they're a doctor or nurse, but they wanted to help someone physically. It may not be whether or not they were in the lumber yard or uh or the forestry, but they wanted to do something with trees, you know. So maybe they were into earth care or whatever. And so what I did is I was able to walk them through a litany of stories. It could be Martin Luther, it could be um George Washington, it it could be Martin Luther King Jr., it could be um a tree grows in Brooklyn, you know, it could be a number of things. And they would they would evaluate those on a Likert scale, like one to ten, which of these values do you agree with? And so they would list them, and by the end, they would say, these are the things that I agree with the most, these are the things on the same kind of scale that I think I want to spend my time with. And so they were able to put that down as their purpose. And once you had your purpose, unlike your real wedge, your ideal wedge is aimed towards that purpose. Your real wedge, normally, before you start doing this, is you're just filling a wedge with five or ten major things, and it's just going where it's going to go because that's where you're going. And so that's your real wedge, and it usually gets fat like this because you put too much in and it's not sharp. And so the way you sharpen your wedge is skills, and a lot of people mistake skills for gifts, is they hone their skills and they end up going into careers and their skills, but they don't use their gifts. And you might be good in typing, and so you end up going in to be a typesetter in those days, and and your real gift is creativity, and you like to write plays or something of that nature. And so what happened was we saw a lot of people, and so out of those 23,000, we tested 1,700 people, and Ben, you were my student about when this was starting, this whole um study. We took 1,700 students at Indiana Wesleyan University, and we traced them over four years, and those who had that curriculum of life wedge and sense of purpose, every one of those groups, the odds ratios, when you're talking about odds ratios, all the odds ratios were positive for every cohort group. So whether it was male athletes, uh, women athletes, whether it was first-generation student uh like myself or someone from a family of doctors for several generations, uh, rich, poor, and every one of those cohort groups graduated at a higher rate. They had gone through that particular curriculum with a life wedge and a sense of purpose, everyone, 100%. And so that swept, in a sense, it swept the nation. And we started what was called purpose-guided education.

Purpose Guided Education In The Real World

SPEAKER_00 33:03

And one caveat, especially right now, is what's happening in the world. One caveat to this. I get a call from Lat Blaylock in London. Lat Blaylock helps run religion education. So all the teachers in the UK or most of them will use the curriculum out of there to learn how to teach certain concepts they're mandated to teach by Parliament. Well, you remember Michelle Obama went over to London, and about the same week she went there, they discovered that some young gals had been taken as ISIS brides from a school next to where she was at. I mean, it had nothing to do with her. It just happened to be that time in London, I think it was that very week. And so the parliament was livid, and they said, we have to figure out how to teach in our schools that ISIS is evil. And so they passed a law that you had to teach, every school was teaching one credit of religion. So that was already established. They said, in that credit, you have to teach them that ISIS is evil. It wasn't some mambi-pambi discussion about let's discuss ISIS. It was ISIS is evil. And they called me and they said, Can we use your Likert scale that came with a life wedge and life purpose? And they did. They they had me write a section for all their teachers based on that. It's that so it's it's hopefully it's simple, but it goes through a lot of different things, and it tries to get people to be able to articulate what they think and what they believe. And hopefully, I did it in an engaging way.

Writing A Publishable Page Daily

SPEAKER_04 34:37

So you mentioned um you try to write every day a publishable page. I don't consider myself a writer, I don't have a need to publish anything necessarily. However, like anybody, I have thoughts and I have ideas and I have heirs that might be interested in those. How would you coach me or anybody like me who isn't looking to publish, who isn't, doesn't consider themselves an academic, but the idea of taking on this notion that writing a publishable page is beneficial to yourself, your soul, and maybe society, even if that's not your job or even what you plan to do.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Well, that's a great, you know what? I wish we had five hours. These are great questions. I've been on a lot of podcasts, and you know, they're usually a good question. These are these are good. Um you know, for me, if you write a publishable page a day and it's an engaging matter, whether you ever publish it, you're gonna have an heir that probably will enjoy reading it someday. So, first of all, that's um, and when I write, I don't write longhand anymore. I take notes in longhand, but I I type. I use AI sometimes just to do research, but like I'm writing a book now on the magi in a in a movie as a novel. And uh, but I don't use AI. There's nothing wrong with that. So one of the things you could do if you just want to get your thoughts down, you could go to AI, pour in your thoughts, your main points, put in everything you've ever written in your journals about it, and AI will frame it for you. So a lot of authors now are having AI frame books for them, and then they write them. So I don't do that. My well, can't say that. I have a few books right now, publishers, where some of the people working for me did that, but it just it's taking stuff you've already done and frame, you know, just just organizing it. So so that's that's someone did that with their journals recently. Uh, I just met with someone in in uh Marion, Indiana that I was amazed that I said, you have that much stuff that you've done already on your on your entries and your uh in your um social media posts. I said, Wow, and it organized it for them. So so that's one way to do it. Um, you know, for me, um I try to break it up a little bit. So I like to have something come out that I can see in the near future, and I like to have something long-term all the time. So um, so I I don't know if it helps answer your question, but that that kind of helps me keep motivated. And to write that page, uh, don't shy away from reading great writers. You know, you you mentioned Garrison Keeler, but read also read um Steinbeck, uh Hemingway. You know, if you come to my Chicken Coop there by Arbitrace Golf Course in Marion, where I write, above my uh desk is uh is uh uh Eric Reeves, you know, who did uh Garfield for years and now does High and Lowest. He did a painting that I have, and it's you know, Hemingway's sitting at a typewriter, and he says, Writing is easy, just open your typewriter and bleed, you know. And part of it is just sitting down and doing by the way, my brother Abraham uh he um uh he bought me a vintage uh uh Hemingway typewriter. So it's not the same exact one, but it's like the one that was by his bed. I've been to Hemingway's house and where he wrote in in Cuba. But um what Hemingway also says is he says the key to writing is finding a perfect sentence and build a paragraph around it, and that's probably the best advice that I've ever received. And so I will wordsmith a sentence and a thought and then build a paragraph around it. So I try to, I don't always get it right, and sometimes I just have uh very short paragraphs, but so so one of the things that's really helped me is reading other writers. And my friends would say, you know, when I say it's important to write better writers than myself, uh um they would say, well, that wouldn't be hard, Jerry. You know, just kidding me. Well, it's not hard. There's there's some brilliant writers out there, and some are celebrated because they they were at a time in history that maybe they aren't as good as they really were championed. But for the most part, if their writings are classics, then then there's a reason and they had some rhythm to their writing. And and uh um, so that's how I approach

Writing Hooks That Earn Attention

SPEAKER_00 39:16

it. Do you write on modern day topics? Oh, yeah, I actually use the news columns to do that more than anything. So um, yeah, so I I will sometimes, you know, um if you go on Muckracker, where some of my articles are listed at the national level, I've done a few of those. Um most most uh writer, most publications don't want um you just to be vitriolic or this, that, unless they're just, you know, just totally biased one way or the other. Um I was fortunate recently. Now, some of you may totally disagree with this, so I know that I might alienate half of the listening audience, but I finally decided to write a piece called um, it was published by the Washington Times. I'm uh the chair of the board of the um Washington Policy Institute. And they published a piece, it's an open letter to Donald J. Trump after one year through the eyes of a 94-year-old uh Indiana farmer. And what I do is I compare this farmer to Donald Trump all the way through. Now it was edited from 1800 words or so down to 800. So they cut out a lot of the specific. That's but a lot of those pieces are edited down. But they told me this is Jerry. We normally, the president of Washington Times told me this. He spent two hours with me, so I that's why I gave it to him. And he said, normally we never publish these kind of letters. He said we would get these, you know, a dozen a day. You know, everyone wants to write that, but they they chose to publish it. And um, and so that's the most recent one that I've done. And it got a lot of play. If you watch on my I post that on my LinkedIn, so you could you can find it on my LinkedIn. And it it had thousands there, six or seven thousand on LinkedIn, you know, it's LinkedIn's not like Facebook or something, it's not to to get zillions of hits, it's to get important ones. And and um, but I start that off, for example, if you want people to read about these current events and and not just to be championing something one way or the other, you need to have uh something new or original to say. And it needs to have substance, as I was talking about with history. And a lot of times I've been asked to do writing conferences and in and and talk to fact, like at Texas AM and other places. And I've had uh McGurl Hill had me to speak to their faculty, to their uh editors, and and how to hook an editor. And I just I will read the first sentence of a lot of my articles, and they they seem to love it. I showed up at one publisher's conference, there's 50 publishers sitting in front of me, and you a lot of big presses. And about two hours before the event, I was telling the guy who invited me, I says, Yeah, I've got this uh, I want to just show you this. It's on the museum of the Bible. He goes, What? He goes, we didn't ask you to speak on that. We asked you to speak on those opening lines of your articles. And uh, for example, uh I'll give you one here. So I wrote a piece for Chicago Tribune. People told me they like my articles. I thought, well, I'll send them cold turkey and see if they like it. So I found this secretary's name of the main editor at the Chicago Tribune. On a Sunday night, I send her this article thinking if she likes it, she'll hand it to the editor. I had no connection to her or to the editor. And remember, they're probably getting, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people wanting. The next day I'm sitting at Tree of Life Coffee, which is now called the Abbey Coffee. The barisa says, Dr. Padden got you have a fax here from Chicago Tribune. It was on a Monday at about 10 o'clock. And she said, There's a contract with it, and it was for that article. And that article ended up in the front of the book, Ben, that you uh you know you didn't have it in your class. So I did a book called The Purpose Guided Student, and the opening story, McGraw Hill chose this as well, and it's start it's a true story. It starts out, she answered the door naked. It was an awkward moment for my younger brother, me. She was over 80. And it's about this lady that when we went to Gore Yard, she pulls my brother me in, and we're young, and she pulls us in and and gives us ice cream while she's dressing. She's totally naked. And I don't think I'd seen a naked woman at that point. My brother certainly hadn't. And I so anyway, I have fun with the story, but she kept bringing over um a picture of this gorgeous woman with an attache case and a suit. I was a young teenager, but I can still remember the details. And I noticed there were two business people behind her in the Empire State Building behind her. And I started to realize that the gap in the teeth of that beautiful woman in front of the Empire State Building was the same gap in the teeth of this naked woman in front of me. By that time, she probably had her girdle on. But I I was processing this as a young guy, and I thought, man, before I serve ice cream naked, I want to be proud of something that I've done. And so that became part of the life wedge discussion of giving first-rate resources and energies to first rate causes. And and so anyway, those are the kinds of stories. And so I be, you know, a lot of the first sentences became um my mantra, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Attention grabbing for sure.

Building The Museum Of The Bible

SPEAKER_02 44:42

I wanted to spend some uh a little bit of time uh just discussing your role as a senior advisor to the president at the Museum of the Bible. Um and uh from my understanding, you've had a front row seat to the and a meaningful part of the curation of that museum and uh how important that museum is. And you've even mentioned about artifacts. If you could just kind of explain the story of how that came to be and uh just the importance of the museum of the Bible for our country and for Christianity.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Hey, thanks for asking that question. You know, when um when the Greens first started calling me through um one of their staff people, I'd never met any of them. Barbara Green was actually on the board at Indiana Wesley at the time. I did, I just hadn't met her. I had worked for a billionaire family in Michigan, a wonderful family, the Van Campans, and I knew what it was like to have people always trying to meet them. And so I just, you know, I just didn't want to get in her. Barbara Green is wonderful, but I turned them down about 20 times because I'd done it before. I knew the traveling and I love teaching. I love what I was doing, I love Indiana Wesley, and and it still, you know, it's kept to its mission. We've had good presidents and and um a lot of good things happening still. And so finally one day I thought I should at least go out there. I've turned them down so many times, and it was nothing against them. It's just they had this kind of amorphous idea of a museum. What had happened is they had bought, they had a couple of guys that approached them to buy stuff. They kept approaching them. So finally they bought a bunch of stuff and realized they needed to actually take this on themselves because they didn't feel like that particular effort was going to go anywhere. And so they decided to do it themselves, and they knew I had helped with the Van Campen family. Uh, Holy Land Experience came out of that in in Florida. And so I went out to meet with Steve Green, and um, I don't know if you guys have met Steve Green. You you met John Cargill, his CFO, and you heard him speak just real highly of the family. And John is a really sharp cookie, and he he's been with them much of his career now. And I remember it was just me, Steve, and one other guy. We're sitting at a table, and he's telling me about his dream for this museum. He says, I don't know if we're gonna even have one, where it's gonna be if we have one. And I just, you know, when you're in a meeting and you realize that you need to do it. I mean, for such a time as this. And I shook his hand. He was in blue jeans and like a Dillard shirt or a uh like a Costco shirt or something. I mean, they're it's a it's an absolutely wonderful family. I mean, I've been with them now for 16 years. It's a wonderful family. They're grandkids, their kids, they're I just I love them, they're great. And um, and they give half of their wealth away too. I mean, they're not stuck on any of that. And um, and so, you know, Steve, I turned to him and I said, I have no calling at all to run a museum. I said, I'll help you start it. And I said, I just don't want to move from Indiana. I had two sons, so I think you may know Ben, that had chronic diseases, and uh fortunately that God's spared them. They're doing, they're doing fine. But um, and I said, I always want to, I always want to line to you, either direct or indirect. And he, Steve goes, Well, there's only two of you, but well, how could you nice? If we do our work, there'll be 300. And so as time uh developed, we actually um ended up uh hiring different people and chose to build it in Washington, D.C. And then we found the building, but we hired Harry Hargrave, who ran the Hunt Family Foundation, did a lot of other great things. Harry's a great guy, and their CEO for a while. And the last day that Harry was going to help us, he he was there a year. And you guys have been to DC a lot. It's tough to buy a big building, you know. And they would say they were going to sell buildings. None of the none of the big buildings were for sale. The Trump Hotel had come up, or the at that time it was the um old post office. I'd actually written a news article on it, the old post office. And the day we went to look at it, Trump bought it, I think is the way it worked out. And um, and so Harry Hargrave is last day, he was going to take one more walk down the hill from the Capitol building. And he walks over a couple blocks past the Botanical Gardens. He sees this building, he walks in, it's called the Design Center. The Kennedy family owned it. And he goes back to his office, and you know, you know, he just thought, well, that's it. And the phone rang as he walked in the office. They said, Harry Hargrave, and it was the company that owned the building. Basically, they needed to show a profit, need to sell some of their um assets, and it was that building that they sold. And that's how we bought it on this last day. And so we built it, and I spent uh a number of years helping to um hire people to help help us and help me to uh with artifacts, with education mainly in my area, started a program called Logos, where we we from from the second year forward, we flew, we chose 30 of the top language scholars from schools all over the world and flew them to Oxford for two weeks. And uh we had great scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, other schools, and uh we still have that program to this day. And so we did that. We did it we thought before the museum opens, we knew it was going to take a while. Once we found the property, we held exhibits twice at the Vatican, and that was a trip for another interview. I mean, it was great, you know. And yeah, so we were there twice for six months each. We went to Cuba twice. I've been all the way through Cuba in a bus with uh um Ricky Martin singing in in uh Latin songs over and over again. So I know I've seen Cuba inside and out, and we end up with two wonderful, wonderful exhibits there, and wonderful exhibits with the Vatican and uh Argentina. Um it's just been wonderful. And so now when you go to the Museum of the Bible, you will walk in, hopefully, and you'll have that breath moment where it's a stunning entrance. David Green just said, Whatever you do, don't bring reproach upon the name of the Lord. I want it to be, I want it to be deserving of what it's called. And so we had the freedom basically to to build and hire the people that were smarter than than myself, anyway, smarter than I. And um, and that's how we did it. And we hired the best people, and it was one funny story. We went to Vienna, Austria, Carrie Summers and I, and we looked at a ride. He said, Jerry, he, because he used to be over Branson, you know, he used to run the Branson uh Silver Dollar City. Harry Hargrave actually, I think, was uh running it and they hired him. And Carrie had seen a ride, so we go there and it was like a drug park. It was like uh, you know, on the edge of Vienna, this beautiful city. Uh, there was this park that looked like old Coney Island, like you were going to buy some drugs there. And I go, Carrie, what are you showing me? We go there and there's a ride that's like a magic carpet, and you fly over and they throw water on you. But you know, you could see enough to know that it was special. And we hired the guy. And if you go to the museum today, it's called Washington Revelations, and you literally feel like you're flying over the city and into buildings, and you see the scripture on different buildings and monuments. Uh, it's it's wonderful. Yeah, so that's how that came about.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

What uh what are some of the artifacts in the museum of the Bible that are special to you?

Favorite Artifacts And Hidden Manuscripts

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Um, you know, that's a that's a great question. You know, for me, one of the most moving ones is one of the first that was purchased. It's called the Richard Roll Bible. So, you know, Whitliffe and Tyndale were among the first that put the Bible in English. There was also a priest who helped put parts of each page in English for a nun, an Anchorite nun. She had walled herself in. This was common practice back then, and this was 16th century. She um either 15th or 16th, she had walled herself in for 20 years, and so she didn't come out for 20 years, but she realized she couldn't read her Bible because it was in Latin, the Vulgate, it was still the Vulgate um use there. And so Richard Roll took and he put under the the open paragraphs of each chapter, he would translate them into English, and then he slipped that through to her. And so for me, that has special meaning to me. Um so that would be one. Another is an early piece of John. Um, it's the got the first page number on it. It was a the picture of it was in my textbook when I went to school to learn Greek, and so to actually have that as part of the, you know, it's just amazing. Um we have early Parisian Bibles that they decided to make the Bibles uniform so that when students were studying them, they're all on the same page. And so it's nice to see that, you know, how they were trying to help the students there. We have little Hussite Bibles, and if they're on leather, by the way, it's usually a uterine leather that they take the the calf or the sheep out before it's born. You know, I know it sounds terrible. That's what they would do to get the really fine leather. And a lot of times they'd have to hide those uh Bibles, is why they did that. And uh the French uh Huguenot Bible. Um they they had to do that. Um, so those would be some of the main things. We have the Crosby Squyan Codex, uh, one of the earliest uh copies of First Peter ever found, and it's huge sheets, uh, you know, a hundred and some sheets from early Coptic, languages of Egypt. And then probably the another one of the first items we bought, it's called the CCR, not the band, but it's uh Codex Clamachi Rescriptus. And literally, it's like a movie, it's like uh uh that Nicolas Cage film, you know, where they're finding the Constitution and on. Yeah, yeah, National Treasure. Yeah, National Treasure. And you literally you look at a at this, I think it has 137 leaves that came out of St. Catherine's monastery, two two um widows, sisters, who knew languages really well, went all the way to this monastery and got this this book, brought it back, and we were able to buy it. And on the top layer, you see real clearly in Syriac a sermon. A sermon with a ladder, it's instruction for the priest. But you can tell there's something underneath of it, and it bugged these scholars for centuries because they knew there was earlier stuff underneath, and they tried everything. They used to pour acid on the front and they would eat away the top, and they would try to real quickly write down what was under it. Obviously, it destroyed a lot of manuscripts doing that. But today, you can literally use multi-spectral imaging. We were just in Israel where they had the really advanced ones there underneath the Dead Sea scroll area, um, and uh or just next to it. And it goes over and scans at different wavelengths, and literally it brings out the bottom text right to the top, just like National Treasure. And underneath of that text, imagine this real fact text of vellum pages. Underneath comes up some of the earliest Palestinian Christian Aramaic ever discovered, the language Jesus would use. And it was hidden all that time underneath of a sermon because the pages were out and they would scrape them. The books were so expensive to make that they just would reuse them. And they also found on that same manuscript in Cambridge. So one of the first things I did was advise uh Steve Green and Jackie to use uh Tyndall House, Cambridge. So it's a group of scholars that live in a house called Tyndall House. Some of the best, it's the best collection of conservative or um orthodox uh language scholars that study the Bible and the world, and they meet there. And so we took that manuscript to them because it originally had been at a college there that needed money and sold it. And so I was able to take it back and we had a big party. They said it was the one guy was laughing, the room was packed, and we took it back for them to study. And they said, uh, I said, Why are you laughing? It was this the most Cambridge professors I've ever seen in a room without alcohol. So the Greens didn't want to pay for the alcohol. But they also found underneath it one of the earliest, the earliest diagram of um some of the uh astronomical um um sketches, like uh um uh um Taurus and others. So it was pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Wow. Well, you have had quite an experience thus far, uh Dr. Pattingill, and we really appreciate you just scratching the surface with us today. I know we're coming up on time.

Advising A Major Bible Film Series

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Um and so actually, before I before we go to our last two questions, I did want to ask you um, because I thought it was pretty fascinating, um that you were part of a recent film series, and you mentioned it earlier. That was David, King of Israel. Um what was that experience like just being on the on the film side of things versus manuscript? Uh was that was that a different, interesting experience for you?

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Well, uh you know me, Ben. I have a face for radio and a voice for writing, you know. So when I got involved in that project, I you know, I've been asked to do a lot of editing of film scripts and everything, and doing some others right now. And I like it, it's fun. And you know what's fun is you reach more people. You unless you have a bestseller, and there's it's really an anomaly to have a best um seller in any field, unless you're on Fox News and you're able to sell it every day on the news. But what was exciting to me during that project is that these people were the real deal. They were going to get it to millions of people, and they already have. It's already number one, you know. And so what you do is you just do your homework. And if you don't know the answer, Ben, it's sort of like you in the healthcare industry. If you don't know the answer about something, you better get someone that knows it and ask them. And so, you know, I don't know how many I, you know, gifts. I always I always think uh somebody who's smarter than than me on a subject, smarter than I on a subject, or I think can express it better. And so I would call them, you know, behind the scenes, trying to figure out whether that was right or that's wrong, what kind of sword would that, you know, Philistine have used, and and so these are all real questions. And um, and then when they asked me to be on the screen, now you had to remember Yellowstone had just come out and it was really it was really hot. And the same film company was filming Yellowstone at the same time. They were still doing the episode while we're flown out in Missoula. So it you know, I've done a it's been a fun, it's been a fun world, you know, life. I've loved the different things. It's like wow, you know. So I was just kidding. Uh Bridger Pierce, if you're watching this, you're listening to this, uh hey, uh shout out. He puts us up in this fancy hotel, drives us in this fancy truck. We go up, I think, in Yellowstone. I think I'm gonna see Buffalo and Elk. This is gonna be cool. Next thing you know, we turn off and go down this little road to this nondescript house, and there's a studio in there. It's nothing but black walls, it's freezing, and that's where we filmed. And I never saw Buffalo, never saw an elk. And I thought, this is part of Yellowstone. And you know what? When the film series came out, it's like that's all they needed. You know, they didn't need a buffalo behind me, you know, and and so since then, by the way, I have I I to uh to God be the glory, since then they have asked me to be one of the senior advisors for all the series. And so I mean 67, it's really fun. You know, if I drank, I probably would have had a few after that, but so I have just some coffee, probably celebrate. But so I'm gonna be doing a lot with them, and these are good, these are good men and women. I mean, they're exciting. I did ask them though, I said, if I agree to be on this board of these this film series, are you gonna show me a buffalo next time I come out there? You can call Bridger Pierce and ask him that. I mean, I really ask you that.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

Well, um, again, thanks for joining us today. Uh, before we get in the last two questions, uh, it's of note. You've had uh the book The Gospels that was recently released uh being released. And by the time this publishes, this will already be released as well. Uh, but the book, The Bible's Influence on Western Civilization, um, I believe in the fall you'll have a book, A Mission Held in Trust, that will be published. And in the winter, um, the story of the Bible, it will be released. So um, I tell you what, uh, Dr. Pattingale, you you uh live life to the fullest um and really enjoy the journey. That's what I anytime I'm around, you know, I get inspired to that. I was like, man, he is uh he's making things happen, he's having fun along the way and loves people, loves to laugh, loves to tell good stories. So appreciate that about you. Um, and it's also evidenced of how you uh have raised your children and getting to know Mike and how enjoyable uh he is as a person, but how uh intentional and professional he is in the work world. Um, but going up to the last segment.

Big Risks And Hard No’s

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

So the first question that we all we asked our guests is what is a risk that you have taken that has changed your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

Well, a big risk was um agreeing to help the museum of the Bible. I mean, people just see that as this great pie in the sky. But you know, you there's demands on your career, especially, you know, the college has blessed me with a special position to publish and everything. And I didn't know, so it's a blessing, but in some ways it was a risk. It was a risk because of other opportunities lost. And uh another risk I think that might be more um relatable to your audience. My wife and I sat with a really, really great couple, and we knew that I was going to be offered the presidency of their company. So I knew that. I went to to Nashville for two days, and we had a wonderful meeting. And at the end, uh indeed, they offered me the presidency. A great company, um, you would know the company. And I knew that I was gonna, you know, go and pray about it, you know, like the Gibeonites, you don't want to make a decision right there. You want to and I'd already prayed about it a lot, but I just felt like but as I stood up at the table, the husband of the couple, he said in Jerry one other thing. He said, if you shake my hand, he said you will get three and a half million dollars in shares the company, and this was a very good company, is a very good company. He said you get three and a half million dollars signing bonus. I don't know about you two. I mean, you're in healthcare, maybe you're wealthy, Ben. I I don't know, but I I I've been offered a lot of things in my life, whether I deserved them or not. That got my attention.

unknown 1:05:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

And I'm I remember you know, you ever had that moment where the window goes up and you're waving goodbye to people, and you're saying under your breath something else to your wife, like, oh my goodness, can you believe what just happened? But you know what? I couldn't sleep that night, I had no peace about it, and turned it down. And it wasn't a risk, you know, it's just a lot of money. And the company's doing even better, so those shares are worth even much more with the stock market, might be strophy. Those are going. And so maybe that was a risk, but you know what? I'm happy. I was also invited into the offices of uh Washington Post with Sally Quinn. Ben Bradley was still alive, uh, Watergate um hero uh journalist, and I was offered to take over a major section there. And I Just didn't have the peace to do that. And we had just bought the building in DC for the museum. And I my heart was there. And it, even though I love writing, and even though I'm called to write a post for page a day, I just wasn't called to lead that section. Of course, Bezos bought it not long after that, so I probably would have been out of a job anyway. But so those would have been a couple, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Yeah, that's interesting too. About um, I think someone with an as an exciting enough career as you've had doing many different things. It can be a perception of, yeah, you just say keep saying yes and things. Uh, and there's some some of that is truth, but reality is uh you mentioned there's other opportunities lost, and being careful of what you say yes and no to, and being prayerful about it and being discerning to that. So I think that's that's that's a uh a good good word, uh you know, alongside the risks that you have taken too.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:03

Jerry, the second question and final question, almost that we

The Work He Still Wants Done

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

started with. Let's see if you come back around to the same topic. What is left yet unfinished that you have the resolve to complete?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:15

So um, for those listening, they they give you notice. Uh, and this is this is a very well-run podcast. So I'm just happy to be involved. You know, I I would like a book with a long shelf life. And that's and you know, maybe it's the martyrs book. I had a martyrs book come out recently with Johnny Moore. It's uh a new book of Christian martyrs. They did a TV show, and someone said maybe that's your book. I'm part of live streams, uh uh eight streams and eight streams, uh Scott Pyle and and Brian Slipka and Ben Utek from the Cult Jude now and some others. I shared that with them, and we've we've talked about this. And so at 67 years old, and I'm 10 years past a quadruple bypass. And so God gave me these 10 years. And um, you know, when when I excuse me, when I was recovering, I just I just wanted to conquer the world. I wanted to see the world, I wanted to do the things that I didn't get done. And you may have heard the story, but I literally had been speaking on a book, and Australia came back. My wife's driving me, and we decided at the last minute to go through Cocomon as we're coming from Lafayette, and my heart attack hit right in front of the emergency room at the Cocomo Hospital, or else I wouldn't be here. I mean, right, I looked at her face, I said, I'm having a heart attack, and I saw the blue sign on the other side of her face. And and that's the only reason I'm here. So, you know, all civilizations have have collapsed, and whatever we do, we'll be ephemeral at some point. But uh there's something in the human part of the way that we're created that we want to have things with long-shelf lives, I believe. And so for me, it may be a book I'm doing, it might be the wedge principle, you know, it could be something I've done. I don't know, but um, so that's that's what I hope. And uh you guys are younger, uh, so you know, 10-15 years after I'm gone, have a cup of coffee, and and um maybe maybe there's something still around. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:36

Great answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:37

Have coffee and uh teach about the wedge principle, all right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:42

Yes, there you go. You can do that by the way. Any of you listening just with a napkin, I've done it hundreds of times.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:48

So well, uh Jerry, we really appreciate you joining us today and uh sharing uh your journey and you know some of the many fun things that you've uh been able to

Final Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

do. Uh, and I want to thank our listeners for joining us on another episode of Risk and Resolve. We'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

Thanks for tuning in to Risk and Resolve.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

See you next time.