Anchormen Ep28 The Ten Commandments

Can you name the Ten Commandments?

The Anchormen tackle the ten commandments and what do they mean to a new covenant believer in Christ.

Are they STILL significant?

What is the greatest commandment and how are you doing as you live your life trying to obey it, let alone the Ten. 

What are we to do with these "laws" that Moses gave to the Jews and what about the 613 other laws that man made and even some that God gave too. 

The "law" points to our need for a savior, and that Savior is found in Jesus. 

This session is part one of a two part conversation the Anchormen recorded during the Easter season in 2026. 

Reach out to the Anchormen by emailing us at anchoredbygrace@duck.com.

Listen or share our website to help spread the good news of being Anchored by Grace

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:09

In our walk with God, we often experience moments when our faith is tested. It's in these times that we truly discover what it means to be anchored in faith. Our faith is like a sturdy ship anchored in the harbor. It keeps us grounded when the waves of life toss us around. When we lean on God and His Word, we find the strength to persevere and trust in His plans. The anchormen remind us weekly that Jesus is our anchor, providing stability and insurance in the midst of uncertainty. Together, let's dive deeper into the powerful words that encourage us to hold fast in the faith of Jesus alone and not rely on our good words to be righteous. Oh, by the way, welcome. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having us. Welcome to the Anchorment Anchored by Grace podcast. And my first question is before anybody looks in their notes, can anybody name the Ten Commandments?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Nope. I can come close, I think, but nope. I know thou shalt not is about eight of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Thou shalt is five, and thou shalt not is not. I really so it's five and five. Steal, murder, covet, covet. Okay, so no murder. No adultery, right? Respect your parents. Covet. Respect your parents, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Do not uh have no other gods.

SPEAKER_05 2:09

No other gods, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:12

That's fine.

SPEAKER_05 2:21

Okay. You shall bear you shall have no gods before me. You shall not make yourself an idol. Don't make yourself an idol. Right. You shall not make for yourself, not yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Hey, how do we miss the Sabbath?

SPEAKER_05 2:36

Exactly. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. There you go. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. So does that mean you shouldn't lie?

SPEAKER_04 2:54

False witness, I think, means that you're saying something about them that's not true. Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

Bear false witness, like lying about your neighbor, basically.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

I mean, this is and you shall not covet, of course. But so you used to, as a witness, you'd say, I observed this happen. Right. And that, and if you say something that's illegal or immoral, you're saying something bad about your neighbor that's gonna have have consequences. I think that's where that comes from.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Or that's not true, but you're bearing as fault witness to the same thing. I'm saying I saw this happen.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Yeah. I know that Todd did this, and they're like, no, that's not true.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Yeah. So we start off as name the Ten Commandments. So how can we keep the Ten Commandments if we can't even name them? Amen.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Vaguely, you can name them, right? I mean, that's nobody asked that history.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

On the spot. What are they? And if so, probably back in grade school, you know, when you had to repeat them.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

Yeah. So I'm here, John, Todd's here, Bob's here, and Brian's here. And Brian's joining us today, just uh I guess as a guest, a guest host, I guess. That's wonderful. Brian Boyle. Um, and Brian's from Illinois, and uh he's a friend of Bob's, and he's come here to join us today. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Former college teammates, basketball teammates. Yeah. And roommates. Yes. Well, with you. With me, John and uh Brian and I.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

So our question about uh um Ten Commandments what was okay, what would be a biggest question as in the Ten Commandments would be do they apply to us as New Covenant Grace Grace believers?

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I think first before that, I think we gotta talk about what it was like growing up and where they originated from, maybe. Right, and I mean how did we feel about it? Because I could tell you, I remember as a kid going to uh church. Um I grew up going to Catholic Church, I I remember hearing the Ten Commandments, and I knew what they were after I did it. You know, so like if I went into White Hen and or 7-Eleven and I stole a package of baseball cards that we used to collect. Yes, when you did. Yes, okay. When I did. And uh with the gum inside? Yeah, with the gum. With the tops, the tops chewing gum. And anyways, um, I felt bad, but I got what I wanted. And I really didn't feel that bad. I mean, I was I felt convicted, but I knew that I did it, but I knew I wasn't gonna go out and murder somebody.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

It didn't say the house showing that steal baseball card. I mean, just saying, yeah. But but I guess my whole point is that even as I went to church and and as uh a family in Orland Park, Illinois, we we went, I would say on average, about three out of four Sundays a month.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

And even by doing that, I still broke commandments. Probably broke six or seven of them easily weekly. I felt like bad about it, but not like convicted where I felt really bad about it. And then as I got older, I still did the same, and it wasn't until I went to a different denomination church, and and this was the key, I opened up the Bible pretty much for the first time. Because at the Catholic Church, I don't know what it was like for you guys growing up, because I know that you guys were Catholic as well, but I wasn't directed and steered towards the Bible. We had the pamphlet that we would look through or misled, we would go through that, and so whatever they wanted to print and whatever they wanted to have for that week is what they had, and that was my only exposure to scripture for that week. And when I think back to it, a lot of it was like from Matthew, and a lot of it was pre-cross, meaning that it was before Jesus died. Well, when Jesus died, that changed everything. Because when Jesus died, that's when the new covenant came in. Right.

SPEAKER_05 7:12

And it's it's amazing because when we're at the Catholic Church that I grew up in, you were always taught the Ten Commandments. You're right. We're taught you shall do this, shall not do that. And if you broke one, they let you know you broke one.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

But and for people out there, we're not here to bash the Catholic Church at all. It was part of our upbringing and growth. No, and you're right.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Not that it wasn't Bible-based. It was more like they didn't put a Bible in front of you and saying turn to this chapter this year.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

So they have the Catholic Church has a missile that's for the whole year, church year. The whole year, and they put in uh sentence from the Old Testament, sentence from the New Testament, sentence from the gospel. And that's how it's set up, always the same way. Yeah. Remember, you had the certain songs you sang between all that and all that. So basically, as Todd said, you'd see an Old Testament writing and it might say Exodus on there, but you didn't really know what Exodus was. Yeah. You never read the book. Right. And then you'd see Matthew, and that'd be the gospel, and you wouldn't, you know, or John, or you know, he didn't know the background. He didn't know that that was from the Bible or the term where and how, who knows.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

Yeah. Or the priest would say, uh, today's reading is from the book of uh the St. Paul. St. Paul wrote uh this in the book of Romans or whatever. If he even mentioned the book, he would just say, written by St. Paul or read by St. Peter. Yeah. So yeah. And it's very hard. Yeah, it didn't stick with me at all scripture reading. It didn't stick.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

And and I also, and again, it it's like I'm trying not to, uh, but I it there's there's been a big change and transformation in me from going there to where I am now. And and the thing was is that I never liked going either. I remember as a kid when mom and dad were like still sleeping, we had four kids, I was the oldest. I made sure that my brother and sisters were as quiet as possible so that they wouldn't wake up. Yeah, so they would sleep in so we wouldn't have to go.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

And um it's just that the Bible for me has transformed everything because now I have a relationship with Christ. I'm learning more and more about him and what he did and why he did it and and what it means to us. And it's a humongous transformation.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

Well, the biggest thing is I think it's re-opened my eyes to why the why the scripture has, where do the Ten Commandments come from, other than watching it on the movie? Yeah. You know, though I used to watch that every time. Yeah, the Moses was out there, we used to watch it all the time. Moses is out there going to the mountain, bring down his tablets, face flowing. Yeah, that's that's the only change in color? Yeah, that's the only that's the only scripture I knew. That's the only Bible I knew was what I seen on TV in a movie. And that's not accurate at all. I mean, it's a depiction of what happened, but it's not accurate at all. It gives you no insight, gives you no you know what happened around it. Yeah. All of a sudden, here you got you got Ten Commandments. This is like for the rest of your life, you've got to follow these commandments.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

It's like they're pulling bits and pieces out, you know. Yeah, exactly. Things that are maybe selected that's one of me focused upon.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

So I grew up in uh uh Irish Catholic family, went to grade school, high school, and college in Catholic university, Catholic high school, Catholic grade school. So we had um church at when I went to grade school, we went every day. You went to church in the morning every day as part of your uh as part of your and I uh unlike Todd, I didn't break as many of the commandments as Todd did, but um not that you know of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Well you probably thought about doing it, so it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

But I remember uh also going to the stations of the cross where Jesus died and you know all the way through to where he was crucified uh around Easter time, too. So those were traditions, but you know when I heard the the Ten Commandments spoken or posted somewhere, um you try to figure out how how that fits in your life, especially as a young kid, because I didn't know what half the words meant, let alone what it meant to do that, whatever that one or what you shall do or shouldn't do. Um But you know, now that we now that we understand as new believers that that that doesn't apply to us, those are things that, and we'll talk about that more, but you know, that that they are still out there, but they're not something that guard governs our life post-Jesus uh crucifixion. Right. And so um you know that's a learning thing that we've only learned in the past, you know, five to ten years as a group that I'm I'm aware of that we really ch thought about how the if and how the old testament applies and if the Ten Commandments are still something that we should live our life by or if they apply.

SPEAKER_05 12:12

Right. One of the things that I noticed that I pointed out to myself, I thought when I became a Christian, a born-again believer, all of a sudden, like scripture tells us we don't want to sin anymore. We know what sin is, alright? It's in our hearts. So we don't have to be reminded, thou shalt not steal, we don't want to steal, thou shalt not covet, we don't want to covet. We don't ever want to anymore. I think that sin becomes a secondary thing now. We're still sinners, we're still sin, but you know, like the scripture tells us, Paul says we're saints who sometimes sin. That's a whole different identity. Whole different Todd's looking up some scripture over there, I can see. What are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Um, like 2 Corinthians 3 3, it says, You show that you are a letter from Christ, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. In your hearts, yeah. And because of that, there's a huge transformation from when Christ died on the cross. Because what does it say? Why did Christ die on the cross? Well, for two reasons. One, to forgive us of our sins, not just one sin or two sins or sins that we think are less serious than others. He came to forgive all sins. Those sins are past, present, and future that we commit. And because when Jesus died on the cross, he wasn't thinking, now what's John gonna do next week?

SPEAKER_05 13:47

He already knew.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

He already knows. And so when he went up there and sacrificed for us and his blood was shed, that was to forgive us of all of our sins. And then when he rose again, that was to give us new life, to show us new life as well. And that new life that we get, we also obtain his righteousness. It tells us in scripture over and over, we received Christ's righteousness.

SPEAKER_05 14:16

As our new identity.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, as our new identity, and that new identity is perfection, his perfection, not ours. Right. Because we still are gonna screw up because of our flesh.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

So there used there used to be, and it maybe it still is, in the Catholic faith, cardinal sins and venial sins. Yeah. And the cardinal sins were things that you I think, as I recall, it had to do with more like a direct offense against God. And the venial sins were more minor sins. And so when you went to confession, if you confessed venial sins or cardinal sins, it was different repentance that you got given based on if you could, you know, confessed to a venial sin, which are certain lower level, but still, you know, sin. And then cardinal sin were kind of like the Ten Commandments or the top ones that you know you've you've really offended God.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Let's face it, when you were in there in the penalty box. I don't know what any of that was. Well, but I was gonna say, when you were in the penalty box, you weren't gonna take the worst sins that you committed. You weren't gonna uh uh admit to those, you were gonna show them that you sinned and that you're trying to be honest and take the middle of the road ones or the less ones. You weren't gonna say I took somebody's pen and innocent stuff.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

But what about mortal sin, right? Oh yeah, mortal sin. Mortal sin was you know, as a young kid, I mean mortal sin, you're talking about killing somebody, right? Yeah, yeah, just I guess backdrop on me, like Bobby. I grew up a big family, eight kids, uh, O'Glaun. Oh yeah, uh St. Gerald Parish, went to all Catholic grade school, high school, went to high school in St. Louis. Yeah, used to be Christ Community Hospital. Um and then went to high school in St. Louis, St. Louis University High School, went off to college at Iowa for two years, then went to Loyola. And so for two years only, out of my whole upbringing, was I in a public institution. So you always had that Catholic aura around you. Yeah. And I I think a lot of it when you're growing up, you do it by rote. You just do it because that's what you're supposed to do. It's not until you I think you mature and you evolve, and then you see the world and you realize you can look back on your upbringing. Not that it was bad and different or wrong. It's all our own experience. You start to see things a little bit differently, and you can kind of fine tune or pinpoint some of the things you might think differently about now or approach it a little bit differently. But I think you know, to back to the Ten Commandments, I think that that those are those are good things to have, right? Can you imagine growing up in a world without any religion? Yeah. What you'd be like? At least it it's like the development of your conscience. You know. I think innately you know when you've done something wrong, but this just kind of reaffirms it, like don't kill, don't do this, don't do that. Yeah, just like it's a good thing. It helps you to think about, okay, these are the things I don't want to do if I were to be, I guess, a good Catholic at that point as a kid or a young adult.

SPEAKER_05 17:12

So so as we transform our lives been transformed into the new covenant, what do we still have commandments? Do we still have commands?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

According to the Bible, there are two. Okay. One is to uh love God and the other is to love others.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Okay, uh one is believe. One is believing and one is to love others.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yeah. So just believe on who believe and love God, love others are one, even though there's two.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

And and to not confuse people right away take that and say, oh, you guys are just saying that you can go and and sin willfully and do whatever you want. Well, name a sin that isn't willful. Right. Name one.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Right, there's not. Because we have a choice. Yeah, you say you're not negating the Ten Commandments, right? Yeah, obviously. You those still you still abide by that. Well, you don't you don't have to abide by them, but we do. Yeah. Because I mean, how does it ever go away?

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Because we love God. Because we love God. And we believe in Jesus, we don't want to do those things, like Ryan was saying. We don't want to. It brings to your mind the fact that I would never want to do those things because those hurt other people. Right. And they're wrong. Yeah. And so they're innately wrong. And it hurts your relationship between you and God. Yeah, you put in darkness between, you know, you and other people, too.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Right. Right? Yeah. Right. And you're not going to take anything away from your salvation. It's already been paid for. And but you're not going to take anything away from it, but you don't want to damage the relationship that you have with God. Right. I mean, He's not going to walk away from you, but Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And I and I don't think that you are going to damage, to be honest with you. I I I think that, you know, once you have an understanding of Scripture and what happened through the new covenant, as I was starting to say, you don't want to sin. But on the other hand, you know, other people will say, well, then you guys are saying you could just go out and sin. Well, we don't want to, but in reality, I know it's going to sound crazy, but you can. If you really understand scripture, because again, Jesus came to forgive all of our sins.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

So if you did decide to sin willfully and do something over and over again, what is he not forgetting? Well we do anyway. Right. Even if we don't want to, we still do. I've had anger issues, you know, my adult life. Anger is in a sin when it's not used properly, I guess. Well, I don't want to do it, but there are things that I wind up reacting to because of it. But then what happens is people start with their uh charts and ladders, they start saying, Well, this sin right here, the one that you did, Brian, when you cheated on your wife, whoa, that one is not a forgivable one, according to me. You know, we we start with our own opinions rating the sins.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

That's what I was gonna say is one of the things I realize when you're keeping track is that you become very judgmental. Yeah. Because you're looking for those things in other people, in part to make it so you don't feel as bad for having those thoughts or done those things. You say, well, I might have done that, but so did John and Todd and Brian. And, you know, I might go tell somebody that you guys did such and such a thing, just again, to make me feel like my my life is normal. Right. Or, you know, if I'm a bad believer, they are too. Right. When the reality is, you know, we're not we're not there to judge each other. Yeah. And and and if Jesus isn't judging, why should we? And that's a big one for me. Uh I'm I'm I'm I get challenged by my kids sometimes because I'll disapprove of someone's lifestyle or clothing or the way they carry themselves or something they say, and I'll be judgmental. I'll be critical of that. And they'll be like, Dad, if you're uh a believer, I thought, shouldn't you love those people, even though they have those things? And they're right, you know, but it to me, when I was transforming from a Catholic to a new Christian believer as we are now, I would I would I would say that it's caused me to want to see myself cleaner than I see a brother, as opposed to not a comparison.

SPEAKER_05 21:49

I know this isn't the greatest time to do this, but I'm gonna cut it off right in the middle of a great conversation that the four of us are having and pick it up again next week. So Listen in next week and hear the rest of this conversation. It's all good. Look forward to it. Talk to you later. Thank you all. Thank you for listening to Anchorman Anchored by Grace Podcast. Please share, like, and listen each week right here on our website or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Subscribe to our podcast and never miss a new episode. Reach out to us at Anchoredby Grace at Duck.com. Thank you again from John, Bob, and Todd, your anchormen, Anchored by Grace.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

Whatever these things are, so am I to judge them? Because it's not up to me to know what's gone on in their lives or they might change and what hurt they have that's carrying some of those actions. But I can look and say, well, at least I'm not that person. At least I'm not doing what they should do. And I don't think they should.

SPEAKER_05 22:55

Don't we do that all the time? It's the world works we do.

SPEAKER_04 22:58

It's a worldly thing, it's a comparison thing. And Jesus never says in the New Testament, compare yourself to someone else. No. So that's not biblical. But that's that's custom and practice in our lives is to compare. Well, it's like what he's got better than this, and I have better that. And she says this, but at least I don't say that. There's a lot of that goes on, and that's not scriptural or or or uh biblical.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

And what do we hear from one of the pastors that we listen to? He says it's not our job to change people, it's our job to love them.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

Yeah. So we should love them unconditionally like Christ loves us, and let them live their life. And if it changes over time, it may. And if it doesn't change, it's not something that we should judge and say, well, they're gonna be a bad person, they're gonna have this. Look at some of the look at Paul. Paul did all these kind of things to you know to believers and this and that, and then he was told a lot of the disciples, right? A lot of them were a lot of the disciples had troubles because they were human. Yeah, and they lived in a human world. And Jesus never said, I'm not gonna pick you because I picked you because you're the cleanest. Uh James, you know, he picked all these people strategically because they lived real lives. Fishermen, this, that, the other. And when they did things that they knew were wrong, he wasn't surprised. You know, when we when we watch something on TV about the life of Jesus, or we read in the gospel or in the Bible, we hear about mistakes they made. You know, Matthew was a tax collector, he's tax collecting against his own Jewish people, every one of them. So they're no different than us, and we could see if Christ loved them despite their faults, who are we to judge and compare faults?

SPEAKER_05 24:38

And look look at all the lives in the Old Testament as well. We're all sinners. We're all fallen people. Yeah, everything.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

I want to uh I want to read it.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

David is this amazing king, and then he has Bathsheba and he has these other issues, and he kills someone that he shouldn't, and yet he's called the man after God's own heart.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

God's own heart.

SPEAKER_04 24:57

He's you know, he's he's held up high, right? Even though he made mistakes. And so, you know, I I find myself making a quick judgment based on how somebody might look or act or what their experiences might be. And I gotta realize they're if they're I wouldn't appreciate them looking at me that way because it's not appropriate. And secondly, who am I to judge? Yeah, judging and love them, like we say.

SPEAKER_05 25:22

They don't know what you walk through and you don't know what they're walking through. And you're never gonna know. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

And you were gonna say, Todd, you have to say, Yeah, I want to I wanted to read some scripture here because by reading the scripture, so this is directly from the Bible, you can see how the New Testament is letting us know about the law versus The Old Testament. Grace. Yeah. Yeah. And so here's um Romans three twenty-eight. For when we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Galatians three twenty four. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Romans six fourteen. For sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law, but under grace. Galatians five eighteen. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Romans seven four. So my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. Romans 7.6. But now by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and that in the old way of the written code. Romans 3 20. I'll do two more. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law, rather through the law we became conscious of our sin. And then here's John, John 1 17. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And not only that, but the law that was given through Moses, who was it given to? And who was it given for? Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:23

Yeah, and all of the commands that Paul tells us, the two that he tells us, you know, to believe and love.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

And I only got halfway through my little list here. You know, the other thing. My whole point was is that it it scripture clearly in the New Testament is telling you that it is all about Jesus. It's not about us, it's not about the law.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

You know, and we we we understand from reading the Bible that Christ is the only person who was part human, part God that never sinned. Yes. And so when when people tried to challenge him or approach him and tried to catch him in something, he always had the right answer. And when he heard one of the apostles frustrated with something, he always had the right answer. Because he understood the spiritual largeness of what spirituality is and what a life in spirit is versus a life under law. And he was spirit. He was spirit, yeah. And so when you live under the spirit, you have this encouragement to do the right thing, and to and that comes through understanding how the spirit works in our lives, but giving the spirit room to work in our lives. Before you have that thought of critical. The spirit might catch you and say, remember we're not doing that. Right. Then we're not thinking that. Then we're not going to make that comment. You know, and so the spirit catches us and encourages us to love. Don't don't accuse love, don't hate.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

It all comes back to his love. It's funny that the phrase, who are we to judge? It's for whatever reason, it's an etched. Maybe it's the upbringing of your parents, yeah. You know, it's like there used to be. Don't be so quick to judge you to judge.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

And there was judge not lest ye be judged, was always the saying. Yeah. And that was an old old saying, and judge not lest you be judged. In other words, if you're gonna judge other people, you're gonna get judged. But if you don't judge other people, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

You know, the the other thing too that I wanted to comment about with the Ten Commandments is like if the Ten Commandments are, you know, because they're posted on school walls and then churches and everything, and they're so important, yet they're so important yet people do not realize, again, because they don't dive in, that the one of the Ten Commandments that says keep the Sabbath day, everybody thinks it's Sunday because that's the day. Churches that are Roman Catholic church, but it actually was Friday night into Saturday, I believe. And so everybody breaks it. Everybody that follows that of every religion breaks the Sabbath every single week. And so then when you bring that up to people, and then the Sabbath also had, I think, 40 other laws in addition to that that were underneath it.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

Food laws and cooling and cleanliness.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So in reality, every single one of us breaks it every single week. And then when you bring that up to somebody and you tell them that, and that's like, oh well, then that one don't apply. So now it becomes the nine commandments instead of the ten. Yeah. And it's just kind of funny how large ones too. How we just have had it ingrained in our head growing up. Ten Commandments, Ten Commandments, Ten Commandments, Ten Commandments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean, it's just I you know, you sit in a group like this, you don't think about some of the topics that you guys are bringing up. Yeah. No, that's why we understand. You're kind of like, yeah, I get that, you know, I get that.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Well, and think about it from this perspective, right? You're at church, you've got the priest up there telling you that, well, if we don't get into this, you never know whether or not what he's telling you is the truth or not. Yeah, it's like the cart before the horse almost.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Like you gotta go to this before you can really absorb and put it in perspective as to what's being.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

You know what I did too is I opened up and I've got it saved on my phone, the the uh the what are they called, the canon, the canon.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

That is unbelievable the amount of rules and laws in that thing. And if every Catholic knew what was in there, you'd just be like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Yeah. What's the what's the New Testament? So don't put a burden on your brother, then you can't do that.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

Yeah, don't burden your brother with a brother with reminders of sin and requirements and all that that you wouldn't want on yourself anymore. In other words, you're you're guided by the Spirit, so don't don't project onto someone else something that's too weighty for yourself. And I can't recall the recall the scripture. Oh, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

In theory, yeah. Yeah. And it's in scripture.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I just can't recall the chapter and verse. I didn't do all my homework before I got here. I was painting today.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

And recuperating.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

Yeah. Recuperating from painting.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

So you didn't do it a Picasso, you did a Clark.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

And so I think one more thing that I wanted to make note of that I mentioned earlier is that there's I call it the line. That line is when Christ died. Yeah. And so it all changed with that. Right, so Jesus grew up a Jew. And so, Brian, if if you were Jewish and we were back in the day, the best way that I can relate to you is what we know as Jews. And so we we will come to custom and Jesus was teaching to all of the Jewish people what they knew and what their customs were and what their laws were and everything else before he died on the cross. He was sort of also letting them know and trying to lead them into, hey, there's something bigger and greater coming. So when you look in like Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus died on the cross, I believe it's in Matthew 28. Everything before Matthew 28 is pre-cross. So if he says something that contradicts stuff that's like in the New Testament, it's really not a contradiction. It's because that's what the customs were back in that day and who he was talking to. And back then, they were under the law.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Because it was between it was a bilateral contract between the Jewish people. They said, Yes, we will follow your laws, and God. It was a two-way contract.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

And so they broke it. And it was foreshadowing and showing them that they would never be able to do it and that they needed something else. And that's what the law was someone else. And that's what Jesus came for. Right. Came to fulfill.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, all that red letter in Matthew. I used to read that and try to think, oh, yeah, how can I keep up with it? Fuck your eye out. What am I supposed to do? Yeah. And then you realize it wasn't written to new believers. It wasn't written to Gentiles, it wasn't written to Jews. Yes. And he said, if you're going to keep the law, keep the whole law. Yep. And you got to do it. You break one, you break them all. You got to do all this. And they're like, wow. You know, but I remember reading that when I first started Bible reading. I used to read, especially Matthew, and I'd be like, all right, he's serious. Look at all these in the red letters. There's just thing after thing that you got to make. You know, if somebody takes one thing, give them two, and you know, all these different things. I'm thinking, we're supposed to do all that. Then I realized that he was talking to a different audience. Yeah. And that's what it makes it so much clearer. Yeah. Because you're wondering why did he switch? Why did it change so quickly? But it didn't change, it was just a group he was speaking to. The law was different.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

It's like, do you want to be on team self-improvement or team Jesus? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Well puts it in context for you, right? For sure.

unknown 35:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Now you know that now you know the timing of it and the audience are so important when you're reading anything. But if you think the audience and the timing is now in me, I'm thinking, man, that's a load, but I'll try. So the so when I first read the Bible as a 40-something-year-old, I used to think, I'm going to try to do all that, I'm going to try to do all that. Then it was explained to us, I think, in our in our anchorman group a little bit more about that, and I realized, wow, that's all pre-cross. And so he was talking to the Jews, not to me. And so those things have no application to me because I wasn't a Jew pre-cross. I'm a Gentile post-cross. And so it's love God, love others. So all that other stuff he was saying, if you're going to do this, go the whole way. If you're going to do that, do that all of it.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

You know, if you're going to and it made sense to them back then.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Yeah, they understood what he was saying, and it was actually clarification of what the requirements were. Or as you pointed out, all those extra Jewish laws wrapped into what he was saying in the red letter.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

So, yeah, I think it's two of the things that I take away from this whole conversation we've had is get in your book, get in the get in the Bible, read it. And it's not easy to understand. But I think coming along to complement a good Bible, one that's easy to understand for you, is a commentary. Read a commentary from a I guess you'd have to find a grace commentary. A grace commentary to help you understand it a little bit more, a little more in depth. That's one takeaway I have from it. And the second one is everything can be uh any sin, any relationship can all be healed with love. It's take, you know, it's like you said, love one another. It's all we need is love.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

What is the grace commentary you refer to? All Alice. It just gives you further clarification of what or an interpretation through the latinence terms. Through the grace lessons, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Because what happens is you'll hear it tonight. He uh Brad likes to call it the meatball. Well, the meatball is a mixture of grace and then church always likes to throw in works and the law then. Yeah. And so you're getting the mixture of both where you're really not understanding about grace then. Yeah. And that's a majority of churches. And so by by seeing things through the grace lens, it just winds up freeing you. It's it's like somebody just took a huge backpack off of your back of rocks and just threw it on the ground. You're like, wow.

SPEAKER_05 37:39

And so we try so hard to do right, do the right thing. And we always fail. We always have. We always have.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

And the third thing I would add to what you said, John, is to read from an author like Paul Ellis or like uh or find pastors, they hear service to watch, podcasts. Right. Because it doesn't tell you in the Bible who it was written to. Nope. And so obviously he's to the Galatians, to the epistle, but were they, you know, some some of who he's writing to, the Hebrews.

SPEAKER_05 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

But then he's writing to people in Galatia who might be new believers. And so, you know, to understand the audience, like any discussion, who is who's talking and who are they talking to, right? Gives you context. You know, is it somebody who's talking German to a German person? Right. And you're you only read English and you just don't understand it. Or was it meant for me and it applies to me in this narrow sense, and the grace takes care of the rest of it, and that stuff doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

By understanding it that way, then you don't get contradiction in the Bible. Because in the Old Testament it'll say, Don't do this, and then in the New Testament it says, do this, or it's okay, you're forgiven. Well, that seems like it's a contradiction. But when you understand it in context, it's all just leading up to Jesus and who he is and what he did for us.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

It's kind of like who's the audience? Who's the audience? Like you were saying, you're reading all the red lettering, who's the audience and who's the speaker?

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Correct. Right. Because a lot of the Old Testament is God divine teaching and speaking. And then when you hear Jesus actually speaking, and then you hear Paul and the different apostles after Christ died, you get a better sense of that's all relevant to was Christ alive? Was he dead? Was he even born yet? All those things.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

So much changed when Christ died, and when he was born.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

So much things died when changed when Christ was born.

unknown 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:41

And then he lived, then he died. All three of those steps are huge to understanding the Bible. And Rose, and and and who the writers were, were they writing Old Testament, Pre-Cross, Post Cross?

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:58

Alright. Well, let's wrap it up, guys. And uh just want to thank Brian for joining us. Yeah, thanks, Brian. Hey, thanks for having me. No problem. And uh Bob's good to see you. Glad you're feeling better. Yep. Todd and looking good.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 40:11

Hey everybody, have a good evening. Thanks again for uh joining us. See you again next week.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

I always look best on a podcast when you can't see me.

SPEAKER_05 40:18

You got a face for real. I agree.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

I've revealed.