Um hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour podcast. And I saw a supercut on the internet a while back. Supercut is when some clever internet poster goes and grabs a whole bunch of videos from a whole bunch of different places and smashes them all together to make a point. I saw one of those a while back of Trump and him saying the word China just again and again and again and again. And he says it funny, right? I mean, I think whether you like Donald Trump or not, we can all admit he says China funny. Should be one thing that no matter where you're coming from politically, we can all have a laugh about. That guy pronounces that word weird. I mean, the point that the video is trying to make is this guy thinks about China a lot. And again, if you tend to be somebody who likes Trump policies, you're going to be like, and he should. If you tend to be somebody who sees it different, maybe you'll be like, and it's funny that he cares about it so much. Not the point. Never the point of this podcast. Rather, it's just a funny thing that's out there, that's in the ether and that's in the culture right now. And the supercut works because we know that if somebody talks about something a lot, for better or worse, they must really, really care about it. Let the reader understand. Draw your own conclusions. Well, in the Bible, we just went through a mountain of sin lists as best as I could do. I think it was most or all of them from the whole New Testament. And it was intensive over the last few days. I'm not gonna lie, that did not feel good. I that's I think I said it while I was recording. I think that's my least favorite 10-minute Bible hour podcasting I've ever done because I'm not telling you which ones, but there's plenty of crap on that list that makes me look like an idiot and a hypocrite for even reading it into the microphone. I feel all of that. So, hey, you know, we worked it through and we did it. But if we just read those lists, well, you could certainly get the impression that that's what the Bible cares about because it says it all the time. Like Donald Trump says China a lot. But if you go and read the whole of the New Testament, I mean, think about how many words are in the New Testament, it's a huge document. And the fact that I was able to cruise through all of that and also goof around a little bit and also read some good words mixed in there, like the positive, reflexive version of those lists. Like we were able to cover all of that in what, like a couple days of podcast? Dang. I mean, that's not the centerpiece of the New Testament then, but it's clearly an important component. So, what is the centerpiece of the New Testament before we explore what the high points of those sin lists are? Well, I mean, for Jesus, I went through and added it up literally with a pencil and paper one time. I took a long time working on this. I went through and I was like, what does Jesus like to talk about the most? What I came up with was that he liked talking about his father more than anything else. There are different ways to count it, you know, some of its illusions, some of its direct reference, like my father and I are one. But when I went through and I think did a fair count up on that, it wasn't even close. His father was his favorite thing to talk about, you know, God the Father is just that was it. That's clearly the heartbeat of Jesus, the glory of his father, the plan of his father, the love of his father, the truth of his father. He was also really enthusiastic about talking about his father's kingdom. And by my count, that was the second most talked-about thing. Now, you could say, well, Jesus talking about the kingdom of God. Isn't that kind of like him talking about salvation in a way, or the church in a way, or even heaven in a way, or even future things kind of in a way? Yeah, that concept of the kingdom of God throughout the Gospels and the New Testament, it covers it's a big umbrella, because I mean, it's a kingdom. Everything within its boundaries belongs to the kingdom. So, yeah, lots of other subtopics come up in there. For example, he likes talking about money and stuff and possessions a lot. I don't have my list in front of me, but it seems to me like love and stuff were three and four, and they were neck and neck. I mean, you could you could nudge the counting, the statistics on it, a little bit in either direction to bump one ahead of the other, depending on how you count it. The point was, they both came up a lot. Well, you go and look at the stuff that Jesus likes to talk about the most, and you come away with the impression that he's absolutely loyal to his father and to his father's plan, who is all and completely good and loving. And Jesus is going to play the role that he and the Father have set forward for what Jesus is going to do in the flesh to build the kingdom, to bring about the reality of the kingdom, to demonstrate the love of God. And frankly, it you add it all up, and it's a contrast to world values, which is stuff and power. So when you look at the things Jesus talks about the most, yeah, I think it actually gives you a pretty good sense, even just as a raw volume count of what he was up to and what he was into. So then you think about that from what we've worked on the last few days. The sin lists and the stuff that comes up all the time. As we've discussed, all these lists are different, but they also have a lot of overlap. Why? I mean, well, because they're all written to different audiences. Now, I don't think the best way to read the New Testament is to be like, well, that sin list doesn't count for you as you're listening to this conversation in Conway, Arkansas, or Decatur, Alabama, or Cooperstown, New York, or Brush, Colorado. No, I mean, clearly, these things are speaking into the human condition, but also the point of emphasis, as we've discussed, of these sin lists would seem to be targeted toward who the audience is. So, yes, the New Testament consistently has an awareness of who the immediate audience is, but also there's so much overlap between these things and so much follow-through on stuff we see in the Old Testament. You know, it's it's pretty clear that there's anticipation that other people would be listening in on this, and there's quite the degree of universality. So, what pops here as I have made a similar list of how much these different things on the sin lists overlap and come up. Which ones are said a lot, which ones are said a little. Well, let me start with some that come up only once. The phrase lover of money, for example, comes up only once, but greed is mentioned explicitly in six of the other sin lists. So I think it's okay to probably lump lover of money in with greed, in which case, dang, that one that one comes up a lot. That's seven times, you know, easily half, maybe more. What else do we have here? Uh obscene comes up once. So you gotta kind of dig into the original language and the context there to try to figure out maybe what we mean by obscene. Do you mean like an NFL running back breaking away from the pack and jumping backwards into the end zone while holding the football and grabbing themselves inappropriately? Yeah, maybe. I that could be it. Is it something more lewd than that? Is it you know over the top talk that isn't conscious of the audience or the room? Oh, you got to think about some of these. Perjury comes up on only one list. Okay, well, I think we know what perjury means in the ancient world now. Rage and rashness, those both come up only once. I mean, if we're crying out loud, the w the word dogs comes up in one of these, like be a dog. You know, well, that can be a compliment in modern language. I guess a dog. But I think the idea here is, you know, uh scavenger outcasts who lurk around at the fringes of things and opportunistically loom for opportunities to sneak in and do damage. I think that's probably how to read it. Cowardly. That comes up once. But then there's some other stuff that comes up a little more frequently, like uh the right relationship with parents seems to come up. So disobedience to parents is on there, but also like patricide and matricide killing your parents. That's on there. More than once, slave traders is on the list. Sexual immorality, that's the one that pops. I'm not gonna lie. I understand the values and the ethics and the moment that we live in right now in history. I understand the discussion surrounding sexual ethics, sexual identity. I get it. Yep, I understand that there's schools of thought and all that stuff. Like the dispassionate Colorado Rockies announcers, whose job it is to just look at what's going on on the field and be like, there was another ball rolling between the shortstop's legs. That is four errors. Well, so it is my job in this conversation to report to you. Hey, we added it up, and the thing that seems to come up the most is sexual immorality. That is the most common recurring theme on these sin lists. So apparently that one right there transcended geography. It transcended race, it transcended gender. Apparently that back then was just a real easy thing for people to make mistakes in. And as we've discussed over the last couple of weeks, well, it seems to be a real easy thing for us to make mistakes with nowadays as well. One of the most beautiful things in all of life, so easily uh twisted into something that is destructive and and isn't God's plan for it. There it is. Witchcraft and magic, that gets three strife and dissension, yeah, malice, a bunch of things like that, hatred, gossip. Depending on how you add that up, if you're the most generous possible, you can get that pretty close to sexual immorality in terms of how often it pops. Yeah, I'm looking at the list. This is what I'm seeing greed, idolatry, sexual immorality, and gossipy, slanderous, mean lying, tearing other people up with words. Those seem to be the ones that got the most mentions. And I think it's at least somewhat reasonable to read between the lines there and be like, well, when people talk about things a lot, you get the impression that that's very important. So uh it's all Bible Christians believe, so it's all very important. But it's kind of fruitful to dispassionately just go through the lists and see what stands out when you actually add up the data, what's there the most? Sometimes you notice those kind of patterns. Yeah. I'll tell you this real quick. Uh, the middle of the pack. Drunkenness, lying, uh treachery. Oh wow. Sexual immorality and adultery. I probably should have lumped those in together. I have them separated out here. I have sexual immorality, perversion, homosexuality, and adultery. What a funny conversation we're having. I have those all separated out. Uh debauchery, I have separated out as well, but man, if you put all of that together, sexual immorality wins by even more. Huh. Okay, just staring at the data. Those are my observations. Yeah, I mean, we could sit and obsess and break them all down and be like, you know, how much is too much? What thing actually counts as rising to that level? I'm gonna let you work that out for yourself or in a little your local church with the Bible, you go get that. I don't think I'm qualified to solve that, especially given the nature of our kind of one-sided relationship here. What I will say is this we all got problems. Sin touches everybody. That's what the Bible teaches. As I look at this list, I can't think of anybody who I know well who isn't touched by something on here, isn't tempted by something on here. So that's a problem, but just like we talked about yesterday, the point of Galatians is not to heap on the problem and then be like, well, I guess that's your deal. Tough luck. The point of this book of the Bible, the point of the rest of the Bible, is to point you toward this thing that gives life in spite of this horrible list that sounds almost undefeatable. I mean, if I'm like, we you know, this stuff needs to go away, you would laugh. You'd be like, there's no law that can make these things go away or purge them from society. They're human nature, they're not going anywhere. As long as there are people, these things are going to be part of the deal. So it seems hopeless, but the Bible tells a story of hope in God, that there is something bigger than these fleshly impulses that are common to all of us, and that is Christ. And in Christ and out of the spirit, is born this idea of life by the spirit and the fruit of the spirit, which is very much the converse to this list, and which I am delighted to finally get on to unpacking next time around. Whew! What a run! These last 40 or 50 episodes, we have had some stuff to chew through. Tomorrow's gonna be a blast. Let's get on to it. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.