Day 142/Catchup Day 10: Wrong Ways The Pharisees Debated Jesus

May 22

Text today is John 5:16-47, 6:25-59, 7:14-52, 8:12-59, 9:13-34

The podcast is a discussion of how the Pharisees and religious leaders misrepresented Jesus in debate and how we can easily do the same things today in discussions with people that disagree with us. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. I appreciate you joining us for day number 142 of the Canon Connected, which also happens to be ketchup day number 10, and we're still trying to explain the catch up days in case there are newer people, or again, because this reading plan is is a brand new thing in 2026, so we're not even halfway through the year. It still may need some commentary. We have passages on these days that are not connected readings, as over 90% of the plan is every day other than the catch-up days. And the readings are strategic, with a couple of exceptions in December. I'll talk about those then though. But they're strategic and then they try to get us to read, you know, like an entire book of the Bible that's short enough to do in one sitting, reasonably, um, or things that connect in a way that's not like the typical themes that we talk about. And that's actually what the passages today are about. All these passages from John um from the early chapters of John have this in common. Jesus would go round and round in debates and discussions and arguments with the Jewish leaders, the Jewish teachers, the Pharisees about who he was and what he came for. And as there's a lot of back and forth between him and his opponents, his enemies, even. And so that's the reading for today. And today, this doesn't happen every time, but today, like I try to on many days of the catch up days, I form podcast content based off of that reading. But it's not an explanation of the connections. I basically just did that in a couple of sentences. But instead, it's something that goes outside of what we would normally talk about, and even oftentimes it's not even straight up biblical interpretation. It's just trying to take the word of God and make it relevant and meaningful in everyday life in ways that I find interesting and that I hope that other people as well. But it's important for me to find it interesting, otherwise it would not be, it would probably not be very interesting for me to talk about it. So today I want to talk about something I think is extremely practical and something that is very important, especially in the social media age, and that is how in these debates and discussions and arguments that Jesus has with the with the religious leaders of his day that you read in John, and there are more than what we put in there, but there's a lot of probably the the the bulk of what you would find with these back and forths happen in in the book of John. And one of the things you see his opponents doing are not just sinning overtly, you know, um, they actually just make bad argumentation at times. And I think it comes from a selfish heart and it comes from a sinful heart, but it's things that sometimes I think we can even do without trying to. I think it's just something we do automatically because of our sin nature, but it's sometimes it's not even super, super purposeful. And I'll say this up front. I'm gonna talk about three things that the Pharisees did that I see happen today, but they're all things that I have done and that I'm guilty of. So I have to confess my sin first. I have to get the, you know, the redwood out of my own eye before I try to take the toothpick out of anybody else's eye. But there have been times I've been in debate, discussion, argument, whatever social media or not. And I have made bad argumentation. I have done things that were not fair and they were not just and they were not truthful. And that is what you see again in these discussions. And so we all stand to be pharisaical on how we disagree with others. Now, I'm sure I have people listening that would just as soon punch themselves in the face than get in an online debate with anybody and or even an in-person one. But even if you don't engage in them, I think these kind of things are important to observe and notice and to as appropriate as possible just speak out against and to try to hold others accountable to not doing them. Um, because again, these things are wrong, even if we don't have, you know, again, a a overtly sinful, you know, agenda in doing them. Um because again, they're the fact the Pharisees do did them and we do them today, again, it's it's an evidence of how we really don't change. And again, people apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, we all stand to be Pharisees. We all stand to be the prodigal son, yes, but we all stand to be the older brother who doesn't want you know grace for other people. And humans are just inclined to make bad argumentation, to um, to not engage people well when we disagree. And so I want to look at three things, again, very practical things, things you will see a lot online and again and off. These things existed way before social media, even before the internet. But they're everywhere. And uh, so let's talk about them. The first thing that I want to mention that the Pharisees did to Jesus is that they misrepresented his argument back to him. Here's an example from John chapter 8. I won't give all the examples for the sake of time. I'll just give one for each each each uh each topic. They said to him, Therefore, where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also. That's uh a very important point about the salvation of the Jews and people of that day, those who were already following the God of Christianity, his father, would have listened to Jesus, and those who didn't would not. Those because they're the same person, or they were the same God, two different persons. These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. So we're going to talk about that in a couple of days. Um Then he said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come. So the Jews said, Will he kill himself? Since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come. And this to me is again a very absurd thing to say. And Jesus has not said or implied at all that he was going to kill himself. In fact, the way he lives and the way he speaks is the exact opposite of that. So to me, this is an insecure group of people that are trying to manipulate the situation by misrepresenting what Jesus is saying. And this again is something people are so wont to do. And people of all stripes, both political aisles, all denominations, you know, all opinions, this is something that is so easy to want to do. And there's a word that's used often in it's like a subcategory of this, and it's very, it's very uh uh common to hear this phrase, uh, the idea of a straw man, because it's what it's what we want to argue against instead of actually engaging with the person's argument, it's a lot easier to make it a caricature or something that we that we can make uh more simply so that it's much easier just to bat it down. And so we do not want to, as Christians, ever create straw men, even when we disagree with people who hate Jesus. It is an issue of integrity and truth that, as as Tim Kelly used to say, if you're going to represent a person's argument, you need to do it in such a way that they would say, Yes, I agree with what you said about my own argument. But man, a lot of times we don't do that. Clearly the Pharisees didn't do it here. One of the ways that I want to talk about this specifically, and there's so many I could do. Again, we're talking about, you know, debates which happen again in politics and theology and sports. And by the way, for the most part in the public sphere, I've tried to stay away from public argumentation. I've had a lot more in private, but sports has been my Achilles' heel, I'll tell you, and this is fully accountable to this, but I find it very hard to resist very bad arguments, again, even when I represent them correctly, of when people are talking about, you know, like Michael Jordan or Larbon James or the Big Ten versus the SEC in college football. I have been very guilty of just trying to win a debate and not doing anything fruitful or productive, you know, on and in the issue of using social media and even engaging people who disagree. But so that aside, there are so many things we could look at, so many topics, but I want to look at specifically the Arminian versus Calvinist debate on this very quickly. I hope. And I want to look at both sides because I want to try to be fair. All cards on the table, uh, if this isn't obvious after five and a half months of this reading plan, I am an Arminian, specifically Free Will Baptist, and I seriously doubt I'll ever stop being Free Will Baptist, and I doubt even harder I'll ever stop being Arminian. I'm fully convinced of this explanation of Christian salvation and continuance in salvation. But I also recognize, I mean, I not only attended Welch College, which is Free Will Baptist slash Arminian, I attended Moody and my some of my favorite people in the world, including the Bible professor and the and the interpretation professor, Greek professor that I had, Dr. Wonloy Singh, whom I've cited many times on this broadcast, is a five-point Calvinist, that they are my brothers and sisters, and I'm going to be, you know, celebrating in heaven with them. And I've locked arms with Calvinists for many worship and community and service projects in my life. Um, so I want to try to be fair here, okay, even though I am unashamedly Arminian, unashamedly Free Will Baptist. All right. So I think it is a bad representation of Calvinism for Armenians to say, well, you don't believe in free will with salvation, so you must just believe that we're all robots, because I don't think Calvinism teaches this, definitely not John Calvin himself. And again, I've read it, I've studied it, I've engaged, I'm curious. I went through, you know, a very, you know, very intense time of studying this when I was at Moody. This is not something that I continue to believe just because I've always believed it. I had my beliefs challenged, and I still believe it because again, I think it's correct. And by the way, much like my father, who was a great example to me in this way, because he has into his 70s, he's in his 80s now, been willing to change his mind if he could be proven incorrect. So, um, but I again I've listened to the other side, and I am I'm convinced that again, uh, Calvinism doesn't teach with robots. They would say that before salvation, you when you get up in the morning, you can choose to go to work or stay home. You can choose to shovel your neighbor's snow, or you can choose to stay at home and be selfish if you're able to help. You still have choices. The only thing is, but before you're saved, you only choose what is sinful. You only choose what is selfish. And then God, yes, he enlightens your eyes and draws you in and he saves you for his own good purpose, all right? You don't choose it. All right, but then even after that, again, you do have choices and that you you will choose to in general to do good. So I don't think, again, if you're going to try to represent Calvinism, that it is fair or truthful to say, well, you must all believe we're robots. That's that's not the case, I don't think. Similarly, all this is a little bit different. I have often heard, you know, Armenians feel like they can, you know, you know, pigeonhole a Calvinist by saying, well, if you believe that God's going to save who he wants and damn who he wants, then there's no reason to pray for the lost and there's no reason to evangelize or send missionaries. So why would you even do that? The rejoinder to that that I've most commonly heard, which I like, is that because God tells us to. And even if it seems illogical to me and contradictory to me, I live in obedience to God. I think that's a good rejoinder. I think that's totally fine. And by the way, even as an Arminian, when I talk about praying for lost people, it's interesting to me because I pray God convict their hearts. I believe he's going to do that whether I pray it or not, but I still pray because I believe it's obedience to what God asked me to do. So it's not something unique to Calvinism. All right, but on the other side, okay, all right, I do absolutely see these very bad arguments, these very bad misrepresentations of what Arminianism teaches and what Arminius himself taught. And I think it's it's worth, you know, again, discussing now because again, this is what I see more of being on on this particular side. Um, one of those is that man is that salvation in Arminianism is man-centered and man-dependent, and that is absolutely not true. I would classify that as a bald-faced lie, having again read Arminius and taught the having taught this and and believing it, that I don't think it's in reasonable whatsoever to say that about Arminians, okay, or that we devalue God's sovereignty. Okay. Um, I just I believe these are caricatures and they're straw men, and again, they're easily batted down. And by the way, as I said, my dad was a good example to me. Another fantastic example to me is one of the men who has taught me Arminianism from Arminius himself, um, Dr. Robert Piccarilli, formerly a Free Will Baptist Bible College, Welch College. When he wrote Grace, Faith, Free Will, which is an explanation of Christian salvation through Arminianism and continuance in salvation, meaning Christians can apostasize or reject or forfeit their faith according to Arminianism. Um, when he wrote that book, he made sure that whenever he presented the Calvinist side, he quoted them themselves in context. And he had those people, Calvinists, read that and say, Am I representing this accurately and correctly? Because he didn't want to, you know, you know, put up straw men to be easily batted down. But in his book, that was the what the the the source material, as well as, you know, the one class I had of his when I was in college and the my education there in general, but Dr. Picker really, even more so than Mr. Forlines was the one who really, you know, absolutely got my my excitement for these these topics and these discussions going. And I I learned from him again the things that that Arminius actually said, you know, and that um that you can see from his own words, you know, that he that salvation and and Arminianism, what based on what you know, Jacobus Arminius taught, is not man-centered and man-dependent. Let me give an illustration first, then I want to get some to actual quotes. This is not perfect, okay. This could easily be you poke holes in it and find, you know, you know, faults with it, but I just just an illustration to to to set the table for for why I think this matters. Um simply stated, and probably oversimplistically, but just for the sake again of an illustration, Calvinism would say a hundred people are in the ocean, they're unconscious, okay? Um, that God as Savior, Jesus as savior, is going to choose ten or twenty of them for whatever reason he wants, and go out to the ocean and pull them in, give them CPR, and save them. And he will let the others drown, okay, for his own good purposes and his own goodwill. Arminianism would say that uh Jesus goes out in the ocean and everybody in the ocean is unconscious. He rouses everyone from from being unconscious, he he awakens them. Then he extends his hand to all 100 people and he says, Take my hand and I will save you. The person drowning has the choice to say, I'm gonna take his hand, he can save me. He's the only way I'm gonna be saved because I can't swim and I'm just waking up. Or a person could say, I'm gonna try everything I can to um to make it to the shore of my own because I want to do it on my own effort. Okay, I want uh I think I even though I can't swim, I think I can do it. And by the way, we know people like that that are trying to overcome their sin on their own. And that's not the that's not the gospel, it's not grace. But Jesus offers the hand, he rouses all 100 and he offers the hand, and the only people are saved are the one who take his hand and he and he takes them back to the shore. Um, where and then he treats them and and and and and brings them to full healing. Now, could you imagine being in the ocean, okay, and you're unconscious, and somebody rouses you and offers their hand, and you're drowning, and you're like, I can't, I can't save myself. I've got to take his hand or I'm gonna drown. I'm desperate, I need help. And you reach out and take the hand that's extended to you, and they pull you to the shore and save your life and then and then heal you from any injuries you may have. Can you imagine that person saying, Yep, that's man-centered and man-dependent? I did that. That's how silly that argument sounds to an Arminian, okay? And again, that illustration, again, has a lot of faults. But the actual words of Arminius himself, again, to me, prove that, again, it's ridiculous and it's a misrepresentation and a straw man to say that our beliefs of salvation and continuance in salvation are man-centered and man-dependent. This is what Arminius himself said. The free will of man towards true good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened, but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost. And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatsoever except such as are excited by divine grace. Why do I use the illustration saying that Jesus goes out into the ocean and arouses an unconscious person? Because Armenians believe that there is a thing called provenient grace, pre-salvation grace, that Jesus has to draw us first. He has to initiate salvation. We do not believe we wake up one day and say, of my own free will, I want to get saved. I want to follow Jesus. No, Armenians do not teach that. It's not man-dependent that way. Um, Jesus has to reach out to us first, he has to rouse us first, okay? And then we have to decide if we're gonna follow him. But again, we do believe Jesus draws all men to himself. Everybody has that option. That's the difference. But he goes on to say man is not capable in and of himself either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good, but it is necessary for him to be regenerated in his intellect, affections, or will by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be rightly on he may rightly understand, esteem, conceive, will, and perform whatever is good. Arminius also said this doctrine by grace alone, you know, that Luther taught, establishes the grace of God when it ascribes the whole praise of our vocation, justification, adoption, and glorification, as Paul describes the process of salvation, to the mercy of God alone and takes it entirely away from our own strength, works, and merit. And you know what I'm not here saying, Oh, you know, Arminius, you're sounding a little Calvinist there. You need to you need to kind of back off. No, we can't. No, I say I agree with that. That's perfectly in line with what an Arminian believes. Arminius said man cannot have faith of himself. That is a gift of God. The whole process of salvation according to Ephesians 2 is a gift, including faith. He also said it is very plain from the scriptures that repentance and faith cannot be exercised except by the gift of God. The idea of a gift, though, is you can take it or you can reject it. That doesn't mean it makes it any less a gift. The act of faith is not in the power of a natural, carnal, sensual, or sinful man. No one can perform this act except through the grace of God. He also said, I place in subjection to divine providence both the free will and the action of a rational creature, so that nothing can be done without the will of God, not even any of those things that are done in opposition to it. And also, Arminius says the gospel is purely gracious, it excludes every cause which can possibly be imagined to be capable of having proceeded from man and by which God may be moved to make this decree. And lastly, he wants that I ascribe to grace the commencement, beginning, the continuance, and the consummation, ending of all good, and to such an extent that its influence that a man, though already regenerate, saved, can neither conceive, will, nor do any good at all. So do Arminians devalue the sovereignty of God? Is our salvation teaching man-centered and man-dependent? Absolutely not. That's absurd to me, okay? It is a misrepresentation, it is a straw man, and uh I really wish with people were going to engage with Arminian theology and disagree with it, they would do it on those terms. Because again, those are the same things that Free Will Baptists, at least that I as far as I know, are still teaching today. All right. So, whether it's sports, theology, politics, or whatever, it is wrong. It is bad character, it is dishonest, it is ungodly to misrepresent the other side's uh argument. It is it's Pharisaical. But that's not the only thing that the Pharisees do here. One of the things they do also is, and again, I use this word with fear and trepidation, and I understand that this word has lost all meaning to you because it's so overused, but I'm using it because it's exactly what happens based on what the word actually means. They gaslight Jesus, okay? And I know people, especially in politics, will say that for any form of deception or deceit or lying. And that's not really what it meant originally whenever it was first coined. The idea is you try to make the other person think they're crazy through deceit. And again, I only use that word because it accurately captures with modern psychology, you know, what is going on in these discussions, because this is what they say. Um, has not Moses, this is what Jesus says. Has not John 7, has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? And the crowd answered, You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you? Well, you know who's seeking to kill Jesus? The people who said this question, the people who asked this question. And they again, you have a demon. That's their way of saying you're out of your mind, you're crazy, you're sinful, you're lying. And it is very common for people who who who uh who do gaslight to try to make you think you're the one who's not only crazy, but you're doing this. It's also called projection, by the way. I've read books on this. So you try to make the other person think they're doing what you're doing. And this is it's again, it's been around a lot longer than the psychology has, okay? It's been around probably before this, but definitely in John chapter 7. And this is something I've seen in debates. And one time I remember about 10 years ago, I was engaging a guy trying to humbly and lovingly but talk through homosexuality, and he was like, Well, you know, in the animal kingdom, you know, the animals do this all the time. And so it proves that it's natural. And I said, Well, you know, animals also, you know, they kill their young sometimes, they kill their spouses, they literally fling feces at each other. I don't mean to be, you know, unnecessarily ridiculous, but it's proof to me that you can't get morality from the animal kingdom for humans. You just can't. We are distinct from them. And while I do believe it's a bad argumentation to say that evolution teaches we came from apes, it is accurate, I think, to say we come from ape-like ancestors, and it is very easy for the lines to get blurred in a worldview between animals and humans, whenever that is what you where you believe we came from. Um, even if you get the argument right. Or as the Bible teaches we are made in the image of God, wholly distinct and separate from animals. Some similarities, yes. Anyway, the person responded, Well, I never said we get morality from animals. And I said, I'm pretty sure you just did. And he said, No, you're crazy. And I was like, Okay, maybe I'm crazy, and maybe I was, I don't know. But gaslighting is something that is just uh it's so abhorrently evil, and I think that uh when Christians do it, it is it is. A work of the flesh. It is, it is, it should be called out. And again, and I realize there are gonna be times people accuse other people of it and they're the ones lying. Again, it's it g this can get to be really, you know, really zany if we let it, okay? But at the same time, whenever it's appropriate and whenever we are in a context where it can make a difference, it may help people to um to say, you know what, that clearly that person is trying to gaslight you. Or if it's just deceit, call it deceit, or if it's just projection, call it projection, meaning they're trying to accuse you of the very thing they're doing. And by the way, as a side note, this does happen a lot in one-on-one relationships, close friendships, marriages, you know, parent-child relationships, and that's even beyond debate and discussion. So that's to be acknowledged as well. So um again, this is something, again, that the that didn't just start happening a hundred years ago or whenever it was that this idea came up in modern psychology books. Um, and we see on internet debate and social media debate, this has happened, you know, almost 2,000 years ago. And then finally, one of the things that they do a couple of times in these stories, which I want to be very careful about how I do with this one too, is what we could call as a logical fallacy. And by the way, when I see list of logical fallacies, sometimes I think that's not really a fallacy, but that's aside. It's just, you know, whatever list anybody wants to come up with. But this one is sometimes called called out in these lists, and it's the appeal to authority. Okay. Very carefully and very humbly I say there are a lot of things I don't know anything about. Okay. And you better believe when it comes to like things like doctors, especially, that way more often than not, I am not going to go home and get on Wikipedia and say, well, let me see what I can find that disagrees with my doctor. Okay. And a lot of times, scientists, again, I I don't know enough about, you know, things like biology, you know, and and and things like that to be able to disagree, you know. And a lot of times I'll just, you know, not have a belief or stay out of it if I don't really know. But sometimes I'll say, you know, these experts are, I mean, they're truthful from all I can tell. And so I, you know, I I don't know enough to disagree. So um I I listen to them. But the other side of that is, is that the appeal to authority sometimes is, again, a way of circumventing actual accountability and sometimes it's a way of circumventing truth. It is just reality to me that a lot of scientists will try to explain the creation of the universe or the or the cause of the universe without creation. And so as a Christian, I can't, I can't buy that. I can't accept that. The appeal to authority, well, 98% of scientists believe that doesn't matter to me. It doesn't, because my I I've hitched my wagon to the God of the universe, and I know in Genesis 1 how it was created. And by the way, even throughout history, in the church and in science, you know, there were how many years, how many hundreds of years do people believe the earth was flat or the earth was the center of the universe? And sometimes people would use the Bible. Again, you know, clergy would say the Bible says in Psalms, the earth shall not be moved, so it's got to be the center. And that was wrong. Science is often wrong. It's always learning and always changing. And dare I say it's often evolving. Not necessarily in, you know, in the ways that go against what the Bible says about us as humans. But I want to be very careful, you know, whenever I'm talking about appeals to authority, because even though I know do your own research has become a caricature, and it was one of those things that came out of the you know the COVID debates that I definitely don't want to delve into at all on this podcast. But it's one of those things, again, just if you're being honest, it became one of those things that caused tension with people and disagreements and division and debate. And I'm trying to broach this in a way to say that again, without you know going into any of that, and by the way, I do I do regret some of the ways I did disagree with people in 2020 and 21. I really do. I wish I would have handled myself better in those moments. But I do say that you can't just always appeal to authority. In Jesus' day, this is what happened. It says some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, Why did you not bring him? The officers answered, No one has ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? In other words, we're the authorities, we're the brilliant ones, we are the experts. We're not being deceived. And the appeal to authority in this case is wrong. And so, can I believe both things that typically, yes, I listen to professionals, and my doctor tells me something's wrong with me that I say, okay, and I have to feel the need to go home and do my own research. I'm laughing on a lot of cases, it's really not funny. But at the same time, can I say though, whenever I'm I'm pretty sure something is wrong or there is competing views out there and one side is being silenced? And yes, I do believe sometimes there are experts, doctors, scientists that probably even getting funded to to to give an opinion on things. I've is the world, you know, not not messed up enough to believe that can happen sometimes. And by the way, those kind of things happen in and pastor you know with pastors and and preachers too, so I'm not even trying to, you know, unnecessarily, you know, a slight one profession. I mean God knows, literally, God knows that that you know pastors of every denomination have skeletons and and and negative reputations for things that are often justified. But the appeal to authority is is uh often it's it's a bad argumentation. You you need to deal with the facts and with the actual research, as hard as it is, I know in modern times because everything has a slant, and you know, there's even trying to sift through, you know, research and data and opinions is very hard now. It really is. But even had taking all that into account, there are simply times where I I I see what the professional expert opinion is on something, especially as it goes against the Bible, and I say, I think that's wrong. And even with areas like science, believe me, there are a lot of scientists who are also biblical creationists. There are a lot of scientists who who fully believe in little you know Genesis 1 being literal. It's it's it's just not true that you know 99 or whatever percent of scientists don't believe in it. And even if that were true, it doesn't necessarily mean that they they're they're atheists because of science. Sometimes people are atheists because they had a bad experience with Christianity, you know. So I hope again this has been helpful, it's been instructive. Again, these are things that I that I I think are real and that we need to talk about and deal with, and again, as when we can to speak out against, because when you're talking about a debate or discussion, usually at the source of it is what is true, what is right. And this is again a representation of the character of God. So even if it's a silly sports debate, I still want to accurately, you know, portray things and speak truth and not misrepresent the other person and not try to silence the other person with authority. And I definitely don't want to gaslight people. That's just that's just so dishonest. So tomorrow we're gonna begin with the sovereignty of God. And I don't think this was purely coincidence, but this Arminian is gonna teach, you know, or help guide us through a bunch of connected readings and a bunch of very fascinating, diverse topics that all are under the umbrella of the sovereignty of God. And I don't think there's any chance a reasonable person can go through the next 12 days of this reading plan and not come to the conclusion that, you know, Gowdy fully believes in the sovereignty of God, even in salvation, although it's much more bigger than that. Okay, so I don't think free will, as you know, being saved out of uh as a drowning person in the water negates the sovereignty of God at all. He's completely sovereign over the whole thing. So come back and be with us again tomorrow. We're gonna start with uh with God's providential protection from death, how he saved people like Moses, you know, and and Joash, and how he saved Jesus numerous times. Um, and uh, and we're gonna talk about how if God didn't want somebody to die in a moment, that he would protect them. Paul too. And we will continue to read, see, and study the connections. Thank you.