Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
Well. Good morning everyone. It is great to be in the studio. Yeah. Good to be here. And by the way, this is not Jeff.

Wesley
Sometimes we’re confused. People often confuse us. But it’s the hair. Yeah, it’s the hair. It is. Let me flick it back. There we go.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is Wesley Wesley Woods, who’s worked at our church for ten years. And as your associate pastor. Yeah.

Wesley
Administrative director.

Chris
Okay, so I deal.

Wesley
With all the boring stuff behind the scenes that people don’t know exists in a church. Yeah, that’s pretty much my what I do.

Chris
So Wesley speaks on stage and is pretty much all things to all people and does does just a little bit of everything. Yeah. And so anyway, Jeff is not at home or excuse me, he’s at home not feeling well. And so we’re going to get rolling with Wesley. So hey we have a segment that says how well do you know them. And by the way, this segment was written when they thought Jeff was here. Yeah. Right. So this is how it reads. It says let’s see how well you really know Jeff. Yeah. He’s going to ask you five questions about himself and see if you know the right answer. So we’re going to insert the word Wesley there. Right. So you just have to come up with I mean you learned about this about 90s ago. Yeah. So you got to come up with five questions on the spot. Yep. So give me the first one okay. All right.

Wesley
Would my favorite restaurant be a sushi restaurant? Ooh okay. In terms of type A sushi restaurant or a pizza restaurant.

Chris
Now, I think I’ve heard you talk about this before, and I’m going to say pizza 100% pizza.

Wesley
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fish needs to be deep fried and battered. Yeah.

Chris
That’s so funny.

Chris
Yeah. I’ve heard you talk about pizza. Because didn’t you go to, like, either New York or.

Wesley
I’m a pizza snob?

Chris
Yeah, yeah.

Wesley
I go seek out brick oven pizza places from around the country.

Chris
That is so funny.

Chris
By the way. What city has your favorite pizza joint?

Wesley
And you see, the issue is in New York City has so many old school brick oven pizza places. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s hard to narrow it down. I get in trouble if I. So I will say in New York, there’s this one place called John’s Pizzeria. Yeah, they have different. There’s one on Bleecker Street, one in Times Square. But they took an old I don’t know if it was a methodist Episcopal cathedral. Wow. Turned the whole thing into a pizza restaurant. Wow. It’s like it’s amazing. They left the stained glass up and. Yeah. Yeah. So they have really good pizza locally. I’d probably have to go with Chris Kelly’s. Okay. They have pretty good. There are some other good ones out there. Don’t don’t write into the Bible guys and send me any, any hate mail.

Chris
Question mark. Question mark.

Chris
That’s so funny. Yeah yeah. All right. Well that’s a good one. All right. So that’s question one. Go ahead okay.

Chris
I got it right one.

Wesley
Number two. Yep. Um. What city did I grow up in?

Chris
And I think I’ve heard this too before. You grew up in downtown Detroit.

Chris
Detroit? Yeah.

Chris
Was it Detroit? Yeah.

Wesley
It wasn’t downtown, but Detroit.

Chris
Yeah, I did all right.

Chris
It was the city of Detroit.

Chris
It was the city.

Wesley
I got a point that might throw you off a little bit.

Chris
Yeah, well, I heard you one time tell a story about. Oh, I know what it was. I think you and I went down to life builders. Yeah. And then because.

Wesley
They’re near eight.

Chris
Mile. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
And you were like, hey, I grew up just a few miles from here.

Chris
Yeah. I went to the.

Wesley
High school that used to be across the street from Life Builders.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, that’s what it was. That’s what I remember. Hey, look at me. Two for two.

Wesley
Yeah, you’re two for two. Okay, I got to make this one a little more difficult.

Chris
All right?

Wesley
Ah. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. I’ll see. That’s going to be too easy. I would say the third one would be, I’m going to do something with my family. That’s going to be a little more tricky.

Chris
Okay.

Wesley
Um. Have I been married to my wife? 10 to 15 years.

Chris
Okay.

Wesley
15 to 20 or 20 to 25. In which segment? 10 to 15. 15 to 20. 20 to 25.

Chris
All right, well, I know that you have a daughter who’s a teenager. Yep. And so I am going to say. That. It’s. It is, it is. What’d you say? 10 to 15.

Chris
15 to 20 or.

Wesley
20 to 25.

Chris
I’m going to say 15 to 20.

Wesley
It’s 20 to 25.

Chris
Oh dang it.

Chris
Dang it. That was my other choice. Yeah. So, man, how many.

Chris
Years it is?

Wesley

22. Chris
    Okay. All right. 22. Are you sure about that?

Wesley
I’m 80% confident it’s 22.

Chris
You. You paused. That’s so funny. Yeah. All right.

Chris
Okay, so I’m two and one. All right. Go ahead.

Chris
Yeah. Okay.

Wesley
Number four. Yep. We’re going to make this ministry related.

Chris
All right.

Wesley
Um. When I first came to heritage. Okay. And I’m trying to think. Have you been. Yeah. No, no.

Chris
Just don’t think.

Chris
Just say it. Okay, so.

Wesley
When I first came to heritage, the the first big project that I worked on and it’s big. Yes that we do was at what event?

Chris
I’m going to say. Oh goodness, ten years ago would have been 2013. I’m going to say that you did. Uh, the thing with Chris downtown spiky hair. Blonde Chris, that.

Wesley
Is a really, really good life remodel.

Chris
Life remodel. Yes.

Wesley
Yeah. So that is a really good guess. But no, it was actually I did do that later. Yes, but it was Freedom Hill.

Chris
Oh Freedom Hill when.

Wesley
We had the big baptism at Freedom Hill. Okay.

Chris
I can’t believe I forgot Chris’s name.

Chris
Chris.

Wesley
Um, now you’re going to make me forget now. Yeah. Chris at life. Yeah, we got to look that up now.

Chris
Yeah, well, I’m definitely.

Chris
Not going to. In fact, I haven’t talked to him in so long that I can’t believe. Modeled life. Remodeled. Yeah.

Wesley
He’s doing an awesome job. They renovate a school? Yes, in the area. And then they also Chris Lambert.

Chris
Yep.

Wesley
They do so many blocks of the neighborhood surrounding the area.

Chris
Please do not email Chris Lambert if you know him. I’m telling you, he would be actually crushed. Yeah, maybe not, but still that that is terrible that I didn’t know his name.

Wesley
When he’s doing a great job.

Chris
I probably haven’t talked to him in three years. Yeah. So okay.

Chris
Question five.

Wesley
Number five.

Chris
So I’m two for two.

Chris
This is the tie breaker, ladies and gentlemen.

Wesley
What city do I like to visit the most?

Chris
Ooh. All right. This is going to be.

Wesley
A difficult one for.

Chris
You. Well, I.

Chris
Actually have no clue. Yeah, but I’m going to base it off of pizza.

Wesley
And that would be a good guess.

Chris
And you talked about New York just a minute ago. Yeah. So I’m going to say it’s either I’m going to talk it out. It’s either between New York or Chicago. And I’m going to go with New York.

Wesley
So I do love New York, but the place I love to visit is Atlanta.

Chris
Dang it.

Wesley
I love it. And there’s a back story to that. My wife is from Georgia. She was born in Georgia. So we go to Georgia a lot. But she’s not in the Atlanta area. That’s not where she’s from. But I love Atlanta.

Chris
What part of it. What part is she from?

Wesley
She’s on the very most southeast corner of Georgia near Saint Simons Island. Jekyll Island and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she’s only about 90, 90, maybe 50 minutes north of Jacksonville. That’s how far down she it’s. Brunswick is the town that she’s from.

Chris
So you’re going to laugh. But I one of my teenagers who who graduated when I was a high school pastor in Georgia, in Atlanta, he moved and lived in Brunswick.

Chris
Oh, wow. Yeah.

Wesley
It’s a it’s a tiny place. It’s a little bigger now. They’ve built up a little bit more.

Chris
There’s like a golf course. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, he was the head caddie there.

Chris
Oh, wow.

Chris
And then he graduated and became ready for this. The head caddie at Augusta.

Chris
Oh, man.

Chris
For the Masters.

Wesley
Now that’s nice.

Chris
Yeah.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. And so James Loggins. Yeah. Wow. Which is pretty.

Chris
Cool. That’s awesome. Yeah.

Chris
Nifty, nifty. All right, so I, I got two out of five. Yep. All right. Well you know you can’t win them all buddy. So that was good. So let’s go ahead and dive right into it because we’re behind our time. Yeah. So let’s go ahead and start with Luke 1310 through seven. How Jesus 17. How Jesus heals the crippled woman.

Chris
All right.

Wesley
We’re going to dive right in. That is Luke chapter 13. And we’re starting at verse ten. And it says, one Sabbath day, as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for 18 years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, dear woman, you are healed of your sickness. Then he touched her and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God, verse 14. But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. There are six days of the week for working. He said to the crowd, come on those days to be healed, not the Sabbath, which is hilarious to me. Yeah, but the Lord replied, you hypocrites, each of you works on the Sabbath day. Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath, and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for 18 years. Isn’t it right that she be released even on the Sabbath? This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did. Yeah, that’s a great story there.

Chris
So get this my life application study Bible, which we often promote. Yeah, says that over the centuries, the Jewish leaders have had an added rule to God’s law. For example, God’s law said that the Sabbath is a day of rest and Exodus chapter 20. But the religious leaders added to that law, creating one that said that they must not heal on the Sabbath because they considered it work. Seven times Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, and doing this, he was challenging these religious leaders to look beyond their rules, to their to their true purpose, to honor God by helping those in need. Would God have been pleased if Jesus had ignored these people? So anyway, get this he actually sends a demon out of a man. That’s number one. Jesus heals Peter’s mother in law on the Sabbath. Jesus heals a lame man by the pool of Bethesda. Bethesda on the Sabbath, Jesus heals a man with a deformed hand. He restores a crippled woman, which is this one right here. He heals a man with swollen legs and arms. And then Jesus heals a man that was born blind. And Mark, John, Mark, Luke and John. So how about that? So Jesus actually healed somebody on the Sabbath seven different times. Yeah. Which, by the way, I’m not sure I knew it was quite seven. Yeah, I knew it was a few times, but seven is a lot. Yeah. And and by the way significant that it’s seven isn’t it. Yeah. So anyway I love this because again I one of the things that I am passionate about is I’m passionate about encouraging Christians not to implement. Their own set of standards on to other people and judge them for it. So let me say it this way. Chris
So let’s just say that like I’m in charge of weekend services and we do something on the weekends. You know, we make an artistic choice to do whatever. Okay. And then let’s just say that somebody else has a different standard, right? Let’s just say somebody didn’t like what we did for whatever reason, right? They think, oh, that was inappropriate or I didn’t like that. I have no problem at all with people being different. None, believe it or not, even though even though I often talk about my disdain for it. Yeah, I truly, truly, truly have no problem if somebody were to call me up or email me or, or, you know, see me in the lobby and just say, hey, listen, I’d like to talk about this because I got to be honest, they could even say I’m actually angry and I’m offended by it. Yeah, I would be 100% open to that conversation. I’d be like, absolutely. And then at the end of the conversation, I think it’d be okay to live in harmony with people that we don’t necessarily agree with. Yeah. All right. And it’s like either we come to a middle ground or whatever. Like I don’t have a problem with people having different standards, but that’s not what Jesus is condemning here, right? Jesus is condemning the Pharisees who try to implement a different standard. So they create a law. But then what ends up happening is they’re calling that law sin to when it’s not sin. Yeah, right. And they’re saying like, don’t you know, the law don’t heal on the Sabbath. And they’re treating it like, like, like, like you’re a piece of garbage because you’ve healed on the Sabbath. You’re less than, we’re more righteous. We’re more righteous than you. Chris
How dare you? Yeah. And there’s like there’s like a less than kind of a condemnation that happens. Yeah. And believe it or not, every time, I should say most every time that somebody, you know, storms out of a church and goes, I can’t believe that you made this choice or whatever, and they don’t have a rational conversation or they, oh, I can’t believe this. Whatever. All they’re doing is they’re showing their spiritual immaturity. Yeah. And what they’re doing is, is they’re, they’re sort of putting themselves unknowingly in the class of the Pharisees. Yeah. Because that’s what Jesus condemned. Yeah. So it’s okay to have different standards. Just be ladies and gentlemen about it. Yeah, right. Just talk it out.

Wesley
In this kind of opens up a bigger conversation in the sense in our modern times, how often do we add on to what God said?

Chris
Right.

Wesley
And the Bible does talk about keeping the Sabbath day holy. That is true. They took that and kind of ran with it a little bit. The Pharisees. But in modern day times, I can think of a few ways where we have taken something God said, and we added a little bit on to it, and it’s like, well, wait a minute, I don’t think God was saying that.

Chris
Right, right, right.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. You know, the end of the Lord’s Prayer where it says, but do not delivers from temptation, but deliver us from evil. What does he say? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. There you go. And then. And then it says Amen, right? We say amen after that. Yeah, but then there’s versions that we’ve heard, for it says, for thine is the kingdom, and.

Chris
The power and the.

Chris
Glory, forever.

Chris
And ever. Amen. Yeah. Okay.

Chris
Many people may not know that, but that was added on. Yeah, that was added on because somebody thought that it needed a better ending. Yeah. And by the way, I’m not even kidding. Yeah. Don’t trust my word for this. You can Google this. There was a denomination out there that said we’re going to say the Lord’s Prayer. And we think that it we think that it should have another ending. Right. And they just tacked on this ending because they wanted to have a great ending. And it became so widely accepted that here we are, you know, probably over a century or so later where we hear it and we don’t really understand that it’s not gospel. Yeah, right. We just think that it’s a part of the Bible. Yeah. You know, and it even made the song for Thine is the Kingdom.

Chris
Yeah.

Chris
Right in the power.

Chris
Right? Yeah.

Chris
And so it’s like it’s it’s really funny. But yeah, there’s a lot of that on.

Chris
But the difference.

Wesley
Would be we. People that say that ending of that Lord’s Prayer and condemning people or attempting to condemn people that don’t. Right. I think that’s kind of in line with what the Pharisees were doing here, which is definitely something that we should not do. But, Chris, there’s something else in this verse that I want to swing back to in verse 12 and in verse 12 it says, When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, and I love the fact that Jesus called her right. It wasn’t her running to Jesus. He called her and I. I love that fact because I think Jesus is still doing that today. That’s right. He’s calling us. And we think sometimes because of our baggage, because of our ailments, because of our sin, that, you know, I could never go to Jesus. And Jesus is actively calling us. He wants us to come to him. What do you get out of that?

Chris
Yeah, well, you know what? It’s a great reminder that’s consistent with the Bible, which, by the way, as soon as you said that, I thought of that old hymn. You remember that old hymn, Come Home?

Chris
Yeah. Come home.

Chris
Yeah. Right. And you know, he’s calling oh, sinner, come home. Right? Yeah. And I thought to myself, that is exactly what God does. It’s consistent with Luke chapter 15, where it says the the father was on the porch and seeing his son a great way off, he ran to him. Yeah, right. And he says, I’m not worthy to be called your son. And he threw a robe on him and a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and said, you know, rejoice. For my son was lost, and now he’s found. It is it is. It’s consistent with God pursuing us. God calling us he. God inviting us. Right. You know, come to me, you who are weary and have heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. The book of Matthew says, Jesus invites us all the time to come to him and and sometimes it’s a hard invitation. Take up your cross and follow me. Right? But nevertheless, Jesus calls to us to himself and seeks us out. And and I do believe that he speaks to us, and he reaches us in many, many different ways today. Yeah, through people, through his word, through conviction, through through a lot of things.

Chris
Yeah.

Wesley
And why do you think for a lot of people, when they sin, when they do something wrong, the first inclination is to stay away from Jesus. It’s kind of like you messed up on Saturday night. Oh, I’m not going to go to church on Sunday. Yeah. Why do you think that first inclination and this goes way back to the Garden of Eden. Yeah. With what they did when they were. Yeah. So why do you think that’s like the first inclination. It would seem that if you messed up, you would go to the one who could fix the mess up. Yeah, but often times we do the exact opposite. We run from the one who could fix the mess up.

Chris
Yeah, well, I mean, I remember throwing a rock and breaking my big picture window in my house, and I got on my bike, and I stayed out till way past my curfew, afraid to come home because I was afraid of my dad’s wrath. Yeah, and that’s really it, isn’t it? Yeah. So. So we’re we’re we don’t want to go to God because either either we’re afraid of his wrath or maybe we understand he’s not going to have wrath. Maybe we’re just afraid that he’ll be disappointed in us. Yeah, or maybe we’re afraid because we don’t feel worthy enough. And so we don’t want to go to God because, you know, not everybody has the proper healthy view, either of God or of themselves who are sinners. Yeah, right. So, you know, Tim Keller, the late Tim Keller said, listen, he goes, no matter what you think of yourself as a sinner, he goes, cheer up. You’re far worse off than you ever imagined, right? Here’s the good news. You’re way worse than you ever thought possible. Yeah, right. And he says, but the good news is, you are far more loved and accepted than you ever dare dream. Yeah, right. So you and I have no concept of what does Roman say? Of the depth of the love of Christ? How high, how wide, how far, how deep is the love of Christ? Is that in Corinthians or Romans? I’m not sure it was the Apostle Paul, but I remember, I remember he talks about that, and I remember he, you know, just sort of solidified in my mind that no matter how hard I try to imagine, I will never understand how much God loves me. Yeah, right. And so, yeah, that’s what I think it is.

Chris
And I think.

Wesley
Somebody needs to hear that today that God is pursuing you. I don’t know what you’re dealing with, where you come from, what your what your ailment was. This was her ailment. But maybe you have a different type of quote unquote ailment. Jesus is pursuing you. He wants you. He wants to have a relationship with you, and he wants to correct the ailment that exists in your life.

Chris
Yeah.

Chris
And then and then I would also say I want to double down on my. Encouragement to those who are in the habit of trying to shame people with their righteousness. Yeah, and I would just say, if you’re in the habit of that, if you’re a person that types in all caps, all these kind of things, by the way, some of it isn’t, isn’t bad. Some of it some of it is misunderstanding. Right. So I’m not trying to say everybody has evil intentions. Yeah. Like I’ll give you an example. Even this morning. Dude, I’m telling you, it was this morning. I was scrolling on Facebook and somebody had just posted and it was really early. It was like it was like 6 a.m. I got up and I was, you know, I happened to click on it. And this said that this post was two hours old, which means this person posted it.

Chris
Before at four. Yeah.

Chris
And all they did was repost something else and it was circulating apparently around Facebook. Yeah. And it was looked like one of those chalkboards that that stood outside of a coffee shop. Yeah, that sort of has, you know, and then people wrote on it and I don’t know where it was standing outside of, but it was one of these, you know, chalkboard things. And somebody wrote on this chalkboard sign on the street and it says, if money is the root of all evil, why do they ask for it at church? Yeah, right. And which.

Chris
Is not what the Bible.

Wesley
Says.

Chris
But they thought they.

Chris
Were so.

Chris
Clever.

Chris
They thought they were so clever that they that they that they wrote it. And then somebody else who read it thought that it was so powerful that they wanted to repost it. Yeah. And then that person reposted it, right? Yeah. They’re like, oh my goodness, this is so true. Yeah. And the reality is it’s not true.

Chris
Yeah, right. The Bible says.

Wesley
For the love of.

Chris
It. Right.

Chris
The love of money.

Chris
Is the root of all.

Chris
Money is.

Chris
Neutral.

Chris
Yeah, right. Money is neutral. That’s why we asked for it at church. Because God’s because God says that we’re supposed to honor God with your money, right? So anyway, that’s another topic altogether. But the bottom line is, is so some of it I’m just trying to say, I believe that the person who posted that probably just didn’t know. Yeah, right. So so I checked on the post and there was like four posts that said, you know, Christians jumped in right away. And to my delight, those four posts and those two hours were not condemning. Right? They didn’t yell at this woman. They just said, hey, you got it wrong. The root of money. It’s not the money. Yeah. And there was a love of money. And then I chimed in there and I really, most of the time refrained from doing that. Yeah, but I thought if I say something totally encouraging, I could put my name on it. So I said, I said classic mistake and I put period. And I said, don’t feel bad. This is actually a very common misconception. Yeah, I didn’t explain the misconception because everybody else did. So I just said, I said, but if I were you, I would take it down because the person who wrote this in chalk obviously didn’t understand. Yeah, right. So I wasn’t blaming that person. Yeah, I blamed the person who wrote it in chalk. Yeah. Right. So I was trying my very best to say stop it. Yeah.

Chris
And take this the most.

Wesley
Loving way possible.

Chris
Right, right, right.

Chris
So it wasn’t all caps, but but but I got to tell you, if you’re the person that has that, you’re the one who storms out of church, man. And you’re like, I.

Chris
Can’t believe I’m.

Chris
So offended, right? It’s like, no, no, no. Let us measure our maturity in Christ not by our actions, but by our reactions. Yeah. So I’ve always said that there was a deacon in our church one time and, you know, he was just this model of sainthood. And yet under under under a conflict, he had just the worst reaction ever. And and somebody said, oh, this man is one of the most mature Christians that we have in the church. And in defense. I said, well, apparently not. And then and then some of the other elders were like, oh. And they were like, so they were so they were so taken back.

Chris
Yeah.

Chris
And I said, gentlemen in ladies who are around the table because it was everybody. I said. The measuring stick of our maturity in Christ is not measured by our actions. Yeah, right. It is in part. Yeah, but it is more so measured by our reactions. Yeah. Right. Because that’s where real maturity happens. Yeah. You know, to love your enemy, to forgive your enemy, to respond in kindness, to give each others grace, to not give in to your natural instincts. Yeah.

Wesley
When pressure is applied, how do you respond?

Chris
Yeah.

Chris
It’s not to condemn or type in caps or do all those kind of things. And so I’m glad it says that he shamed his enemies in verse 17. Yeah, there’s the word shame. That’s a little deserved there. But it’s a righteous shaming. Yeah. It’s not a vengeful shaming. It’s not like a, you know, I’m going to get you kind of shame. It’s more like, let us all, you know, be exposed to God’s heart, right? Yeah. So anyway, we hit our time. So I think that’s a good place to end. So we’ll see you next time on The Bible Guys.