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.

Jeff
We’re back. Chris.

Chris
Good morning. Jeff.

Jeff
How do you know it’s morning? It might be evening.

Chris
Well, it’s morning when these podcasts get dropped.

Jeff
That’s right. Get dropped 1056 in the morning for us.

Chris
Yeah. So you ruined it. You let everybody know behind the scenes.

Jeff
Well, somebody might be listening to it in the evening. In the evening? Well, we have.

Chris
One guy who works out at three, three in the morning.

Jeff
Yeah. But like half of our people listen after like four in the afternoon when they come home from work. Is that true? Yeah. That’s true. Wow. Yeah. So about half before there’s this huge spike at like 6:00 in the morning, 7:00 in the morning when it comes out. Yeah. And then there’s a big spike in the evening, I think partly when people are driving home from work.

Chris
Good evening.

Jeff
Yeah. Hey. Or morning. Yeah. Or middle of the day.

Chris
He’s Jeff I’m Chris, we’re the Bible guys. And we have a great segment today. Jesus feeds the 4000. Yeah.

Jeff
He already did this one.

Chris
No, he he fed the 5000.

Jeff
Well, that was better.

Chris
Yes. This is the lesser miracle. This is not as like.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
It’s not as good.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. No, it’s still pretty impressive.

Chris
I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this segment that we have for today is called this or that. Oh this is which would you rather do. Okay. So you’ve not read these right. No I have not I have not read them either. Should I not.

Jeff
Look at them.

Chris
I’ve not looked.

Jeff
At them okay, okay. You do it then you read them and I.

Chris
Will I was going to say let’s take turns.

Jeff
Every other one. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Chris
So here’s the first one.

Jeff
Okay.

Chris
Jeff, would you rather be able to eat anything you want and have it be perfect nutrition or only sleep one hour a day and be fully rested?

Jeff
Oh, that’s a no brainer.

Chris
Yeah, it’s definitely sleeping.

Jeff
So it’s all about the eating.

Chris
Yes yes.

Jeff
Yeah yeah yeah. Perfect nutrition. Yeah.

Chris
Perfect nutrition. Yeah. That’s that’s there’s no question. And especially since we can sleep well wherever we want. Are you a good sleeper. The older I get the worse you bring it up.

Jeff
Into the yards.

Chris
The worse it gets. Yeah, the worse it gets. Yep.

Jeff
Oh, wow. Not for me. I put my head on the pillow. Five minutes I’m out. I sleep most of the night. Wake up refreshed almost every morning.

Chris
Wow. That’s a gift.

Jeff
I know, I know.

Chris
That is a gift from God.

Jeff
Well, the Bible says that God gives rest to those he loves.

Chris
Don’t Jesus juke me?

Jeff
I’m not Jesus juking you. I’m just quoting scripture. If you don’t like the Bible and the Bible guys app or Bible guys program, I don’t.

Jeff
Know why he gives.

Jeff
Rest to those he loves. That’s all it.

Jeff
Says. Okay, here we go. Number two, you read that.

Jeff
Would you rather have the hiccups for the rest of your life, or feel like you have to sneeze and not be able to for the rest of your life?

Jeff
Oh, those are two horrible questions.

Jeff
Terrible.

Chris
Uh, I would, I would probably say sneeze, sneeze.

Jeff
That’s my. I think I would choose that one too. Yeah.

Chris
That’s horrific. Your whole life for the rest of your life, that would make somebody want you not live long.

Jeff
Yeah.

Jeff
The hiccups, both of those mess up our careers. We wouldn’t be able to speak anymore.

Chris
Oh.

Chris
That’s true. Yeah. For God so loved the world. That’s a good one.

Jeff
That’s a good one, Desiree.

Chris
Okay, so, number three, would you rather team up with Spider-Man or Iron Man? No, I already know your answer. Spider-Man? Of course I know.

Jeff
Iron Man is pretty cool, though.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
Spider-Man lives in a really crappy apartment.

Chris
Okay, Spider-Man is so.

Jeff
Iron Man is like a gazillionaire and has cool toys.

Chris
Okay, so is your answer, Iron Man?

Jeff
Well, so who took Spider-Man in under his wing? Who took Peter Parker in under his wing? In the in the movies?

Chris
In the movie?

Jeff
I’m saying that’s all that matters to me.

Chris
Oh, okay. So.

Jeff
So I’m saying the cannon iron man gave him a shot.

Chris
The cannon of Spider-Man is found in the original books, starting in the 1950s from Stan Lee. And so that is all the true believers.

Jeff
You know how much you hate it when I quote a Bible verse to you.

Chris
What?

Jeff
Remember just a minute ago? Yeah. You told me I was Jesus juking.

Jeff
You a minute ago.

Chris
Okay. No, I didn’t hate the Bible verse. I hated you in that moment. The hate was you.

Jeff
So.

Jeff
Yeah. Yeah. So I knew you were going to say Spider-Man from the get go. But of course, hanging out, being a billionaire with cool toys. Yeah. Pretty great.

Chris
So. So you didn’t. You didn’t say it yet, though. It’s Iron Man. Iron man.

Jeff
For me. Okay. Oh, 100, 199%. Okay.

Chris
But not 200.

Jeff
Not not 200.

Chris
So let’s move on. By the way, I collected Spider-Man. I’ve got thousands of Spider-Man comic books in my attic. Okay, so number.

Jeff
Four, would you rather be in the Olympics for snowboarding or diving?

Chris
Gee whiz, snowboarding. I would have to say snowboarding.

Jeff
Nobody wanted to see me wearing a Speedo.

Jeff
Oh.

Chris
There you go. That answer alone.

Jeff
Belly flopping. If that was an event.

Chris
You have sold me. What did Jerry Maguire say you had me at? Hello. Okay, that’s that’s. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Number five, would you rather be the bull rider or the person who has to distract the bull?

Jeff
Oh, the bull.

Chris
Rider, no question.

Jeff
Bull rider man.

Chris
The guy who distracts the bull is known as a clown. Rodeo or rodeo clown. Yeah. Yeah, right. And he’s the guy who gets no credit. He’s. He’s really, really, really. Excuse me. Important. Now I got got those hiccups.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
So he’s.

Jeff
Really important. Get rid of hiccups. You have to think I am not a fish.

Chris
I am not a fish. You’re right. They’re gone. There you go. So the point is, is that, by the way, that can’t be true. That’s true. That’s not true every time. No, it’s not true. It is. So anyway, now you threw me off.

Jeff
Now, every time you have the hiccups, you’re going to start thinking about that, though. And you’ll think of me every time. Oh, okay. Anyway, I’m in your head anyway.

Chris
I’ve always wanted to write a bull, by the way. Although I hear they mess up their back and their spines.

Jeff
They do. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. So I wrote a bull a couple of times.

Chris
Did you really? But not. Not a bucking bull.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So I used to. So we were dumb. I was so dumb. So it wasn’t sanctioned at all. But I worked on a farm and we had a bunch of horses, and we had some Clydesdales on the farm, and then we had 250 world champion or national champion Black Angus cows. And so we had one of them, Regal, was our one of the bulls. And so our Clydesdales, they had a font or a foal, right. Is that what they call it? The colt? And when he got big enough, he was like full size horse size, but not Clydesdale size yet. And his name was Brian Boru. We’d call Brian over. We’d give him a little bit of salt. When he’s there, we would jump on his back. And Clydesdales are really, you know, gangly. They’re not very coordinated. And so that was fun. But then we all started talking about Regal the bull and a black Angus. Bulls don’t have big horns, you know. So they’re just kind of flat headed. And so we kept talking about it and talking about and talking about we got him in the chute and we got on him and he didn’t like it, but he stood there for a minute. So he tried that 2 or 3 times. And then finally they opened the gate one time. And yeah, I lasted literally. The gate opened and I fell. So.

Chris
So he did buck you.

Jeff
Oh, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah. Off. And then I thought, okay, I’m going to get, you know, because you’re lying down looking at this 2,000 pound animal.

Chris
Well, if he stepped on you, you’d be dead.

Jeff
He’d been dead. Yeah, yeah. No helmets. We didn’t have any ropes. We had nothing. And the guys all had to get out and shoot him back.

Chris
That, quite literally, could have been one of the dumbest things you’ve ever done.

Jeff
Oh, I’ve done plenty of dumb things in my life.

Chris
But that is like certain death if he just decides to stomp on you. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, we tried it a couple of times. Wow. Yeah. It was. We were done. I was like, I was like, 20 years old.

Chris
That’s crazy. And yet you’re here.

Jeff
Here I am.

Jeff
It only stepped on my head. It didn’t hurt.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
You ever wonder why I say the dumb things?

Chris
I say the things that get embedded in you.

Jeff
There you go.

Chris
Hey, listen, if you’re watching on YouTube, would you do us a favor? Would you subscribe to it? Would you definitely put a thumbs up? What would you share with somebody? Because it’ll really help us with the metrics. It helps us in every way. And also it exposes our podcast to those who, who knows, might want to listen to it. So we appreciate that very much.

Jeff
Well, we are in Matthew chapter 15, verse 32. Yes. And we made a joke today that this miracle is not as big of a deal as other miracles Jesus did. Yeah, but it’s a magnificent but.

Chris
I’m guessing healing 4000 men besides women and children feeding them? Yes. What did I.

Jeff
Say? You said healing.

Chris
Oh, okay. Well, healing. The healing their bellies with food.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
But. But anyway, all that to say, there was probably like 12 to 15,000 people, maybe 10,000, whatever it is. But we’re talking about they were counting households. Yeah, yeah. Which is why it’s 4000 households right. Yep.

Jeff
So here’s what it says in Matthew chapter 15. It says, Then Jesus called his disciples and told them, I feel sorry for these people. They’ve been here with me for three days. Remember yesterday we talked about how Jesus had been healing everybody the lame, the deaf, all this stuff he spits on his fingers. You know, he touches his guys, all that kind of stuff, right? So he says, they’ve been with me for three days and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry or they’ll faint along the way. The disciples replied, where would we get enough food here in the wilderness for such a huge crowd? Jesus asked, how much bread do you have? They replied, we have seven loaves and a few small fish. Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground, and then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thank God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to the disciples who distributed the food to the crowd. They all ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. There were 4000 men who were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children. Then Jesus sent the people home, and he got into a boat and crossed over to the region of Magadan. In Mark chapter eight, verse one, it says, about this time another large crowd had gathered and the people ran out of food. Again Jesus called his disciples and told them, I feel sorry for these people. They’ve been here with me for three days and they have nothing left to eat. If I send them home hungry, they’ll faint along the way, for some of them have come a long distance. Jeff
His disciples replied, how are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness? And Jesus asked them how much bread do you have? Seven loaves, they replied. So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. And then he took the seven loaves. Thank God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. A few small fish were found too. So Jesus also blessed. These, told the disciples to distribute them. They ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. There are about 4000 people in the crowd that day. Jesus sent them home after they had eaten. Immediately after this, he got into a boat with his disciples and crossed over to the region of Dalmanutha. Dalmanutha and Madigan. Magadan are the same area.

Chris
Yeah, yeah.

Chris
So so so by the way, we read, we’ve been reading in this whole series, multiple gospels because both or all four Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all gospels meaning good news. And they all tell the story of Jesus, and they’re the accounts of Jesus while on earth, as given by four different authors. And and so the harmony of the Gospels is a term that people have used over the years, where they take all four gospels and they piece them together and say, some events are in two Gospels, some are in three, some are in four. And come to find out this whole week so far has just been Matthew, Mark, Matthew and Mark. Yeah. And so once again, only Matthew and only Mark record this instance where they have seven loaves and it’s 4000 people. So it’s very similar to the 5000. And it was two loaves. Right, right right back then. And a few fishes. So, so anyway, the thing that stands out to me more than anything else is supposedly according to the harmony of the Gospels, this takes place after the feeding of the 5000. And yet they still ask the question, how are we supposed to find enough food in the wilderness? Right?

Jeff
Right, right. Yeah, yeah. The first time it was five loaves. Two fish.

Chris
Yeah. What did I say?

Jeff
Two loaves. Two loaves? Yeah. You just you just said it backwards there. And I agreed with you, but. Yeah, it’s just me. But yeah, that’s the thing that stands out to me too, is Jesus had already done this before, right.

Chris
So. So it could be that. Maybe. Remember, sometimes when he uses the word disciples, you know, they’re the 12 apostles who were also disciples. But then everybody who followed him were disciples. Yeah. And so it could be that he’s not referring to the 12. So so it could be that that he’s saying his disciples replied, or maybe, perhaps they were different disciples, you know, because because again, in the other passage, it didn’t say.

Jeff
12 apostles, but then there were lots of disciples.

Chris
Yeah, but but I’m also I’m also leaving room for the fact that maybe when his disciples asked him the first time, even if it was the 12, maybe a few of them weren’t there. Yeah, maybe. Right. So all that to say, you know, it’s not given the names of the people who asked this question. So all I’m saying is, is perhaps.

Jeff
There’s a maybe.

Chris
It’s referring to different people because if it’s the same people, shame on them.

Jeff
Well, if it’s the same people, I think it’s just common. Humanity. People forget. People forget. We remember the bad things and we forget the good things. Well, that’s.

Chris
A that’s a sermon.

Jeff
Right there. Right? And we forget, you know, faith gets built on remembering the fact that God showed up last time. So he’s going to show up again this time, too. You can trust him in that. Trust gets built over time. Trust in your marriage gets built over time, right? You give trust on the front end. Then we wind up breaking trust. And then we have to build trust. Right? And trust takes time. And they.

Chris
Not everybody breaks trust. But you’re saying that usually every.

Jeff
Human disappoints every other human at some point.

Chris
Okay, okay. To some degree. Yes, yes. You’re not referring to affairs though. No. You’re just you’re just saying in general.

Jeff
No, no, I was thinking much more innocently than that, but.

Chris
Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, but we disappoint. We we forget something. We we don’t follow through on our word. Whatever. Right. So we all, every human disappoints another human. And so at the beginning, trust is just given. Then trust is usually broken in some way. And then trust has to be built in order for that relationship to keep keep going. And so one of the things that you do to build trust, I think, is it’s important to remember the fact that you can be trusted and that you can trust that person because they showed up last time, they did what they said they would do. And, you know, I had a professor who said he used this story specifically to talk about the idea. It’s one of the reasons why he began keeping a journal, because I remember all the bad things in my life, and I forget so many of the good things.

Chris
That’s awesome.

Jeff
And so he said, he said, I have a journal that’s about the good things that happened in my life, the good things people do in my life, and the answers to prayer that God gives me. And then every year when he gets to the end, he goes back and re reads through that and all the blessings from that year, from people and from God answers to prayer, all those things. And he said he found like there was a measurable increase, like a multiplier of increase in his faith after he began doing that before, when he first was a young pastor, I.

Chris
Would imagine that would be true.

Jeff
Yeah, he said when he was the first a young pastor, it was struggling, struggles with his board, people that were mad at him, you know, because I don’t know if people heard, but not everybody’s happy with every pastor in America, right? What? Yeah, I know, and sometimes people project their own problems. They project their own problems on on their pastor. So he said, man, I just was carrying the weight of leadership and the fear of making a mistake was so heavy my first 3 or 4 years. And then I began to keep a journal of all the blessings that people did to me and for me and my family, and all of the answers to prayer that God gave. And he said, next thing you know, just confidence that God was going to carry us to the next level, he said, just became more and more and more evident in his life. And I thought that was a brilliant idea.

Chris
I wonder if this could be the moment for somebody to start doing that. Yeah. So like, especially if you’re a journal type person where, you know, you know, how they’re just they’re sort of like people that just aren’t journal people. Yeah, yeah. And then there’s people who have a tendency to say, yeah, I love that. That’s sort of the way I’m wired. Yeah. And it’s and it’s the way that I, you know, grow and all these different types of things. And I wonder if this is an idea right now that could be birthed in somebody and they’ll say, you know what? I’m going to start doing that right now. And it doesn’t have to be January 1st. It could be starting right now, in September of 2023 to next September of 2023. And you can say, all right, I’m going to write down every single blessing and explain it. And you’re not going to write anything bad, but it’s just a book of good, right? Oh, that’d be answered prayer. That’d be powerful. Yeah, yeah. And go back and read your book of good. That’d be really.

Chris
Good.

Jeff
You know, there’s a so apparently most people in America are not optimists. So there’s a majority that are.

Chris
And you’re referring to studies in general.

Jeff
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So apparently most people are not optimists. And but there is a skill set for building optimism. And one of those is rehearsing regularly the good in your life. Right.

Chris
It’s looking into the mirror and saying you look marvelous. Yeah.

Jeff
Right. Exactly.

Jeff
Well, so one of the habits and I’ve heard people talk about this to my mom and dad were good at this. We had we sat together at dinner every night, and my mom was a homemaker. And so we had dinner every night together at the table. And that was often one of the things that came up in our family conversations. Okay. Hey, everybody. What’s the best thing to happen today or what’s the best thing that happened this week? What is the thing you’re thankful for this week? What prayer did God answer this week? And we all would keep just going around the table, just talking about the good things that happened.

Chris
You had that growing up.

Chris
Yeah. What?

Jeff
Yeah. And then we had family devotions every night.

Chris
You and I had.

Chris
Very different childhoods.

Jeff
So 4 or 5. Yeah, it was really bad up until a certain point. And then my life transformed significantly. My parents became Christians, and we we started we’d have family devotions. Is at night. And so if we didn’t have that kind of conversation around the table at dinner, and I don’t know that it was structured like, okay, boys and girls, and they pull out cards and start asking, it wasn’t. It was just it was mostly the good things that were happening in our life. The best thing. Tell me the best thing that happened in your life. What are you thankful for today? But then at family devotions at nighttime, if we hadn’t done it in the daytime, it would. I would say three, four days a week. It would come up where we were rehearsing the good things, and then the family stories we told were either funny family stories, you know, because every family has legends. And so the legends we would tell would be funny legends or when God showed up and protected us kind of legends. Those were the stories we told all the time.

Chris
That’s awesome. You know, now our family, my family, like my kids, they grew up with, you know, devotions and things like that. And certainly we go around the dinner table and at Thanksgiving and we do the whole ABC blessing thing and all that. So we have our own sort of things that we do. But but to excuse me, to make it a practice of, of focusing on the positive. Just on a daily routine kind of thing. There’s really a lot of power in that. So actually we had small group last night over my house. So. So right now I’m pretty excited about this small group that we’re doing. I think we had like 17 total, and we’re doing a young adults small group between the ages of 18 and 29. And so anyway, last night we just happened to be in the book of James. In this series, we’re talking about the power of words, and there was the idea of exactly what we’re talking about, which is positivity versus negativity. And, you know, and all this, by the way, is stemmed from the disciples saying, where are we going to get this food?

Jeff
Right, right.

Chris
Right, right right, right. So, so, so I guess.

Jeff
He’d already done this before, but they forgot.

Chris
Yeah, a little bit of a rabbit trail, I guess, but I guess relatable. But anyway, we were talking about just the idea. So anyway, one of the questions was do you know anybody in your life that’s super positive? And if so, let’s talk about that person. And it was so fun. And we went around the room and we were like, okay, let me tell you about this guy. Let me tell you about this guy in my life who, who just is nothing but speaks life into me or positivity. By the time you get around the room, I thought to myself, why am I not this person for somebody? Yeah, like I’m sure I’m positive for some people and I’m sure I’m, you know. But why am I not the person in somebody’s life of like, total positivity? Because I want to be.

Jeff
But so in my personal life, yes, I’m a raging optimist. Yes. My life’s going to turn out fine. I’m going to God’s going to give me the answer for the next thing God’s going to provide for me. But in my personality type, one of my strengths is maximizer. And maximizer wants to make everything better, make it all better. So I see every problem. So there’s a little bit of a conflict there in the way that I walk through my life as a boss, going fix that, fix that, fix that, fix that. You know what you should have done? You know what you should have done. You know what we should have done.

Chris
This is new news to me. I would never have guessed it right.

Jeff
But because two things I don’t need a lot of compliments. Right? So I have a lot of self-assurance. And I’m total confidence that God is going to provide everything. Everything’s going to be fine for me. I don’t mean it the way a lot of people mean it. I come in thinking, everything’s going to be great. Everybody knows it’s going to be great. Just make this better. It’s going to be even better. But a lot of times people think, hey, change this font means if you don’t, you’re on your way to hell, right? And so they’re hearing it in a, in a different way. And so Bonnie actually manages my calendar in multiple times a week. She puts in goodwill tour in the office for like 30 minutes, and I’m just supposed to walk around and say good things to people because I’m always telling people, fix this, fix that, right. It seems like the only thing I ever see is the negative, right? And I experience and feel all the positive, but I forget to communicate it. And so having a.

Jeff
Regular way.

Chris
We’re similar in that way. Yeah, we’re similar in that way.

Jeff
So having a regular reminder to go say good things, if you think of a good thing, say it. If you if you think of a good thing, do it. And having a regular reminder to be positive. So I feel positive and I feel like God’s going to just work it all out. My faith is through the roof that he’s in charge and that things are going to turn out fine. But sometimes I forget the power of my words and other people’s lives that it sounds like I’m tearing them down when I really intend to help them be better, but sometimes I can tear them down. So then I have to have a reminder. So those three things. Keep a journal, keep a log of the blessings of God, rehearse them with your family, and then have a reminder to go and tell others. And I think it’ll you’ll pivot back to centering on the fact that God always has the answers. And they just I just think they forgot that in this passage.

Chris
Yeah. Well, so so they so they of course, questioned Jesus. Let’s not skip over the fact that Jesus actually says, I feel sorry for these people. They’ve been with me. And if I send them away, they’re going to faint. So their problems have become his problem.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. He took it on himself.

Chris
He took it completely on himself. So he’s like, this is something that I can do to help them, you know? And even though they’re there, you know, with their own. Yeah. By their own free will. Yeah. You know, they’ve stayed longer than their food supplies have allowed them to. Right. And they’re so excited to be there because of Jesus.

Jeff
Well they’ve just been taken from him for three days. He’s been healing everybody for three days.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
That’s what’s going on. And then remember last time this kind of goes against a little bit he was frustrated because they all left only wanting full bellies. Remember their bellies were full and the next day they were angry at him. Remember. Do you remember that they went from being happy with him to being angry with him when he wouldn’t do any more of those kind of miracles? Right. And he got frustrated with them, challenged the disciples, are you guys going to leave me too? Right? And then so you can imagine how hard it was for him to decide to do this miracle, but his compassion overrode his, I think maybe his concerns for how are these people going to take this miracle?

Chris
Yeah. And I’ll tell you what. It’s amazing how, you know, just the the logistics of what happens when it says they ate as much as they wanted, you know, and then they passed out the bread and then and they collect for. A thousand. No. Excuse me. They collect. What does it.

Jeff
Say? Seven large.

Jeff
Baskets.

Chris
Seven large baskets. I’m looking at this number right here. So seven large baskets of bread and all because he gave thanks for the bread, right? And then all of a sudden it multiplies. And then he.

Jeff
Gets in a boat and leaves.

Jeff
I got to get away from these people.

Chris
That’s great. Well, that’s a good place to end. Our time is about up. So we will see you tomorrow hopefully on The Bible Guys.