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:
Well, welcome back to another episode of The Bible Guys. I’m Jeff Forster, and my guest co-host is the dazzling Wesley Woods. And he’s with me today. So welcome, Wesley. Welcome back to the studio, man.

Wesley:
This has been great.

Jeff:
Chris Zarbaugh is our regular co-host, and he’s out of town shooting some video. We’re getting ready to take on a partner that fights against human trafficking. And so he’s doing some video work on that right now. And so here you are, the dazzling Wesley Woods.

Wesley:
Yeah, it gets better and better and better. Yes. I love the big adjectives. Yeah.

Jeff:
So Wesley, Chris and I have a very strong commitment to our listeners to bring only the finest news and the most compelling investigative journalism that we can find. And so what we found is we think the most trustworthy news source on all of the internet is the Babylon Bee. If you don’t know, the Babylon Bee is a satire website. You have the radio voice, so I’m going to let you do this next news segment for our listeners.

Wesley:
So the title of this is, Study Finds 100% of Men Cooking on Grill, Just Kind of Moving Meat Around and Hoping for the Best. It’s hilarious. It says, with summer barbecue season about to heat up, a new study has found that a remarkable 100% of men cooking on a grill were kinda moving meat around and hoping for the best. The new findings confirm what many experts have long suspected, meaning hundreds of millions of men wearing grill master aprons have been flying by the seats of their cargo pants all along. It turns out all these guys are just out there winging it,” said Professor Thurston Billingsley, who led the research team. Though men often talk a big game about knowing all there is to know about grilling meat, they are, in reality, just poking at sausages and flipping pieces of meat haphazardly without knowing the outcome whatsoever. When reached for comment on the study results, one man came clean. Yes. Yes, it’s true. God forgive me. It’s true. And self-professed grilling aficionado, Scotty Moon, I have no clue what I’m doing. I’m just out there shoving meat around to different areas on the grill and hoping for the best. I can do everything exactly like I did the last time, but it never turns out the same way twice in a row. Why is that? Why? The story also confirmed that all men purchase as many grilling tools and accessories as possible in order to maintain the facade. At publishing time, the research team was preparing to move on to its next study, which would determine what percentage of men had no idea how a toilet actually worked or how to fix one.

Jeff:
That’s pretty good. Well, hey, that hits a little too close to home for me, so let’s just move on. Okay, so are you a griller? Do you like to grill?

Wesley:
Yeah, I’m not a big griller. I like the things that are on the grill, but I’m not a big griller.

Jeff:
I love to grill. It’s one of my favorite things. And yeah, I do think a lot of men all they’re doing is moving meat around the grill.

Wesley:
Yeah, just shove it over here, shove it over there.

Jeff:
Yep, that’s funny. So, yeah, well Poor Scotty. I felt bad for him. He got exposed right there in the article, but As it turns out they’re just winging it by with their cargo pants, right? Isn’t that what they said? That’s what got me flying by the seats of their cargo pants. Oh man, that’s good. Hey, I think over the weekend I’m going to do some tacos. I’m going to make some tacos. I like to grill for the staff, right? So usually we’ll have 40, 50 people show up for a staff meeting like that and I like to grill. So I think here in the next few weeks we’re going to be grilling for the whole staff. So I always like to try to test a thing at home before I scale it up for 50 people.

Wesley:
Then once you did the different Was it sausages or hot dogs?

Jeff:
Yeah, we did sausages and hot dogs. Or we did all the different stations and they were all these gourmet hot dogs. Yeah, those were great. That was too high class for me. Yeah, very high class. But I like to smoke meat and I made some venison sausages from a deer I harvested a while back. smoke them on the smoker and yeah, I like all this. I love to throw a good steak on the fire. I love to grill things, you know, unique, weird things on the grill. So it’s just, I love it. Okay.

Wesley:
So here’s the question though. How do you like your meat cooked? Do you like it rare, medium, well burnt?

Jeff:
Yeah, it depends on what it is and it depends on where I’m at. If I’m in the US, I don’t mind it being a little on the rare side. If I’m overseas, I want it cooked to a brick.

Wesley:
When we were in Africa, I told them to cook everything. If you can take that bread, throw the bread on the grill, cook everything well.

Jeff:
So I eat street food, all those things all over the world. As long as I can watch them cooking it, I’m fine. But you were with me the only time I’ve ever gotten sick from eating meat overseas while we were overseas. Man, I got so sick.

Wesley:
sick on that trip. But you said medium if I remember. I did, I did. I don’t think that translated, like what is medium?

Jeff:
Well, so we were in the embassy area and then the guy we were with said, oh don’t worry about it, they cook just like Americans, you know, everything’s made just for the American area. I was like, oh okay, well then I just figured it was gonna be safe and it was not. Buddy, I was so sick. I was going for both volume and accuracy. I can attest to that. It was rough. Okay. Well, anyways, we should move on. That was a low point in the whole show here. So Joseph is, God is blessing him. The Bible says God was with Joseph and everything that he did. And, But then Potiphar’s wife comes after him, and she makes a move, and then she accuses him of making a move on her. And Potiphar gets mad, throws Joseph in prison. Then while Joseph is in prison, God is with him in prison. He’s working hard, he’s serving the Lord, he’s serving people, and he keeps being elevated. Finally, he’s over the whole prison, all the prisoners. And during that time, the king’s cupbearer, and Pharaoh’s cupbearer and… How can I get that job? I know, you drink and eat all day long. And the chief baker, both get thrown in prison. I don’t know what the baker made that was bad, but he’s… You’re going to prison. That’s right. These cookies are horrible. So they send these two guys. Well, while they’re there, both of these guys have dreams. And they come to Joseph, and Joseph said, well, maybe the Lord can help me understand your dream. And he explains the meaning of the dreams. One of them is going to live, one of them is going to die. Sure enough, the Pharaoh executes the one guy, the baker, and Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer is restored. And so Joseph, as this guy is being restored back, and he’s leaving the prison, Joseph says, hey, if you could help me out, could you tell Pharaoh? Because these people would stay in prison for sometimes years. So a prisoner in Egypt was guilty until proven innocent. And then there was no right to a speedy trial. It was just at the whim of the rulers. And so you could be in there for years or maybe never get a trial because you were guilty, because you were accused. And so Joseph is trying to appeal to somebody who maybe has the ear of Pharaoh to say, hey, if you could help a brother out, that’d be great. So So now here we are in Genesis chapter 41. So we’re going to skip 40, because it just tells the story of him interpreting the dreams. And we’ll pick up with verse 41 after he asks the cupbearer, hey, could you help me out? The Bible says two full years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River. In his dream, he saw seven fat, healthy cows come up out of the river, began grazing in the marsh grass. Then he saw seven more cows come up behind them from the Nile, but these were scrawny and thin. And these cows stood beside the fat cows on the riverbank. Then the scrawny thin cows ate the seven healthy fat cows. At this point in the dream, Pharaoh woke up. But he fell asleep again and had a second dream. This time he saw seven heads of grain, plump and beautiful, growing on a single stalk. Then seven more heads of grain appeared, but these were shriveled and withered by the east wind. And these thin heads swallowed up the seven plump, well-formed heads. Then Pharaoh woke up again and realized it was a dream. The next morning, Pharaoh was very disturbed by the dreams, and so he called for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. When Pharaoh told them his dreams, none of them could tell him what they meant. Finally, the king’s chief cupbearer spoke up. of the Captain of the Guard. One night the Chief Baker and I had a dream and each dream had its own meaning and there was a young Hebrew man with us in the prison who was a slave of the Captain of the Guard. We told him our dreams and he told us what each of our dreams meant and everything happened just as he predicted. I was restored to my position as cupbearer and Chief Baker was executed and impaled on a pole. Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he was quickly brought from the prison. After he shaved and changed his clothes, he went in and stood before Pharaoh. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, I had a dream last night. No one here can tell me what it means, but I’ve heard that when you hear about a dream, you can interpret it. It is beyond my power to do this, Joseph replied, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease. And so Pharaoh told Joseph his dream. We can skip that because I just told you. It was seven cows, ate seven cows, seven heads of grain, ate seven heads of grain. And so when he comes down to the end, he says, I told these dreams to the magicians, but no one could tell me what they mean, that’s verse 24. So then in 25, Joseph responded, both of Pharaoh’s dreams mean the same thing. God is telling Pharaoh in advance what he’s about to do. The seven healthy cows and the seven healthy heads of grain both represent seven years of prosperity. The seven thin scrawny cows that came up later and the seven thin heads of grain which withered by the east wind represent seven years of famine. This will happen, just as I’ve described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he’s about to do. The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout the land of Egypt, but afterward there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased. As for having two similar dreams, it means that these events have been decreed by God and He will soon make them happen. Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh should appoint supervisors over the land and let them collect one-fifth of all the crops during the seven good years. Have them gather all the food produced in the good years that are just ahead and bring it to Pharaoh’s storehouse. Store it away and guard it so there’ll be food in the cities. That way there’ll be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise, this famine will destroy the land. How far are we supposed to read here, Wesley? I think to 45. 45. So Joseph’s suggestions were well received by Pharaoh and his officials. So Pharaoh asked his officials, can we find anyone else like this man so obviously filled with the spirit of God? Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has revealed the meaning of the dreams to you, clearly no one is as intelligent or wise as you are. You will be in charge of my court and all my people will take orders from you. Only I, sitting on my throne, will have a rank higher than yours. Pharaoh said to Joseph, I hereby put you in charge of the entire land of Egypt. And then Pharaoh removed this signet ring from his hand and placed it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in fine linen clothing and hung a gold chain around his neck. And then he had Joseph ride in the chariot reserved for his second command. And wherever Joseph went, the command was shouted, kneel down. So Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of all of Egypt. And Pharaoh said to him, I am Pharaoh, but no one will lift a hand or foot in the entire land of Egypt without your approval. And then I’ll read verse 46 to 45. It says, then Pharaoh gave Joseph a new Egyptian name, Zaphonath-Penea. He also gave him a wife whose name was Asanath, and she was the daughter of Potiphar, the priest of An. So Joseph took charge of the entire land of Egypt. He was 30 years old. Wow. Isn’t that something?

Wesley:
That’s pretty good. Yeah. One of the first things that jumps out to me here is in verse 8, where it says, The next morning Pharaoh was very disturbed by the dreams, so he called for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. And the first thought that popped into my mind was, be very careful of who you get your information from. Be very careful of who you consult for advice. I think that’s really important. So instead of going to a godly person, he went the magician route. and to try to seek information that route instead of going to Joseph. So eventually he did go to Joseph, but his initial response was to gather the magicians and the other people. So I think of that in our own personal life be very careful of who you consult for direction and guidance in your life. Make sure they’re a godly person. Make sure they’re following God’s word. Make sure they are giving you advice that lines up with God’s word as opposed to just some random information. You’re right.

Jeff:
The kind of advisors we have. The Bible says that there’s wisdom in a multitude of counselors, but you have to have wise counselors in order to get wisdom from them. And so in this situation, Pharaoh, his magicians were exposed as frauds in this moment because they couldn’t actually understand a real message from God.

Wesley:
So here’s the question, Jeff. So if there’s someone listening to us right now and they’re going through something, should they consult their friend who is maybe knows no more than they know but who’s a good friend with them should they consult that friend for advice and guidance and direction and that friend is at the same level let’s say their friend is like almost like a clone of them so to speak

Jeff:
Well if you’re asking for restaurant suggestions, or hey do these clothes look nice, or what kind of car should I get, sure. But if you’re trying to make life choices, don’t ask your, unless your friend is a tax expert, don’t ask your friend advice on taxes. Go find a tax expert.

Wesley:
But everybody knows a tax idea.

Jeff:
Everybody’s got their favorite tax guy on on TikTok right now. Right. So did you I just read a thing in The Wall Street Journal. There’s a huge crackdown on a very specific tax. solution that was very, very popular on TikTok and Instagram this last year, that it turns out everything being said about it was not true. It didn’t apply to everybody. But I guess there’s been tens of thousands of people that tried to take advantage of this thing. None of them got expert advice. It was only from the… from TikTok and Instagram.

Wesley:
Do not make life decisions off of TikTok. It’s going to cost people thousands of dollars.

Jeff:
Or social media in general. Right. There’s going to be all these fines as a result of it. And the Wall Street Journal is talking about there’s a crackdown right now on it. And so one of the tax guys from the IRS was saying, don’t do that. It’s not true. Right. Most of you don’t qualify for that idea.

Wesley:
So be careful where you get your info from.

Jeff:
Yeah, so you need to be surrounded by experts in different fields. You need a good doctor, right? A good general practitioner that has access to good experts. You need a good legal person that you can lean on. You need all these things. I was just recently talking to a young business owner and he’s growing in his business and I said, hey, I’m a pastor. I’m not a business guy. I’ve got some ideas, but the smartest thing you can do is go find a business coach that is successful. Not a business coach who’s certified. Go find a business coach who’s been successful. Somebody’s done it, and then you go and figure out what’s the playbook to be successful. And then you need a good attorney. You need a good marketing person, right? Finances, if you’re not strong in finances, go find somebody who’s really good at setting up business finances. And I think it’s the same thing in our marriages. A lot of times we need a good coach. And the worst person to go to for marriage advice is one who’s been divorced three times, right? Go to somebody who’s been able to find a way to navigate the difficulties of marriage for 40 years and get advice from them. What did you do, right?

Wesley:
It seems so basic, but oftentimes we don’t do that. We’ll go and we’ll find the person who’s been divorced three, four times. So what would you do in this situation?

Jeff:
Get advice about raising kids, not from your peers. Get advice from raising kids from somebody who raised kids like you want your kids to be. Right? And it’s just it’s silly. It doesn’t seem like we would make those mistakes, but we do. And I think especially now in the age of social media. Yeah. And friendship.

Wesley:
Yeah. Because of the friendship. Yeah. I know they probably don’t have the best advice, but. I’ll listen to him and I’ll go that way.” And it’s like, no, that’s not sound advice.

Jeff:
Right. Asking, hey, ladies, what stroller works the best is different than saying, hey, friends, I’m having this issue with my child’s behavior right now. And most of your friends haven’t seen it. They just have an opinion about it. Yeah. Right. They’ve never experienced it. But to go find a parent who’s had several kids and they turned out well, you go and ask from there. So having wise counselors is important. Then, the other thing is, sometimes we feel like we’re forgotten. I think that’s another thing you pick up here. This guy, he, you know, Joseph was willing to help him out. Yeah. And the guy just forgot about him for two years. Yeah. It speaks about Joseph’s character. You know, God tends to bless people who are choosing to make good choices in the good times and the bad times. Yeah. Not everything is a mountaintop moment, right? And so Joseph decided, I care about the people around me. So he’s the servant of the head of the prison. These two guys come in. They’re concerned. Joseph says, hey, let me help you out. Sometimes God gives the meaning of dreams. Yeah. And so I help you. And he was just willing to help. He was hoping that maybe they could help him. But he didn’t know for sure, and it took a long time before that paid off. But investing in people is a great strategy for your future and for where you’re going. Usually it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. And so investing in those relationships I think is really important. And sure enough, two years later, this guy did remember Joseph.

Wesley:
And I think there’s a life lesson in the fact that Joseph was steadfast. He kept doing what he needed to do over and over, even when he saw no progress. You know, there was no forward momentum. No one was saying, hey, next week you’re going to get out. Hey, next month you’re going to… He just kept doing what he was supposed to do. I think about that in terms of weight loss. How you got to keep doing the same thing and it may be boring, but you got to keep doing the same thing. You may not like the way the food tastes, but you got to keep doing the same thing if you want to see results.

Jeff:
That’s right. Or just keep taking the same shot every week. But yeah, so here you go, you have this guy that’s just steady and faithful, and then he points out to the Pharaoh that God had said, Pharaoh, which is extraordinary. Pharaoh’s not a godly man. Pharaoh doesn’t even acknowledge God. But God decided to warn Pharaoh, hey, a famine’s coming. You’re going to have seven really good years, and then you’re going to have seven really bad years, so prepare. And so in this instance, Joseph’s suggestion was save 20%. Yep. Save 20% of what you’re putting in the storehouse and you will be ready to protect yourself for seven years. If you save 20% of what you produce in the first seven years, you’ll have plenty in the next seven years. There’s wisdom in that, right? Preparing for the future and saving for the future and, um, those things. And so, Hey, he was putting away 20% that that meant that they weren’t able to consume everything they wanted. Yeah. Right. They had to plan ahead.

Wesley:
Discipline there. Yeah, and it’s very important to have discipline Especially in time in trying times right you know when things aren’t going well for some reason and you reference this earlier as Christians we often think that Christianity is going to be tulips and rainbows and yeah mountaintop experiences every single day Unicorns and skittles Yeah, I don’t know what version of Christianity that is, but I haven’t seen that. So if you know where to find it, let me know. That’s not real life. Yeah, that’s not real life. There will be some valleys, but God will be with you in the valley.

Jeff:
That’s how this works. And so what God did is God provides ahead of time. A lot of times we find ourselves in a crisis and we blame God that we don’t have what it takes to get through. And God’s like, I gave it to you a couple of years ago. You just weren’t ready for it. You didn’t keep it. You didn’t prepare for the future problems. And so we’re always shocked by problems as opposed to preparing for those tough days, preparing ahead a little bit. And it’s not that we need to be in fear all the time. You don’t have to be fearful if you’re prepared. And so having a preparation here, there’s some wisdom in that. And then, here you go, the leadership that he learned in Potiphar’s house, the leadership and the servant kind of mentality of serving others in the prison, God used those as boot camp to prepare him to become the second in command of all of the most powerful empire in the history of the world up to that point. And so if we can look at the struggles and the difficulties that maybe you’re in a tough time right now in your life, if you can think of those things as maybe boot camp for what God’s really preparing you for. Just understand each of those was a short season. It just took, you know, it was a few years. But man, when something lasts three or four or five years, it seems like it’s forever.

Wesley:
You never feel like it’s an eternity.

Jeff:
So a lot of historians and a lot of theologians believe maybe Joseph was about 15 when he gets sold away. And now here he is 15 years later, 30, when he’s being promoted. You’ve got to remember back then they didn’t live very long, a lot of them. So 30 would be a normal adult beginning to things. And Joseph had this 15-year window of preparation. If you can look at it, preparation’s worth it. Just allow whatever it is that God’s doing in your life to be preparation for the thing he’s going to do next. And God raised Joseph up at the right time.

Wesley:
I heard a preacher a long time ago call this, it was a sermon, from the pit to the palace.

Jeff:
Pit to the prison to the palace. Yeah, that’s great. So there you go. And then Joseph is elevated and he does rescue all of Egypt as a result of the wisdom that God gave during that time. But I love the fact that lastly, Joseph didn’t take credit. Joseph said, I can’t do this, but maybe God will do this through me and he’ll speak to you. And so we got to always be giving God the credit for what he’s doing in our life. Yeah, because it’s not us. That’s right. Well, hey, I think that’s a great place to wrap up because we’re going to continue this story tomorrow in the life of Joseph. So thank you for joining us today and we’ll see you later.