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:
OK, Chris, hey, it’s going to be a good one today. It is, of course, it is going to be. I hope you brought your best game today.

Chris:
I’m always functioning at my best.

Jeff:
Yeah, you are. OK, well, that’s kind of a letdown then. This is the best you got. I was trying to like get you bring it up a little bit. Okay.

Chris:
I have a, what you said, what you see is what you get.

Jeff:
That’s it.

Chris:
That’s no other better level than this right here.

Jeff:
Okay. Well, Hey, today we have a kind of an, a good, uh, segment disappointing. That’s the best he’s got today. People were sorry. So, uh, today we have a mailbags episode mailbags. And so it says from Susie M. And Suzy M. Hey Suzy M. Several episodes ago, you two talked about the amount of weddings you’ve both done and attended. When you’re at the reception, what’s the song that’s going to have you on the dance floor immediately?

Chris:
Yeah, I can answer this extremely quickly.

Jeff:
Yes, I can.

Chris:
I can answer it for you. The answer is I don’t dance, but honestly, it’s any song. Your mama doesn’t dance and your daddy doesn’t rock and roll. No, but it’s any song that I feel like dancing to, honestly. I don’t have a song. But you’re not like a dancer. No, I’m not a dancer.

Jeff:
You’re like, oh good, it’s a wedding reception. I’m going to dance.

Chris:
But I will say this, I haven’t heard it much lately, but every time there is the chicken dance, I’m out there.

Jeff:
Yes, why not? You love that one, right? Very sophisticated dancing appetite. Yes, I like that. So you don’t put on my, my, my dancing shoes?

Chris:
No. But it’s an Italian thing, I think. It’s probably an everybody thing. I think it’s a Major League Baseball thing. In my mind, it connects. Well, I’m talking about at wedding receptions. In my mind, it connects to, you know, in my, I see big Italian families doing it.

Jeff:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That’s hysterical. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I have never, never one time have I thought I want to go dance. So it’s just not my thing. I just, but my wife loves it. My wife, every time we go to reception, she’s excited. She wants to get out and dance. And so I have no real good rhythm, not physical rhythm. I don’t know why, which was weird. Cause you know, we were both athletes, right? But it was, it was a weird thing. It’s a weird thing for me. But anyway, she always makes me get out on the floor for the cha-cha slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, slide to the left, slide to the right. You know that one. Back y’all. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I can do about 60% of that. I fail at 40%, but I can do about 60%. So there’s that one. And then anytime they do Etta James’ At Last, then we get out on the floor for that. So there you go.

Chris:
That’s great. Yeah, I would say also, just as a bonus response, is that I don’t go to many wedding receptions. So I remember one year, and I haven’t done this a lot lately, but one year I actually did 21 weddings in a wedding season. Oh wow. And for those of you who don’t live up North in the snow, wedding season up North is right around May to September-ish, right? And just a few creep into May and September, but it’s pretty much the summer. And so there’s only like maybe 14 or 15 weeks here to play with. I did 21 weddings in that amount of time.

Jeff:
Wow.

Chris:
And, um, and, uh, of those 21 weddings, the number of receptions I went to is zero. Oh, wow. Yeah. Because can you imagine going to 21 wedding receptions?

Jeff:
Right. Especially when you had kids at home.

Chris:
Yes. Right. So, so unfortunately I do a lot of weddings. Uh, well now I probably only do like eight or nine a year, uh, currently just because we have so many pastors and so many people like other pastors better than us. Yes, that’s correct. That’s correct.

Jeff:
Let me see, which one do we want?

Chris:
Not Chris, not Jeff. But I think I may go to one reception this whole year. Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, we were just at a reception together.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So maybe two.

Jeff:
So one of our, you know, one of our staff members had a wedding and so we, we were there, but yeah. Uh, I’m thanks for bringing that up, Susie M. Yeah, Susie M. You just made us both uncomfortable.

Chris:
I feel like Susie M has written in before.

Jeff:
Yeah, well, anyways. So it’s a good question. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I don’t do nearly as many weddings as Chris does anymore. For me, and I hate to do this, but because of my travel schedule, I can’t ever lock anything in before like three months out. And most brides want things locked in 12 months out. And so they’ll say, hey, we either want Jeff or Chris or Kyle or Kevin. Right. And then they’ll put me on the list. And then, you know, I’m booked. I think almost every wedding that I was invited to do this year, I wound up being out of country. So it’s difficult to do that. So far, none of the brides will let me do it by Zoom. I’d love to. Yeah, I could just be sitting there on the airplane. Do you, Bob, take… That’d be hilarious. But anyways, can’t do it. So they won’t let me do it by Zoom, so… Is that legal?

Chris:
I don’t know. I guess it would be. I don’t know. Yeah. It’s crazy, though, to even think about whether that’d be legal.

Jeff:
So anyways, good question, Susie. And maybe we’ll see you on the dance floor someday.

Chris:
Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so.

Jeff:
Okay, cutting a rug.

Chris:
It’s got to be legal if Elvis can marry you.

Jeff:
In Vegas? I think pretty much everything’s legal in Vegas, dude. So today we are celebrating. We’ve just come out of the resurrection. Yes. That’s right. And the ladies are celebrating and all these things.

Chris:
And then we’re moving into… Well, then he showed up on the road to Emmaus.

Jeff:
That’s correct. Yeah, on the road to Emmaus. And then now Jesus is beginning to appear to the disciples, right? So we’re gonna read from Mark, Luke, and John. That’s an odd combination. Normally it’s Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This time it’s Mark, Luke, and John. So it says in Mark chapter 16, verse 14, still later, he appeared to the 11 disciples as they were eating together and he rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. Okay. Then there’s Luke 24, 36, it says, Then he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it as they watched. And then in John chapter 20 verse 19 it says, that Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly Jesus was standing there among them. Peace be with you, he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and in his side, and they were filled with joy when they saw the Lord. Again he said, peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. And then he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they’re forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. So, Jesus showed up, met all his disciples.

Chris:
Yeah, so Mark focuses a little bit more on the rebuking of the unbelief.

Jeff:
Jesus is a little ticked.

Chris:
Yeah, he’s like, and by the way, Luke also mentions it, but just not with the word rebuke, which rebuke to us sounds a little harsh. But there was rebuking in a very loving way in Luke 24 where he says, he said, why are your hearts filled with doubt? Why are you frightened? Right? Look at my feet. In other words, Jesus is coercing them into believing.

Jeff:
And at the same time, those convincing them to believe coerce means threatened with pain of threatened with pain. I don’t think Jesus was blackmailing them into believing.

Chris:
Okay, not coercing. So he was, he was convincing them. He was having to convince them that, that, that it was him. Right. But there was, there’s a little bit of like a, like a sense of rebuking, even in that loving and, you know, and exchange. Right. So, in other words, what I’m saying is, it’s so funny how we can hear the word rebuke, and at least for me, I don’t know if you felt this, but you hear the word rebuke and you think immediately like negative, right? I rebuke that, you know, it’s almost like, or if you rebuke somebody, it’s like you’re just anti. It’s just, it feels aggressive or strong, and yet, you know, that’s just semantics, isn’t it? Because they’re, you know, what’s the true definition of rebuking? Rebuking is just to say, hey, you know, I reject the fact that you didn’t have faith, you know, where was your faith? Jesus did that all the time.

Jeff:
Anyway, and then… So Mark viewed it as being stubborn unbelief. That’s what Jesus was rebuking. Maybe. No, not maybe. He says it. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief.

Chris:
Oh, you’re describing their unbelief.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think Jesus is pushing back in kind of a strong way. But you gotta remember, they’re friends. Right. Right? So coming and going, come on, guys. Really? You still didn’t get it? Right? Because they were, the unbelief that they had was the women had come and said, guess what? The tomb is empty. Peter and John come back and go, it is empty. The women go, Mary Magdalene says, I saw Jesus. And they’re like, no, you didn’t. Come on, man. And then they’re probably sitting around grumbling.

Chris:
He was the gardener. Come on.

Jeff:
You saw what you wanted to see, right? That’s it. And so then Jesus comes in. So the rebuke here doesn’t have to be judgment from a judge sitting on a bench or a teacher smacking your hand with a ruler.

Chris:
I was thinking the same thing. I was going to say a nun smacking your hand with a ruler.

Jeff:
Right. It doesn’t have to be that. It can just be a friend challenging a friend going, come on, guys. Are you serious? So I explained to you I was going to resurrect. Then you found out I did. It was three days, just like I said. It could be that kind of a thing where it’s a It’s a friendly challenge to change your mind. Why were you behaving that way when I told you what was going to happen?

Chris:
Or if it were perhaps a little more stern than that, then I’m sure it was a loving challenge, where if I were to look at you and say, Jeff, you need to hear this. Look at me. I’m dead serious. You need to hear this. Well, Jesus did that often as well, right? So, you know, he looked, you know, he looked at the rich young ruler and it says in the scripture, I always, I can never get over that phrase, but it says he looked at the rich young ruler and loved him. Yes. And then said, okay, well then one thing you lack, go sell everything you have and sell to the poor, give to the poor and follow me. And I always think, like, that’s such a strange and yet awesome thing to include. He looked at him right before this really hard truth and loved him and then gave him. And I’m thinking, I don’t even know what that looks like. So there could be rebukes in the form of love all the time. But anyway, and then John, of course, includes another whole thing. He includes the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Can I say one thing?

Jeff:
You can. Yeah, well, it’s a few more than one thing. I will allow it. So Mark just says he rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief. Yep. But then Luke and John both tell us what he said.

Chris:
Right.

Jeff:
Right? So you want to know what kind of, if you just read Mark, you go, wow, that he might’ve been really mad. Right. But instead he starts off with very gentle. Peace be with you. Not you idiots. Right. He comes in and goes, peace be with you. Cause they’re freaking out. They can’t believe what they’re seeing. And then his rebuke quite honestly is just simply questions. Why are you frightened? Why are your hearts filled with doubt? And then he goes, look at my hands and my feet, just him proving. What had happened was the rebuke. So rebuke doesn’t always have to be negative. It’s about saying, hey, the way you’re thinking is wrong. Let’s change your thinking. Rebuke should lead to repentance. And repentance just simply being changing your mind. So it’s a fairly gentle rebuke because Luke and John both show us and tell us exactly what he said. I’m not a ghost. So the rebuke was, go ahead, give me some food, I’ll eat it. Touch my body, it’s real, right? So it’s a fairly gentle rebuke there. So I think that there’s a lesson for us that when we feel like we need to make a correction with people who are thinking the wrong way, it doesn’t have to be a full-on assault, typing in caps, personal attacks, you know, Thomas, you stinking doubter, right? He didn’t have to do that. All he had to say was, look at my hands, let me prove to you that I’m real.” And that was enough. So the rebuke in Mark only gives you one sentence, or I mean one verse. And then Luke and John unpack it substantially more. And so that’s one of the benefits, again, of letting the Bible be its own commentary. Otherwise, you might think Jesus is kind of mad at them there. And instead, he wanted them to be at peace and to have confidence. Go ahead and touch my hands, give me some food, I’ll eat it. So that was it. And then finally you get to him saying, receive the Holy Spirit.

Chris:
Yeah, he received the Holy Spirit and he breathed on them. And that’s a cool and yet a little bit weird exchange. I’m trying to picture this in a movie. Right. You know, like, so it could be that he intentionally walked over and said, come here, let me get close to you as I exhale on you. Or it could be that they all gathered together and you know how they touch foreheads, you know, and they, and that’s a sign of, you know, of affection of, I’ve not seen you in a while. And it’s, you know, they were going on a long journey and they come back and then they would touch foreheads. And then, and Jesus could have been that he went around the room one by one. Right. and, and, you know, and just got close to all of them and then, you know, breathed on them and said, you know, received the Holy Spirit as, as he was, as he was, you know, getting close to each one of them. So, so it doesn’t have to be like a, Hey, everybody gather around while I ceremoniously exhale on you. Although it could have been that, you know, there there’s, it’s not, it’s not told to us.

Jeff:
It just says he breathed on them.

Chris:
Right, right. Yeah, but it does include it as a detail. It’s an odd detail. It’s a very odd detail. And here’s another odd detail, the fact that Jesus believed in ghosts. He didn’t say, hey, I’m not a ghost because they’re not real. He said, I’m not a ghost because ghosts don’t have bodies. So, there’s, you know, when I was in Bible college, you know, you have the people who look at the commentary of Scripture and say, hey, there’s no reason why we need to believe in ghosts, because, you know, we’re told exactly where the bodies go and all these different kinds of things. And that’s 100% true. 100% true. There is no evidence, none whatsoever, that would ever lead us to believe that ghosts would be like haunting a mansion or something, right? But at the same time, you know, Jesus did say that, and I’m just like, well, he didn’t… He didn’t have to believe it.

Jeff:
So he could have been acknowledging that they believed in him. Right.

Chris:
But wouldn’t you think he’d say, hey, I’m not a ghost because ghosts aren’t real. But instead he said, I’m not a ghost because ghosts don’t have bodies.

Jeff:
So arguing in the moment, arguing with a person who genuinely believes in ghosts to go. They didn’t even believe he was going to resurrect. So there’s that, right? They didn’t believe anything he said to them. It seems like they believe some of it, but not all of it. So for him to, the main argument he was trying to make right then was not, there aren’t ghosts, ghosts don’t exist. The main argument he was trying to say is I’m real. Right. So he’s not going to try to, sometimes people argue the wrong thing and plant an argumentative attitude into that person from the beginning. And so you start with the wrong argument and then you lose the argument. So he’s not trying to disprove ghosts. And he’s not claiming he believes in ghosts. He’s acknowledging that they do believe in ghosts and clearly I’m not one. Yeah.

Chris:
And that is all of what you said is definitely true.

Jeff:
And logically, let’s just leave it there. Thank you for joining us today.

Chris:
And logic would say that. Because when we use our brains to logically say, this is probably what he meant. And again, I would even venture to say it’s very probable that’s exactly what he meant. So we could land there. But at the same time, we don’t know. And you know, that’s… What Jesus would know. No, I’m saying we don’t know. We don’t know. Well, you know, so listen, there’s the, when I was going to seminary, for my master’s degree, in which I did not complete. I remember the professor was talking about the difference between the modern church and the postmodern church. And it was very interesting. He actually said, in the modern church, in the modern church world, he said, that’s before most denominations came to be. He said, he goes, we live in a postmodern era, but in the modern world, there was a time for hundreds of years where everybody thought that everything that should be known can be known in the Bible. Like, in other words, that the Word of God is exhaustive, completely. It has every bit of knowledge that there is. So, and that was the thinking, that was the mindset. And so he says, and so everybody, you know, took a big delve into it. And he said, and honestly, over the next couple hundred years, that’s where most of our denominations, which are disagreements, came from. from the modern church thinking, absolutely, the Bible tells us everything there is to know about ghosts, or babies going to heaven, or dinosaurs, or whatever it is, or simpler things. And so denominations, for the most part, are announcements of letting everybody know that, hey, this is what they believe, right? The Southern Baptists believe this, the difference between that and Independent Baptists are these, you know, and the Pentecostals believe this, and the Methodists believe this, and it’s all just a disagreement on the interpretation of the Bible. He says, but then the postmodern era is a mentality that says, hey, we’ll do our very best to interpret what the Bible says. We’ll use 100% of all the information that’s given to us, but we have to embrace the mystery of God. There has to be room that says, we just don’t know. And so it’s like, we will take our very best guess with the information that Jesus gave to us. But if you wanted us to know more, Guess what? He would have given us more. So if he gives us this much, and we’re going to use all of that, we can draw our own conclusions. But if it’s not black and white, that just means we don’t know. But we’re going to rest on what we do know.

Jeff:
a loose definition of modernism versus postmodernism. I agree. With regard to… I agree. It’s certainly within the Christian world as opposed to the worldview of postmodernism is you can’t know truth. That’s postmodernism. Right.

Chris:
So maybe you should have corrected your professor and said… No, I’m not sure he was trying to summarize and define postmodernism in its in its full form. I think what he’s saying is, he’s saying a more of a postmodern, right? Sure. You know, and the thing is just to say, hey, we don’t have to know.

Jeff:
Well, God says, my ways are not your ways. Right. Right. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Right. So there are some things that God just chose not to tell us. But the things he did tell us, we can just take as being that way.

Chris:
So just the other day we were at staff meeting and we were talking about when you’re drawing all those options of yes and no. And I said, I said, well, the real answer is we don’t know. Right. That’s that’s the real answer. I said, but we can we can definitely use logic and use opinions and everything else. We could use everything we have. I said, but in the end, the real answer is we just don’t know.

Jeff:
Yeah, I think that when it comes to the things that we don’t know, it’s important that we have really good thinkers working through the things we don’t know. If we just settle with, oh, I don’t know. I don’t know that there’s an answer. And if every single Christian says, I don’t know if there’s an answer and nobody’s out there wrestling with it, we don’t have a single Einstein among us that’s going to work through, then there will never be a new thought within Christianity. There’ll never be a new idea. there’ll never be a major breakthrough. And so you have to have those people who are constantly pushing while you still have the Orthodox theologians who are saying, okay, we’re going to hold true to what is the established revealed truth. While you have people around the edges thinking, thinking big thoughts. And so here you go, man, this is it. Jesus gives them the Holy spirit in this moment, receive the Holy spirit. And then he commissions them to go and spread the gospel. The fact that sins can be forgiven. And that it all hinges on that now, whether or not our sins are forgiven through Christ.

Chris:
And let’s recall back, I know we’re getting toward the end of our time, but recall back when he said, I’m going to be leaving you, and it’s better that I leave you because you’re going to be receiving the Holy Spirit. Right. So, you know, Jesus is God in a body. The Holy Spirit is God in us, right? So every believer, you know, is filled with the Holy Spirit of God in us. And so again, because he, you know, did away with the old system and he established a new covenant, God does not, God the Father does not exist in an address, in a singular location in the Holy of Holies in the temple. All of a sudden now, you know, the Bible later on tells us that we’re the temple, right? We’re the ones. And so it’s like, the Holy of Holies is us. And so, and so here is that moment, that moment where, you know, I could imagine the joy of Jesus knowing that it has finally come to fruition, you know, and he’s like, he’s like, Hey man, you have no idea what this is going to be like, but you’re gonna have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you. And even though that you and I as Christians, we’ve been taught that our whole Christian life, that we have the power of God and the Holy Spirit inside of us. This is a new thing. They’re the only ones. Yeah. at that time, who went from all three, they did all three, right? God’s only in the temple, God’s in front of me, God’s inside of me. That’s the first time I’ve ever had that thought. That’s pretty neat, yeah. That’s literally the first time I’ve ever had that thought.

Jeff:
Well, thank you.

Chris:
That is pretty crazy.

Jeff:
Good job.

Chris:
Good job, Chris. I’m an Einstein.

Jeff:
There you go. He’s pushing the edges. All right. Good. Anything else? I think that’s it.

Chris:
Okay. Well, we’re going to pick up where that left off next time, and hopefully we’ll see you there on The Bible Guys.