Target Selection

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

In any conflict, there are at least two sides. In the life of man upon this earth, there is constant conflict with and against the world, the flesh, and the devil. As Christians, it is incumbent upon us — particularly as Christian men — to know what are our duties in this life; for a soldier, he must know his orders and where to execute them. If we are to oppose Satan and his forces, then we must know where he is attacking or where he plans to attack — this is the issue of target selection.

When we choose topics for this podcast, we choose them because they are places that Satan is attacking or places that Satan will (soon) attack. The goal is to prepare Christian men to fight back, to defend the Church and her children. In today’s episode, we discuss some of the ways a man can know where Satan is attacking, where Satan will attack, and how a Christian should and must respond.

If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. — St. Martin Luther


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Show Notes

See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

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Love: Marriage & Sex

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Marriage is fundamental not only to individual men and women, but also to society writ large. Without marriage, there are no families; without families, there are no nations. The first relationship between two human beings was marriage — of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Without marriage there is no future for the human race.

And yet we often gloss over the actual nature of marriage — partly in deference to modesty and partly because we have so long employed euphemism that many have simply forgotten what marriage actually is. In this episode, we have a frank discussion of the nature and essence of marriage and distinguish it from many of the things our society so often pretends fall under the umbrella of ‘marriage’.

It is advisable to screen this episode before permitting your children to listen to it.

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Show Notes

See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

This entire episode may not be suitable for young children. Parents: You should screen this one first. This is a frank discussion of the nature and essence of marriage, which, rather obviously, involved discussing sex.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Love: Family, Friends, Tribe, and Nation

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Love and duty are matters of concentric circles — to the closer is the greater duty and the greater love owed. In the previous episode in this series, we covered the facets of self-sacrifice love (agape) and charity (caritas); in this episode, we cover familial and brotherly or fraternal love, emotional (amor) and intellectual (dilectio) love, and piety (the historical, proper sense) and paternal love — three pairs, as it were. We call these facets, because it is not that love can be dissected and broken down into constituent parts; rather, it is that love is expressed in different ways between different people at different times. The love a husband has for his wife is not the same as the love a man has for his nation.

If we are commanded to love, then we must certainly understand what it means to love. We must know whom (and what) we must love and what is the nature and scope of that love. The world would deceive us by calling that which is not — and often even that which cannot be — love ‘love’. As Christians, we are commanded to be wise, and love — to whom it is owed and how it must or must not be expressed — is assuredly a matter of wisdom.

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See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

“Homosexual fornication” and “sodomy” are used as descriptors for an example around the 40:00 mark, but the matter is not discussed in detail or explicitly.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Love: Sacrifice and Charity

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Love is a multifaceted thing. Sometimes this complex nature can be masked in English by the use of the umbrella term “love” (or even by the exclusion of concepts that really fall under that umbrella — e.g., “friendship”). In this first episode in our (planned) three-episode series on love, we discuss agape (i.e., self-sacrificing or sacrificial love) and caritas (i.e., charity), their interrelationship, and some of their connections to other facets of love (e.g., storge [i.e., familial love]).

Love is a matter of who is doing the thing, whom is receiving the thing, and what the nature and scope of the thing is. The love — more accurately, the scope and nature of the love — you owe to your wife (agape, eros) is not the same as the love you owe to your siblings (agape, philia) or to your nation (pietas). Love is a matter of wisdom, one that has fallen into neglect in Christian discourse.

All that is called love is not.

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Show Notes

See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Ecumenism in the Trenches

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Christian men exist in two kingdoms (the right and the left ‘hands’ of Christ) and three estates (family, Church, and State). Many modern men neglect the fullness of this reality via excessive focus on the Kingdom of the right hand of Christ (i.e., the Church). Further, and perhaps worse, many pastors believe that their role in the right-hand Kingdom entitles them to honors, respect, or other deference with regard to the left-hand kingdom — it does not.

The domain of the pastor is the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. The domain of Christian men is all three of the estates of life — family, Church, and State. With regard to family and State, Christian men have many duties, but pastors have only one — silence. The role of the pastor is local and circumscribed; the role of Christian men is not exclusively so. The pastor qua pastor has nothing to say with regard to the State, to the kingdom of the left hand of Christ — that is the domain of Christian men.

As Christian men, we must work together on the issues facing us, and that regardless of which kingdom or which estate. Pastors have their role and we have ours; the former must learn their limitations and the latter must do their duty.

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See Also

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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The State of the Churches

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Knowledge is not what saves us, but faith cannot be devoid of content, for one must have faith in something. Part of being a Christian is, unsurprisingly, knowing the content of the Christian faith. Or, perhaps, this would be surprising to many, given the state of knowledge and belief among those claiming to be Christian — even among the best (in terms of knowledge and right belief) of those claiming to be Christian.

In today’s episode, we return to the state of the churches. This time, we examine the general state of knowledge and belief among Christians. Do Christians even know the basics of the faith? For most, the answer is very clearly: No.

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See Also

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Tithing

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

All that we have comes from God. As we covered in the episode on jealousy, we are, in fact, to be jealous, to be protective, of the things that are ours. However, this must be balanced against the fact that much of what we hold we hold in trust. There are things which are solely ours and there are things which are ours for the sake of serving God and neighbor.

Ultimately, we are stewards of this Creation, and we owe duties to God. One such duty is the duty to render thanks to God in the form of tithes. A tithe, simply, is an offering ‘off the top’ of a portion of what God has given us as thanks for the whole. How much we tithe, how we tithe, to whom we tithe, and other related questions are matters of wisdom. Unlike Old Testament Israel, we do not have explicit rules telling us what to tithe, when, and to whom. However, God does invite us to test Him by bringing in the fullness of the tithe, and where God invites us to test Him, it is not only foolish, but sinful, to refuse.

»“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.«

— Malachi 3:6–12 (ESV)

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See Also

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Inheritance

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

All that we have and all that we are flows from God, and yet, as covered in previous episodes, God acts in time via means. Your height and your intelligence, God transmitted to you via your ancestors, via your nation; your material prosperity, God transmitted to you via your forebears and your country; and your faith, God transmitted to you via faithful forebears and His written Word (whatever copies of which you may own, someone had to print). It is a tripartite inheritance that is bestowed upon us by God — biological, material, and spiritual.

The modern world, with its manifold lies — among them, the idea of the ‘blank slate’ — would have us believe that we are atomized individuals instead of parts of a greater whole. Each generation is a link in a chain extending back through Noah to Adam, and it is incumbent on each generation to faithfully pass forward the inheritance — preferably improved — that it received from those who came before. Without inheritance, there is no prosperity, there is no continuity, and there would be no salvation, for it is our adoption as sons of God that makes us inheritors of eternal life.

We must jealously guard our inheritance, faithfully preserve it, and dutifully transmit it.

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See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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The Required Confession

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

When the world demands that we speak falsely about the faith, we are required to speak the truth; when the world demands that we speak truthfully about the faith, but neglect certain truths, then it is those very truths the world tells us to ignore that we must profess all the more loudly. Satan, although he is the father of lies, does not always lie; where it is possible to do so, it is often far more effective to mislead with the truth — to lie by omission. This is what the world so often demands of Christians today.

If the world says we must call slavery sin, then we affirm that Scripture does not call slavery sin and even commands it in places. If the world says we must tolerate homosexuality or false religions, then we affirm that Scripture condemns such things as abomination. If the world tells us that it is fine to say that our sins crucified Christ, that the Romans crucified Christ, and that Pilate crucified Christ, but that we must not say that the Jews murdered Christ, then we affirm in no uncertain terms that the Jews murdered Christ.

There are no optional parts of Scripture — we, as Christians, are required to affirm the full counsel of God. To deflect with an irrelevant truth is no less a lie than an affirmative false statement. Whether you are fated to be a confessor or a martyr is in God’s hands, but it is in your hands to decide whether you will follow God or yield to the world.

There is no promise of salvation for those who apostatize by denying the Word of God.

If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace to him, if he flinches at that one point.

— St. Martin Luther, Confessor

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Show Notes

  • Scripture readings from the end of the episode:
    • Acts 7:51–53
    • John 8:34–47
    • Matthew 12:14
    • John 5:18
    • John 7:1
    • John 7:19–20
    • John 10:31
    • John 11:8
    • John 11:53
    • Matthew 26:3–4
    • John 5:16–17
    • Acts 2:22–25
    • Acts 2:36–41
    • Acts 3:14–15
    • Acts 5:27–33
    • 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16
    • Luke 23:13–16
    • Matthew 27:20
    • Luke 23:18–23
    • Matthew 27:24–26
  • HB 1076 (the South Dakota law mentioned in the episode) [PDF]
  • IHRA definition of “antisemitism” (with examples)

Parental Warnings

The word “masturbation” is used once in the middle of the episode.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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Technology

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Technology is a part of our daily lives. In fact, technology has been a part of the daily life of man from the beginning. Whether that technology is relatively simple — a garden hoe or a flint knife — or incredibly complex — a nuclear reactor or a quantum computer — it is, nevertheless, technology, which is to say that it is a material application of science (i.e., knowledge) to achieve a human end.

Technology may be good, bad, or neutral, but it cannot be truly or fully assessed in the absence of an assessment of the attendant intention of the men who develop and deploy it. For the Christian, there are additional considerations. Some technologies bring with them intrinsic or even inherent risks, and this grows more pressing by the day. We must be intentional with our use of technology, and we must recognize that neither is all knowledge good nor is all ignorance evil.

Neither knowledge nor its material application (i.e., technology) is amoral. As Christians, we must be aware of the risks and of the right mindset with regard to technology and our use of it. The Church faces novel threats and we do not have the benefit of any insight from past Christians, for what we face they could not even conceive. We are in an uncharted land, because we are the ones who have been tasked with making the charts.

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Show Notes

See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

We discuss the demonic in this episode.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can be found here

Other transcripts can be found here

Comments?

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