Transcript: Episode 0047

This transcript:
  1. Was machine generated.
  2. Has not been checked for errors.
  3. May not be entirely accurate.
WEBVTT

00:00:00 – 00:00:19:	2

00:00:19 – 00:00:44:	Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast. I am Corey J. Moeller, and I'm still woe. On today's

00:00:44 – 00:00:50:	Stone Choir, we're going to be doing another episode on listener feedback. We did one of

00:00:50 – 00:00:53:	those a couple months ago, and we wanted to get back into it because we have a few more good

00:00:53 – 00:00:59:	questions. And because we've both been busy last week. In the show notes, we will give a link

00:00:59 – 00:01:06:	to the Myth of the 20th Century podcast with Adam and Hans. Corey and I both joined them last

00:01:06 – 00:01:12:	week, and that aired this past Monday. So there's actually some extra Stone Choir content out there

00:01:12 – 00:01:16:	for you. You'll just have to go somewhere else to listen to it. On the subject of listening to

00:01:16 – 00:01:22:	Stone Choir, just as a little bit of housekeeping, Spotify has delisted one of our episodes. Probably

00:01:22 – 00:01:27:	won't be the last time. Eventually, probably somewhere all the podcast listings will delist us

00:01:27 – 00:01:36:	entirely. We are immune from that. As broadcasters, as podcasters, you are not immune from that as

00:01:36 – 00:01:46:	listeners unless you take some affirmative steps. So the stone-choir.com website will always be there. As

00:01:46 – 00:01:51:	long as we can keep the lights on, that will be a place where you can always find us, which means

00:01:51 – 00:01:56:	that worst case, you can always stream the episodes on a web browser. That's not a great

00:01:56 – 00:02:03:	experience. If you are an iOS user, you should be using Overcast from overcast.fm. You can find

00:02:03 – 00:02:08:	it on the App Store. If you're an Android user, you should also be using a podcast player. I've been

00:02:08 – 00:02:13:	told the podcast addict is supposed to be pretty good. So if you're an Android poor, you should be

00:02:13 – 00:02:21:	using one of those. Or your favorite one. But the reason that I specifically want to say use one of

00:02:21 – 00:02:28:	these or a similar podcast player is for this specific reason. Podcast is based on RSS. It's

00:02:29 – 00:02:37:	a standard that lets content be distributed without using the web, basically. There's complexity

00:02:37 – 00:02:42:	behind the scenes. It's a protocol on the stone-choir.com website. At the very top of it,

00:02:42 – 00:02:48:	you can find the RSS feed for stone-choir. The reason that is relevant is that you can paste

00:02:48 – 00:02:55:	that RSS feed into Overcast or podcast addict or a similar high-quality podcast player,

00:02:55 – 00:02:59:	and you'll automatically get all the new episodes without doing anything.

00:03:00 – 00:03:05:	And that will be done in such a way that it cannot be censored. So it won't matter if somebody comes

00:03:05 – 00:03:11:	along and de-list or cancels us or any of that crap. You will always be able to find our episodes

00:03:11 – 00:03:15:	on your device automatically without having to think about it. And that's the whole point,

00:03:15 – 00:03:20:	like this should be easy for you as listeners. As more and more of the services try to come

00:03:20 – 00:03:25:	after us and shut us down as happens to pretty much every decent podcast in the dissident,

00:03:25 – 00:03:30:	right? We'll just start vanishing. So if you want to keep listening and you don't want it

00:03:30 – 00:03:35:	interrupted, I would highly recommend you take a few minutes today, use one of those podcast

00:03:35 – 00:03:40:	players and get the RSS feed from the website and then just add it manually as a source.

00:03:40 – 00:03:44:	And then stone-choir will just always be there for you and you'll have to think about it.

00:03:44 – 00:03:51:	So thank you to everyone who's been leaving reviews on Apple podcasts and elsewhere. Obviously,

00:03:51 – 00:03:58:	it helps to spread the word and help keep spreading what you all are finding valuable and what we do.

00:03:59 – 00:04:04:	A special thanks again to Andrew and the other folks. Sorry, to Adam, as I was thinking Andrew

00:04:04 – 00:04:10:	Torb as well, who's been a big booster of the show. We really appreciate it. Without you

00:04:10 – 00:04:15:	sharing the show with others, no one's yours about it. And if everyone stops caring, that's fine.

00:04:15 – 00:04:21:	This is a hassle. I mean, we had to fight audio gremlins for an hour just to get us to recording

00:04:21 – 00:04:26:	today. This is like punching ourselves in the face sometimes. We do it because it's important.

00:04:27 – 00:04:34:	Today, we're going to be discussing a grab bag of issues and so it won't be a real overarching

00:04:34 – 00:04:40:	theme, but we wanted to get some questions people had. The first one will address a specific question

00:04:40 – 00:04:46:	and we're going to go into a more general question about how to read the Bible in general and which

00:04:46 – 00:04:51:	Bible to read. Which Bible should I buy if you don't have a Bible or if maybe you're thinking

00:04:51 – 00:04:57:	you should have a different Bible. We'll give you some ideas. Spoiler alert, we are not supremacists

00:04:57 – 00:05:02:	for any particular translation. We'll talk about translations a little bit and why they do and don't

00:05:02 – 00:05:09:	matter and what to do with it. I think a lot of today's episode will be just about how to read

00:05:09 – 00:05:14:	the Bible and which Bible to be reading. It's not going to be specifics. We will have some links

00:05:14 – 00:05:21:	in the show notes to a couple of Bibles that we have had friends recommend as very good reader

00:05:21 – 00:05:26:	Bibles. Another one that will be specifically a good Bible for a study Bible. We'll talk about

00:05:26 – 00:05:31:	the differences because there are different ways of reading the Bible. Do you read out loud?

00:05:31 – 00:05:39:	Do you read to yourself? Do you're reading to others? Are you doing a systematic study of a

00:05:39 – 00:05:46:	word or a subject versus just reading pages and pages? Those are all fundamentally different

00:05:46 – 00:05:53:	tasks and when we don't treat them as discrete tasks, it can make it not as obvious whether

00:05:53 – 00:05:57:	we're using the right tool for the job. Ultimately, you should probably have at least two or three

00:05:57 – 00:06:04:	different Bibles. You don't have to. It's not a rule. It's just that there are different benefits

00:06:04 – 00:06:10:	to different styles of Bibles. When we start with that question, we deal with the translation

00:06:10 – 00:06:17:	specifics and then get in some of those generalities. When it comes down to it, we have the good fortune

00:06:17 – 00:06:25:	of living at a time when there are a lot of options for reading Scripture. Our ancestors would be

00:06:25 – 00:06:32:	incredibly envious of the wealth of materials to which we have access. Now that being said,

00:06:33 – 00:06:39:	one of my primary and first recommendations for reading Scripture is pick a version,

00:06:40 – 00:06:45:	one that you can actually read and understand and stick with it. Part of the reason for that

00:06:45 – 00:06:50:	is that that's how you memorize things is repetition. And if you're constantly switching

00:06:50 – 00:06:55:	versions, you're going to have a harder time memorizing Scripture. And it's important to

00:06:55 – 00:07:02:	memorize some of Scripture as you go through it. This is one of the big things that Luther actually

00:07:02 – 00:07:09:	comments on when he is speaking to teachers, pastors, and others in the church. He specifically says,

00:07:10 – 00:07:17:	pick a version of your teaching and repeat it every year word for word. And that's why we have

00:07:17 – 00:07:22:	people, for instance, memorize the small catechism. That's why we have children memorize one version.

00:07:22 – 00:07:26:	We don't hand them a different version every week because then you're going to have

00:07:26 – 00:07:33:	unending trouble actually recalling specifically what it is you were reading. And so if you pick

00:07:33 – 00:07:39:	the ESV, stick with the ESV. If you pick the New King James, stick with the New King James.

00:07:40 – 00:07:48:	I and Woe will both tell you, do not use the KJV. It's not because we think the KJV is a bad

00:07:48 – 00:07:56:	translation. The KJV is a very good translation. However, the KJV was written in English that

00:07:56 – 00:08:04:	was deliberately archaic when it was published centuries ago. English is a language that has

00:08:05 – 00:08:12:	changed significantly in the past handful of centuries. If you think that you can just pick

00:08:12 – 00:08:18:	up anything that's written in English in quotes here, perhaps, and read it, go try to read Chaucer

00:08:18 – 00:08:23:	in the original English. It's in English still. It's a different English from our modern English.

00:08:23 – 00:08:29:	But that's the point. The King James is also a different English from the one we are speaking

00:08:29 – 00:08:35:	here. You can understand me because I'm speaking modern English and you know modern English.

00:08:35 – 00:08:42:	If I were speaking Middle English, there'd be a language barrier. And so don't use a translation

00:08:42 – 00:08:46:	just because someone told you all this is the perfect and the old and the exact. If you want

00:08:46 – 00:08:53:	to make that argument, just go learn Greek and read the Greek. But on the note of the Greek,

00:08:53 – 00:09:00:	God made a very important point very early on with regard to translation. He caused the Old

00:09:00 – 00:09:09:	Testament to be translated into Greek. The best version of the Old Testament we have is the Septuagint.

00:09:09 – 00:09:15:	It is less removed from the originals. It is closer to the originals. And we aren't missing

00:09:15 – 00:09:22:	intermediate steps as we are with the Masoretic. God caused that to happen. So he's telling us

00:09:22 – 00:09:29:	very clearly, translations are fine. It is fine to use a translation of his word. Translations are

00:09:29 – 00:09:36:	still God's word. And so use an English translation or if your first language is another language,

00:09:36 – 00:09:41:	use one in your first language. There's no reason you should necessarily use one in a foreign language

00:09:41 – 00:09:46:	even if you know it fairly well. Unless you're using Scripture to practice the foreign language,

00:09:46 – 00:09:50:	which is historically one of the ways that our ancestors learned a foreign language.

00:09:50 – 00:09:56:	But pick a translation that you can read and stick with it and read it. And as I said,

00:09:56 – 00:10:01:	they're excellent options. I have an ESV reader set that I like quite a lot. It's sitting over

00:10:01 – 00:10:08:	on a shelf in this room. Bibliotheca is another one that we'll link to. It's more expensive.

00:10:08 – 00:10:13:	It's a very nice version. If you have the money to spend on it by all means, grab one. It's an

00:10:13 – 00:10:20:	excellent set. But if not, there are great cheap options. So there's a wide range. You can spend

00:10:20 – 00:10:28:	$20 on a Bible. You can spend $500 on a Bible set. And they're very good options for reading

00:10:28 – 00:10:35:	Scripture. So we'll link a number of those in the show notes. But the overarching point is pick a

00:10:35 – 00:10:43:	translation and stick with that translation. And part of that is going to mean probably using

00:10:43 – 00:10:49:	the same translation that your congregation uses. So if everyone in your congregation is using ESV

00:10:49 – 00:10:55:	or NKJV or whatever, and you have a different one, that's going to be a hassle. Because you're

00:10:55 – 00:11:00:	going to be able to follow along mostly. But if you take turns reading and it's your turn to read,

00:11:00 – 00:11:04:	you're going to be reading slightly different words than they have. And you're going to be

00:11:04 – 00:11:10:	following along and not exactly tracking. So just for the sake of consistency, as Corey said,

00:11:10 – 00:11:17:	it is important to be on the same page. Because one of the key elements of just

00:11:17 – 00:11:22:	using and engaging with Scripture is being able to have conversations with other people about it.

00:11:23 – 00:11:30:	Now, an important thing to note there is that if you have ever said, or if you're ever inclined to

00:11:30 – 00:11:40:	say, well, my Bible says this, please don't. Don't do that. That's bad theology. Because what you're

00:11:40 – 00:11:46:	doing is you're pitting one translation against another and just assuming that yours is right,

00:11:46 – 00:11:51:	which is nonsense. Maybe it is a better translation. But for you to just say, well,

00:11:51 – 00:11:57:	my Bible says it's just stupid because you haven't done any of the legwork to see if that's true.

00:11:57 – 00:12:03:	So if there are circumstances where your translation, the one you have in hand, says one thing,

00:12:03 – 00:12:08:	and then someone else's says something else, that's an interesting question. What's going on?

00:12:08 – 00:12:14:	Don't assume one is corrupted. Don't assume that one is full of errors and that someone was up to

00:12:14 – 00:12:20:	no good. Don't assume that either one of them are exactly correct. Maybe they're both right.

00:12:20 – 00:12:27:	That's a property of translation. Is it a word that has a nuance in one language can

00:12:27 – 00:12:32:	split in a couple of different ways when moved into a different language? So as we've said in

00:12:32 – 00:12:38:	the past, one of the links in the show notes will be to Biblehub.com. One of the very valuable

00:12:38 – 00:12:45:	things about this website is you can punch in any verse and it will show you 30 odd translations

00:12:45 – 00:12:52:	of that verse in all the major common Bible translations. So you can see here is how everyone

00:12:52 – 00:12:59:	else has translated this verse. And whatever verse you pick, they're virtually all going to read

00:12:59 – 00:13:05:	very similarly. See, when we have these very strongly held opinions about this Bible version

00:13:05 – 00:13:11:	is good. And this one's really bad. When you pick a verse, not a random, but just the verse you're

00:13:11 – 00:13:17:	actually interested in, and you look at a bunch of different ones, the translations that have any

00:13:17 – 00:13:23:	sort of decent reputation, there's some there's some crappy ones. But most of the common ones are

00:13:23 – 00:13:27:	pretty okay, even if they're more liberal, even if they're places where they've messed with some

00:13:27 – 00:13:34:	things in ways that are undesirable, if not intolerable. Most of the verses are still going

00:13:34 – 00:13:39:	to read pretty similarly to the rest. The other valuable thing there is you can click on the

00:13:39 – 00:13:44:	inner linear, and that will show you the Greek or the Hebrew text for the verse that you're

00:13:44 – 00:13:50:	actually looking at. So you can see the original word order, you can see the original parts of

00:13:50 – 00:13:55:	speech, and you can start to get a sense of what the translators were doing when they made those

00:13:55 – 00:14:02:	various choices on the other page. So this is, we've said this before, but it's worth reiterating

00:14:02 – 00:14:08:	when you're reading your Bible. Pick whatever translation you want, just use it. We'll have

00:14:08 – 00:14:13:	a list of some that we like, it's not exhaustive. And I think an important thing when you're talking

00:14:13 – 00:14:19:	about translations is to acknowledge that they're all in error somewhere. Human beings translated

00:14:19 – 00:14:25:	every one of them. Every person has a certain bias that they bring to what they're translating.

00:14:25 – 00:14:32:	They're going to make editorial choices. That's not editing God in the sense of adding or removing

00:14:32 – 00:14:37:	things, but when you translate from one language to another, you're necessarily doing some editing.

00:14:37 – 00:14:42:	You're saying, which direction, which nuance am I going to pick with this word or this phrase?

00:14:43 – 00:14:49:	That is always going to impart your own biases, whatever they are. You know, as Lutherans,

00:14:49 – 00:14:55:	if we are translating something and there's a sacramental aspect to a passage, we will make

00:14:55 – 00:15:03:	sure that our translation is A, faithful to the original words, but B, it's going to make sure

00:15:03 – 00:15:09:	not to miss out on any nuance that's sacramental. If someone has a completely opposite view of the

00:15:09 – 00:15:15:	sacraments, you're going to want to avoid that. So that's part of where some of these translations

00:15:15 – 00:15:20:	diverge, is that the men who are trying to do their best as they're translating the words,

00:15:21 – 00:15:25:	you know, they're making decisions as they go and they're trying to be faithful. And obviously,

00:15:25 – 00:15:31:	these are then doctrinal disagreements that flow subtly into the text that you have in front of

00:15:31 – 00:15:37:	you. And so that should never be a source of you having your faith undermined and thinking,

00:15:37 – 00:15:40:	oh no, I don't even have the real Word of God here. Yes, you do.

00:15:41 – 00:15:47:	That doesn't necessarily mean that every single exact word captures all the nuance of the original

00:15:47 – 00:15:53:	language. And you don't have to go learn Greek or Hebrew, just be aware that when there are

00:15:53 – 00:15:59:	variations, there's something going on and that's interesting. Another thing to keep in mind is that

00:16:00 – 00:16:06:	particularly now, like any translations or even newly published Bibles with new footnotes

00:16:06 – 00:16:13:	in like the last 10 years, one of the big changes is entirely predictable. It's moving to gender

00:16:13 – 00:16:22:	neutral language, where even the Trinity, even the verses that refer to the Father and to the Son,

00:16:22 – 00:16:26:	some of the newest translations are messing with that stuff to try to make it gender neutral.

00:16:26 – 00:16:32:	That's blasphemous. Those Bibles should be burned. And that's a Christian thing to say. Incidentally,

00:16:32 – 00:16:38:	they're absolutely Bibles that should be burned if they have absolute blasphemy in them. I think

00:16:38 – 00:16:42:	I mentioned this before, but one of the classic examples from history is the so-called wicked

00:16:42 – 00:16:49:	Bible. This is a printing that inadvertently removed a knot from one of the Ten Commandments.

00:16:49 – 00:16:56:	So the commandment on adultery said, Thou shalt commit adultery. It was no mission.

00:16:57 – 00:17:02:	Ostensibly, it was a mistake. Almost every copy was hunted down and destroyed because

00:17:02 – 00:17:07:	it was treated as a very serious blasphemous error. A few copies remain. I've actually held

00:17:07 – 00:17:12:	one in my hands and seen it with my own eyes. It's called the Wicked Bible precisely because

00:17:12 – 00:17:19:	it's an inversion. Most translation errors aren't like that, but that approach, that knowledge of

00:17:19 – 00:17:27:	this is a corruption of God's word severely. This shouldn't exist. That's a holy thing. That's a

00:17:27 – 00:17:31:	good thing because it is ultimately God's. And if someone's going in and changing fundamental

00:17:31 – 00:17:36:	things and saying that, well, God didn't really say that, it's no longer the Bible. Even if it's

00:17:36 – 00:17:42:	99.99%, if you go in and you start messing with things that are removing key doctrine,

00:17:43 – 00:17:50:	you've created something wicked. Most of the time the errors in translation are obvious stuff.

00:17:50 – 00:17:55:	Like I said, the general neutral language is extremely popular. I think the NIV,

00:17:55 – 00:18:04:	2011 and later has adopted a lot of that. ESV, even some of the earlier versions,

00:18:04 – 00:18:11:	they are really weak on slave. We've complained about that before. The nice thing about you having

00:18:11 – 00:18:16:	just a random translation in front of you and working through it is that you already know,

00:18:16 – 00:18:19:	just sitting there before you even open the Bible, you know anything about it.

00:18:20 – 00:18:24:	You know what the weak spots, if there are any, are likely to be. You know that they're going

00:18:24 – 00:18:32:	to be messing with sex. They're going to be messing with things like power dynamics, David

00:18:32 – 00:18:39:	and Bathsheba. Places where today modern controversies get stirred up. What happens?

00:18:39 – 00:18:44:	There's a tendency for men to want to go back into the text and subtly change it

00:18:44 – 00:18:48:	so that they can reinforce the modern point that they want to make. This is something that

00:18:48 – 00:18:54:	false prophets are continuously doing. So slavery, race, sex, all the obvious stuff,

00:18:54 – 00:18:59:	all the stuff that we talk about a lot in other contexts, the newer translations are going in

00:18:59 – 00:19:03:	and messing with those things. As I said, ESV in particular, which is the Bible that I use almost

00:19:03 – 00:19:10:	all the time, gets slavery wrong in a number of places. It doesn't undermine my faith. It doesn't

00:19:10 – 00:19:16:	cause me to doubt the Bible that I'm reading because when I see Bond Servant, I just automatically

00:19:16 – 00:19:22:	flip it to slave and I'm going to be wrong about that translation choice a lot less often than

00:19:22 – 00:19:25:	I'm going to be right. I'm almost always going to be right with ESV because most of the time when

00:19:25 – 00:19:31:	it says Bond Servant, it means slave. So it's okay to use a Bible that has some of these errors

00:19:31 – 00:19:36:	as long as you know that they're in there. Like I said, you don't need to know the specifics of

00:19:36 – 00:19:42:	the translation committee because you know the things that they're going to want to mess with.

00:19:43 – 00:19:51:	So use the one that you have and just read it faithfully. Another aspect of Bible selection

00:19:51 – 00:19:58:	has to do with how it's physically formatted. We'll link to at least one or two websites that

00:19:58 – 00:20:04:	review the Bible so you can see some specific examples of different styles. This is kind of

00:20:04 – 00:20:10:	fiddly typographical stuff that most people don't think about at all, but it has a huge impact on

00:20:10 – 00:20:16:	how your brain processes the written word. So one of the most common Bible types that you've

00:20:16 – 00:20:22:	probably seen many times, you probably own at least one of them. You have two columns. You have

00:20:22 – 00:20:28:	the headings with the chapters and the verses and their footnotes. So there are letters

00:20:28 – 00:20:34:	and numbers appended in the text, and a lot of times the sides of the pages or the centers of the

00:20:34 – 00:20:41:	pages will be filled up with notes about what's in the text itself. Those are typically called

00:20:41 – 00:20:46:	study Bibles. It certainly has the extra notes and stuff. Those are study Bibles. There's a lot

00:20:46 – 00:20:52:	of value in a study Bible and then it helps you who is just getting into the Bible. You don't have

00:20:52 – 00:20:58:	a perfect knowledge of the thing, but nobody does. The study notes help you to say, oh, well,

00:20:58 – 00:21:05:	this verse here is a reference back to this thing from 38 books ago. You probably wouldn't

00:21:05 – 00:21:09:	remember that yourself at least the first time through. So it's very nice to have someone who

00:21:09 – 00:21:15:	has the expertise and this knowledge has been built up over many, many centuries of men,

00:21:15 – 00:21:20:	faithful men, paying attention to this stuff. I mean, thousands of years correlating one verse

00:21:20 – 00:21:27:	to another verse. So it's nice to have that stuff. On the other hand, those visual distractions

00:21:28 – 00:21:32:	really rob your ability to actually comprehend what's on the page. It doesn't seem like it when

00:21:32 – 00:21:38:	you're reading through it, but all that visual noise, it's basically graffiti. Because as Corey

00:21:38 – 00:21:44:	said in the past episode, when you're reading, you're not looking at the letters. You're looking

00:21:44 – 00:21:49:	at the shapes of the words and then the shapes of the words build up to a sentence and your,

00:21:49 – 00:21:55:	so your brain is processing chunks. It's processing chunks of text on the page,

00:21:55 – 00:22:02:	not the individual characters. What that means is that when these additions include numerals

00:22:02 – 00:22:08:	and subscript and superscript letters with footnotes, all those things disrupt your ability

00:22:08 – 00:22:13:	of your brain completely apart from your comprehension. The ability of your brain to

00:22:13 – 00:22:18:	completely comprehend what it is you're reading without constantly tripping over, oh, well,

00:22:18 – 00:22:22:	that's different. There's something else going on. So there's a ton of distraction there,

00:22:22 – 00:22:26:	and there's no way to be immune from it. It's like, oh, well, if I'm really smart, I can handle it.

00:22:26 – 00:22:30:	I can't handle it. I need to go to a Bible that doesn't have that stuff to be able to actually

00:22:30 – 00:22:37:	concentrate on the text. And if you think that that's not the case, you just haven't realized it.

00:22:37 – 00:22:42:	So we'll give a couple of examples in the show notes of something that's called a reader's Bible.

00:22:42 – 00:22:48:	As Corey mentioned, the Bibliotheca is a fantastic one. Readers' Bibles omit

00:22:49 – 00:22:53:	all the appendages, so there won't be any footnotes. There won't be any of those indentations

00:22:53 – 00:23:00:	with where they are inserting extra facts. They also will generally omit the verse numbers.

00:23:00 – 00:23:06:	We'll link to a New King James that puts every fifth verse number in the side of the page

00:23:07 – 00:23:12:	just to kind of help you, because on one hand, there's a tremendous value in a reader's Bible

00:23:12 – 00:23:18:	of being able to just read. You start to sit down and start reading the book of Isaiah.

00:23:19 – 00:23:26:	Without the demarcations of chapters and verses, you'll just read five or 10 pages

00:23:26 – 00:23:29:	the way it was meant to be read without realizing how much you've gone through,

00:23:29 – 00:23:33:	because your brain's not being distracted. It's a fundamentally different experience.

00:23:34 – 00:23:39:	On the other hand, if you want to look at a particular verse on the page that you've read

00:23:39 – 00:23:45:	and said, I wonder about this, there is additional burden for you to go find that and something

00:23:45 – 00:23:49:	else. The nice thing about a reader's Bible that has at least a few of the verse numbers off in

00:23:49 – 00:23:55:	the side is that it helps you be able to context switch to another Bible or to another website

00:23:55 – 00:23:59:	or something where you can see the specific verse that you're talking about and figure out

00:23:59 – 00:24:06:	whatever question came to mind. That's one of the differences. If you're trying to study a subject,

00:24:07 – 00:24:11:	a reader's Bible is probably going to be more helpful. If you just want to read,

00:24:11 – 00:24:17:	having fewer of those visual distractions is crucial. One of the nice things is because

00:24:17 – 00:24:25:	reader's Bibles are specifically focused on readability, they tend to have nicer font choices,

00:24:25 – 00:24:32:	which again, the font forms the shape of the words. Personally, I really love typography.

00:24:32 – 00:24:36:	It's a big deal to me. Even if you know absolutely nothing about typography,

00:24:36 – 00:24:41:	when you're using something that has a really nice serif font where the characters flow really

00:24:41 – 00:24:47:	nicely and every word has a distinct shape, it's easier to read. It's easier for your brain to

00:24:47 – 00:24:52:	process and therefore to understand. These small details that you don't think about normally,

00:24:52 – 00:24:56:	you just pick up a book and you read it, you don't care. Type setting, typography, whatever,

00:24:56 – 00:25:01:	that crap is not interesting to most people. But when it's done really well, it makes it easier

00:25:01 – 00:25:06:	for you to understand. When it's done poorly, it can actually detract from your comprehension,

00:25:06 – 00:25:09:	not simply your enjoyment. I'm not talking about the aesthetics of the thing,

00:25:09 – 00:25:14:	although the aesthetics are also better. But when you completely lose yourself in the word,

00:25:14 – 00:25:20:	if things like those little niceties are done better, your brain is going to have an easier job

00:25:21 – 00:25:25:	processing and absorbing the word of God, which was the whole reason you were reading in the first

00:25:25 – 00:25:33:	place. To specifically address the question that got us on this particular subject,

00:25:34 – 00:25:42:	the question was over some of the changes as it were in more modern versions of certain translations

00:25:43 – 00:25:46:	where essentially they mess with the word that is translated as Jews.

00:25:47 – 00:25:54:	And to directly address that, the problem with translating it as Jews, as we've mentioned in

00:25:54 – 00:26:01:	previous episodes, Eudios, the word being translated here from the Greek, is that Jews didn't exist

00:26:01 – 00:26:09:	at the time. That is a modern term that has a modern connotation when used by modern English

00:26:09 – 00:26:16:	speakers. And so to translate it as Jews is misleading. It should be Judeans. And also,

00:26:16 – 00:26:23:	it is worth noting they were Judeans because remember, as we have discussed in previous episodes,

00:26:24 – 00:26:30:	Israel had been destroyed, which is to say the Northern Kingdom was gone. So the only

00:26:30 – 00:26:37:	Israelites left were in fact Judeans. And so that is the term, that is what is meant,

00:26:37 – 00:26:41:	that is what is referenced by the Greek term. And so that's how it should be translated.

00:26:42 – 00:26:47:	We have the same issue as we've mentioned elsewhere, and as Woe just mentioned, with

00:26:47 – 00:26:55:	do-loss the word for slave. Bonservant is more of a nebulous term. It's not really a term that we

00:26:55 – 00:27:00:	use in modern English, which is why they used it, of course, because then the reader can impart his

00:27:00 – 00:27:06:	own meaning into it. But slave is a better translation, because everyone immediately knows

00:27:06 – 00:27:16:	what slave means. So yes, some translations play these little games, but as long as you understand

00:27:17 – 00:27:23:	what is being said in the text, or if you need to, you can go back to the Greek and look at it.

00:27:23 – 00:27:28:	You don't have to know Greek. You can go to Bible Hub, you can look at the inner linear,

00:27:28 – 00:27:33:	you can see which word was there in the Greek, how it was translated in the English,

00:27:33 – 00:27:37:	and then you can pull up Strong's or some other concordance and look at exactly what that Greek

00:27:37 – 00:27:43:	term means. And you don't have to know any Greek. All you have to be able to do is identify the

00:27:43 – 00:27:49:	Greek letters and be able to click a link, which anyone listening to this show can certainly do.

00:27:51 – 00:27:58:	And to comment additionally on the issue of Eudios, some modern exegetes will call them

00:27:58 – 00:28:03:	attempt to argue that it means the Jewish leaders, and not the Judean people.

00:28:05 – 00:28:11:	That's false. It meant the Judean people, generally speaking. Yes, there were those who

00:28:11 – 00:28:17:	followed Christ, but most of them didn't. And part of the reason that we know this is that we

00:28:17 – 00:28:26:	have a contrast between the leaders and the general people using the word Eudios in Mark 7,

00:28:26 – 00:28:30:	where it says for the Pharisees, those would be the leaders of the Jewish people,

00:28:30 – 00:28:35:	and all the Jews in the wording of the ESV do not eat unless they wash their hands properly. Well,

00:28:35 – 00:28:41:	we have both terms right there. And in the Greek that is the term for Pharisee and the term for

00:28:41 – 00:28:50:	Judean. Similarly, when we have modern translations that try to play games with gender-neutral so-called

00:28:50 – 00:28:57:	language, well, we know that's false because we have from the very mouth of Christ in Matthew 12

00:28:58 – 00:29:09:	both the word brother and sister, Adolfos Kai Adolfei, brother and sister. We have that

00:29:09 – 00:29:12:	from Christ. And so if Scripture wanted to use

00:29:14 – 00:29:19:	gender-neutral language as it were, the option is there in Greek, you can use both brother and

00:29:19 – 00:29:25:	sister. And so when they attempt to insert that in various other places, they're playing games

00:29:25 – 00:29:33:	with the text that are not warranted. It is 100% due to their modern priors. And so avoid those

00:29:33 – 00:29:40:	translations. If you see one that starts translating every instance as brother and sister, if that's

00:29:40 – 00:29:46:	not there in the Greek, it shouldn't be there in the English. And that is something that,

00:29:46 – 00:29:50:	like I said, that's pretty much only in the last 10, maybe 15 years that that started to really

00:29:50 – 00:29:59:	happen. Personally, I don't think there should be more than one new translation in a language every

00:29:59 – 00:30:07:	200 years. It's nonsense to have such a proliferation. I understand the reason for it. For one thing,

00:30:07 – 00:30:13:	books have gotten much cheaper to publish. And as these doctrinal disagreements have occurred in

00:30:13 – 00:30:20:	the past, churches who are trying to faithfully hold to their own doctrine are going to make sure,

00:30:20 – 00:30:25:	want to make sure that the Bibles are using, aren't corrupting what they're worried about. So

00:30:26 – 00:30:30:	if their priors are good, then their translation is going to be good. But if their priors are bad,

00:30:30 – 00:30:35:	their translation could easily go off into the weeds. It's less of an issue with the ones that

00:30:35 – 00:30:41:	existed prior to the 21st century. As it stands today, I think you can pretty safely avoid most

00:30:41 – 00:30:47:	new translations, certainly anything from here on out, like anything after. If you paid any attention

00:30:47 – 00:30:54:	to the decay of Hollywood, I mean, Hollywood was always toxic. And yet still in the last 10 years,

00:30:54 – 00:30:59:	you know, 8 to 10 years, movies have gotten significantly worse. The same is true of Bible

00:30:59 – 00:31:08:	translations, like it's everything. So just keep that in mind. We will link to a CSB Bible that

00:31:08 – 00:31:15:	is a reader's edition that doesn't even have any verses. A number of my friends use a CSB.

00:31:15 – 00:31:19:	One of the things that they really like about it is another aspect of reading the Bible that we

00:31:19 – 00:31:26:	haven't discussed yet, which is reading it versus reading it out loud. Because it's very, very rare

00:31:26 – 00:31:34:	for a man's voice to work equally well in the written word and the spoken word. And this will

00:31:34 – 00:31:40:	come into play in translations. Some translations, like for example, the ESV, is more of a literal

00:31:40 – 00:31:47:	translation, meaning that it tries to stick closer to both the words and the sentence structure and

00:31:47 – 00:31:54:	the word order of the underlying language that it's being translated from. So if you're just

00:31:54 – 00:32:00:	reading it, and you're studying it, it's going to tend in most cases to give you a better sense of

00:32:00 – 00:32:05:	what the Greek was trying to do. On the other hand, that also means it tends to be a little

00:32:05 – 00:32:11:	weirder and a little more wooden to read in some places. ESV is harder to read out loud.

00:32:11 – 00:32:15:	This matters if you have a family, if you're a father and you're reading to your wife,

00:32:15 – 00:32:21:	you're reading to your kids, if you're doing daily devotions. Having a Bible that's easier to read

00:32:21 – 00:32:28:	out loud and therefore to understand when heard does matter. So it goes back to the

00:32:28 – 00:32:33:	standardization question. I don't think it's a great idea to have three or four different

00:32:33 – 00:32:39:	translations in the mix as part of your daily life. On the other hand, in the show notes,

00:32:39 – 00:32:44:	we're going to give three or four different translations as different examples of different

00:32:44 – 00:32:48:	types of Bibles. So like I said, the CSB will be a reader's Bible. It's really nice. It's like $35

00:32:49 – 00:32:55:	hardbound. It has really nice typography and no visual decorations at all. It's just a straight

00:32:55 – 00:33:02:	Bible in a faithful translation that reads really well out loud. We'll link to a New King James that

00:33:02 – 00:33:08:	has some verse numbers in the sidebar. So that's easier if you're cross-referencing when you want

00:33:08 – 00:33:15:	to do additional study. And I think we'll link to the Concordia Study Bible from CPH. It's a really

00:33:15 – 00:33:21:	good study Bible. Most of the notes are faithful. It's certainly useful. It's also really expensive.

00:33:22 – 00:33:27:	One recommendation, one thing to consider when you're looking at Bibles is the print size.

00:33:27 – 00:33:30:	If at all possible, when you're looking online, try to see if they have

00:33:31 – 00:33:36:	an example that will show you the actual size on the page. The reason I'm mentioning this is that

00:33:36 – 00:33:44:	for the Concordia Lutheran Study Bible, the footnotes are tiny. Even if you have good eyesight,

00:33:44 – 00:33:48:	they constrain it. As your eyesight starts to fade a little bit as you get older, they'll be

00:33:48 – 00:33:54:	really hard to read. I recommend for absolutely anyone, no matter how young and cool you are,

00:33:54 – 00:33:58:	get the large print version of the Study Bible because it's not that much larger.

00:33:58 – 00:34:04:	When we say large print, we're not talking about 14 or 16 files. It's a little bit bigger. So it's

00:34:04 – 00:34:10:	definitely easier to read, especially in those footnotes and the endnotes and stuff. But it'll

00:34:10 – 00:34:15:	make a difference today. It'll make a big difference 20 years from now because your eyes will eventually

00:34:15 – 00:34:22:	get worse. It'll still be nice to use the same Bible. So you have to consider, as you're looking

00:34:22 – 00:34:27:	at your Bible shopping, if you can only have one Bible, you have to decide what's the most

00:34:27 – 00:34:34:	important to you. And I can't tell you. I don't. Personally, I would tend to want to avoid a Study

00:34:34 – 00:34:41:	Bible, first my Soul Bible, I think, simply because all those distractions make it seem

00:34:41 – 00:34:46:	like the Bible is a lot more complicated than it is. Same with the King James. As Corey was saying,

00:34:46 – 00:34:52:	I also like the King James is beautiful. I would never, ever, ever recommend anyone read it,

00:34:52 – 00:34:57:	not as their first Bible. And if someone has told you to read it and you've tried and you're

00:34:57 – 00:35:03:	struggling with it, that's why. It's because there's not a magic Bible language. It makes me

00:35:03 – 00:35:09:	so frustrated when guys are like, okay, I want to get into this Christianity stuff. I just want

00:35:09 – 00:35:13:	to find out what it's about. And someone hands on the King James and then they're fumbling around,

00:35:13 – 00:35:18:	they don't know what's going on on the page. That sort of confusion is the exact opposite

00:35:18 – 00:35:26:	of what God wants. And so the visual confusion of a Study Bible is similar in that it detracts from

00:35:26 – 00:35:31:	your ability to just consume the raw word. If your brain is doing any sort of additional

00:35:31 – 00:35:36:	processing, whether it's ignoring extra characters and numbers and letters, whether it's traveling

00:35:36 – 00:35:41:	to translate or cake language, you've probably never heard some of it before in your life,

00:35:41 – 00:35:47:	trying to figure out what does that even mean. That's wasted mental energy that should be spent

00:35:47 – 00:35:51:	on consuming the very text that you're there to learn about in the first place. So

00:35:53 – 00:35:59:	personally, I generally recommend that someone get some sort of more basic Reader's Bible to just

00:35:59 – 00:36:05:	to start reading, because the most important thing you can do is to read the thing, to read the Bible,

00:36:05 – 00:36:12:	to read it regularly, to study it and to consume it. If you get more into it, yes, you do probably

00:36:12 – 00:36:17:	want some sort of Study Bible or other resources, and there are a ton of those online, and lots of

00:36:17 – 00:36:22:	places you can find them. The Bible industry, I'm sure it's a multi-billion-dollar industry.

00:36:22 – 00:36:26:	Frankly, that's part of the problem. That's part of why there are so many Bibles, is that

00:36:26 – 00:36:31:	everybody has this demand for, well, I want something new. I want the woman's Bible. I want

00:36:31 – 00:36:36:	the little kid's Bible. I want the single men's Bible study under 25 who weight lifts Bible.

00:36:36 – 00:36:44:	Like, what? Just read the thing. What's all this extra stuff about? But worst case, you buy a Bible

00:36:44 – 00:36:49:	you don't want, or it's mismatched versionally with one of your others. Give it to a friend.

00:36:49 – 00:36:53:	Give it to a stranger. Give it to someone else. There's no such thing as a wasted Bible in your

00:36:53 – 00:37:00:	house unless you're not reading it. So be budget sensitive, and that's why there's no one size

00:37:00 – 00:37:07:	fits all. There are some incredibly nice Bibles. You can get some that are $200 that are wrapped

00:37:07 – 00:37:13:	in goat skin and calf skin and have just absolutely impeccable printing and paper and

00:37:13 – 00:37:17:	everything, and they're truly heirlooms that you would want to pass on to your grandchildren.

00:37:18 – 00:37:23:	That's very nice, but you certainly don't need that for your first Bible. And frankly,

00:37:23 – 00:37:29:	I'd be very cautious about beginning in a place that's fancy, because whatever Bible you get is

00:37:29 – 00:37:34:	going to be in a translation. And so say you get a New King James, and then you read it for a while,

00:37:34 – 00:37:39:	and actually, I'd prefer the ESVs. That's why I use most of the time. When I get a $200 Bible,

00:37:39 – 00:37:44:	it's in the wrong translation relative to what you want. And again, it's not a wasted Bible.

00:37:44 – 00:37:49:	You can sell it or give it to someone. But if you're going to be looking at investment in

00:37:49 – 00:37:55:	something that's truly special like that, make sure you like the version of it first. And as Corey

00:37:55 – 00:38:00:	said, then stick with the rest of your life, and it will pay dividends. I've said before,

00:38:00 – 00:38:05:	most of the verses that I know by heart are King James. The reason for that is that growing up

00:38:05 – 00:38:12:	the hymnal that we used in the Lutheran church used to be based on the King James. I believe my

00:38:12 – 00:38:18:	catechesis was also based on the King James. So I do not disparage. I do not dislike it. There's

00:38:18 – 00:38:25:	some incredibly beautiful language. I 23rd Psalm should only ever be spoken in the King James English.

00:38:26 – 00:38:31:	I completely reject any other version because it's not necessary because the problem we're talking

00:38:31 – 00:38:36:	about would not be able to understand. Everyone understands that because it's such foundational

00:38:36 – 00:38:42:	English that it has shaped the rest of our knowledge of our own language. So again, it's not

00:38:42 – 00:38:48:	that it's bad or it's terrible. It's just that it will impart confusion where a modern translation

00:38:48 – 00:38:53:	would not impart confusion. And that concerns me as someone trying to introduce someone to Scripture

00:38:53 – 00:38:59:	much more than the textual variants that are involved in the translation decisions.

00:38:59 – 00:39:03:	It's fine to get into those fiddly things later on if you want to be invested. But

00:39:04 – 00:39:08:	as we said earlier, if you want to get down into the words themselves, the individual

00:39:08 – 00:39:13:	words you're looking at, you're going to be looking at least in a concordance, looking at

00:39:13 – 00:39:18:	an inner linear to see what was the underlying language. And what you'll learn when you do that,

00:39:18 – 00:39:22:	again, we're not saying like, oh, you're going to be a junior Greek scholar. No, that's not the

00:39:22 – 00:39:27:	point. When you start looking at all the other applications, you realize there's a lot going

00:39:27 – 00:39:31:	on here. There's a lot of nuance, there's a lot of history, one of the nice things on Bible Hub when

00:39:31 – 00:39:35:	you go to the inner linear, and then look at all the other examples of where the same word is used

00:39:35 – 00:39:43:	elsewhere in Scripture. As you get a lot of nuance, you get a lot of texture around, okay, well,

00:39:43 – 00:39:47:	here's all the other ways that word's been used. And sometimes you'll make very interesting

00:39:47 – 00:39:52:	connections just in terms of questions. I'm not saying be a junior splunker where you're going to

00:39:52 – 00:39:56:	discover some secret Bible mystery. Guy's been doing that for thousands of years. You don't need

00:39:56 – 00:40:03:	to worry about finding anything new, but it is very enjoyable to go discover stuff and then to

00:40:03 – 00:40:08:	learn more about those discussions because, as we said on the myth of 20th century recording this

00:40:08 – 00:40:15:	past week, the entire Bible is interconnected in ways that can only possibly be inspired by God.

00:40:15 – 00:40:20:	No human being could have ever created the number of correlations

00:40:20 – 00:40:24:	from all the different books to each other. Only the mind of God could have done that,

00:40:25 – 00:40:30:	because of all the different physical authors, the different men who were recording with their

00:40:30 – 00:40:36:	own hands and their own voices, in many cases, those books. Only God could have kept it all

00:40:36 – 00:40:42:	together. There would have been disagreement, there would have been, like it's an example I made

00:40:42 – 00:40:46:	there, and I'll make it again here. If Cory and I were to write 100-page book about the stuff that

00:40:46 – 00:40:51:	we know really well and we hash out and we're in complete agreement, it would not be as internally

00:40:51 – 00:40:56:	consistent as what the Bible man just to do across thousands of years with dozens of human

00:40:56 – 00:41:03:	authors. That's because the ultimate author is God. It's a treasure to be able to delve into

00:41:03 – 00:41:08:	Scripture and to find those interconnections. Really, it's one of the most enjoyable parts of

00:41:08 – 00:41:16:	studying the Bible. You're down in it. It's not just an advice column. It's not just

00:41:16 – 00:41:20:	it's wisdom, but there's a lot more to it than that, because it's part of a much greater whole,

00:41:20 – 00:41:23:	and the more you learn about that whole, the more you realize how

00:41:25 – 00:41:28:	infinite the whole is, that the whole is greater than the universe, because it's God.

00:41:30 – 00:41:36:	On the subject of delving deeper into the text, I will also include a link to two applications,

00:41:37 – 00:41:43:	at least two, maybe a couple others, but two applications for studying God's Word. One that

00:41:43 – 00:41:51:	is excellent for just reading God's Word. The first one is the literal Word app. It is free.

00:41:51 – 00:41:57:	It has currently four translations of Scripture, and all the one is the King James, so probably stick

00:41:57 – 00:42:08:	to the other three, which would be the NS95, the LSB, and the ESV. This one is a very nice

00:42:08 – 00:42:13:	application to use just for reading Scripture. It has a clean interface. It's just the text.

00:42:13 – 00:42:21:	I believe it has a reading mode, and you can also hit a button in the app, and then it will

00:42:21 – 00:42:25:	underline the words that you can click on and see the underlying Greek in the New Testament,

00:42:26 – 00:42:30:	which is great. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet have the Septuagint, I don't believe,

00:42:30 – 00:42:37:	for the Old Testament, but it's a great app just for reading Scripture, and the other is Logos.

00:42:38 – 00:42:44:	Now, the drawback of Logos, and I will be completely upfront and blunt, it's expensive. The app is

00:42:44 – 00:42:51:	not, the app is free, and there are some free resources in Logos, but Logos is an expensive

00:42:51 – 00:42:57:	proposition once you start getting into actually purchasing the resources. So this is something,

00:42:58 – 00:43:04:	if you're going to be teaching classes at your church, consider grabbing Logos. If you're just

00:43:04 – 00:43:08:	going to research the word for yourself to some degree, go ahead and grab it and use the free

00:43:08 – 00:43:15:	resources, maybe spend $10 here or there on something. Don't invest into the big study packages,

00:43:15 – 00:43:20:	you'll probably never use most of it, and they're expensive, hundreds or thousands of dollars for

00:43:20 – 00:43:27:	some of these. So I'm just going to include that because that way you sort of have a range of options.

00:43:27 – 00:43:32:	You have the free option and the potentially very expensive one. The same as Scripture will include

00:43:32 – 00:43:38:	some options in the show notes that are very budget-friendly, and then, as Woe was mentioning,

00:43:38 – 00:43:43:	some of the nicer Bibles I'll link to Schuyler as well, which is one of the options for the

00:43:43 – 00:43:50:	$200 Goat Skin or Calf Skin Bible. Don't feel that you need to jump in in the deep end.

00:43:51 – 00:43:56:	That's totally unnecessary. Start out with the free resources. That is how this is supposed to be.

00:43:56 – 00:44:01:	The Word of God is not supposed to cost you money to have access to it,

00:44:02 – 00:44:07:	which is perhaps hearkening back to our earlier episode on copyright and

00:44:08 – 00:44:15:	paywalling God, the title of that episode. So the next question that we're going to address in

00:44:15 – 00:44:22:	this episode is a question about the Sabbath, and whether or not Christians are supposed to keep

00:44:22 – 00:44:29:	the Sabbath or a Sabbath, what are the rules for us in the New Testament with regard

00:44:29 – 00:44:33:	to the Third Commandment as we number it as Lutherans?

00:44:35 – 00:44:40:	And I want to start off with two bits of Scripture. One was included in the question,

00:44:40 – 00:44:44:	so I will give credit to the question, or even though we're not reading the question itself,

00:44:45 – 00:44:51:	but that is Colossians 2.16. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and

00:44:51 – 00:44:56:	drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. And the other one, there are a few

00:44:56 – 00:45:01:	other verses that are important to, but the other one of the two that I want to use for this answer

00:45:02 – 00:45:09:	is Romans from Romans 14. One person esteems one day as better than another,

00:45:09 – 00:45:14:	while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

00:45:14 – 00:45:19:	The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats,

00:45:19 – 00:45:24:	eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains,

00:45:24 – 00:45:29:	abstains in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself,

00:45:29 – 00:45:36:	and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the

00:45:36 – 00:45:40:	Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords.

00:45:42 – 00:45:46:	These two verses and some others as well that you can cross reference certainly.

00:45:47 – 00:45:54:	A little bit of homework for the show. These give the general answer for the Christian observance

00:45:54 – 00:46:01:	of the Sabbath, for Christian compliance with the Third Commandment. I would also draw out,

00:46:01 – 00:46:07:	I won't necessarily read the verse or quote it here, but we are instructed in many places not

00:46:07 – 00:46:15:	to forsake the gathering together of the saints. So this forms the framework within which we as

00:46:15 – 00:46:21:	Christians keep the Sabbath. We are supposed to gather together, but we are not commanded to

00:46:21 – 00:46:30:	esteem any day as better or more important than any other. And so we do not get to tell people,

00:46:30 – 00:46:35:	oh well you went to church on Saturday so you're a sinner. No that's fine. If you go to church on

00:46:35 – 00:46:43:	Saturday because your church meets on Saturday, so be it. Now if you're doing it because of a

00:46:43 – 00:46:49:	Judaizing reason you believe that Saturday is the Sabbath, that can be a problem.

00:46:51 – 00:46:57:	Now if you're totally convinced in your own conscience that what you're doing

00:46:57 – 00:47:06:	is what Scripture commands you to do, then it's a more complicated matter. Because on the one hand,

00:47:06 – 00:47:10:	Scripture is very clear, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

00:47:11 – 00:47:17:	But on the other hand, if you are fully convinced of false doctrine, so if you think that it is

00:47:17 – 00:47:23:	absolutely necessary for Christians to maintain the Saturday observance of the Sabbath, you should

00:47:23 – 00:47:29:	be rebuked with regard to that because that's false. We are no longer required to do that. That was for

00:47:29 – 00:47:36:	the Israelites, that was not for Christians generally. And so the reason that we meet together

00:47:36 – 00:47:43:	on Sunday, and meeting together on Sunday is of course fine. The reason we do it, there are

00:47:43 – 00:47:49:	a number of reasons. One, it's so we all know when to meet because that's just what we do. You

00:47:49 – 00:47:56:	have to actually have a day when you meet so that everyone can show up. Two, it's the day that we

00:47:56 – 00:48:01:	have off. It's, modernly it's the weekend, historically Sunday you had off so that you

00:48:01 – 00:48:07:	could go to church. That was a big part of the reason that Europeans closed everything down on

00:48:07 – 00:48:10:	Sundays, because all you did on Sunday was you went to church and then you went home,

00:48:11 – 00:48:15:	or you went out for a beer with friends, depending on where you lived.

00:48:17 – 00:48:22:	Because it is still the day of rest. It is important to have periods of rest, and that is

00:48:22 – 00:48:28:	something that a godly government has a duty to oversee, to institute, to maintain. So the old

00:48:28 – 00:48:32:	blue laws and things like that were in fact godly forms of governance. They should have been

00:48:32 – 00:48:40:	maintained, and where they are it's a good thing. So essentially it boils down to the real reason

00:48:40 – 00:48:46:	why we observe the Sabbath on Sunday, why we've made the Sunday our Sabbath, is order. It's good

00:48:46 – 00:48:52:	order in the church, because there are things that you must do and there are things that you may do.

00:48:52 – 00:48:56:	You must hear the word of God. You must gather together with other Christians.

00:48:57 – 00:49:02:	You may do that on Sunday. You may do that on Saturday. If we had decided to do so, it could

00:49:02 – 00:49:12:	have been Wednesday. But Sunday has a symbolic aspect to it that is part of it, that we should

00:49:12 – 00:49:18:	really teach more explicitly in the church to let people know we meet on Sunday because of the

00:49:18 – 00:49:26:	symbolism. And the symbolism of that is the resurrection. And in addition to the resurrection,

00:49:26 – 00:49:33:	the Sabbath is metaphorically and symbolically in scripture. That seventh day, it is the day of

00:49:33 – 00:49:39:	rest. And so we meet together on the seventh day because we are looking forward to that

00:49:39 – 00:49:47:	ultimate rest that is in paradise in Christ. And so for the sake of symbolism and order,

00:49:47 – 00:49:52:	meeting together on Sunday is what we have done historically. And there's really no reason to

00:49:52 – 00:49:57:	change that. Now, I don't say that we shouldn't have, say, a Saturday service for some people

00:49:57 – 00:50:02:	who cannot make it on Sunday. That's understandable. There are people who have to work on Sundays.

00:50:02 – 00:50:07:	If you are working in an emergency room, or you're a police officer, or a firefighter,

00:50:07 – 00:50:12:	or any of a number of these occupations where you can't really have a day off,

00:50:13 – 00:50:19:	someone at least has to be working every week on that day, then it's understandable to have

00:50:19 – 00:50:24:	another time when those people can meet together. That's entirely fine. Because again, it is not

00:50:24 – 00:50:32:	required that we meet together on Sunday. It is required that we meet together. Sunday is part

00:50:32 – 00:50:38:	of symbolism and good order in the church. And I think one of the important

00:50:39 – 00:50:46:	distinctions that comes into some of these arguments today, and in current year, when guys are saying,

00:50:47 – 00:50:52:	well, I read something online and I heard this guy who said that you didn't have to do this,

00:50:52 – 00:50:58:	and it's okay to do this other thing. One of the questions is the traditional stone-quare

00:50:58 – 00:51:05:	question, what problem are you trying to solve? But there's also the important question that

00:51:05 – 00:51:11:	every Christian has to have, which we also bring up frequently. Why are you breaking with tradition?

00:51:12 – 00:51:16:	In other words, if Christians have always done this, which is the case,

00:51:16 – 00:51:23:	Christians have always gathered on Sunday for 2,000 years with exceptions, but they were exceptional.

00:51:25 – 00:51:30:	Why do you in current year think that you have Christian liberty just to do whatever you want

00:51:30 – 00:51:38:	in the face of what everyone else is doing? And so the question is not, are Christians imposing

00:51:38 – 00:51:44:	a law on each other by saying you must gather on Sunday? The question is why someone would rebel

00:51:44 – 00:51:50:	against this. Corey said, just order. Like, here's where it is. Churches on Sunday morning.

00:51:51 – 00:51:56:	Yes, there are reasons why you might have a Wednesday night or Saturday night or Saturday

00:51:56 – 00:52:01:	morning or whatever. That's good. Having more church is good. It used to be that church occurred

00:52:01 – 00:52:07:	every day. When Corey says they went to church on Sunday, they didn't go for an hour. It was

00:52:07 – 00:52:13:	a most of the day affair. They were there for hours. Sermons were long. It was a very much

00:52:13 – 00:52:19:	more involved process. So that was their world. It wasn't like you check in for an hour in the

00:52:19 – 00:52:25:	morning and you still get home in time for the NFL kickoff, which is frankly one of the major

00:52:25 – 00:52:30:	pressure points on pastors today to keep their sermon short and to make sure the church doesn't

00:52:30 – 00:52:36:	go too long. Because when it's football season, you better not have a service that runs over.

00:52:39 – 00:52:44:	That's not the right Christian approach to anything. That's not the way we should be

00:52:44 – 00:52:49:	ordering our lives. Worrying about things that are not only less important, but actively evil.

00:52:50 – 00:52:54:	The NFL games last Sunday and the end zone, it said end racism.

00:52:56 – 00:52:59:	Well, that's neat. There are probably a lot of pastors who preach the same sermon

00:52:59 – 00:53:05:	as the NFL. You know what? Yeah, in that case, if your church is preaching NFL sermons, I would

00:53:05 – 00:53:09:	say, yeah, go to the game. You're going to have more fun at the game than you are a church and

00:53:09 – 00:53:15:	you're practicing the same religion either way. It's not Christianity. If you want Christianity,

00:53:15 – 00:53:19:	you go to church with other believers and you hear what God says

00:53:19 – 00:53:25:	and not what the NFL and MSNBC and the World Economic Forum and all these other places say,

00:53:25 – 00:53:29:	because those are the two competing religions, as we always say.

00:53:30 – 00:53:35:	The other aspect of the Sabbath, and Cory touched on it, but I want to point to something. I don't

00:53:35 – 00:53:41:	have a lot to say to flesh out the details, but it's something that was definitely lost between

00:53:41 – 00:53:47:	the old and the New Testament. It's something that, as we were talking before recording,

00:53:47 – 00:53:53:	Luther doesn't do a great job addressing in some of what he says about the Sabbath. As Cory said,

00:53:54 – 00:54:00:	one of the important things of the observance of God's day of rest is gathering together with a

00:54:00 – 00:54:06:	faithful to make sure that there's one day a week where you're devoting some time to the study of

00:54:06 – 00:54:13:	the Word of God together corporately with other Christians. There is also the pattern of rest.

00:54:13 – 00:54:21:	Day of rest is not the same as day of going to church when God rested on the seventh day,

00:54:21 – 00:54:27:	which the Sabbath is patterned after, when God ordered that there be Sabbath years and that

00:54:27 – 00:54:34:	there be Jubilee years where the animals, the livestock, the fields were given days and years

00:54:34 – 00:54:43:	of rest. That is much more fundamental to creation than Bible study and sermons. It's a different

00:54:43 – 00:54:49:	thing. I think one of the things that we have lost sight of as Christians, again, this is not

00:54:50 – 00:54:55:	I'm not trying to be proscriptive in saying you are forbidden, just as the Pharisees did.

00:54:55 – 00:54:59:	This occurred in Jesus' ministry where he performed a miracle and they got mad at him,

00:54:59 – 00:55:05:	and he said, if your ox fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, would you not pull it out? If someone

00:55:05 – 00:55:09:	fell into a well on the Sabbath, would you not pull them out? So their argument though, well,

00:55:09 – 00:55:15:	you can't do work, you did work, was their misdefinition of work as certain types of activity

00:55:15 – 00:55:22:	that weren't worship related. That is not at all what I am advocating. On the other hand,

00:55:22 – 00:55:28:	when God rests and does nothing on the seventh day of creation and when he commands that animals

00:55:29 – 00:55:35:	be given a day of the week off, and man, and that fields be given every seventh year,

00:55:35 – 00:55:40:	and then the Jubilee was a rest of incidentally for debt, as well as the land, as well as the people,

00:55:42 – 00:55:48:	that has significance even outside of sin, because it hearkens back to creation, the six

00:55:48 – 00:55:55:	days, the seventh day of creation, before sin entered the world. So the idea of resting in

00:55:55 – 00:56:03:	opposition to working, not only is it commanded by God, but it has no bearing on salvation.

00:56:04 – 00:56:08:	In other words, the fact that you are saved, the fact that you are a Christian, doesn't free you

00:56:08 – 00:56:14:	from the obligation of needing rest. Now, when I say obligation of needing rest, I'm not making a

00:56:14 – 00:56:21:	law of it, you have to sleep. You have to sleep every day or you will go insane and you will die.

00:56:21 – 00:56:28:	You can kill someone with sleep deprivation. Working someone to death is a very real thing too.

00:56:28 – 00:56:33:	This was a common case in certain kinds of horrific slavery around the world, where

00:56:34 – 00:56:39:	the African slaves that were taken into Arabia, they're no black people there now,

00:56:39 – 00:56:43:	because A, they were castrated and B, they were worked to death. They only lasted a couple of

00:56:43 – 00:56:50:	years and then they died, because they were used not as humans who were to be treated properly,

00:56:50 – 00:56:54:	they were just used as machines and they were chewed up and spit out and replaced.

00:56:55 – 00:57:00:	You can kill someone with work and God is specifically forbidding us from doing that to

00:57:00 – 00:57:07:	ourselves. And there are a lot of people today, one of the misnomers of the Protestant work ethic,

00:57:07 – 00:57:13:	where somehow you have to be constantly go, go, go all the time. I just came up in Stonequire chat

00:57:13 – 00:57:20:	last week where someone expressed guilt or confusion, what do I do on Sunday? I feel

00:57:20 – 00:57:24:	like I should be doing something. I think that there's something really twisted about our culture

00:57:24 – 00:57:30:	that a man who's idle for an hour feels like he's sinning, like I've got to be doing something.

00:57:31 – 00:57:37:	At some point that becomes neuroticism. I'm not advocating for laziness, but when God takes a

00:57:37 – 00:57:43:	whole day off, you can do the same. Again, it's not to say you can't do anything. If you want to go

00:57:43 – 00:57:47:	do some woodworking in the garage because it's soothing if there are chores around the house,

00:57:48 – 00:57:54:	we're not being proscriptive around saying you must sit perfectly still in a certain place and

00:57:54 – 00:57:58:	you can't lift your arm above this height and your food has to all be prepared before sundown the

00:57:58 – 00:58:04:	night before. None of that. Just give your body a break. Give your mind a break. God actually

00:58:04 – 00:58:10:	designed us that way. Another part of the observance of the Sabbath that was lost in

00:58:11 – 00:58:18:	and certainly the modern version of what we view is the notion that resting is salutary,

00:58:18 – 00:58:24:	and it is. When a man feels like he's doing something bad by being idle for a time,

00:58:25 – 00:58:29:	he should spend some time thinking about that and maybe studying some of what the Scripture says

00:58:29 – 00:58:37:	because that's not healthy. You should be able to sit still and sit quietly and sip some coffee

00:58:37 – 00:58:43:	and pet your dog and look out at the sunset and not feel like you're betraying yourself as a man

00:58:43 – 00:58:49:	or your creator or your family or anything. God created us to rest too. Six days of work,

00:58:49 – 00:58:56:	one day of rest. There's a ratio there. I think that's important. Again, we're not giving like,

00:58:56 – 00:59:01:	here's your iCal reminder to rest or hear the days and the hours to do this and that.

00:59:01 – 00:59:07:	Christian freedom is not prescriptive in that sense, but we're creatures and creatures need

00:59:07 – 00:59:14:	rest. Don't let your observance of the Sabbath end with, okay, I went to church. I'm done. Now I

00:59:14 – 00:59:20:	got to go to work. I got to do eight hours of work and go to sleep exhausted tonight. If that's

00:59:20 – 00:59:25:	your life at seven days a week, you're hurting yourself and I think that you should be concerned

00:59:25 – 00:59:31:	that you're doing something God doesn't want you to do. Part of what plays into the lack of

00:59:31 – 00:59:37:	commentary on rest in the small catechism, the large catechism does a better job, which notably,

00:59:37 – 00:59:44:	the small catechism was designed for children and those who are incapable of learning more than

00:59:44 – 00:59:51:	the small catechism contains. It is sufficient for salvation because it contains the core of the

00:59:51 – 00:59:57:	Christian faith. If you knew only the content of the small catechism, you would be a Christian if

59:57 – 01:00:04
you believed it. However, the large catechism is for fathers and teachers and others to then

01:00:04 – 01:00:10:	instruct those who are themselves learning from the small catechism. But the issue is twofold.

01:00:10 – 01:00:18:	That's the first aspect. The second aspect, Luther lived in a culture where observing a day of rest

01:00:18 – 01:00:25:	was simply part of the culture and it was not optional. If you opened your business on Sunday in

01:00:27 – 01:00:32:	historically Christian Germany or the German principalities as existed at the time, the

01:00:32 – 01:00:36:	Holy Roman Empire, they would have come and shut down your business because you were not permitted

01:00:36 – 01:00:42:	to do that. The day of rest was mandatory. Now, you could go ahead and go work on your farm if you

01:00:42 – 01:00:47:	were so inclined. They weren't going to stop you from doing that. You should rest. God commands

01:00:47 – 01:00:54:	you to rest. Resting is part of what Christians are supposed to do. But the society itself was

01:00:54 – 01:01:00:	structured in such a way that it was incomprehensible that you would engage in commerce, that you would

01:01:00 – 01:01:06:	engage in business and work on the Sabbath. And so Luther didn't have to address it because this

01:01:06 – 01:01:11:	was something that was so out of the ordinary. It just was something that did not happen. Now,

01:01:11 – 01:01:15:	he addresses some of this elsewhere in his writings, but addressing it as a core matter

01:01:16 – 01:01:21:	for instructing Christians was not something he needed to do. And we have to bear that in mind

01:01:21 – 01:01:27:	when we are reading older authors, be it Luther or someone else. Some of the problems we have today

01:01:28 – 01:01:34:	are not problems that they had in their day. In fact, some of the problems we have today

01:01:34 – 01:01:41:	are so outside the norm, so outside Christian experience, that these older authors never

01:01:41 – 01:01:46:	even thought about them. They didn't think they were a possible issue that could arise.

01:01:47 – 01:01:51:	Now, Luther comments on the abuse of the Sabbath in some places. And so he did

01:01:51 – 01:01:55:	raise that issue because obviously you had the Pharisees and others who were creating

01:01:55 – 01:02:00:	specific rules and abusing the Sabbath. That's addressed specifically, explicitly in Scripture.

01:02:01 – 01:02:06:	But he would have never addressed the idea of men proclaiming to be women or women proclaiming to

01:02:06 – 01:02:12:	be men or someone saying that he's actually a dog in a human body. That's just something that they

01:02:12 – 01:02:18:	wouldn't have addressed. And so just because a matter is not addressed in the ancient authors

01:02:18 – 01:02:21:	does not mean it is something about which Christians have nothing to say.

01:02:23 – 01:02:28:	And we get that today sometimes, where the left, the Marxists will try to argue, well,

01:02:28 – 01:02:32:	this isn't addressed in any of the ancient Christian authors. Well, of course it isn't,

01:02:33 – 01:02:39:	because it's so inconceivable that this would ever be permitted to happen in a culture. It's so

01:02:39 – 01:02:44:	inconceivable that anyone would even have these thoughts that there was no need to address it.

01:02:45 – 01:02:49:	Because those men back then, the thought would have never even crossed their minds,

01:02:50 – 01:02:55:	because it was so outside the norm, so outside their experience, it was literally unthinkable.

01:02:56 – 01:03:01:	And so just because a thing has not been addressed by the ancient authors

01:03:01 – 01:03:07:	does not mean it is not a matter about which Christians should speak, about which Christians

01:03:07 – 01:03:13:	should have an opinion, and on which we should have policies. And so that includes the issue

01:03:13 – 01:03:20:	of the Sabbath. We should want to live in a society which enforces these days of rest,

01:03:20 – 01:03:26:	which enforces periods of rest for workers. And Luther does rightly comment that this is primarily

01:03:27 – 01:03:34:	a matter for laborers, because those who are in the upper echelons of society will typically

01:03:34 – 01:03:40:	have more opportunity to rest. Now, that doesn't mean they'll take it. We have plenty of workaholics

01:03:40 – 01:03:46:	in our society today who make vast sums of money, who are members of at least the upper middle class,

01:03:46 – 01:03:52:	if not the upper class, and still work themselves to death. You can work yourself to death as an

01:03:52 – 01:03:58:	executive in a Fortune 500 company just as easily as you can work yourself to death digging ditches.

01:03:59 – 01:04:06:	It's part of it as a mindset. But primarily, and historically, the reason we have had these

01:04:06 – 01:04:12:	legally mandated periods of rest is for the protection of workers. Because ultimately,

01:04:12 – 01:04:17:	the executive, if he's high enough up in the bureaucracy anyway, is beholden to himself

01:04:17 – 01:04:23:	for how many hours he works. That's on him. For the worker, it is the duty of the godly prince

01:04:23 – 01:04:28:	to protect that worker from being exploited. And part of that is periods of rest. And this

01:04:28 – 01:04:33:	is a concern that we have in Scripture, because God is concerned about how we treat our workers,

01:04:33 – 01:04:37:	how we treat our animals, how we treat our children, how we treat our slaves.

01:04:38 – 01:04:43:	All of those entrusted to our care, we are required to treat appropriately,

01:04:43 – 01:04:47:	and that does mean giving them periods of rest, not exploiting them.

01:04:48 – 01:04:52:	And I will amplify what Corey said. When I speak of not wanting to bind individuals'

01:04:52 – 01:04:59:	consciences about this, it does not go to policy at all. I would absolutely support any policy that

01:04:59 – 01:05:05:	said that if you open your business on Sunday, that business is taken and sold to someone else,

01:05:05 – 01:05:12:	and you don't get a dime for it. Businesses should be closed. The only people who should even

01:05:12 – 01:05:20:	contemplate working on Sunday would be emergency workers. If you're a line worker and there's

01:05:20 – 01:05:25:	a storm, if you're a police officer or fire, if you're in a hospital, obviously those things

01:05:25 – 01:05:31:	which are needed to sustain life, just as Jesus said, there's stuff that happens on Sundays too.

01:05:31 – 01:05:38:	It is entirely permissible morally for men to deal with those things on Sundays. However,

01:05:38 – 01:05:43:	commerce, travel, I would include, I don't think should be happening. I think it's entirely

01:05:43 – 01:05:48:	permissible for Godly Prince to shut that down. And there was a discussion on Twitter this week.

01:05:49 – 01:05:55:	My inclination is to say to imprison the owner. I think beatings and seizure of assets is much

01:05:55 – 01:06:00:	more appropriate because prisons shouldn't exist. Historically, prisons only existed for pre-trial

01:06:00 – 01:06:05:	detainment and for torture. And once you were sentenced, you're either sentenced to lashes,

01:06:05 – 01:06:11:	to fines, or to execution. I think we should go back to that model for that. That's probably an

01:06:11 – 01:06:16:	episode for another day. But when I'm specifically talking about the Sabbath being kind of up in

01:06:16 – 01:06:22:	the air, it's so as not to bind consciences where scripture does not. However, this stuff

01:06:22 – 01:06:27:	shouldn't be happening because the day of rest should be enforced at the state level. As Corey

01:06:27 – 01:06:33:	said, to protect men who do not have power over their own lives. If you're an employee, you don't

01:06:33 – 01:06:38:	have the sort of power that an employer has. That's not Marxist to say that. That's a basic fact.

01:06:39 – 01:06:44:	You don't need to worry about power dynamics to understand that the guy who pays the bills

01:06:44 – 01:06:49:	and can leave you homeless can make you do things that you don't want to do, or even things that

01:06:49 – 01:06:55:	you don't think are appropriate to do. Our next question is about something that we find in the

01:06:55 – 01:07:03:	pages of scripture, but we don't find today. And so it ties into one of our earliest episodes,

01:07:03 – 01:07:11:	Neglected Matters. And the question is about footwashing. And we see in scripture, the washing

01:07:11 – 01:07:19:	of others' feet by Christians, in fact, by Christ. But we don't do that today other than some

01:07:19 – 01:07:27:	performative versions of it done perhaps by the Pope with... We can leave that aside for now, but

01:07:28 – 01:07:36:	why don't we do footwashing today and how should Christians view this? To take those in reverse

01:07:36 – 01:07:42:	order, this ties directly back into what I said earlier about the difference between

01:07:43 – 01:07:49:	must and may, the difference between a command and something that is permissible,

01:07:49 – 01:07:55:	or perhaps even recommended in some cases, but not required. Footwashing falls into that.

01:07:57 – 01:08:04:	Is it permissible for Christian denominations, for Christian traditions, to have a footwashing

01:08:04 – 01:08:11:	ceremony? Sure. Should it be accompanied with right teaching to explain why it is being done?

01:08:11 – 01:08:18:	Absolutely. Is it something that is required, something that we absolutely must bring back

01:08:18 – 01:08:25:	into church practice? And the answer is no. Now, part of this is purely practical. Think about the

01:08:25 – 01:08:32:	state of basically everyone's feet back in those days. And notably, it did not matter

01:08:32 – 01:08:39:	if you were extremely wealthy or very poor, unless you were perhaps a Roman official and you were

01:08:39 – 01:08:45:	being carted around everywhere, in which case your feet never touched the ground except inside

01:08:45 – 01:08:53:	buildings, then your feet were perhaps clean, at least cleaner. But back in the day, and this is

01:08:53 – 01:09:00:	even until fairly recently, your feet were filthy. This was more so the case in the context in which

01:09:00 – 01:09:07:	scripture took place because almost everyone was wearing sandals or barefoot. If you wear sandals

01:09:07 – 01:09:12:	everywhere or your barefoot, and all the roads are dirt, and everyone uses animals to transport

01:09:12 – 01:09:21:	everything, your feet are unbelievably filthy and not just dirt. So you need to wash your feet

01:09:21 – 01:09:25:	when you enter a building that you want to keep clean. You need to wash your feet

01:09:25 – 01:09:29:	when you come home or else you're going to track unmentionable things into your home.

01:09:31 – 01:09:37:	So just as a practical matter, footwashing was a big part of that culture because it was necessary.

01:09:38 – 01:09:44:	Footwashing in the modern western world is just something you do in the shower,

01:09:45 – 01:09:50:	or if you take baths in the bath, it's not something that is really particularly necessary

01:09:51 – 01:09:56:	just when we enter our homes. Now, if you are so inclined, perhaps you take off your shoes when

01:09:56 – 01:10:00:	you're in your home, I happen to do that because I don't want to track things onto my carpet,

01:10:00 – 01:10:08:	it just helps with cleaning. But the state of your feet is significantly better than the state

01:10:08 – 01:10:14:	of the feet that were present in the New Testament scriptures because you aren't walking everywhere

01:10:14 – 01:10:20:	in sandals or barefoot, most likely. And even if you are, our general environment today

01:10:20 – 01:10:26:	is significantly cleaner than their environment was back then. We don't have horses and,

01:10:26 – 01:10:34:	depending where you are, donkeys everywhere. That's something that was a problem in that era.

01:10:34 – 01:10:37:	That was something that was an issue, a live issue in the western world,

01:10:38 – 01:10:41:	really until the advent of the automobile, because then we didn't need horses to cart

01:10:41 – 01:10:47:	everything around. And of course paved roads also help and sidewalks and concrete and all these things.

01:10:48 – 01:10:54:	So the practical matter is a big part of this. But aside from the practical matter,

01:10:54 – 01:11:01:	there's another practical matter of we don't have the setup to do this in the modern church.

01:11:01 – 01:11:07:	This is something where you really have to plan to have this as a ceremony. You're probably not

01:11:07 – 01:11:13:	just going to cart a rubber made full of water up onto whatever elevated platform you have in your

01:11:13 – 01:11:18:	church and start washing feet. Now, of course, there are some churches that do that, and I'm not

01:11:18 – 01:11:25:	saying you can't do that. But you have to explain why. This is because you're taking on that role

01:11:25 – 01:11:32:	of a servant for your brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a matter of humility. It is a matter of

01:11:33 – 01:11:39:	a right view of oneself with regard to the body of Christ. Because regardless of what you are

01:11:39 – 01:11:46:	in the body of Christ, if you're a pinky toe or you're the right hand, whatever you happen to be,

01:11:46 – 01:11:51:	you are a servant of the whole. And that's Christ's point when he speaks in these parabolic terms,

01:11:51 – 01:11:57:	when he's speaking in parables to the people. And when other writers of Scripture are teaching us

01:11:57 – 01:12:03:	about the body of Christ, all of the parts of the body are important. They must work together.

01:12:04 – 01:12:10:	And if you are washing someone else's feet, it's hard to feel haughty about your position,

01:12:11 – 01:12:17:	even if you are in every way, shape and form, superior to that person. And you may be. You

01:12:17 – 01:12:22:	may be more intelligent. You may be more physically fit. You may have greater wealth. The list could

01:12:22 – 01:12:29:	go on and on. But in the body of Christ, every Christian is a servant of every other Christian.

01:12:31 – 01:12:36:	And this helps to reinforce that. And so this can be used sort of as an object lesson,

01:12:37 – 01:12:41:	instructing Christians in how they are to behave within the body of Christ,

01:12:41 – 01:12:47:	how they are to view themselves and others. And so could it be useful in the modern context? Of

01:12:47 – 01:12:54:	course. But it's not necessary. It's not something we have to do. It is something that is permissible.

01:12:55 – 01:12:59:	And so that's the right way to think about this. Think of it as not required.

01:13:00 – 01:13:03:	So it's a may, not a must.

01:13:05 – 01:13:10:	And just to reinforce, it was an immediate need. You know, when you're talking about

01:13:10 – 01:13:16:	walking in sandals, half a dozen miles through animal excrement, and then you come into someone's

01:13:16 – 01:13:23:	home, the first thing you need to do is have your feet washed. And in order to do it well,

01:13:23 – 01:13:29:	you can't necessarily do it yourself. And so as Corey is saying, it's usually slaves or servants

01:13:29 – 01:13:34:	who are doing that sort of thing. And so the command within the early church, where it had to

01:13:34 – 01:13:41:	be done anyway, to say, you will wash your brother's feet. Frankly, in addition to solving the

01:13:42 – 01:13:50:	practical problem, I guess what Corey was saying at the end, if you have an issue with someone else

01:13:50 – 01:13:56:	in your congregation, if you've been harboring some grudge against some guy, and you feel like

01:13:57 – 01:14:03:	there's something, you wouldn't even talk to the guy. And then you are forced to wash his feet.

01:14:03 – 01:14:09:	It's going to naturally bring all the rest of that to a head. Because the physical act of

01:14:09 – 01:14:14:	submission and being down on your knees in front of someone else, doing something that's gross and

01:14:14 – 01:14:23:	degrading, your heart's going to stir up and you're not going to do it. And so this was one of the

01:14:23 – 01:14:30:	wise things that God instituted in that place to prevent those sort of things from percolating,

01:14:30 – 01:14:34:	because you couldn't harbor a grudge against someone if you're going to be washing his feet

01:14:34 – 01:14:40:	once a week. It's not going to last. And it's not that there's anything special about foot washing,

01:14:40 – 01:14:46:	it's just in that context, we all know that people aren't going to be able to bite their tongues,

01:14:46 – 01:14:53:	they're going to stand up and stomp out. That's in all of us. I would feel very uncomfortable

01:14:53 – 01:14:57:	to be in a place where this sort of thing were being brought back specifically because it is,

01:14:58 – 01:15:04:	I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, theologically. I didn't do a ton of reading on this. We know

01:15:04 – 01:15:09:	from church history that for the most part this more or less went away, like it's been preserved

01:15:09 – 01:15:17:	to some extent symbolically, but I think for us to bring this back doesn't make sense as head

01:15:17 – 01:15:22:	coverings do, because that was something, again, that like we lost head coverings in the 60s and

01:15:22 – 01:15:30:	70s. And it has an eternal purpose. This does not have an eternal purpose, because as Corey said,

01:15:30 – 01:15:36:	there's no longer a purpose for washing feet. Unless I hike or you're riding a horse for hours,

01:15:37 – 01:15:44:	my dogs aren't going to be barking. My feet are not going to be gross. So it's completely symbolic

01:15:44 – 01:15:50:	and loses all of the inherent nature that it originally had. And so to Corey's point is a

01:15:50 – 01:15:53:	teaching moment. Yeah, there are things you can teach. I think there are other things that could

01:15:53 – 01:16:00:	potentially be done in congregations that would teach the same things without reproducing this,

01:16:00 – 01:16:06:	because it's not a law. It's an example of the church coexisting, as Corey laid out very well.

01:16:08 – 01:16:15:	The next one we want to just do briefly. Someone asked about the conspiracy theory episode where

01:16:15 – 01:16:21:	we talked about the shape of the planet and the moon landing and that stuff. And he challenged us

01:16:21 – 01:16:29:	for not using scripture to justify that the earth is round. And we did that very deliberately.

01:16:29 – 01:16:33:	You know, one of the things we talked about earlier was the King James version,

01:16:33 – 01:16:41:	which uses the word firmament. No one knows what firmament means. I'm not trying to be cheeky.

01:16:41 – 01:16:48:	If someone says firmament in the context of flat earth, there are men who will swear up and down

01:16:48 – 01:16:57:	that firmament can only possibly mean a frisbee shaped disk. And so that word necessarily implies

01:16:57 – 01:17:02:	the shape of the earth, which is just it's complete nonsense. It's one of the biggest problems I have

01:17:02 – 01:17:09:	with the King James is that guys will hear a word. They don't know what it means. They're going to

01:17:09 – 01:17:15:	impart all of this other baggage to assume, well, it has to necessarily be in this. And therefore,

01:17:15 – 01:17:22:	I'm going to conclude things about reality from a mistranslation of scripture in such a way that

01:17:22 – 01:17:27:	are at odds with reality. So we ignore the Bible because the Bible doesn't say anything

01:17:27 – 01:17:32:	that dictates what the shape of the earth is. I don't need the Bible to tell me the shape of

01:17:32 – 01:17:36:	the earth. That's not what the Bible is there for. And part of the reason we ignored it was very

01:17:36 – 01:17:45:	explicitly to deny the efficacy of scripture for delineating the shape of the globe or anything

01:17:45 – 01:17:52:	else. Where scripture is silent, our reason is what God has given us scripturally to ascertain

01:17:52 – 01:18:00:	things. If I tell you dogs tend to chase cats, it's retarded for you to respond with, well,

01:18:00 – 01:18:04:	where is that in scripture? That's not what the Bible is for. If you think that's what the Bible

01:18:04 – 01:18:09:	is for, you have much bigger problems than not understanding dogs and cats or the shape of the

01:18:09 – 01:18:17:	earth. Scripture is not a list of facts. It is not a list of things that just exist for their own

01:18:17 – 01:18:23:	purpose. It was God revealing himself and his work in the universe. And so when God says that

01:18:23 – 01:18:30:	he separated the waters of love from the waters below and formed the dry land, that's it. When

01:18:30 – 01:18:36:	he says waters, does that mean H2O or does that mean some other sort of liquid form? I don't know

01:18:36 – 01:18:44:	and I don't care. I don't need the chemical reaction chain from two parts hydrogen, one part

01:18:44 – 01:18:50:	oxygen, down to everything that exists on the planet in order for me to be able to believe

01:18:50 – 01:18:56:	that what scripture says is true. Because that's not what it's there for. What I know is that God

01:18:56 – 01:19:02:	revealed it. God took credit for doing the work and then God gave it to us. And so all I have to

01:19:02 – 01:19:10:	do is believe God and trust, yeah, you did it. And here I am. And I'm on a globe. I am on a sphere

01:19:10 – 01:19:15:	that's twirling through space, all along with every other sphere in space. And they're all spheres

01:19:15 – 01:19:22:	and they're all twirling. That's how it all works. Everywhere at every scale, from the electron shell

01:19:22 – 01:19:27:	to the galaxy, it's the same pattern over and over again. The Earth is not the exception.

01:19:27 – 01:19:34:	We are part of a whole universe that God created to testify to His glory. We don't need to use the

01:19:34 – 01:19:39:	Bible and we shouldn't have the instinct to try to use the Bible to disprove reality. You're going

01:19:39 – 01:19:47:	to end up being Gnostic if you do that. Reality is real at the risk of an absurd tautology, but like

01:19:48 – 01:19:53:	what more can you say? You have a physical body. Everything that we have, everything that we observe

01:19:54 – 01:19:58:	is either a trick and there are things that we've talked in the past about visual

01:20:01 – 01:20:05:	gotchas where your mind is tricking you, where your eye sees one thing and your brain is piecing

01:20:05 – 01:20:11:	stuff together. Those sorts of illusions are also part of reality, like light does weird things,

01:20:11 – 01:20:16:	our brain does weird things. That's not an assault on the fact that something is real.

01:20:16 – 01:20:20:	It just means that things are sometimes weird and complicated, but that's also,

01:20:20 – 01:20:26:	it's still part of created reality. You're correct. We did explicitly ignore it

01:20:27 – 01:20:33:	for this very purpose because firmament doesn't mean anything. It's referring to

01:20:33 – 01:20:38:	the same thing that is used and said in all the other translations. In other words,

01:20:39 – 01:20:43:	mean the same thing. There's stuff. There's material. It's talking about the material world

01:20:43 – 01:20:51:	and I don't need to have above and below separated either spherically or as a series of layered

01:20:51 – 01:20:57:	pancakes in order to have the correct view. Scripture is an accord with creation. God gave

01:20:57 – 01:21:05:	us both and they both testify to his glory. We have another question here that is about

01:21:05 – 01:21:11:	some of the issues we've covered with regard to Christian nationalism and the Jews,

01:21:11 – 01:21:15:	and the request is for additional reading material. Now, I could give a very long list

01:21:15 – 01:21:22:	at this point, but I think we'll keep it short. Relatively speaking, considering what I'm about

01:21:22 – 01:21:29:	to recommend is probably five or 6,000 pages worth of reading. So relatively short, but I'll

01:21:29 – 01:21:35:	include in the show notes some links. The books that I would initially recommend reading some of

01:21:35 – 01:21:43:	the best options, the most accessible options, that are just really statements of, I won't

01:21:43 – 01:21:49:	necessarily say fact with no caveats because I don't agree with Soltz and Itzan on everything.

01:21:49 – 01:21:57:	He's one of the authors here, but these are very solid works that have great material in them,

01:21:57 – 01:22:01:	even if the authors themselves are not perfect, which of course, there are no perfect authors

01:22:02 – 01:22:07:	except for the author of Scripture. So the books I would recommend would be 200 Years Together by

01:22:07 – 01:22:14:	Soltz and Itzan, The Gulag Archipelago also by Soltz and Itzan, and The Jewish Revolutionary

01:22:14 – 01:22:21:	Spirit by E. Michael Jones. Now, E. Michael Jones is a Papist. He has terrible, terrible views when

01:22:21 – 01:22:27:	it comes to Luther and the Reformation, but they're exactly what you expect. So skip over

01:22:27 – 01:22:32:	those sections, read them and laugh, whatever it happens to be. Otherwise, his analysis is fairly

01:22:32 – 01:22:38:	good. So those are probably good starting places, and if you want additional reading materials,

01:22:38 – 01:22:44:	feel free to send another comment or email, and I can provide additional links. But those are

01:22:44 – 01:22:54:	good places to start. We have another question then about helping those with mental disabilities

01:22:55 – 01:22:59:	to understand Scripture and the Christian religion.

01:23:01 – 01:23:05:	We touched on this a little bit earlier when we mentioned the small catechism. Now, I don't mean

01:23:05 – 01:23:10:	to say that the small catechism is specifically for those with developmental disabilities,

01:23:10 – 01:23:16:	for those who are mentally retarded. But at the same time, it is designed to be

01:23:16 – 01:23:22:	comprehensible to little children. And while little children are not mentally retarded,

01:23:22 – 01:23:29:	because they will eventually grow up and mature and gain capacity, they are actually roughly

01:23:29 – 01:23:34:	the mental equivalent of those who are adults and are mentally retarded. That is why sometimes,

01:23:34 – 01:23:41:	in the psychological literature and elsewhere, you will compare an adult with disabilities

01:23:41 – 01:23:48:	to a child of a certain age. This is, you know, a child that is an exemplar of what children

01:23:48 – 01:23:54:	are supposed to be at that age. And so an adult may have the mental capacity of a five-year-old.

01:23:55 – 01:24:00:	And so the small catechism is a good starting place because it is aimed at children. So those

01:24:00 – 01:24:06:	with these disabilities, with these limitations, will, to some degree, be able to better understand

01:24:07 – 01:24:12:	the material as presented in the small catechism. And as I mentioned earlier, if you know only the

01:24:12 – 01:24:19:	small catechism because it is a statement of the Christian religion from Scripture that is

01:24:19 – 01:24:24:	sufficient for saving faith, know the small, obviously, yes, you still have to have faith.

01:24:24 – 01:24:31:	I'm not saying if you just know the material. We've gone over the different kinds of belief

01:24:31 – 01:24:36:	before, noticia, ascensus, and fiducia. You must have fiducia, but that is a gift from God.

01:24:36 – 01:24:42:	And one of the ways God gives that is through the word. And the small catechism presents the word

01:24:42 – 01:24:48:	in a way that is readily comprehensible. In fact, even some Roman Catholic missionaries

01:24:48 – 01:24:53:	will hand out the small catechism because there is no better version. It is the best

01:24:53 – 01:25:00:	short statement of the Christian religion. And so start there. But I would also be remiss if I

01:25:00 – 01:25:10:	didn't mention that back when the LCMS was a more serious church body. And ironically, the publication

01:25:10 – 01:25:17:	date is 1969. So not everything that came out of the 60s was truly awful. But there's a book

01:25:17 – 01:25:22:	that was put out. You've probably seen a meme of it if you've been in Christian online spaces for

01:25:22 – 01:25:31:	particularly long time. And the book is helping the retarded to know God. This is back when we had

01:25:31 – 01:25:38:	people who were very concerned about reaching the neighbor, about reaching their neighbors

01:25:38 – 01:25:44:	with the gospel, with the word of God. And one of the concerns is, how do you reach those who

01:25:44 – 01:25:51:	cannot truly comprehend the material you are presenting? And so I'll link to that book as well.

01:25:51 – 01:25:56:	But the small catechism is really where you start with this because anyone can understand the small

01:25:56 – 01:26:00:	catechism. And let's say you're working with someone who is profoundly retarded,

01:26:01 – 01:26:07:	someone who's in that category of mental disability. There are many good Christians

01:26:07 – 01:26:15:	who fall into that category. Because again, faith is a gift from God, and he promises to give that

01:26:15 – 01:26:22:	with his word. Teach them the word, speak the word to them, the rest is not up to you.

01:26:22 – 01:26:28:	It's not dependent on you. God can work with that person as easily as he can work with you.

01:26:28 – 01:26:33:	And with regard to God, you are no different from that person because the space between you and God

01:26:33 – 01:26:41:	is still infinite. You are profoundly retarded with regard to God. So if God can work faith in you

01:26:41 – 01:26:46:	with his word, he could do the same thing for someone with whom you cannot really interact,

01:26:46 – 01:26:53:	someone you cannot teach. So don't worry about it. Do what you are able to do with the materials God

01:26:53 – 01:27:02:	has given us to do those things. God will do the rest. It's the same as early on in Lutheranism,

01:27:03 – 01:27:09:	there was a big concern about, well, how do we reach the death? And this has been an ongoing

01:27:09 – 01:27:14:	concern for Christians and various traditions and denominations since the beginning. Because what

01:27:14 – 01:27:21:	does scripture say? Faith comes by hearing. Well, the death can't hear. So how do we reach the death?

01:27:22 – 01:27:27:	And so this has been a very big concern in the church. Of course, if you can teach them to read,

01:27:27 – 01:27:31:	they can read the word and that is hearing it internally as it were. And so you can still,

01:27:31 – 01:27:37:	yes, of course, receive faith by reading the word. But these are legitimate concerns for Christians.

01:27:38 – 01:27:42:	If you take God's word seriously, if you take his promises seriously,

01:27:42 – 01:27:48:	because he says faith comes by hearing, well, how do we reach those who can't hear in that sense?

01:27:48 – 01:27:53:	Well, we reach them by teaching them to read so they can hear the word internally

01:27:53 – 01:27:57:	when they read the word. How do we reach those who are profoundly retarded? Well, we rely

01:27:58 – 01:28:03:	on God's promises to be present in his word when it is taught rightly. And so

01:28:04 – 01:28:09:	we speak the word to these people and we depend upon God's promise. We trust in his promise

01:28:09 – 01:28:16:	that the Spirit will be present, that faith will be bestowed on these children or disabled adults,

01:28:16 – 01:28:24:	because the work ultimately is God's not man's. And I would only add that such a task should be a

01:28:24 – 01:28:29:	source of joy and not one of doubt or concern. As Corey said, God's going to do the work,

01:28:29 – 01:28:35:	so if you have someone who's profoundly retarded, you tell them that Jesus loves them,

01:28:35 – 01:28:40:	that Jesus made them just as he made you. They understand good and bad no matter how

01:28:40 – 01:28:44:	retarded they are. They understand when they do something bad, they get in trouble,

01:28:44 – 01:28:50:	just like we all get in trouble. And you can teach whatever you are able to teach them about

01:28:50 – 01:28:56:	forgiveness in those contexts and say, Jesus loves you and forgives you too. And that's the gospel,

01:28:56 – 01:29:04:	that's it. The Christian life is not intellectual ascent to a big list of rules and ideas.

01:29:05 – 01:29:15:	It is submission to God's love at the risk of sounding like a Muslim. It's simple. And so it's

01:29:15 – 01:29:21:	God's gifts to all of us. And it's a blessing to be able to share your faith with someone who's been

01:29:21 – 01:29:27:	baptized. And again, that's part of the reason we did the episode on baptism. When you have the

01:29:27 – 01:29:33:	confidence that they have received the Holy Spirit in that, you don't have to doubt that God is on

01:29:33 – 01:29:40:	both sides of the transaction. God is in them receiving God's word from your lips, strengthening

01:29:40 – 01:29:43:	and preserving their faith unto life everlasting.