transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:31] I am unashamed. What about you?

Speaker 3:
[00:36] Welcome back to Unashamed. We got a little earlier start time today to accommodate Zach's grueling schedule. He's Zach's a man of many meetings, Jason. Yeah, higher up. You know, he's doing a lot. He's spent a lot of place. But I appreciate that, Zach. It's usually for the benefit of your, yeah, we're usually the benefit of your, all of your high level things you do.

Speaker 2:
[01:02] No, I'm one of the, I'm one of the plate.

Speaker 4:
[01:06] I don't know about that. I would probably, I'd probably argue, I probably argue you've changed the schedule more than I've changed the schedule, Jase.

Speaker 2:
[01:14] One of your employees, he was spinning that plate to me this morning and I shattered that plate. So I'm sure that meeting will come later on in the day.

Speaker 3:
[01:27] Oh boy, that plate hasn't even got to you yet, Zach.

Speaker 4:
[01:30] I don't even know about that plate.

Speaker 2:
[01:32] It'll be fun for you later in the day. You're going to be, oh, you probably will never hear about it because it was such a shattering.

Speaker 4:
[01:39] But it wasn't, was it Matty?

Speaker 2:
[01:41] No, it wasn't Matty.

Speaker 4:
[01:43] No, okay.

Speaker 2:
[01:43] No, they're from North Carolina. I'm sure they're in close proximity to you, but yeah. So I took care of that.

Speaker 3:
[01:51] I think by now, Zach, we've made Jase a plastic plate because he keeps spinning off and hitting the floor so often.

Speaker 2:
[01:58] Oh, I love that, Al. I love that.

Speaker 4:
[02:00] Now I will hear about it because I'm going to ask the team. Who got crushed today?

Speaker 2:
[02:06] We've started the podcast with intrigue and mystery.

Speaker 3:
[02:10] That's exactly right. Well, Jase, you were a couple of minutes late to the party, but you told us why. So you got to pass because.

Speaker 4:
[02:19] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[02:19] I'll tell you that story. Because you think we're in America, we're free. I actually listened to a sermon about freedom last night from your friend, Zach, John Tyson, who I've never met, but I wanted to have a podcast.

Speaker 4:
[02:33] Well, I've only met once. So I would say we're close friends. We only met one, maybe twice.

Speaker 2:
[02:38] But he's friends with my brother, Willie. And so they've just done events together. But anyway, and so here I am. And I had this idea for the podcast today. I was actually, I read your notes, Al. And for all of you listeners out there, don't think, despite the amount of podcasts that we do, that these notes are very long. When I say notes, it's probably a 60 second read, 90 seconds. So we're flying by the seat of our pants. But you had this interesting thing about the word no being used in the text that we're going to read. We're at the end of 1 John 5. But I wanted to have a little game because I had a discovery. I had a light bulb while reading your notes, light bulb moment. But then the reason I'm late, actually, it's like once you have an idea, or you have a revelation, or you come across some knowledge that you weren't aware of, it's weird how then you're seeing that all over the place. And so I'll start this off with a little game before I tell you the story. I have a game for us today. This is, we're going to test your, because Zach, you're the smartest one of the bunch intellectually, so you should be able to participate well.

Speaker 3:
[04:06] I like how he frames that intellectually. That means there may be some other areas where-

Speaker 2:
[04:11] Well, look, I'm honest about who I am. Like, anytime my family gets together, most of the games we play are like, trivial pursuit. And nobody wants to be on my team, because I just don't know a lot. I mean, especially when it comes to trivial matters. So there-

Speaker 4:
[04:36] I'm not the best at that either. Al, you're very good.

Speaker 3:
[04:40] I'm very good at it.

Speaker 4:
[04:42] I don't retain knowledge like that, believe it or not. All right.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] Well, here's the game. Here's the game. So, what is the most common three-word English conversational phrase that there is? All the humans that speak English, what is the most common three-word English? Zach, do not look that up. Keep your fingers.

Speaker 4:
[05:13] I was about to do it.

Speaker 3:
[05:17] I saw his fingers twitching, Jase.

Speaker 4:
[05:20] Here's what I'll say. Right off the cuff, I'm going to say, I love you. I love you. Three words. I love you.

Speaker 2:
[05:28] All right, Al.

Speaker 3:
[05:29] I would say more, I was trying to figure out how to frame what I'm thinking into three words.

Speaker 2:
[05:38] I mean, do you think you know or are you just guessing?

Speaker 3:
[05:41] No, I'm just guessing. I would say something like, what in the world? Mine is more people questioning something that's happening.

Speaker 2:
[05:49] All right, Al, you're disqualified because that's actually four. What in the world?

Speaker 3:
[05:53] No, I swear I'm saying I couldn't frame it in three words.

Speaker 4:
[05:57] Yeah, you are. Yeah. Well, what is three?

Speaker 2:
[06:01] The correct answer.

Speaker 3:
[06:03] Or tell me why, maybe is what I would guess.

Speaker 2:
[06:06] The correct answer, which is what you should have said if you were a person of truth is, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[06:15] No, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2:
[06:17] I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[06:19] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:19] But see, if you would have said, I don't know, that would have been correct in two different ways.

Speaker 4:
[06:27] I got you. Well, I just looked it up.

Speaker 2:
[06:29] I didn't read that in a book.

Speaker 4:
[06:31] I just looked it up. It says here that the most common three-word sequence is this.

Speaker 2:
[06:38] You didn't listen to the question. You didn't let English conversational three-word, I'll give you the top 10. I have it somewhere on here. Because I knew this was going to go here. That's why I was very specific.

Speaker 3:
[06:53] I was in the neighborhood. I didn't put it together. I don't know. But that was the mindset I was. That's why I said I was going to go here. I mean, like, why did this happen? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[07:05] One of these is funny. Number 10, you know what, you know how we say it. You know what?

Speaker 3:
[07:12] Yeah, yeah. That's good.

Speaker 2:
[07:14] Top 10 is number 10. The rest of them are, like, one of the, you know, you'll start a conversation. One of the things I like. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[07:24] One of the best things about.

Speaker 2:
[07:26] And I think, that's number eight, it was a typically used when telling stories. So it was a, and there you go. I mean, that's number six. I mean, I'm doing everything. I mean, I can't help it. You know, I mean, do you want, is number five.

Speaker 4:
[07:51] Bill of Snow, man.

Speaker 2:
[07:53] I don't think it's number four. I thought that should have been number one.

Speaker 4:
[07:59] I don't think.

Speaker 3:
[07:59] What was that?

Speaker 2:
[07:59] I don't think so. I just, man. Humans just don't do a lot of good thinking. Three, a lot of, a lot of you people. A lot, a lot, a lot. Yeah. I think that is number two and number one. I don't know. Isn't that fascinating? That our number one English phrase in conversations is, I don't know. So you see why this was so profound to me. And I ran across this just randomly because I asked AI something, because I was doing a rabbit hole about, because there's two different Greek words for knowing. And it was really hard for me to wrap my head around what those two things translated into English, even though when you read in your Bible, it just says no, K-N-O-W. But they mean two totally different things. So it was hard for me to wrap my head around. So while I was doing all the research, AI said the most common phrase in English conversations is, I don't know. And I was like, are you making a joke here? Am I having a, did a robot just tell me a joke? And so that's why I came up with that question. But the reason I was saying that that knowledge that we don't know, because we use that phrase more than any other. I was coming here and there was an 18 wheeler that had a load of sod and it was trying to get to someone's yard. But these two guys, one of the guys gets out, well, he stops traffic. And I thought, I just heard this lesson on freedom and I thought, you know, America, we're free, home of, home of the free here and the brave. But he, he obviously had never directed traffic. And it was a full shutdown for 10 minutes. Because he was trying to go one by one. And I was thinking, no, I've seen people direct traffic. Let everybody go, hold that line up, and then let that line go. But when, if you try to do it one at a time, well, everybody's confused. Because they start to go and then they stop. And then they almost have a wreck. And then he's looking and then he's angry. Because you're not listening to him, but you're, you're, signs and symbols.

Speaker 3:
[10:37] But he's really not the boss. Who are you?

Speaker 2:
[10:41] You have no training. You're putting grass in a yard. So, so there, I could tell from all the passengers, everybody was getting frustrated, which I was at first. And then I thought three famous words. He just doesn't know.

Speaker 4:
[11:02] He doesn't know.

Speaker 2:
[11:03] He don't know. And so then it became comical.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
[12:38] Oh, and you know, he left out though, the, I left out the one that you then would have said about the guy who didn't know, bless his heart. Bless his heart.

Speaker 4:
[12:47] If you're from the South, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[12:49] From the South, that's another used phrase, bless his heart. Cause that just means, oh, he don't know.

Speaker 4:
[12:56] I will say this, that means you're, he's an idiot. That's like an aggressive.

Speaker 2:
[13:02] That's a redneck interpretation. But Zach, I was fascinated that you said, I love you because I had the same thought. I was a little disappointed that I love you didn't make the top 10. Because what we're pursuing in this knowing God and Him knowing us and being included into this relationship of God, which is complex to wrap your head around, is about being in this eternal love, this self-giving love.

Speaker 3:
[13:41] That's what Bill Smith used to say. One of the things he taught me and taught in his material, he said the nine hardest words to say are, I love you, I was wrong, and please forgive me. Or I am sorry. He included that in there as well. I guess if you want to do 12. But in other words, the idea of expressing love, but expressing remorse and the need for forgiveness, whether that's to another person or to God or to somebody, that was what he always taught, which I thought was pretty good. I used that a lot in my marriage.

Speaker 2:
[14:16] Well, I will say this. The reason I think I was so shocked, I'm fixing to get on my soapbox, is that that was the number one phrase, because I guarantee you that is not the number one phrase from pastors, teachers, and people who study the Bible. That's why we're so shocked. Because you've, I was telling Missy this morning, you know, here's what happens. Here we are having a conversation about the Bible. We're studying, and I'll give you this public service announcement. I am positive from the amount of talking that I do, in studying the Bible and pontificating on said subjects. I'm obviously wrong on several points along the way. But I think I'm right, or I'm giving my opinion, or we're having a conversation. What I don't like, and this is kind of my soap bot, what I don't like is like, we did a couple of podcasts talking about the current events, you know, between Iran and Israel, because you have a lot of people under the umbrella of Following Jesus that have all these takes on these current events. So remember when we did a couple of events about that?

Speaker 4:
[15:39] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:39] Well, we do a podcast about it. We're just having a conversation. But then I leave this room, and then my friends or acquaintances listen to the podcast. And so then they send me text saying, boy, you're wrong on this, you know, and send me various articles. And so what I'm going to say about one of the things that was a preacher who, look, I was aware of and had used some of his ideas and find him likable. And he has a podcast, and I think it's probably more popular than ours. But he sent me a clip from it. What I didn't like and what I want to kind of go with this I don't know thing is, I don't like forms of manipulation. Because like the heading on the little talk that he gave, because it was all about Israel and it was his take, which was a different take than what we discussed. But what I didn't like was what's happening all in Israel. How about let's just do what the Bible says? So before I've even clicked on it, he's set a foundation, which sounds great. Would you agree? Let's just do what the Bible says.

Speaker 3:
[17:03] Let's go to what the Bible says.

Speaker 4:
[17:05] That's what he said?

Speaker 2:
[17:06] That's what the caption was before I clicked on the video. The events of Israel. Why don't we just do what the Bible says? Okay. Well, that sounds great. I've heard many preachers say that. We just... How about let's just read the Bible and do what it says. But I'm going to argue that that's a form of manipulation because then when I watched the video, he got into... Is it Romans 9 or Romans 11 where it talks about, then all Israel will be saved? I think it's Romans 9. I can look it up real quick. So, which is a very... I mean, I would just...

Speaker 4:
[17:54] 1126.

Speaker 2:
[17:55] Yeah, Romans 1126. Let me just say this. When you're studying Romans, when I get to Romans 9 and Romans 11, I'm like, okay, this is a little deep. And the number one reason it is is because I'm not Jewish. He's addressing whatever's happened in there from a Jewish perspective. I don't want to get into that because we've done podcasts about that before. But my whole point was for bringing this up, is even though I agreed with mostly what he said, because his answer was, is what's happening to Israel as God's chosen people? He asked the question, is that, are they God's chosen people? I think was the question, yes. And should that concern us, like in this war, like modern day, should we?

Speaker 4:
[18:54] Yeah, and to give a little reference to that, that is part of the argument, particularly in Washington. You say, well, this is just a church argument. Well, not really because you have in, you have senators like Ted Cruz. You have the ambassador to the UN. I'm sorry, not to the UN. What is Huckabee?

Speaker 2:
[19:15] He's an ambassador to Israel.

Speaker 4:
[19:17] Yeah, ambassador to Israel. So they hold to this eschatology, and this is part of what is guiding foreign policy. So it is, I think, an important question we should probably ask.

Speaker 2:
[19:28] Right, it is, and we talked about it. And I'm not even dealing with the substance. I'm just dealing with the way this argument was formed. So is everybody clear on that? My whole take on it was, why don't we do what the Bible says? And then you go to a passage, Romans 11, that's kind of hard to wrap your head around in modern day. Would we all agree with that? Now, I know what I think about it, and we've talked about it on prior podcasts. But here's what I want to say. So when he asked the question, are they God's shows and people, and should that affect us? Well, his answer was yes and no. That was the answer. And then he gave his explanation. And look, I'm going to be honest, I agreed mostly with what he said. So when he got to the end, he did this, he read the one day, Israel will all be saved. And he, and the part I agree with, he said, you know, you got to remember in this context, based on what Jesus had had done and is doing. We as non-Jewish people who follow Christ have become the new Israel. So, and I like that. It's like the, think of the phrase where it says, the heavenly Jerusalem, we're the heavenly Jerusalem. It's like there's no Jew or Greek, which is all over the New Testament. We're all under the umbrella of Christ. So that was his point. And look, I agree. Then he said, the yes part then, and then he got into what Zach just said, the eschatology. And then he went off into something that I didn't agree with. Which is, one day we're all going to Israel and gathered up when Jesus comes back. And that kind of thinking. And so, but here's my take. He was saying, let's just do what the Bible says. He read a verse, but then he kind of gave his take on it. And he was 100% sure he was right. And on that one aspect, I was 100% sure that he's dead wrong. So, you say, well, which is it? Well, be careful when you approach the Bible with those kind of statements. Because during that dissertation, you're now kind of giving your take on said Bible verse.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 2:
[25:12] I could be wrong.

Speaker 3:
[25:13] I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Speaker 4:
[25:15] But I doubt it, you still say you doubt it.

Speaker 2:
[25:16] Well, because you're confident. Yeah, you want to be confident in your own this journey of, I mean, the Bible is a big book, but ultimately it is about a person that we are invited to be a part of that's eternal. And so I tend to think of it as a focus. All this other stuff that comes up under the umbrella of, you know, what we call Christianity, with all the different doctrines, because people, they feel strongly about that. And if you disagree, they're like, well, I'm doing what the Bible says. And I'm like, well, me too. So we can agree on that. So when that answer to that is nope, nope, well, that's where all the problems come. I think I've shared this before, though, another form of manipulation, and I've heard this several times. If a preacher ever gets up and says, your heart is not ready for what I'm fixing to say, it's a form of manipulation. Because if you don't agree with whatever he said, you don't even know what he said yet, then he's like, well, your heart's not right. But when I had that experience, I thought, now, how does he know my heart? Because I get up and speak, and I thought, why would you start a sermon? I wasn't sure the first time I had this experience. Well, then I heard the sermon, and guess what? I didn't agree with what was being said. But I thought, but if I say something, he's going to say, well, that's because your heart is not right. You see what I mean?

Speaker 4:
[26:59] Well, yeah. I think, too, even there's an old book called, this by the guy named Neil Postman, and it's called Amusing Ourselves to Death. It was written, I think, back in the Reagan era. But it's essentially critiquing the way that we get information. And he has a saying, I think it's something like, the medium is the message in the end. We think that, oh, we're going to come out, and by the way, I'll just say this, full disclosure. This is something that I struggle with as someone who runs a media company. I think about this a lot, that is the method through which we're getting the content out there, does that actually become the actual message? And his point is, you got to be careful with it because what we're doing is we're amusing ourselves to death. This was before the 24-hour news cycle. This was, he wrote all this before. Tick-tock culture before all this, before just the content, before AI. And I think that a lot of times even like the way we're doing content now is that everybody wants, this is the audience, this is, I actually caution the audience, our audience on this, everybody wants the Cliff Note version. That's what we want. I don't want to have to go through and do the hard yard of actually sitting in the entire text of the Bible into what I would call, and many others have called, biblical theology. Like that's a lot more work on my part, because now I've got to sit in these stories, I've got to understand more context. I'd rather go to a pastor and say, give me a literally like a 30 second, maybe I could probably handle 90 seconds. Give me the clip in 90 seconds that answers the question, is Israel God's chosen people? Just give me that in 90 seconds. I mean, some of these things can't be answered with Cliff Notes and some of these things can't be answered in soundbites and some of these things can't be answered in this way. I think a lot of the problem Jase is that on one end, the algorithms are built to reward very snippet type of content, and then our brains are actually wired for the dopamine hit. So you got two things going on here. We want the dopamine hit, and we want the 60 second, 30 second clip, because I don't want to sit down and read a book. I mean, that's just way too long. That's way too much information. I don't want to read through Leviticus. When they're talking about the Levitical priesthood and the Book of Hebrews, man, I don't want to go back and research, what is the Levitical priesthood? What does that even mean? Like that's just a lot more work. Just give me the cliff notes. So I think that it's hard in a lot of these questions to even answer them, because there's so much, at least the position that we hold, and we don't agree on everything with eschatology, but I will say that the position that we hold, you're not going to get the answer from just one text in the Bible. It's looking at it as a broad whole. And I don't fully even know where I stand on. Like you start looking into eschatology and you'll hear terms like pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, amillennialism, dispensationalism, preterism, full preterism, partial preterism. I mean, you start going down the list and you're like, the tribulation, the millennial right? And you're like, wait, what are you? And I'm like, I don't fully know if you can, I can put it in like a category because I don't even fully understand all the categories. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[30:33] But Zach, you described a broad cultural move to the snippet, and I think you're spot on. And the cable news and everything goes with that. And I would say part of the response to that, because these things happen in culture and they rise up because the Holy Spirit's at work and the believers, I think that's why this long format that we're doing, the podcast, is a perfect example of slowing it back down to a discussion, to a Bible study. When someone is going for four years to an early morning Bible study, they're committing to that long form you're talking about. So I do think there's pushback even in culture and you'll see the rising popularity of things that say, well, wait a minute, we can't get everything in 90 seconds. I mean, that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4:
[31:21] And to be fair, that clip, I saw the same clip, and I believe that was part of a broader podcast.

Speaker 2:
[31:27] Oh, I'm sure it was. And that's why I wasn't throwing the guy under the bus. I was just making the analogy. And I think you really did a good job of explaining how all these social media algorithms work. And it's like, but, you know, here's me. I'm thinking, you know, the most common phrases, I don't know. I think I know. You know, which was one of the other top tens. I think I got this right. But it's more difficult because I see how it works. You're like, well, we're the heavenly Jerusalem. Well, there's a narrative out there that the only time heaven is experienced is when Jesus comes back. That's what a lot of people believe. That's what I believe for the first 25 years of my life. I will never know anything about heaven until Jesus comes back. Then I started reading the Bible. I'm doing that as a call back on what we said, you know. And I'm like, well, it seems like heaven came down here a lot in the Bible, the heavenly, you know, Jesus himself said, I came from heaven like a dozen times, just in one chapter. In John, that's in six. I'm coming from heaven. The Holy Spirit, where did it come from? Heaven. It was, remember it was, I'm poured out. The Holy Spirit owned you. And so even God in the garden at the beginning, heaven and earth seems to be trying to unite. And we've talked about that many times, but if my only narrative was about heaven, was that that's a place I go later, then I see why when you say we're the heavenly Jerusalem, people are like, well, we haven't experienced that. So evidently, at some point, we're going to have to go over to Jerusalem. So then we can then go to heaven.

Speaker 4:
[33:32] So it's really difficult to know who to trust when it comes to your health because every day you go on social media, even get on a podcast like this, you hear somebody pushing a miracle, slumping men. We just go to people we know. We trust Dr. Dennis Black. He's a friend of ours. He invented something called Texas Superfood. He invented it 25 years ago to help people get the nutritional value that they needed. It's got 55 vine ripen fruits, vegetables, and probiotics, and enzymes. And customers feel the difference in just seven days. It's more energy all day long, mental clarity instead of brain fog, better sleep, just feeling better about their health. I've been taking this for several months now. Texas Superfood is super easy to incorporate into your morning routine. That's what I do. You can take it in a pill form, which is what Jill likes, or you can turn it into a smoothie. This is the real deal. The original Superfood, they have over 1 million bottles sold, not because of some fancy marketing, but because real results create loyal customers. Go to texassuperfood.com, use the discount code Unashamed to get 35% off your first order. Plus there's a 100% satisfaction guaranteed. That's texassuperfood.com, discount code Unashamed. I read Romans 11, 26, and I think I'm reading it for what it says. And if you read it, it says, in this way, in this way, I'm reading from the ESV version, in this way, all Israel will be saved. The first question I'm going to ask is, what way are you talking about? What way? Like, in this way, all Israel will be saved. Anyone that would say that just because, I mean, think about this. That's so antithetical.

Speaker 2:
[35:06] Well, wasn't there a famous person, the most famous human ever, that said he was the way?

Speaker 4:
[35:12] Oh, yeah, that's good. Yeah, and I think that's the, and you know what, to your point, because I would think, I mean, typically if someone, if you're in this argument about Israel, of being God's chosen people, then the question is, well, who is Israel? I mean, that's kind of the question Tucker Carlson's been asking, which has kind of created a lot of the firestorm around this recently, and the fact that we're in a war right now. So you go to verse like this, in this way all Israel will be saved. What way is that? You mentioned the way, which would be Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the father except for me. That seems to be in line with the Galatians chapter three, which is in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. So to me, in this way, we're all one in Christ Jesus. I actually think the argument of Romans 9 through 11 is more of God's covenant, that he's bringing the Gentiles into the covenant. And so he's making two people, one people. I mean, Paul says this explicitly in Ephesians. He's taken the wall of hostility, and what's he done? He's ripped it away. There is no wall of hostility anymore between Jew and Gentile. We're all one in Christ.

Speaker 2:
[36:26] But is that now or later?

Speaker 4:
[36:28] Well, it's now. That's the whole point.

Speaker 2:
[36:30] I mean, it's now and later is my point.

Speaker 4:
[36:33] It is. Yeah. Yeah. But the oneness is now. And I mean, we're going to be one later too, but this was accomplished in Christ. I mean, this is the whole point of the book of Hebrews. If this is where I would always go, I actually wouldn't even go to a lot of these passages that people go to in this debate. Where I go to is the book of Hebrews, because Hebrews is very clear. And the way that the whole Hebrew writer is structuring his argument is it's almost as if he's trying to bring Judaism into a crisis of faith. Like, do you realize, like, that your priesthood, I mean, there's this argument that he gives, he says, he says, if perfection could have come to the Levitical priesthood, and what the Levitical priesthood is, it's the priest who would have to come from the tribe of Levi. If you're Jewish, your priest cannot come from any other tribe than the tribe of Levi. We know this because if you go back and read Ezra chapter 2 and Nehemiah chapter 7, there's this story after the first temple was destroyed, and then you remember Cyrus, the king of Persia was like, okay, we're going to build a new temple for you guys. So they're in this construction of the new temple, and they're bringing back in the priesthood, and to order to establish this Levitical priesthood again, they had to trace their genealogy and prove that they were from the tribe of Levi. They had to, not just Levi, Aaron, they had to be descendants of Aaron, or you cannot be a priest. And so in Ezra chapter 2, and the same story I think is repeated in Nehemiah 7, you have an instance where a particular group of people could not, they couldn't prove their genealogy. They couldn't, it wasn't in the records. They couldn't produce the papers. They couldn't produce the record of their lineage. And you know what the Bible says? They didn't say, oh, just come on in, we know who you are. It says that they were actually excluded from the priesthood, and they were counted as unclean because that's the law. So, just think about that. And you think about, well, where is the Levitical priesthood? Where's the record of that now? When was the last time we had any record of that? Well, that would be in 80, 70. When the temple burned, guess what? Burned with the temple. All of the records were destroyed. And so, when you get to like a passage like Hebrews, which was written before this even happened, he's showing that the Levitical priesthood was never the end of all this. In fact, he says, if perfection could have come through the Levitical priesthood, then why in the world did the Psalmist write in Psalm 110 that God is going to establish a new priesthood in a different order that doesn't come from the tribe of Aaron? He says it's gonna come from a different person. Well, who? Some of that guy named Melchizedek. What does that mean? There's gonna be a new priestly order. Christ will be a priest established in the order of Melchizedek. Christ came from the tribe of Judah. And so, and then it goes on to make the argument, well, if the priesthood is insufficient, you gotta ask the question, what about the law? Right? If the priest, yep. And the Hebrew writer makes the same point. Yep, the law wasn't gonna do it either. What about the temple? Yep, the temple, not enough. What about the sacrifice? Yeah, and the sacrifice wasn't enough. So you start to see this whole thing center in Christ. And so when we try to create these other views, to me, it is a big issue when you go into scripture and you're trying to figure out, okay, you got this whole Christ as the answer thing right here. Christ is the center of everything. He's the fulfillment of all of it. Not a replacement, a fulfillment of all of it. But then there's also this other little thing over here that he's doing. I'm like, no, it's all under Christ, all of it. There's not a separate salvation plan. There's not a separate people. There's not a separate anything. It's just Christ and Christ alone. And I mean, to me, that, to me, that's what the scripture says. But you can see even in my position on that, I mean, I pulled from a lot of different places. I didn't get that from like one little snippet.

Speaker 2:
[40:51] Well, but your passage, your take on Hebrews, which I thought was excellent, you know, when he gets to the end in Chapter 12 and says, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, 12-2, which is a very profound statement, because earlier in Chapter 3, when he said, let's fix our thoughts on Jesus, you know, in Chapter 1, he's like, in the past, I spoke, God spoke in various ways, but now he has spoken to us through his son. So it's like God is speaking to us through his son. We should fix our thoughts on his son. We should fix our eyes on his son. And then he gets to the end of Chapter 12, and he says to his audience in verse, because I want to read this. I think it goes along with what we're saying. But you have come to Mount Zion. Well, if you just stop right there. Has any of y'all been on Mount Zion?

Speaker 3:
[41:53] I haven't.

Speaker 2:
[41:54] Well, you better get there. So that's what people are thinking, see? You've, all of a sudden, we read that, and people are like, are we going to listen to the Bible? Or at some point, we're going to Mount Zion. But he said, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem. What's he talking about? You see? So people read that, and they're like, well, that's over in Israel, the city of the living God. But if you just keep reading, you've come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn. Well, who's the firstborn?

Speaker 4:
[42:42] That'd be Jesus.

Speaker 2:
[42:43] Well, is it in Mount Zion? Or is it in heaven? You see, so I think it's a fulfillment, it's a story. Yes, Israel was God's chosen nation. You have numerous books, but it's not a detachment from that bringing Jesus, which is God in human form, to establish this kingdom, which is that's where he goes on to talk about the kingdom, and this church, in joyful assembly, and to names written in heaven. You've come to God, the judge of all men. I mean, this thing goes, it goes into who you're with now, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkle blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, because remember Abel, his life was taken, his blood was crying up from the ground. Same blood that we were talking about in 1 John, which is a symbol of life, but Jesus' blood speaks a better, better word, because Abel was killed by Cain, but Jesus gave up his life so that people would not be condemned, because you know, remember what happened to Cain. So then he goes into verse 28, since we are receiving a kingdom that we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. What kingdom is he talking about?

Speaker 3:
[44:22] His kingdom.

Speaker 2:
[44:24] Is this all a future occurrence or, you know, to me, because people will say, even in that clip that we're discussing, it's like one day we'll be kings and priests, you know, and we'll reign with God. Well, if you have the Holy Spirit, wouldn't you be a part of that now?

Speaker 4:
[44:43] I mean, that's what Peter says, right? That we are a holy priesthood, a chosen race. I mean, think about that. Even think about Peter's argument, as I've mentioned that in 1 Peter 2, we are a chosen race. What race are we? I mean, think about what he's saying. Who's he talking to? He's talking about the Christian body is a chosen race. I guess what is the chosen race?

Speaker 2:
[45:07] We're the Jesus race.

Speaker 4:
[45:09] It's the Jesus race. And it's the priesthood of believers. This is interesting because when you get to 1 Peter 2, what is he referencing there? And not just also in Revelation 1, and in Revelation chapter 5, he says this. He mentions, gives a nod back to Exodus 19, which I'm trying to think of this. God says, I'm going to build you, speaking to Israel, this is ethnic Israel, I'm going to build you into a nation of priests, the kingdom of priests. That's what he calls it, a kingdom of priests. He says he's going to do that. Then when you go and you get to the New Testament and you go to somewhere like what Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2, you are a kingdom of priests. You are a nation, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood. And then in Revelation 1, I don't know the exact verse, and in Revelation 5, he calls the church the kingdom of priests. And so to try to separate out this whole thing, I think it's to misinterpret the whole eschatology of what Paul was certainly doing in Romans. You got to keep in mind, in the book of Romans, Paul begins the book and ends the book with the same exact phrase, that my purpose is to bring the Gentiles to the obedience of faith.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 4:
[48:07] Romans Chapter 1, the name of this podcast is Unashamed. If you don't know, we actually stole that from the scripture, right? From Romans Chapter 1 when he says...

Speaker 2:
[48:16] I like borrowed. Borrowed is a better word.

Speaker 4:
[48:19] We borrowed it from the scripture. I like that better. That we didn't come up with is my point. That I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it is the power of God. It's the power of salvation for everyone who believes. First for who? The Jew, ethnic Jew. Then for the Gentiles. So if you look at the way eschatology unfolds, if you look at the way God's plan unfolds, God did bring salvation first to the Jews. Israel was initially, in Genesis chapter 12, after the Tower of Babel, God pulls the nation of Israel out for his portion. That is his people. But go back and read all of the prophecies, all of the instruction. What was the purpose? The purpose of Israel was to draw the nations in to worship the one true God. That's Isaiah chapter 2. That's the picture of Isaiah chapter 2.

Speaker 2:
[49:14] And their eventual purpose was to bring Jesus through that nation, which is the ultimate human. That was the purpose. Well, then what is the purpose for God coming to earth? What is his purpose? So that all may be saved, no matter where you're from. I mean, it's a real clever plan. But if you start detaching it from the entire plan, this is, I think, where we get into all these things that we don't know, that we claim to know. Well, I didn't have the intent to go down that. I didn't want to address the actual issue, but we did. But my whole point was in 1 John 5, 13, this whole section, it starts off saying, I write these things. So we've been studying this for months. And then he just comes out and says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, which is Jesus, so that you may know you have eternal life. I mean, that's quite a statement, because here you are thinking, do you know that you have eternal life? Well, I hope I do, but he used this word, no. And when you kind of go down the Greek rabbit hole and what that meant, it uses a phrase in the definition that really stopped me in my tracks, which was absolute certainty. Absolute certainty. And you're like, well, man, I can know this? And so you had a little part in your notes, which I was trying to get to 40 minutes ago, which is in verse 20, which I'm saying because we're going to discuss this in the next podcast, I guess, because we're almost out of time. But it says, we know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding that we may know Him who is true. And so you had a little statement in there. It's who you know.

Speaker 3:
[51:42] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:43] And I do think that the answer for my little riddle, the game we played on the most common phrase, I don't know, says a lot about humans. Even though we may come across like we know, there's a lot of things we just don't know. There's a lot of things we think we know. And on the next podcast, there was a famous speech given about knowing by the, I think the secretary, they called it defense back then, Secretary of War, Donald Rumsfeld, which I want to read. But the answer, I think to the equation for the day, it is ultimately about who you know, which produces the knowledge that you have eternal life. But it's not just a, it's an absolute certainty, which I find fascinating. It's like once you hear the story of Jesus and you realize, oh, this is not just a story. This is an actual being that is alive presently. He's the creator of the universe and he came to earth. And basically John's take is, we saw this person. That's why it's all a court room setting. We know that God came in a human body, which is this whole reason for writing this sermon. We saw him. This is an absolute certainty and you can be a part of this. I just find it fascinating that it's a story based on, eyewitnesses, that they're saying once you participate in this, even without you being where we were, you will know that you have eternal life. Absolute certainty.

Speaker 3:
[53:48] Which really becomes the biggest point, I think, of this whole letter, this whole sermon that John has done. And it's an odd way from our perspective sometimes, because of how we study scripture, that how he got to this point, because it was so circular. But he just keeps coming back to that, Jase. I mean, it just keeps coming back to certainty.

Speaker 2:
[54:10] And I'm going to be honest. I don't know everything I need to know about the definition of this word, because I have all this listed. I want to go where he used it in John the first time. He used that word. Because it's heavy to wrap your head around, because even Jesus himself used the two different words for no in one sentence. And I want to read that, because I mean, you're like, I'm not smart enough to understand how he's using this. I mean, and it's so thought provoking. I think it's worth a journey there. But I think this was good just to introduce this idea of how heavy this is. And the ultimate goal is so joyous and exciting that you can take letters from a page from a book that we have and have full assurance that you're going to live forever. Are you kidding me? That's what you're proposing here? Yes.

Speaker 3:
[55:18] All right. So we'll pick up what we know and what we don't know on the next Unashamed Podcast. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed Podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.