Episode 172 Season 2 · Biblical theology

Recommendations

Released Monday 14 August 2023 Hosts Emily, Greg & Bryan

Times will appear once this episode's audio is aligned.

Emily

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Bryan Broome, and this is the recommendations episode that we have been looking forward to.

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Emily

We have requested your recommendations, listeners, and we have received some from you. Not all of you sent in recommendations, which I’m frankly disappointed by, but we have some and we are excited to share them with you.

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Emily

Our first recommendation is from “A Noah.” That’s what it says in his text. “Hello Emily, this is a Noah. I have a recommendation for the podcast. I have been greatly enjoying listening to Answers in Genesis. They are the creation science group headed by Ken Hamm. I specifically recommend a series they have been working on covering the history of the native American nations.”

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Emily

That would be really interesting. Every time that comes up in conversation, I’m like, “Wow, I know nothing about that. That would be really cool.”

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Emily

“It is very good, biblically founded, and scientifically put forth.”

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Emily

Was Ken Hamm the one who did the series about all the different animals, how the biology of them has these different aspects that work together in just such a way that if you had either of them evolving separately, the animal would die and we would not have those animals?

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Greg

It’s the kind of thing Answers in Genesis does. It may have been Ken Hamm.

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Greg

What this Noah is talking about – as opposed to the one on the ark – is a lecture series by Nathaniel T. Jeanson, who is a Ph.D. in – I don’t remember exactly how he puts it. It’s some kind of really complex genetic molecular biology – and throw computers in – kind of degree. His book is called Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise, and I’m only about 90 pages in.

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Greg

The presence of humankind in the Americas, I’ve had to kind of sneak a peek because, like you, this looks to be fascinating. I did hear the lecture that Noah is talking about, and it set up a time scale for the original entrance of human beings onto the American continent which goes back a long way, and then a later entrance that gave us the people we generally think of as Native Americans. He’s tracing using the echoes of DNA and chromosomes, showing how people groups migrate. He spends a good deal of time in Africa, in the Middle East, and in other places. As I say, I’m only about 90 pages in, but it is fascinating.

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Greg

He's very cautious and humble and he says this is the first word. There’s more to learn. There’s more to know. We’re working with very small sample sizes, but if things play out the way they look like, here are some things that are going to revolutionize how we look at world history and the migration of linguistic groups. So if world history, ancient history, DNA and all that is your thing, this is a good book.

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Greg

I don’t think you have to have a degree in science to appreciate and understand most of it. I’m not a biologist and occasionally I get thrown for a “what?” but most of it is very accessible. So Noah, yes, excellent recommendation.

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Emily

I really appreciate that spirit from an author. You know the proverb that says the first person who speaks sounds right, until somebody comes and asks them questions. It takes some boldness to speak first, knowing that.

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Emily

Do you want to take the next recommendation, Greg?

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Greg

The next one I have is from someone who signs himself Joshua, and this is rather lengthy. It’s addressed to all of us.

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Emily

Oh, this is multi-part, yeah.

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Greg

“This is the first time I’ve written into the podcast, but I really enjoyed listening to the walls episodes.” Those would be the ones on Nehemiah and thereabouts. “I had some thoughts and recommendations I wanted to share.

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Greg

“The concept that religion is so closely-knit with the idea of a city is so true. Ancient civilizations and their cities would center their worship on ancestors that they deified. In archeology, the mark that whatever city you’ve discovered had an established culture was based on three things: the presence of religion, money, and alcohol.”

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Emily

That’s funny. It makes sense, though. You’ve got the time to cultivate grain etc.

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Bryan

So Kentucky doesn’t have an established culture in the dry counties, is that what I’m understanding?

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Greg

“So yes, walls and cities do have a close tie to religion. Abraham looked for a city which had foundations, rules, laws, and religion based upon the God of that city, whose builder and maker is God, the person being worshiped in the city.

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Greg

“My wife and I took our church’s youth group on a mission to Salt Lake City this summer. If you want a close-to-home perfect example of how religion dictates the creation of cities and laws, look no further than our Mormon friends in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho. Everything is measured from the temple, and every law and code is based on the Book of Mormon. The courts are controlled by the church. It really is crazy how integrated Mormonism is into the culture they live in.”

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Emily

Can I interrupt and comment? I so appreciate this because it brought to mind ancient Greece. The Greek word nomos, where we get taxonomy and the law of sorts of things, in ancient Greece there’s not a difference between law as in legislation, and law as in custom or a way of life. The word applies to both, but it’s almost more to the custom side because there’s so much of that. The law of a city is so wound up in its culture and just the way people lived.

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Greg

Absolutely. He goes on. “I also have a couple of recommendations. It seems people haven’t been answering too much, so I have a couple. First, the song You Are Gold by The National Parks.” Bryan is nodding his head here.

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Emily

I also went to listen to this song. It’s great.

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Bryan

It’s a good song, but that band is also excellent. They’re multi-times featured on my wife’s and my driving playlist.

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Greg

“My wife introduced me to this band when we were dating and this was the song that we danced to at our wedding reception before we left for the night. It seems to fit what the last episode of Walls was all about. I would just recommend The National Parks in general. They have very good music.”

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Bryan

Agreed.

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Emily

Yep.

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Greg

“Recommendation 2: writing stories. My brother is a great storyteller. He used to tell me stories before we would go to bed, and I always thought that he was so amazing. Recently, because of random sentences I would make up during spelling tests last year…” [so many of our friends are writing books and this is a new approach] … “I began writing a book series. It’s not that impressive right now, but it’s been a fun hobby to do in my spare time. I do not know if people would read it, but it helps me to be creative and try something new.”

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Bryan

I love when people just write things for fun. It brings out very much the etymological meaning of amateur, “one who does for the love.” As it turns out, the more you do, especially with writing, the better you get. There’s a thing in copywriting which is that if you want to be really good at copywriting, you have to prepare to suck a lot first, and that’s true of everything, but that’s my sort of expertise area.

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Greg

“Recommendation 3: homemade smoothies.” Amen. “I’ve recently started to make smoothies every morning for me and my wife. It’s a great way to get some much-needed vitamins into our diet. It’s also fun to experiment with different fruits and vegetables and come up with new smoothie flavors.”

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Greg

Okay guys, favorite smoothie flavors?

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Bryan

Strawberry.

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Emily

I always start with a banana base, and then it’s whatever frozen fruits I happen to have. But you know what’s fun is if you take some Greek yogurt and make a pattern on the inside of your glass, it makes it look really fancy. I learned that from Youtube.

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Bryan

Although I will say as well, blackberry is very good.

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Greg

Banana/strawberry, but I’m not above throwing in other kinds of berries on top of that.

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Emily

I like it purple. I always think it tastes better if it’s purple.

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Greg

He ends by saying, “Thank you for the podcast. I hope it continues to do well and I look forward to the next episode.” So that’s this one.

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Emily

Bryan, you had a bunch of stuff to recommend afresh, so I’m excited to hear some of this.

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Bryan

Yes. I have one thing in particular this round, although I can say another thing. I was recommended this book, and this is a soft recommendation because I have not read it, but it has been recommended to me and I love the theory behind it. It’s called Shop Class as Soulcraft.

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Emily

Oh, I’ve read this. Yes, I can hard-recommend.

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Bryan

Thank you for that. The subtitle is An Inquiry into the Value of Work. Someone recommended it to me when I was talking with them. They live in Mexico and we were just talking about how hard it is when you work either remotely or most of your job is behind a screen at a desk. There’s not a lot of tactile evidence of the work that you’ve actually accomplished.

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Bryan

This book, at least as one of its things, talks about how something almost necessary for mental health and just a sense of accomplishment is doing things that involve the use of your hands and working on something that is physical. I don’t think this is quite in the realm of the book, but whether it’s a sport where you’re actually using your hands – hand/eye coordination, movement, muscle use – or it’s something like carpentry.

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Bryan

For me, I really enjoyed the process of building raised garden beds earlier this year. It was really cool to look out back and be like, “I built those! They are out there and they are getting use, and I can see the screw that went in but not all the way in and broke.” There’s just all these little things and I remember doing that. There’s a tangible physical thing at the end of my probably 12 hours total, if I’d done it straight in a row, work on these things and it’s really cool.

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Bryan

That book, as I’ve been told, delves into that as a way that people need that they’re not getting in the primarily digital world that we’ve created for ourselves, this primarily digital hellscape, so that’s that one.

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Bryan

Then before we started recording I was just thinking about the stuff growing in the garden beds. One of the things we’re growing right now is Brussels sprouts, and if you haven’t tried Brussels sprouts in the past 25 years you should definitely try them again. There’s a guy, and I forget what year it was but I think in the ‘90s, who specially bred Brussels sprouts to favor the strains that didn’t have a particular chemical that makes them very bitter. That’s what everyone had before whatever year that was, so you should try them again. Roast them in the oven with something that you like tasty-wise and it will be good.

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Bryan

Two summers ago my wife and I, engaged at the time, went to a restaurant in the area that did roasted Brussels sprouts with elote toppings on it. If you’re unfamiliar with what elotes are, elote is a Mexican side dish. It’s roasted corn on the cob covered in – the closest equivalent is sour cream. It’s technically a different thing in Mexican food, and then chili powder and cotija cheese, which is just a crumbly cheese that sticks really well, and it’s really tasty. So Brussels sprouts with that were really good and that’s the recommendation.

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Emily

Very cool. I was just looking up some notes that I saved from Shop Class as Soulcraft, because there were some really remarkable quotations from it, and I can’t find one. It’s on the Kindle notes so I’m going through my Good Reads to try to find it. I wish I had bought this book and read it on paper, because it’s worth owning.

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Emily

One of the really great parts of it was this quotation. “I like to fix motorcycles more than I like to wire houses, even though I could make about twice as much money wiring houses. Both practices have internal goods that engage my attention, but fixing bikes is more meaningful because not only the fixing but also the riding of motorcycles answers to certain intuitions I have about human excellence. People who ride motorcycles have gotten something right, and I want to put myself in the service of it, this thing that we do, this kingly sport that is like war made beautiful.” I like that a lot.

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Emily

The quotation that I’m looking for is something about how understanding the world requires us to live in it, and it always reminds me of something my pastor said once about how love is essential to knowledge when we’re talking about God. We are never going to understand God exhaustively, certainly not ever, but truly without submitting to him and loving him, without our hearts being open to him, there’s a quality of knowledge that is totally lost to us if we don’t take him on his own terms.

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Emily

So yes, a hard-recommend on that book, and the Brussels sprouts sound incredible.

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Bryan

Oh yes. I really want to get the book and read it, just because you’re the second person who knows what it is and can recommend it, so that’s already very high praise.

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Emily

I’ll give us our next listener reco. This is from Jake. “Good morning all. I have been enjoying your podcast discussions for some time. Thank you for the thought you put into them and the intriguing subjects you cover. It brought me to look deeper into various books of the Bible as I read through them. I am grateful to my friend Jordan for showing me your podcast. I think Greg had him as a student years back at Cornerstone.” Thanks Jake, that’s nice.

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Emily

“Secondly, I was curious of you all’s thoughts on the Chosen series. I have heard you mention it briefly in past episodes.” I don’t remember that, so you must be very attentive.

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Greg

It came up very briefly.

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Emily

“I’m curious as to what your scripture-based opinion is regarding personifying the life and times of Christ. Also interested in your thoughts on the accuracy of it, if you’ve seen much of it. I’ve enjoyed it and will take no offense regardless of your thoughts.” Thank you, Jake, we appreciate that.

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Greg

Yes, Jake, thank you.

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Emily

“Similar to your podcast, this series has inspired me to look deeper and spend more time in the scriptures myself. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Have a great day.”

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Greg

Which of you has watched enough of it to go first?

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Emily

Not me.

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Bryan

I have seen clips. That is the most I have seen of it.

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Greg

I binged on clips this morning so that we could at least say something here. Does one of you want to go first?

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Emily

I’ll go first because my opinion is the most quickly given and discarded, because I have not watched any of it. I have purposely avoided watching it because I don’t watch things that make an image of Christ. I know there’s some diversity of opinion on that particular point. That’s where I fall. I don’t want to look at somebody else’s face and say that it’s the face of my Savior. It feels icky.

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Greg

I think the word you’re looking for is ‘idolatrous,’ but icky will do.

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Emily

I was trying to make it softer.

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Greg

Bryan, what do you think?

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Bryan

My issues with it more come down to license, particularly the creative kind. At the end of one of the gospels, and I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember which one, though I think it’s John…

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Greg

It’s John.

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Bryan

It says if everything that Christ had done since his resurrection were to be written down, I imagine it would fill all the books in the world and more. I don’t think we have the license to make that up. Beyond that, Emily has already touched on the second commandment issue, or second commandment adjacent issue anyway. I do still find myself in agreement with that.

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Bryan

I don’t like the idea of saying, “Hey, here’s this…” – and in this case I think he’s a Caucasian male – “…this is the Jewish Savior that we worship. Totally. That’s him.”

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Emily

Sorry, can I interrupt and be devil’s advocate?

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Bryan

You may. You can be the devil’s advocate.

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Emily

We understand symbolism and we understand acting, so why wouldn’t it be fine to say, “Well, this person is representing or portraying Christ.” Why would that be a problem? I’m throwing that to you so that I don’t have to do it.

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Bryan

Thanks.

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Greg

You mean why would it be wrong to make a representation of a divine person?

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Emily

But he’s also fully human, right? True man?

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Greg

True man.

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Bryan

I do have to admit I am still somewhat on the crux of this argument in my head and perhaps not the best person to parse out all of the details here.

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Emily

I think you’re a great person to work through it out loud, though. I’ve been thinking a lot about how art requires you to see the wrestling and not just skip to the end.

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Bryan

That’s a very good point. My sympathies very much lie with the Reformed view of the second commandment. That’s what I’ve held to for at least the past 7 or 8 years, almost a decade, and I’m somewhat sympathetic to certain Lutheran arguments about it, more so than any Catholic arguments, obviously, because they break their own rules.

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Emily

So would the Lutheran argument be that God made an image of himself in the incarnation of Jesus?

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Bryan

That is at least the Lutheran argument I’m aware of and familiar with, yes. I’m sure there are more in-depth ones, but that’s the one I’ve mainly encountered. The other aspect is that because Jesus is human flesh as well, since the Son is veiled in human flesh, that therefore it’s not improper to consider what the human form of the hypostatic union would look like. Hypothetically speaking, if you had a camera and went back and took a picture of it, that would be a picture of Jesus that isn’t idolatrous because it represents reality, and things like that.

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Bryan

So I’m not entirely convinced that that makes it licit, but there’s sort of a niggling doubt in the back of my head because we also look at church history and see that icons of Christ are incredibly common throughout the 3rd century up to the Reformation, basically. So I don’t know.

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Bryan

That’s a long way to go to “I don’t know,” but I think for me as well, coming back to The Chosen series, is I don’t entirely trust a show to accurately depict the work and person and character of Christ when the creators and the writers are to my knowledge – and I could be wrong on this, because I haven’t cared about the show since it started – but what I’ve heard and what I’m under the impression of is that most of the writers and the creators are Latter Day Saints. I don’t think that I trust a Mormon to accurately portray Christ in any sense, whether visual or literary.

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Emily

Like character-wise, do they really know what Jesus is like?

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Bryan

There’s that. I’ve seen things where people have – what was the one, everyone got mad about it online – I think it’s the scene where Jesus is being confronted by the High Priest and his men before the crucifixion and his rebuttal to one of the things that they bring against him is like, “You’re breaking the law of Moses and of God,” and he says, “I am the law.” People got mad at that.

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Bryan

Again it comes down to license and licensure. Do we have the right to put words into Christ’s mouth that we are not given by the holy scriptures, except in the sense of very loosely expounding upon them in sermon form, for instance. I don’t think so, but at the same time that statement struck me as weird the first time I heard it, but I don’t think it’s entirely wrong either.

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Bryan

Presbyterians are known for saying, “We distinguish.” I think if you make the right distinctions, that is not a wrong statement to put into Christ’s mouth, as it were, but again I wonder at the proper license of doing so.

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Bryan

I think those three points kind of sum up my reaction to the show. Then the fourth point is just, “Eh.” It’s another show, another vaguely loosely-evangelical thing that everyone has come to enjoy and that’s great.

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Emily

In other words, you’re a hipster.

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Bryan

Yes, I am, but I’m also Reformed.

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Emily

Oh, the worst kind of hipster.

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Bryan

The worst kind, except that I don’t smoke cigars.

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Bryan

The Chosen is just one of those things that’s very good. I think the popularity comes from a good place because people are like, “I want to have more of Jesus doing things, or know more of the apostles doing things,” at least that’s my best construction on it. That’s me giving the most benefit of the doubt possible.

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Bryan

Again, it’s the Presbyterian drive of this isn’t scripture. Scripture didn’t tell us these things about Jesus, about his life, his ministry, things the apostles did that aren’t contained in Acts. When you’re talking about Bible history in particular, it just verges on how much of this is just you making up fun stuff as opposed to trying to teach true things?

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Emily

Something that’s pretty important to get right.

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Bryan

Yes, I think so. And that’s not to say there are no fun things in scripture that are true. Again it just rubs me the wrong way in a lot of different ways.

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Emily

All right. Greg?

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Greg

First of all, I agree with everything you both said, and I would take it further, but you’ve taken it far enough and I think we can leave it there. The Reformed Presbyterian confessions are pretty clear that we should not make images of the divine person who is the Son of God.

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Greg

The camera argument comes up. “If there had been cameras…” – if. It’s not an accident. There were no cameras. God planned it that way. There were sculptors and artists who could have left us pictures of Jesus, and God didn’t arrange for that. God wants us to walk by faith and by his Word, not by images and by sight.

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Greg

Emily, something you said – if you keep seeing a face and keep associating it with a name and an identity, that can stick more than you want it to.

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Bryan

This is one of those things. When I was very, very young, I have a distinct memory of being 6 or 7 years old, and I didn’t see a face but I remember thinking of Jesus as a particular-looking bearded adult male, and it’s still there in my head. Every time I think of him I think of that face, and I’m like, “That probably isn’t right.”

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Greg

My mother hung a picture of Jesus in my room when I was small, and if you say “Jesus” and I let my mind go visual, that’s what I go back to. It’s the Renaissance olive-skinned gaunt Jesus. I much prefer the surfer dude Jesus.

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Greg

In terms of the actor they picked, I will admit I watched a lot of clips this morning just to see what they were doing, and I thought they picked a good actor for what they were trying to do. They have an idea of who Jesus is and it’s sort of close to maybe the Jesus of scripture, but of course they can’t portray the incarnate Son of God.

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Greg

Our idea of Jesus is he’s like this and he would say this and he would react like this. You’re not God. You’re not the Holy Spirit. Your idea of what Jesus would do, although it might be interesting and might be a healthy correction to what other people have thought Jesus would do, still can lead you astray.

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Greg

I appreciated that the Jesus they portrayed was very human, a sense of humor, interacted with people both verbally and physically. It was light years away from the stained glass Jesus of the icons of the Eastern church. And then yes to everything that you said, Bryan. But that very success that it has there makes you like this guy and easily lets you confuse him with the real Jesus, and then there’s the problem. If God had wanted to give us a movie, he could have rearranged history so that movies were a thing when his son was on earth. He deliberately didn’t do that.

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Emily

The thing about acting or even reading aloud is that it forces you to have an interpretation. But God gave us a Word which requires interpretation, which gives us ambiguity, which is pretty cool, so that people can read the same story and have different takes on what’s going on, and God planned for that. You don’t want to nail yourself down to one reading, as it were.

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Bryan

Which also is very interesting. The only examples I can think of are Catholic ones, because they’re very prolific at making icons. Different Catholic icons from varying ethnic groups display Christ as their ethnic group, which is very interesting. I don’t know that there is a good reason for that, but if I were to put a best faith construction on it, it would probably be something along the lines of, “Well, Jesus took on the sins of every man, and every man has different ethnicities and all that kind of stuff,” but it’s still weird. Anyhow, that’s just a tangent.

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Emily

I think I interrupted you, Greg.

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Greg

No, although I was trying to find lyrics. “Some children see him lily white, the baby Jesus born this night. Some children see him almond-eyed, this Savior whom we kneel beside. Some children see him dark as they, sweet Mary’s Son to whom we pray. Some children see him bronzed and brown, the Lord of heaven to earth come down.”

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Greg

It’s one thing for a child to automatically think that Jesus looks like himself, because no one’s told him otherwise. It’s another thing when you start rewriting the history of the gospels in order to accommodate. There’s a danger, I think, in the series of that. It’s not as great perhaps as in some series, but it’s still there. We start rewriting the words of scripture, adding words to fill out your interpretation of what’s going on here, what Jesus is feeling, what the crowd is feeling.

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Greg

Their presentation of John 3, the conversation with Nicodemus, was in some respects quite good, but they added a lot and they subtracted some things, and it does change things. It still leaves you feeling that the person you’re talking to is less than the Son of God. A wise kind man? Yes. I think there’s just that little hole that’s being left, that will get bigger and bigger with time.

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Greg

This actor, whatever his good intentions may be, is not Jesus Christ, so I think my warning to people listening is is there skill? Is there talent? Is there imagination? Is there an interesting perspective? You can give them all that, but at bottom we’re adding to scripture and we’re representing Christ not only visually, but also by adding words that are not in scripture, and by taking away all of who he claims to be, the whole context of the gospels.

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Emily

I appreciate how Jake said it encouraged him to read more closely. So if you’re going to watch, watch like Jake. Compare it to scripture and watch with discernment.

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Bryan

That’s another thing. My wife and I do our morning devotions and right now we’re in Acts, and it’s insane how many things you don’t remember when you’re just recalling the story. We just read in Acts today about how the church behaved shortly after Pentecost, where they held all things in common.

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Bryan

One thing that I noticed for the first time was it said there was none among them who was needy, and as I read that I was like, “Oh, one of the things in the Mosaic law said if you do these things you will have no poor among you,” and I went, “Wow. I never noticed that before.”

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Greg

I never made that connection before.

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Emily

That’s amazing.

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Bryan

It’s just such a brief touch, barely dwells on it ever again, and you’re like, “Wow, that is incredible.”

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Emily

We have more recommendations. I didn’t mean to put all of Gwen’s together. Dear Gwen has sent us an abundance of wonderful recommendations. Thank you, Gwen. I’m going to do a shout-out to Gwen. She has been one of our most faithful supporters and listeners. When we started this years and years and eons ago, she reached out to us and said, “Hi, can I give you money?” and we were like, “Umm, we hadn’t considered the possibility that anyone would want to give us money. Let us make a way for that to happen.”

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Emily

So a big thank you to Gwen for all of your support, and not just financial support but faithful listening and encouragement to us. You are a blessing. Greg, would you read one of Gwen’s emails for us?

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Greg

I have this one open in front of me. “I’m sorry that you aren’t getting recos. I think that maybe people don’t think their ordinary lives are noteworthy, but they are because it’s the ordinary that keeps things going.

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Greg

“That being said, the things that I like to do are: 1) quilt. I love making quilts. I enjoy stretching my creative side, and I can make something that others can actually use.

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Greg

“2) Reading. I never was a great reader growing up. There were too many things to do outside. As I’ve gotten older I really discovered reading and love it. I joined a couple book clubs and have been challenged to read a wide variety of books. It’s been great.

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Greg

“3) Walking. On Fridays, a group of ladies and I walk the trails at a local park. There are three ponds there and this year we’ve been keeping track of three Canadian geese families, from nesting to almost-grown kids.

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Greg

“4) Spending time with grandkids. For the last five summers, my now 17-year-old granddaughter has spent part of her summer here. She lives in Houston and I live in Kansas. Three years ago her younger brother started coming. They don’t come together, but each gets a turn. The boy loves boy things. He goes to church camp with my church. A friend of his got a new BB gun for his birthday, so of course they enjoy target practice. The girl loves to go to museums and our awesome library. We basically just hang out together. Oh, and they get to visit cousins while they’re here.

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Greg

“So that’s an ordinary life of a retired widow in Kansas. One last thing – I’m leaving next week to go to Scotland for two weeks. I always wanted to go there but was too chicken. This year I took a deep breath and made plans. I am so looking forward to it. Scotland is wonderful.”

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Greg

Thank you, Gwen. Those were wonderful recommendations.

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Emily

I’ve always wanted to try quilting. I’ve never done it.

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Bryan

I can absolutely second walking. Walking is a wonderful pastime.

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Greg

Yes, and reading. None of us ever reads, though.

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Emily

Oh, no. We don’t like books here.

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Bryan

Books? Uhhh…as I look back at my bookshelf.

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Emily

There’s no pictures!

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Greg

As for spending time with grandkids, I’m waiting. I’m closer than you two are, but not yet. Still working on getting some weddings going in the next couple years. Thank you, Gwen.

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Emily

Visiting cousins is amazing though. I have like 40 cousins on my mom’s side, and I’ll tell you what, it was a little bit of culture shock the first time I sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with David’s family and we all had a place setting. That was wild, because with 40 cousins running around it’s a buffet. It’s paper plates. You sit wherever you can find a place.

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Bryan

Somebody sitting on top of the Victrola.

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Emily

That’s hardly an exaggeration.

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Greg

I have Gwen’s other recommendation here and it is Silas Marner, which I’ve never read.
“I just finished it for the second time and I love it more this time. I’ve appreciated all the recommendations that you’ve made, and I’m trying to think of some more. I love working in my garden and watching the birds that fly past my window, in a hurry to make it to the tree. I love walking at the pond. There are three families of Canadian geese living there, and though the parents hiss at us, they still let us watch them. Though there are a lot of troubles in the world, I can’t help enjoying this little spot that God has placed me in.” Thank you again, Gwen.

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Greg

Silas Marner – I have to see if Kate’s read it.

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Emily

I read an abridged version in high school from my World Literature class, which is not Greg’s World Literature class, sadly, but it was good. I read an abridged version of Silas Marner and it was fun. I actually have a couple of good friends who have named their son after Silas Marner.

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Bryan

It’s funny because that name is very similar to friends of mine, who I will not name, but same first name and very similar last name. I’m like, “You’re recommending my friend? I don’t understand. I mean he’s a cool guy, but…”

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Emily

But you’re not sure you would recommend him?

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Emily

I do like the Steve Martin movie remake of Silas Marner.

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Greg

Really? Steve Martin?

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Emily

Yeah, it’s actually quite poignant. He’s a good actor in it. It’s called A Simple Twist of Fate.

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Bryan

The other one that I love – and I always mix up three books in American literature from different eras. I think Silas Marner is American, isn’t it?

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Emily

No, it’s George Eliot, English.

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Bryan

My apologies, Mr. Eliot.

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Emily

It’s a lady.

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Bryan

Gee, I am batting 1.000 right now. I mix up that one by name, and for some reason The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and the one about the guy who sleeps a long time.

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Emily

Rip Van Winkle.

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Bryan

I have no idea why these three are connected in my mind. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I must have just seen the titles in a very short period of time in my teenage years.

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Emily

And they’re all men’s names.

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Bryan

That’s true, I suppose.

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Emily

I always get Iron Maiden and Flogging Molly mixed up for the same reason. They’re just in the same drawer in my mind.

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Bryan

Those are both bands, aren’t they?

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Emily

They are. They’re not at all similar musically.

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Bryan

But they’re both bands.

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Emily

And all of those are stories.

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Bryan

Okay, fine.

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Emily

We do have one more recommendation from Alex.

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Greg

He recommends a book, and I have the Amazon description in front of me. The book is Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men. The author is Bob Schultz, and the picture on the cover has a pre-teen boy pushing a wheelbarrow full of leaves past a pile of leaves, looking happy that he’s working.

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Greg

Alex had mentioned this to me in person as well, and it’s what it sounds like. It’s an introduction to the importance of work in the life of men, particularly young men, and how important it is to develop a work ethic and understand the theology behind it and how this is service to God. It sells for $19.23 on Amazon, and you can get it used much cheaper. Alex says this is worth some time if you want to think about these things.

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Greg

This sounds like the book you were talking about earlier.

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Emily

Shop Class as Soulcraft? Cool. So I presume that Bob Schulz would be a Christian? Shop Class is not.

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Greg

Okay. “Modern culture seems addicted to ease and entertainment. It’s produced a generation of educated yet often dishonest, unproductive, and weak-willed men. God desires higher standards for His people. He’s looking for young men who do not shy away from hard work, who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, who can follow directions, think creatively, respect authority, and happily complete their duties in a timely manner. These are the ones he’s training up to be future fathers, teachers, and leaders,” and so on.

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Emily

It’s always a comfort to think on God giving Adam a job before the fall. “Here, Adam. Here’s a garden. Work in it.”

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Bryan

They didn’t call it the covenant of works for nothing.

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Emily

No, that’s confusing. It’s exactly confusing to my point. It’s funny, though.

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Emily

The thorns and thistles of work came after the Fall, of course, and it’s too easy to confuse the thorns and thistles with the work itself. It’s like “Shouldn’t life, peace, and rest in Christ be a vacation?” and it’s not.

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Greg

That’s what you do on your vacation, I should think.

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Emily

That’s true.

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Greg

I’ve found myself working more on vacation, but things I actually enjoy, but not always.

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Emily

That’s what we have for today. We’ve had a whole episode of recommendations, so I don’t think we need to have any more, so we’ll just see you next time for our final episode for this particular arc. We’ve already named the series books, so I don’t know what we’re going to name the next thing that we do, but there will be a next thing.

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Emily

We’re planning to begin releasing our next series in January. It’s going to look a little different. Greg, how much did you want to say about this right now?

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Greg

Absolutely nothing.

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Emily

All right. Teaser. See you later.

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Emily

Thank you so much for listening. We’d still love to hear from you if you want to send us an email with your recommendations or just an email. You can reach us at [email protected] and you can catch us on your favorite podcast catcher. Thank you so much. Have a good night.

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